March 31st ~ April 4th

Last week sure was fun, but I must admit . . . I was tired by Friday night. Thank you to everyone who helped stack chairs for Night of the Notables and for supporting your kids. They were amazing.

For those of you who donated basket items, worked shifts, or attended the Family Fun Night school carnival, I extend a big "Thank you!"
We had tons of kids and parents who helped in our room, as well as other locations throughout the school on Friday night ~ and volunteers even helped put our classroom back together. We are all ready for Monday morning and I am very thankful.
A special note of thanks to Colleen Splitter (Alex Hamilton's mom). She planned, organized & put our basket together. On top of that . . she purchased, toasted, and strung almost 500 waffles for the game in our classroom. She was really exhausted on Friday night!! Thank you so much Colleen!!!

Looking ahead to NWEA 
Our scheduled testing dates and times are as follows:
Friday April 11th - 8:30-10:30
Monday April 14th - 9:30-12:00
Wednesday April 16th - 8:30-10:30

* Report cards go home in the Wednesday Watch this week.
* There will be no Extended Studies this week.
* Next Monday, April 7th, is a PIR day. Teachers will report for work, but there is no school for students. Enjoy the long weekend!

Spelling ~ Unit 28. We will take a pretest on Monday, complete written assignments on Tuesday and Thursday, and take a final test on Friday.
5th: Prefixes in-, un-, dis-, mis-
6th: Word parts
Language ~ We will begin a unit about Literary Devices, Literary Elements, and Figurative Language this week. Each student will choose two topics and conduct research on Monday-Wednesday. The kids will create small posters describing and providing examples of their topics. They will then "teach" their topics to the rest of the class while we take notes. When we are done, each student will have a firm grasp of these concepts.
Reading ~
5th: The kids will continue working with the Lead21 resources.
The 6th graders began historical fiction novels on Friday. The boys are reading Code Talker, which is about the Navajo Code Talkers during WWII. The girls are reading Sweetgrass Basket, which is a story about two sisters who are taken to an Indian Boarding School. Each student will write a short summary after reading each day.
Math ~
5th: Dividing with fractions will be the focus this week. The kids will use manipulatives to work toward conceptual understanding. The process and algorithms will follow later in the week, as well as hands-on activities.
6th: We will continue working with Mean, Median, Mode, and Range. The kids will analyze data and calculate the measures of central tendency. We will learn about Mean Absolute Deviation and begin studying the various ways to display data. Frequency tables, dot plots, and histograms will be the focus this week.
Social Studies ~ Our study of religions of the world continues and the kids will learn about Buddhism and the Gupta Empire.
Science ~ We have wrapped our study of the changing Earth and we will begin learning abut Forces and Motion (Physics). The kids will complete an Ant Maze activity on Tuesday in class.

Have a great week!!

March 24th ~ 28th

I hope you enjoyed the extra break this weekend. I guess we have broken the snowfall record . . so it can cease anytime now!!

Night of the Notables for 6th Graders is this Thursday!
The kids should arrive at school, in costume at 6:00 p.m. We will take some photos and have everyone seated and ready to roll at 6:30. Please make sure your child works on memorization at home each evening. The Bio-riddle should be about 1-minute when recited.

Family Fun Night - March Madness is this Friday from 5-8.
Come for food, fun, and games. Be sure to stop by our room and watch the Breakfast Grab . . waffles all around!!  Thank you to everyone who donated to our "Raining Cats and Dogs" basket. We received a ton a goodies and will have an awesome basket. Thank you to Colleen Splitter for all of her hard work on our basket, games, volunteer coordination, etc.

The end of the 3rd Quarter is this Friday and report cards will go home next Wednesday.

Spelling: Unit 27. We will take a pretest on Tuesday, have one written assignment this week on Wednesday, and take a final test on Friday.
5th - Unstressed syllables
6th - Suffix, -ic, -ure, -ous
Language:
5th - Complex word families and adjective suffixes
6th - Transitional words and root words clude, clus, herb
Reading:
5th (Lead21) - The kids will be working with literary elements, extending vocabulary, and unstressed syllables.
6th - We will spend Tuesday-Thursday putting the finishing touches on their Bio-riddles and making sure they are memorized.
We will work together to gain background knowledge about the Indian Boarding School era as we prepare to read two historical fiction novels that take place during this time. The boys will read Code Talker and the girls will read Sweetgrass Basket.
Math:
5th - The students will continue to work with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of fractions. They will work with math manipulatives, recipes, and cookies in class.
6th - The kids took a summative assessment on ratios & proportions and they all did an outstanding job! We are transitioning into statistics and will work with samples and surveys, statistical and non-statistical questions, & mean, median, mode, and range. They will have a written assignment on Tuesday and will participate in partner and small group work the rest of the week.
Science:
6th graders will learn about volcanoes as we wrap up our unit about our changing Earth. They will have a written assignment on Friday. We will begin working with physics concepts next week.
Social Studies:
6th graders are continuing with the study of ancient India. They will design and create a billboard depicting key concepts learned in class.

Have a great week and I'll see 6th grade families on Thursday and hope to see everyone at the carnival Friday!