August 31st, 2009

We still hope many of you are finding this blog helpful in keeping you up to date on what is happening in your child's classroom. Remember, if you have any suggestions or comments, please leave them on the blog and we will try to answer them as quickly as possible. Look below for the Level 6 spelling words.



Social: Only one day of social this week due to testing and workshop on Friday. We will finish up the unit on Wednesday by reviewing deserts of North America and looking at Patagonia a vast plateau, or tableland, almost entirely without trees, in the southern part of Argentina. Then we will have a test on Thursday, September 10th. Be sure to study by looking at your questions and rereading the unit.



Science: Students at-home lab is due this Wednesday. Our final assignment in this unit is the life cycle of a star diagram, this is due on Tuesday, September 8th. We will review the unit Wednesday and take the test Tuesday, September 8th. ALL assignments from this unit are due on Tuesday, September 8th.



Language Arts: Today, Monday we will start the week with spelling lesson 3 with a test to follow on Thursday due to no school on Friday. We will also be talking about nouns, and cause and effect relationships. 6th grade challenge....what is the definition of an adjective and adverb, let Ms. Wallwork or Mrs. Swanson know for a prize?



Math: Ms. Wallwork's class has officially finished the first half of level 6 and will begin the week with Lesson 61 involving adding of three or more fractions and continuing with writing mixed numbers as improper fractions.



Mrs. Swanson's class is creating histograms and frequency tables on Monday, working with addition and subtraction word problems Tuesday and Wednesday. Everyone made above 80% on their test last Friday. Mrs. Swanson will have a sub on Tuesday and Thursday but will be in the building. Be sure to check that your child has been completing their math homework everyday.

In Ms. Pueringer's class they are working on probability experiment, letters to identify geometric figures, estimate arithmetic answers, subtract a fraction > 1.



Reading: Ms. Wallwork's reading class is finishing up Jacob Have I Loved this week. We will then be undertaking a small research project into how to save the Mississippi River.


Mrs. Schmitz' reading class is reading about Jackie Robinson.


Mrs. Kolstad's is finishing up The Odyssey this week and also completed their first timed check out.



Reminders and Notes: NWEA testing for the 6th grade will take place on Monday, August 31st (Reading), Tuesday, September 1st (Language), and Wednesday, September 9th (Math). Remind students to get a good night's sleep the day before and to eat a good breakfast. A big



THANK YOU again to all the parents, grandparents, and guardians who have donated to our classrooms. We really do appreciate it.



Remember if you want to volunteer in the school, contact Lynn Imholte the volunteer coordinator. LImholte@strideacademy.org

PATHS meetings are the second Tuesday and the School Board meetings are the third Tuesday of every month at STRIDE Academy at 6:30pm. Everyone is welcome to the meetings. Meetings are usually held in room 154. Please refer to the schedules posted on the school website or bulletin board by the gym.

Spelling Level 6 Words

length

tennis

instead

guessed

envelope

pleasant

energy

headache

echo

excellent

breakfast

insects

guest

measure

restaurant

against

treasure

metric

separate

success

August 24th, 2009

We still hope many of you are finding this blog helpful in keeping you up to date on what is happening in your child's classroom. Remember, if you have any suggestions or comments, please leave them on the blog and we will try to answer them as quickly as possible. Look below for the L6 spelling words.

Social:


We are continuing to learn about world deserts. We have learned that the North American kangaroo rat uses it's kidneys to recycle water internally. Students will be learning about the Arabian Peninsula and the fact that it is bone dry yet has a wealth of oil.

Science:

On Tuesday, we are going to try to again see how hot the sun is on Earth by measuring temperature using sunlight. Students also will receive their at-home lab on Tuesday. It is due the following Wednesday, September 2nd. Thursday, students will study about the "life" of a star from birth to death and be assigned their final homework assignment. This will be the final week of this unit. We will review next Wednesday and take the test Tuesday, September 8th. ALL assignments from this unit are due on Tuesday, September 8th.


Language Arts:

Every Friday students must turn in their spelling lesson and grammar packet. These items are assigned on Monday and must be returned on Friday. Remind your son or daughter to study for their spelling test. We will begin this week with lesson 2 in spelling. The students are also learning about letter writing this week.


Math:

Ms. Wallwork's class will continue this week with lesson 58 with a test on Thursday. Overall, everyone did fantastic on last weeks test, you should have seen that come home in Thursday folders.

Mrs. Swanson's class is continuing to review many important concepts sure as measurement in inches and centimeters and perimeter. Students began a math vocab book where we kept track of important vocab from our math lessons. The first test is on Friday!


Mrs. Schmitz' math class is using pictures for fractions, rays/segments/lines/angles, multiplication table.

Reading:

In Ms. Wallwork's reading class we are about half way through Jacob Have I Loved. We are also learning facts about WWII since that is the time period of this book.

Mrs. Schmitz' reading class is reading about Jackie Robinson and practicing baseball terms

Mrs. Kolstad's class is on lesson 8 about The Odyssey.

Ms. Pueringer's class is finishing Harriet Tubman, next is All in Favor a play by Morton K. Schwartz.

Reminders and Notes:

NWEA testing for the 6th grade will take place on Monday, August 31st (Reading), Tuesday, September 1st (Language), and Wednesday, September 9th (Math). Remind students to get a good night's sleep the day before and to eat a good breakfast.

A big THANK YOU to all the parents, grandparents, and guardians who have donated to our classrooms. We really do appreciate it.

A little challenge to the sixth graders: Whoever comes up to Ms. Wallwork or Mrs. Swanson with the definition of the Greek word ante first will get a small prize! This will let us kn0w who is reading the blog. :)

Remember if you want to volunteer in the school, contact Lynn Imholte the volunteer coordinator. LImholte@strideacademy.org

Spelling Level 6 Words
trace
mayor
parade
escape
invade
complain
misplace
stain
raincoat
remain
safety
neighborhood
entertain
hesitate
explain
agent
congratulate
straight
weighted
disobey

August 18, 2009



This is our official second blog for sixth graders. I hope many of you are finding this blog helpful in keeping you up to date on what is happening in your child's classroom. Remember, if you have any suggestions or comments, please leave them on the blog and we will try to answer them as quickly as possible.



Social

We have officially started our unit on deserts and have talked about the Sahara, the Outback, and the Kalahari. Check with your son or daughter as to the locations of these deserts. We will begin Lesson 3 on August 19th covering Australia. On Friday, we will be talking about the deserts of North America.


Science

This week our focus is on the sun. On Monday students identify the six parts of the sun. Students were assigned to create a 2D model of the sun. There sun model is due on Friday. On Wednesday, (if there is sun) we are going to see how hot the sun is on Earth by measuring temperature using sunlight. Friday, students will begin to study about stars and galaxies by naming the three shapes of galaxies and different star patterns.



Language Arts

We will be having our first spelling test on Friday, August 21st. Every Friday students must turn in their spelling lesson and grammar packet. These items are assigned on Monday and must be returned on Friday. Remind your son or daughter to study for the test. All the students also took a pretest for practical writing and that unit is under way as of August 18th.



Math

Ms. Wallwork's class will be having a test on Wednesday, August 19th. All of the students have gotten right back into the swing of math. Mrs. Swanson's class is reviewing about solving for an unknown in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems on Tuesday and Wednesday. What the students don't realize is, they are doing Algebra!

Mrs. Schmitz math class is on lesson 23. We’ve done lines, rays, segments and missing #s in problems also perimeter.




Reading

In Ms. Wallwork's reading class we have covered quite a bit of information about WWII. We are on chapter 5 of Jacob Have I Loved. Also look for a reading list of the first four books we will be covering to go home in the Thursday folders this week.

Mrs. Schmitz reading class is on lesson 62. We are reading about Jackie Robinson. And combining sentences in L.A.

Mrs. Kolstad's class is working on Lesson 4, They Odyssey.

Ms. Pueringer's class is on Lesson 80 with a test coming up on Wednesday.

Reminders and notes



Ms. Wallwork's book orders are due August 19th. Mrs. Swanson placed her book order and it should be coming sometime next week!



A big THANK YOU to all the parents, grandparents, and guardians who have donated to our classrooms. We really do appreciate it.



Remember if you want to volunteer in the school to contact Lynn Imholte the volunteer condinator. LImholte@strideacademy.org

Sixth Grade News

Welcome to the sixth grade! Mrs. Swanson and Ms. Wallwork are excited about the new school year and we have a lot of fun, exciting, and new projects underway.

This year we will continue to publish our news letter on line. Feel free to post general comments or questions and we will try to respond as quickly as possible. Also, if you have any suggestion for our newsletter feel free to give those and we will continue to develop it over time.


Your schedule for the year will look like the following:

Day 1

Homeroom 8:25-8:45

Social/Science 8:45-9:25

Science/Social 9:45-10:10

Language/Writing 10:10-11:05

Recess/Lunch 11:05-11:55

Math 11:55-1:10

Reading 1:10-2:25

Study Hall 2:25-2:45


If you have Ms. Wallwork you will start your morning with Social Studies, if you have Mrs. Swanson you will start your morning with Science. The only difference on day 2's is that you will be in homeroom until 8:55 and from there you will go to music and gym or gym and music if you are in Mrs. Swanson's class.


You will be receiving a lot of forms in your Thursday folder and on August 6th at open house. Be sure to read through and fill out all necessary forms. It is important to get those forms turned into the appropriate teacher.

Social
We'll start out this year with a unit about the deserts of the world and be watching a BBC video Planet Earth and learning about a variety of areas of the world.

Science
This year we will start off with studying Astronomy. Specifically, the life of stars and the structure of the sun. Students first assignment of the quarter is to make a 2-D model of the sun.


Reading
Ms. Pueringers class you will be starting out on lesson 76 in the SRA Reading L6. If you are in Ms. Wallwork's reading class we will be starting the year with Jacob Have I Loved. If you are in Mr. Thole's class you will be starting on L5 L1. Mrs. Kolstad will be starting with L6 L1.

Math
Ms. Wallwork's class will be starting out on L51 Course 1. Mrs. Swanson will start out the year on L41 Course 2, or L1 Course 1. Mr. Thole and Ms. Pueringer will both be in Level 5 starting on L1 and L51.

Be sure to be practicing math facts at home and turning in all homework.

L/A
Both Mrs. Kolstad and Ms. Wallwork will be teaching LA, High Performance Writing, and Core Knowledge this year. We will start out the year with practical writing. Don't forget to study your spelling words weekly.

Also, the first PATHS (Parents and Teachers Helping Students) meeting is Monday, August 17th at 6:30pm at STRIDE Academy. The next school board meeting is Tuesday, August 18th at 6:30pm at STRIDE Academy.