We completed a challenge today in class! How fun. What a great day it was. Have a restful break.

Our partner literary essays look great! Nice work. They presentations that started today were well done. After break, we will work on a biography unit. If you can, please find the time to find a biography that you can use to write an informational report. If you do not have the time to do this over break, we will get you to the LMC at school, but your choices of books may be more limited.

Our partner literary essays are going to be finished up tomorrow. They will be shared with the class in LA. In SS, we will finish our group work from chapter 7 tomorrow and look at the mummification process.

Hi there families! Thanks for all the supplies for our mummification work on Thursday. We are still in need of boxes of salt if you can spare one. THANKS! Above- students at work on their partner literary essay!

We are completing a literary essay with our writing partner this week that focuses on theme/lesson learned in the text. In Social Studies, we have started to study Ancient Egypt. We are going to make natron- used in mummification- this week, if you can spare a box of salt, please sent it in by Thursday. THANKS!

We are looking at texts in LA to compare and find a common lesson learned or theme. For the next week, the students will work together with their writing partners to create a non-traditional essay comparing two stories. Latin Stems quiz is Monday!

Great day here today! We wrapped up some assignments we were working on. If you have a chance, check out the email I sent out. They are looking for parent volunteers for the Snowflake Dance next Wednesday. I attached the Google doc in that email if you can volunteer some time. Thanks!

We worked on the SS assessment today and tomorrow you will need to finish them. We will look at other ways to think about literary essays tomorrow. Your in class essay is due THIS Friday. Your at home essay is due on Friday, December 19th or January 5th.

We continue to find ourselves immersed in literary essays. The AT-HOME literary essay will be due on Friday, December 19th in final published piece form. There is a Social Studies assessment tomorrow covering the 4 Empires of Mesopotamia. In Reading, assignment 5 is due Thursday.

Hello there! Today was a busy day for a short Monday. In Language Arts we worked on our conclusion paragraphs for our literary essay. We used phrases like: Throughout the story, In the end, As you can see..... The students will have a new short story given to them on Wednesday. With this story, they need to create a completely independent HOME literary essay. More on that later..... In Social Studies, we finished up learning about the 4 Mesopotamian Empires. Tomorrow, we will view an assessment that will be given to them to complete on Wednesday using their AVID notes.

Social Studies continues to have us reading and talking about the 4 Empires of Mesopotamia. The notes we take are expected to stay in their binders behind the Social Studies tab- in case there is an assessment in the future that is open note! Our claim/thesis statements turned into full introduction paragraphs today. Have a great weekend.

Here is an example of one body paragraph from our literary essays. Note that part of the claim is restated to show the reader what the paragraph will be about. Use this as example as you write all three of your body paragraphs for homework.

Reading- Assignment 3 is due on Friday. In LA we took one of our 5 claims and rewrote it using the title, author and more precise & figurative language. For homework, CLOSE read the short story- read with a pencil. Tomorrow, short stories should be marked with numbers, stars, circles, etc.... In Social Studies we worked on Cornell note-taking.

In Reading, assignment 2 is due on Wednesday. In Language Arts, we learned how to rewrite our claims in five different styles. If that work was NOT done in class today, it is homework for tonight. We took a Social Studies assessment as well. Have a peaceful night!

We have a Social Studies assessment on chapter 4 tomorrow- the bonus page is shown above (this can push your score from a 3 to a 3.5 or 4). Reading- assignment 1 is due tomorrow. 

PJ day provided our classroom with creative writing, the Geography Bee, and lots of complaining that fleece is TOO HOT!!!! Have a safe and peaceful break.

We did the spelling bee and started the Geography bee today in class. PJ day tomorrow!!!!

In Language Arts, we worked on thinking about the protagonist in Raymond's Run in a different way: what motivates her actions and words. This weekend for homework, reread the short story you chose and write about 2 pages using the thought prompts above and asking yourself what motivates this character.

Latin stem quiz is on Monday as well.

In the next couple of weeks in Language Arts, we are focusing on Literary Essays. The writing above is an example of how writers can think about characters in their short story while asking themselves, "Why did the author include this detail?" We will have writing homework over the weekend, but none tonight.

Language Arts homework: Day 1: Due: 11/20/14- Tonight finish the flash draft of your literary essay and edit it- I want to see evidence of editing (rewording, circle misspellings, underline words to rethink, etc…) Then write a new fabulous draft of that essay. 
Social Studies- check out some of our clay tablets as seen above. Today, we started to talk about the characteristics of a civilization. 
Reading- Latin Stem quiz on Monday

Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a peaceful weekend. These longer Mondays are hard for me to get used to, and I think the students feel similarly. We continued to talk about why Mesopotamia is a difficult environment to live in, during Social Studies today. We had a chance for some creative writing in Language Arts and took our Latin Stem quiz in Reading. We start on our next writing genre this week; literary essays. Prepare for consistent writing homework to start coming home again in the near future.

Today, we were Scribes and created our own Cuneiform (wedge-shaped writing). Tomorrow beginning at 2:45, Parent Teacher Conferences start. On Monday, a reminder sheet with your scheduled time went home. Let me know if you did not see that sheet- we have some forgetful 6th graders :) Please remember that we only have 15 minutes per conference, bring questions written down to help these stay on our time frame. The Unifies Arts Schedules you see above are the same, I was not sure which would show up better once you clicked on it. Thanks for having grace with me!

More Seedfolks envelopes to see! Tomorrow in Social Studies, we will be scribes and create our own Cuneiform. Looking forward to seeing what we come up with. If you have me for Reading, the following link will take you to a Caesars English website designed to help study for the quizzes.

https://sites.google.com/a/madison.k12.wi.us/study-words/

Hi there, thank you all for having grace with me and allowing me a day off of blogging on Friday- I ended up in the ER on Thursday night with pneumonia. The start of our Seedfolks presentations were lovely today. The chapter 14 examples that were read aloud, could have actually been a part of the book. The students have been very thoughtful about this writing assignment. 

We are plugging away at our Seedfolks projects. One of the sections that the students are being asked to do is to write the next chapter of the book- chapter 14. They can write it as a graphic novel, a narrative or a theatrical chapter (play). The project is due on Monday, November 10th.
Parent Teacher Conferences are coming up! I sent reminder sheets with time and date today with my homeroom. Please bring your child to the conference, it is student-led.

Reading- Assignment 2 is due tomorrow. Language Arts- we were able to work on our Seedfolks project in the LMC today. These are due on Monday, November 10th. Social Studies- quizzes went home & we watched a DVD about Ancient Mesopotamia.

I apologize for not posting yesterday, report cards season is here! In Language Arts, all students have a Seedfolks project that is due on Monday, November 10th. They will have all week in school to work on it, after that, they need to complete the project at home. In Social Studies, we took a quiz today on the effects of agriculture on the Neolithic Age. In reading, the students who have me, will have 2 weeks to study for the cumulative Caesar's English quiz (it will be given on Monday, November 17th). They have Assignment 1 of their new book due tomorrow. I added a number of pictures today to make up for my "no post Monday."