Father Suess led the 6th graders on a wonderful day of Recollection Monday. He talked to the kids about growing up, transitioning into middle school, and what it means to be a good Christian. The students enjoyed the beautiful weather and were able to have a nice kickball game with the Holy Trinity students after lunch. We celebrated Mass and then headed over to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help to pray the Rosary, visit the chapel and crypt, as well as peak into the gift shop!
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While we are waiting for our plants to grow and our other creatures to arrive, we have been playing the game I Have, Who Has? in science. This is a great way for the students to learn new vocabulary words all having to do with ecosystems and the environment. The first person has a card with a definition, and they have to match that definition with a vocab word. They did a great job! In Science we have started our Ecosystems unit. We use a kit from Einstein Project that provides us with some of the materials to make mini ecosystems. Right now, the students have created a terrarium (replica of a land ecosystem) by planting alfalfa, mustard, and grass seeds. As you can see above, the students are having some growth! Each student chose the amount of each seed to plant.
Very soon we will be receiving some plants to put in our aquariums. The students have read about elodea, algae, and duckweed, three of the next items to arrive. Not long after that, we should be receiving some tiny fish and snails, as well as crickets and isopods. The students are excited to report changes to their ecocolumns (ecosystems in a column of bottles)and can't wait for the living organisms to arrive! Each year father and the cooks put on a Lamb Dinner for the 6th graders to represent the Passover meal. The kids enjoyed tasting lamb, unleavened bread, applesauce with a twist, veggies, and tasty juice (in place of wine). The picture is a bit blurry, but you get the idea.
The last two weeks seemed to go by quickly since spring break.
We started our next Einstein Kit in Science: Ecosystems. Thanks for those who helped get bottles ready for the students' projects. Their plants are growing rapidly and the kids are super excited for the animals and water plants to arrive. In Math we're moving right along and finishing up Chapter 8. We only have one more chapter to go and then we will have time to review before their final MAP session. The students spent a lot of time in the last couple weeks practicing different ways to display data. Some newer forms of diagrams include Histograms and Box Plots. We practiced some reading skills by focusing on Author's Purpose, Voice, and Plot for the last month. The students read articles from ReadWorks, which is a great site to find various reading passages. On Thursdays in Language Arts we're starting a new project talking about Famous Athletes. The students have about the next month to research 2 athletes and write a summary on their achievements. This is a great chance for them to practice proper grammar and spelling, which they work on every day. It is also a great chance to use Google Docs. They're pretty excited about finding out more about some of these people. We're excited about the warmer weather! Quarter 4 is here on Monday... the last few months at St. Mary's for this group! I'll be sad to see them go. This is a project that our class has been working on across many subject areas: Reading, Math, Language Arts, and Art.
First we read the book Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. Next we used our math skills to create some math problems like those we read in the book. Along with our problems, we wrote a descriptive narration to go along with our math problems. Each student created at least one page to fit into a class story. Finally, we were able to decorate our page using some art skills. The book can be viewed in our Gallery to the below! (If you click on each image, you can enlarge the picture to read our story.) Creating Experiments to Test the Strength of Electromagnets
In math class today we started with a new concept: using variables to name unknown length while finding the area. Then we wrote expressions about these unknown lengths. Finally, we simplified those expressions by combining like terms! I was so proud of how the students worked through the seemingly complicated learning target! Keep it up 6th Graders!Social Studies: We just finished our study of Ancient Greece. We finished the unit by creating a vase with Greek-like designs, and while doing so, we practiced our symmetry! (See picture on right.) Math: In Chapter 6 we will be focusing in complex dividing and grouping as well as building expressions (using variables). Reading: We are still reading the book Wonder. We continue to have some amazing conversations about topics in the book. The book is written from different points of view and we enjoy reading about characters from different perspectives! Science: Ask your student about the compasses we built or how we built electromagnets pictured below! We finished quarter two! Testing has gone well overall; I've seen so many great gains since the fall (and the numbers prove it!) Way to go 6th graders! Ask your son/daughter about their improvement on their Math Checkpoint test! :)
Also, Thanks for all you've contributed so far for the fundraisers! The money raised is going to great causes. A few reminders:
In case you haven't been in the school in the past month, here are our neat Catholic art projects as of late: We thrived on our first day back after Christmas break. I loved hearing all the exciting stories that happened. The students jumped back into a routine very smoothly.
Reading: Today we started a new book, Wonder, by R.J. Palacio. I recommend this book for all ages. The overarching theme teaches about how every person is unique and valued and I always love the discussions that stem from middle school age minds while reading this book! Math: We are continuing with fractions and different ways to multiply parts of parts. We've now used Generic Rectangles to help us see how each part of a mixed number is multiplied. Science: Below are some pictures from our latest science experiment. Today we focused on setting up and conducting a fair experiment. The students were excited by the results that occurred! I just wanted to share an update on our new focus in Science. We've been studying and reviewing a branch of Physical Science dealing with motion, energy, and of course forces and friction. Students are pros and they had interesting results from the following friction experiment.We breezed through Halloween festivities and finished our Plate Tectonics Unit in Science!Here are the other great highlights of November:
Reading: We've been doing a lot more independent reading in the last month. Apparently there was a trend with the Happily Ever After books. I also have seen a lot of the I Survived series lately! I'm impressed with the students who are trying to challenge themselves with on-level books! In Social Studies we've finished up a Chapter on Ancient China and now are discussing the Indus River Valley and related topics. We've learned about the beginning of Hinduism and Buddhism, and talked about some similarities and differences to Christianity. We've also learned various Geography skills in the past few weeks: how to navigate through an airport, how to read a road map, and how to work with various maps of North America (as well as other parts of the world.) Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!The Nile River Written By Kyle In the sixth grade class at St.Mary’s school, we started learning about agricultural farming from the Nile River. We talked about how dry places in Africa depended on the Nile and how people turned the Nile River into a tool for farming. They depended on the Nile so much because there weren't many major waterways that ran through Africa like the Nile did. They used the Nile for farming because of their seasonal flooding, but there were disadvantages to the flooding. When the flooding was too high it destroyed houses, livestock, and crops, but when the flooding was too small they had to use tools called shadoofs to lift water into the fields. When we started learning about the Nile we weren't struggling, but we weren't pros either, but now we know so much about the Nile.
Our First Music Project Written By Leah It was the first day of music class and we got to do a music project! Mrs. Warpinski gave the 6th grade class a project called “The Soundtrack of our Life.” We had to pick songs that we like and write why we like those songs. I really liked that project! :) When we shared our music projects I liked listening to my classmates’ favorite songs.
Generic Rectangles Written By Luke In math, the sixth grade class started learning about generic rectangles to make multiplying fractions and decimals easier. At first most kids struggled with them, but some kids were good at them. Some kids didn't like them at first, but then the students caught on. Check back next month for more student features!The first month of school went by faster than ever. We accomplished a lot: English/Language Arts: We've been practicing homophones, learning how to write an article, and developing practice in our every day English skills. Math: Displaying data in various ways has become a breeze for the 6th graders! Ask them the difference about bar graphs, dot plots, stem and leaf plots, histograms, and Venn diagrams! Social Studies: After finishing our second chapter in the Our World text, we know all about the Fertile Crescent and the civilization of Mesopotamia. Reading: We started book clubs where we can focus on skills to help our reading comprehension. Science: We finished our unit on Solar Systems and have started to focus on Meteorology. Among other things, we also started using our gmail accounts, completed a world puzzle, and can name the first 5 books of the Bible! Coming soon: Student Features!
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