Good afternoon everyone!
I hope everyone is having a fantastic week. Please do not forget that the Welcome Back BBQ is this evening for everyone who is coming. A reminder that you must bring your food tickets if you ordered food for the BBQ as additional food will not be available.
The workload in Grade 6 is beginning to pick up. Students will have homework every day in math and now in novel study as well. We will do our best to complete work during school, but where it is not possible, it will go home.
A few quick reminders:
· Tomorrow is a Day 1.
· For anyone who ordered Hot Lunch, payments were due on the 13thof September.
· Science Fair money ($15) due this last Monday (letter must be signed, and shoeboxes brought in).
· The hot lunch site is open for the month of October and will close on Wednesday, September 25that 3:00 p.m. The special for October will be pancakes with vanilla cream and syrup (optional).
· Fall Fundraiser forms were due yesterday for those participating in the events next week. Each event is $2.
· Forms were sent home for our golf trip coming up on October 2ndand are due back this Friday (this fee is covered by the athletic fees paid).
Inquiry into Math – We started the day by taking up our math homework from yesterday. We discussed how word problems have key words that often tell us what we are solving for. For example, if a problem says, “How many baseboards do you need to go around the whole room?”, the word ‘around’ tells us we are measuring the distance around an object, which is the perimeter.
Inquiry into Language – Then, we sat down in our literature circle groups today and had a discussion about chapter one. Every day I will be sitting down with a different group to hear these discussions. Students need to complete the response for chapter two as well (they should have read chapter two last night) for tomorrows discussion. A reminder of the roles:
1. The discussion director comes up with insightful questions that will fuel discussion in the group.
2. The literary luminary chooses important passages for the group to read and discuss.
3. The connector makes connections between their own lives and the book (i.e. movies, other books they’ve read, real events, the current UOI, etc.)
4. The illustrator/mapper creates an illustration (i.e. comic, picture, mind map, etc.) based on what they felt during the chapter for the group to discuss.
5. The word wizard chooses 3 words that were interesting or new for everyone to discuss as a group.
French – Right after this, we had French with Mme. Stella, which you can read about on her blog (https://stjudesfrench-stella.blogspot.com).
Gym – After recess and lunch, the students had gym with Mr. Orr, which you can read about on his blog (http://tysonorr.blogspot.com).
Inquiry into Energy – Today, one of our students brought in materials that he had been using to conduct his own inquiry into energy and electricity. He completed a demonstration for the class. This is such great action – fantastic work Joshua!
After this, we watched a series of videos about electrical safety and took notes on what we watched. Students will be designing their own electrical safety posters. We talked about what makes a good poster as well, and here is what we came up with:
We were not able to get through all the videos, so students can watch these tonight to get more ideas. Here are all the video links.
Inquiry into Math – Today during math, we started working on the mid-unit review. Students worked independently on this and will hand it in tomorrow. I will go through them this weekend and then I will be able to assist those who may be having some difficulty with this unit.
Homework:
We do our best to complete UOI and Language work in class. In the event this is not possible, it will go home for homework.
As always, please feel free to email me with any questions.
Mr. Conte
