6th Grade Newsletter: Week of October 15, 2007

 

Hello Parents,

 

This week begins the start of a crazy couple of weeks.  I will be gone this Friday (10/19), as I will be flying to Dallas to attend my brother’s graduation from the Firefighting Academy.  I will also be gone all of next week.  Monday-Tuesday (10/22-10/23) I am attending the annual W.A.L.T conference.  This is the Writing Assessment Leadership Team, which is composed of 50 teachers and administrators from across the state.  The conference is facilitated by the director of writing for Washington State and provides many resources for those of us who attend.  Wednesday-Friday (10/24-10/26) I will be participating on the accreditation committee/team for St. Edward’s school.  The archdiocese seeks out teachers and administrators to serve on these committees to help the school’s going through the accreditation process, just like St. Brendan did a few years ago. 

 

Therefore, the following newsletter will cover the next 2 weeks worth of information.  Mrs. McCloskey will be substituting for me all of next week.  Please keep in mind that these plans may be slightly adjusted according to the students’ needs and schedule changes.  It would be helpful for you to check with your student each night to be sure things are going smoothly.  Thank you!

 

Important Dates

Ø     Tuesday, October 16th: Final draft of Role Model paper due

Ø     Thursday, October 18th: All school Mass at 9:00, please join us if you can.

Ø     Friday, October 19th: Spelling test, 1st Draft of Halloween story due (see L.A.)

Ø     Tuesday, October 23rd: Happy Birthday Tristan!, Literature test on ‘Dragon Dragon’,

Ø     Wednesday, October 24th: Religion test over Chapter 2

Ø     Thursday, October 25th: 6th grade attends daily Mass at 8:30, Final draft of Halloween story and book due. 

 

All students need to bring in a box for the food drive this week (Monday at the latest, thank you!!)

 

Subject Update

Language Arts: Today we finished up our peer conferences on the Role Model paper and students will be making their final revisions.  The final draft will be due tomorrow (Tuesday).  Tomorrow we will be jumping right into our next writing paper.  The students will be writing a Halloween story for their Kindergarten buddy.  All of this week and next will be spent on this paper.  We will be discussing how to organize and plan out the paper and they will work on several handouts/guidelines to help them along.  Each story will center around a particular theme/moral, such as helping others or sharing.  After the story has been written, we will be typing them in the lab and creating books for our buddies, which the students will read (and give) to them on October 29th.  The schedule above gives you and idea of what the timeline will look like.  We will also be finishing up Unit 1 in the next couple of weeks in our English text.  I will give the students plenty of notice with regards to the test.  However, I can’t say exactly what day that will be.  It all depends on how much we get done with our Halloween stories.

 

Literature:  We will be finishing up our class performances of Dragon Dragon this week and completing the comprehension questions.  The students will have a test over this selection next Tuesday.  Once we finish it, we will move on to the next short story The King of Mazy May, a classic by Jack London.  Please be sure to check with your student that he/she is keeping up with their independent reading for October.  We are now ½ way through the month!

 

Math: Students will be receiving progress reports this Wednesday.  The reports need to be signed and returned by Friday.

 

This week we will be working on the following:

·        Exponents and posers

·        Patterns with exponents

·        Multiples of 10

 

Science:  This week we will be reviewing trophic systems and levels, focusing upon those found in the ocean. We will be discussing the interactions of organisms of all levels from primary producer of phytoplankton to the top consumer of the shark.

 

 

Social Studies: This week we are going to begin our discussion of Ancient Egypt.  Students will learn about the geography of Egypt, the importance of the Nile River in ancient and modern times, and begin a discussion about the earliest Egyptian rulers.

 

Religion:  As mentioned above, we need to collect boxes for the school wide food drive that the 6th graders are coordinating.  Please have your student bring a box to school, no later than next Monday.  We need to decorate them and deliver them to the other classrooms next week.  The food drive will begin on November 1st.  Each class is being asked to donate 1-2 items each month.  The 6th graders created a list of items needed and assigned each class a particular category (the list will be in the bulletin this week).  Our class is in charge of bringing bottled, canned, or sealed beverages this year (see list in bulletin for suggestions).  Also in religion this week, we will be discussing Chapter 2, entitled Sacrifice and Promise.  I’m planning for the students to take the test over this next Wednesday, 10/24. 

 

Have a great couple of weeks everyone! 

Pam Schwartz

=)