Dear Families,
Happy November! We are gearing up for our fundraisers for Nature’s Classroom. Last week’s dance took in a whopping $430.85! Thanks for all the donations of healthy snacks. You proved we can make money off nutritious offerings! The DJ club run by Mr. V also increased our returns as we didn’t have to shell out a couple hundred bucks to a DJ.
Our parent coordinators for the book fair, Josie Ivan and Jill Dumont, should have sent you an email about signing up to help volunteer at the book fair the week of Nov 27th through December 1st. If you can’t volunteer, at least try to stop buy and make a few purchases to support our class! December 1st is parent conference day, so bring your checkbook or credit card and stop by the fair before or after your conference!
In addition, our Little Caesar’s Pizza Fundraiser will kick off November 13th and run through November 30th, over the Thanksgiving holiday (in case you see relatives who might want to buy some pizzas- but remember your child/family will need to deliver, so don’t sell to anyone too far away!). The frozen pizzas will be delivered to the school on Thursday December 14th. Put this date on your calendar! You will likely need to make arrangements to pick up your child’s order, as any order over 4 items cannot go home on the bus. Also we will need some parent volunteers the morning of the 14th to help sort the delivery so each student’s order is separated and ready to be picked up. I will give students a lot more information about how to sell pizzas and who to sell to (safety guidelines) on the 13th when we kick off our sale, and I will send this information home to parents then as well.
Friday Fun
This class loves games! Friday Fun is a much anticipated half-hour of our week, in which games are often the choices. (Students who are not caught up on work, must forfeit and use the time to get caught up, so it also provides an incentive not to procrastinate!) So far this year I have taught the class Taboo (a great vocabulary and language game), Blockus (great for spatial and strategic thinking), SET (requires logical thinking and won an award from the Mensa (High IQ) Society) and this week taught a few students Quirkle (uses spatial skills and logical and strategic thinking, plus requires adding in the scoring for math practice). Please think about purchasing a game for your family for the holidays! Games are a great way to develop your child’s brain (in a fun way so they don’t even know it is educational!) as well as practice social skills such as sportsmanship and turn taking. In addition, games create opportunities for quality family time together away from screens. Start a weekly game night! All of the games mentioned above are enjoyable for adults too- I really do play them with my friends when no kids are around! A few others I’d recommend include Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan. I also love this website by the board game family- Both parents and kids write blogs and they have lists of the best games for different ages: http://www.theboardgamefamily.com. Aslo consider gifting our classroom an extra copy of Blockus (the number one game right now!) or another game such as Quirkle which we don’t have class copy of yet.
Reading
We are nearing the end of our read aloud of Wonder. The fifteen or twenty minutes of read aloud time after the lunch break has been an effective way to settle back into learning after the stimulus of recess. I look forward to sharing more books during this time the rest of the year.
This week during reading, we read a short informational text about Quakers. One of the characters in the novel Crash is Quaker. This added to students’ background knowledge so they will understand the novel, but also taught a piece of history and some civics (we learned how Pennsylvania got its name, and discussed our constitutional right to freedom of religion). The main skill this lesson focused on, however, was note taking and distinguishing main idea from detail. The relatively simple structure of the text (probably a fourth grade reading level) allowed us to easily focus on the skill of two column notes- one column for main idea (in complete sentence) and the other for details (bullet points). As much as teachers are often bugging kids to “write more,” I always have to nag students to write less when taking notes. They want to write in full sentences and have a hard time just recording key words. In this lesson I modeled first, and then students practiced with a partner. As the year progresses they will practice this skill more and more independently and with more complex texts.
Math
This week we spent a good deal of time reviewing divisibility rules (There will be a quiz on Tuesday-make sure your child studies!). These rules save a TON of time, so they are worth memorizing. Do you know these rules? It wasn’t until I started teaching that I learned some of them and they are really useful! Ask your child to share the rules for 3, 6, 9 and 4! We’ve also covered prime factorization and begun to learn about the greatest common factor (GCF). The GCF will be a useful skill in fraction work as well as later when students have to factor equations in algebra and more advanced math!
A few students are planning to retake the last math quiz. If your child is one of these you should have received an email from me. I require students scoring below a 77% to retake. Retake is optional for scores of 77% and above. You can also check Powerschool to see what your child’s score is, and decide if you want to encourage your child to retake. For students not retaking, tests have been stored in their portfolio (collection of work from this trimester which will come home at conference time). If you want to see your child’s test now, you may ask him or her to retrieve it from the portfolio and bring it home before then. Please note that there is always a deadline noted on the retake packet. If students do not complete the packet in time (and have not asked me in advance for an extension) they may lose the opportunity to retake. It is a lot of organization to juggle and keep track of retakes for students in all their different classes, so the responsibility is on the student to get the work done on time and to see me if they need to schedule an extra help session. I encourage you to help develop this responsibility in your children by coaching them to approach me or email me themselves, instead of emailing me on their behalf. This will build their communication and advocacy skills, which will be useful when they have to talk to a teacher or professor in high school or college. Of course I always welcome parent emails as well if you have other thoughts to share or questions. The goal of the retake policy is to maximize the learning of each child, understanding that some kids need a little extra practice to master concepts.
Science
This week the class planted their tulip experiments. This included twenty bulbs following the procedure for the Journey North citizen science project tracking the coming of Spring, and gathering data on how climate change may be causing in the arrival of Spring. You can see maps of the data from past years at: https://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/tulips/MapArchives.html
You can also visit this year’s map to see the gardens that have been planted so far. If you zoom in on New Hampshire you can click on the dot for Chesterfield and read our planting report! This might be fun to do with your sixth grader. http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/tulip_fall2017.html
We have been practicing making hypotheses in science. I had students predict on a map (using a color coded legend and thus integrating Social Studies skills) where they thought tulips would emerge first in North America in the Spring. From past experience I know that sixth graders have limited knowledge of US geography (mountains systems and climate), so I had them first explore some precipitation, temperature and elevation maps in Social Studies Class (using the ArcGIS online software they will be using when they make maps later in our geography unit). Then in science, students used these same maps to help make their predictions. Hypotheses are educated guesses, so I expected students to use some evidence from these maps to make their predictions. Some students predicted tulips would come up first in the north because it was colder so water would evaporate slower and tulips need water. Others predicted that tulips would come up first in the southeast because it was both warm AND wet, two conditions that happen in Spring when tulips come up. What I am looking for is not that students make a correct prediction but that they are backing up their ideas with logical reasons (at least logical to a sixth grader). Science is not about being correct- it is a process of discovery and evidence-based argument that leads to a clearer and clearer picture of our universe. The most famous scientists had their hypotheses proved wrong, but discovered something in the process!
In addition to tying together many science concepts such as climate, characteristics of life, plant growth and reproduction, we use this project to teach experimental design in the Fall and data analysis in the Spring. These past couple weeks we have spent a good deal of time in class talking about why this project would want schools across the country to plant their bulbs in the exact same way (same depth, distance apart, same kind of bulbs etc.). Students read the two page procedure description and searched for and highlighted these factors that had to be kept the same (scientific term is constants). Well-designed experiments maximize the number of constants, and aim to have, if possible, only one independent variable (factor that is changed).
While we will be able to look at the maps of the data that this experiment produces and compare maps from year to year, the data analysis is too huge and complex for sixth graders. For this reason, and to practice experiment design, I have students plan their own experiments. Students select a factor they think might cause tulips to come up later or earlier than the tulips we plant according to the Journey North procedure. In groups of three or four they write a hypothesis and design an experiment, identifying constants and independent variable and describing in writing and diagram their procedure. This year students will be testing if the following factors will affect the timing of tulip emergence and bloom:
- Removing the tunic (papery outer covering of the bulb)
- Planting shallower (3 inches deep vs. 7 inches deep)
- Planting in a pot above ground
- Adding composted manure
- Planting close together (1 inch apart vs. 4 inches apart)
- Planting upside down
This week we also reviewed the electromagnetic spectrum. Ask your child to tell you some of the forms of radiation besides visible light. We also reviewed how our eye perceives color- namely that the color of light we see is really the light wavelengths reflected off an object. Students had the chance to look through a spectroscope to see what wavelengths are present in the ceiling lights or sunlight versus the light that bounces back at us off an object.
Social Studies
In addition to looking at the climate, precipitation and elevation maps mentioned above (and noticing some interesting patterns between these maps), we worked on understanding birds-eye view. Developmentally, the ability to shift to a top down perspective happens around sixth grade. For this reason, fully understanding maps can sometimes be harder for younger children. You see this when you ask a child to draw a map of his or her neighborhood. Young children typically draw a road, with a driveway leading to a front view of their house (showing windows, doors, etc.). Older children begin to draw the outline you might see from a plane- or bird- flying over, the top down view. This includes floor plans. I had students do this a month or so ago, and there was a handful of students who automatically drew from a birds-eye perspective. Many students in sixth grade were still drawing the “street view” of houses. This is nothing to be concerned about as this skill develops around this age normally. However, sixth grade brains are ready to be pushed towards this understanding and more exposure speeds development. We did some cube-building activities this week in which students used snap cubes to build simple structures and then had to draw the top view, front view and side view on grid paper. I also challenged them to draw a birds-eye outline of our school. We walked around the school to observe all the nooks and crannies, and then looked at a photo from Google Earth to compare the real outline to our drawings. This was a hard activity for many students! Of course, most maps were not drawn to scale, and that will be our next series of lessons: Understanding scale!
We also had the opportunity to get out and explore the new property the town voted in March to purchase for the school: 23 acres of field, forest and wetland behind the school. This piece of land, now officially school property, is the one students will be creating maps for, using GPS technology, with the aim of determining the ideal location for an outdoor classroom. I want students to be familiar with it up close and personal, as it will help make the mapping project make sense.
Writing
I am so impressed with the fiction writing students are doing in writing class. We have spent the past few weeks generating story ideas, selecting one and then developing our characters. For many students, elaborating and expanding describers such as “smart” or “caring” can be hard. We encourage kids to give specific examples so that these characters really come to life. Having believable characters fuels a story, so we take time to get to know the characters first before jumping into the actual story writing. We are lucky to have the support of Mrs. Robertson, reading specialist, during Writing class, and she conferences with students or pulls small groups for extra assistance on the skills taught in class. This week we worked on clarifying what our main character wants or yearns for and then writing short scenes that show rather than tell this. Students often have trouble with this as well. They tend to just summarize, for example writing:
“ She was on the playground watching a group play tag and wished she could play.”
As a class we worked to transform this summary of a scene into an actual scene, replaying it bit by bit and focusing on body language. This is what the class drafted:
“Clover sat down on the swing, slouching. She began to swing slowly, dragging her feet in the wood chips. She heard some screaming behind her and turned around to see her classmates playing a rowdy game of tag. Suddenly she saw Lucy Ann sprinting towards her. She perked up, getting ready to run. But Lucy Ann raced past her, as if she didn't see her at all. Clover could feel the wind hit her as Lucy Ann ran by. She slumped back into the swing, her arms falling to her sides. Her eyes began to blur and a little tear trickled down her cheek.”
Next time your child brings his or her Writers’ Notebook home, ask him or her to share some scenes with you!
This past week students also took their first grammar quiz on simple subject and predicate. Next week we will start learning about predicate expanders (words and phrases that add the how, what, when, where and why to the action). I love these lessons because you start seeing students writing much more interesting sentences afterwards! Also, it will give us common vocabulary to use when conferencing with a student during writing class. I will be able to say, “Tell more more. Could you paint a better picture in the reader’s mind if you added some predicate expanders to that sentence?”
Thanks again to all the parent volunteer help that has made many of the above projects able to happen! All your work allows me to spend my time giving more feedaback on student work, planning cool projects, and writing updates like this to keep you informed.
Keep in touch,
Laura White