January 25, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Ms. Wallwork!!!

Starting on February 1st, 6th graders will be participating in the St. Cloud Police Departments KEYS to Success program, Knowledge and Education for Youth to Success. There is a letter in their Thursday folders this week explaining more in depth.


Social: Students have covered Augustus, Julius Caesar, and now we will be covering the fall of the Roman Empire. To end the unit each student will be doing a mini project on a Greek God or Goddess or other figure from Ancient Greece or Rome.



Science: Monday students demonstrated how plates move to form rifts, volcanoes, earthquakes, and mountain ranges. Wednesday will label the different names of the plates the Earth is made of. Friday students will define transform faults and magma and discuss how hot spots affect the Earth's surface. DO NOT FORGET science biography project are due at the end of February. Students should be continually working on this project.




Language Arts: Ms. Wallwork's class is on spelling 16 this week, don't forget to study. grammar rule 21 covers appositives. Remember they rename a noun. For example: Ms. Swanson, a 6th grade teacher, is having a baby boy. (a sixth grade teacher is the appositive, renaming Ms. Swanson) We are also continuing with our descriptive papers about ourselves. We hope to finish up this unit in the next two weeks. Ms. Ahmed's class is on spelling 15 (Level 6) 14 (Level 7), and grammar rule 20 on commas and colons. They have been studying idioms and will also conclude their descriptive writing project on February 1st. This is the due date for their descriptive writing assignment.


Math:



Ms. Wallwork's class will be having a test on January 26th and finishing up the entire book this week, CONGRATULATIONS. We will start Course 2 next week.





Mrs. Swanson's class is completing lessons on reducing fractions before multiplying, coordinate planes, parallelograms, and multiplying three fractions. They also will take a test on Tuesday. Congratulations to Mrs. Swanson's Course 2 independent study group that has completed Course 2 and will start Course 3 next week.




Reading:



Ms. Wallwork's class is watching a documentary on Anne Frank. They are listening to interviews with a classmate, her father and many other people who had contact with her prior to and while in the concentration camps. Our next book will be Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck.





Ms. Ahmed's reading class has been reading about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. They have had many great discussions on the subject.




Updates and Reminders:

Tuesday night is the band and piano concert at 6:00pm at Westwood Church.

Please remember to have students come to school in tan khaki pants or skirts and a SOLID polo shirt with no logos. If they would like to have a sweatshirt it should be not hooded, solid, with no logos. All STRIDE Polo's or sweatshirts are okay. Students should not be wearing shorts or capris at this time of the school year.

Students are required to wear a hat, gloves or mittens, and a winter jacket at recess. Boots are HIGHLY recommended.

I hope everyone enjoyed their three day weekend along with the warmer weather. Below you will find some updates for your classes and reminders for everyone.


Social: We will be watching a power point on Julius Caesar and then covering The Age of Augustus. Our big unit is nearing the end, so be sure to answer all questions and keep up on the vocabulary. Our next unit will cover The Enlightenment Period, where you will get to make your own power point presentation.


Science: Our next unit is ready to begin! The unit is on Plate Tectonics: Movement of the Earth. It will be the only unit, other than the biography project, that is part of third quarter. This is due to the length/content of the unit and the amount of class time used to test students for both NWEA and MCAs and prepare them for the tests using Study Island. This week students will begin by using a vocabulary study on important terms to understand how the Earth's plates move.


Language Arts: Spelling 15 this week along with learning about specific placement of commas. We continue to work on our descriptive writing unit by learning better how to use similes, metaphors, and other figurative language.


Math: Ms. Wallwork's class will be learning brand new concepts; compound interest, simple interest, and principal. It would be wonderful if your child could talk to you about interest and using a savings account.



Mrs. Swanson's math class students will work on multiplying and dividing mixed numbers, using prime factorization to reduce fractions, lengths of segments, and complementary and supplementary angles.


Reading: Ms. Wallwork's class is nearing the end of Anne Frank and we will finish off the unit by watching the movie and presenting what we learned about the various people who helped the Frank family in hiding for two years.



Updates and Reminders:

Let’s celebrate our Vikings and come dressed in purple on Friday, January 22nd. Students can where jeans. If students are not participating in Purple Pride Day they will wear the normal uniform of polo and khakis. We Vikings fans will look the other way if you would like to represent another football team. Go Vikes!!!


Students will complete their NWEA testing Wednesday, January 20th in the areas of Reading and Language. Be sure they have a good night of sleep and a healthy breakfast that morning.



In PE class students will begin the C-Motion unit and are finishing their hockey unit. Please look for slips regarding C-Motion and the cost behind this unit.

January 11th, 2010

A fresh start this week for the new quarter. Students will receive their second quarter report card in their Thursday Folders this week.



Social- We are covering the Punic Wars and Julius Caesar this week. Be sure to re-read anything you didn't understand. Be ready for a small pop quiz.



Science- Students will finish sharing their Disease Posters on Tuesday and get their next big project for third quarter. The next project is science biographies. Each student will be assigned a scientist in class Tuesday. They are then required to complete a project following the criteria from their explanation sheet. A copy of this sheet will be in their Thursday folder. This project is not due until Tuesday, February 23rd.



Language Arts- Spelling 14 and 4, lesson and test, and Grammar Rule 19 are due on Thursday due to incentive day, Friday. We are still working on descriptive writing, including similes, metaphors, alliteration, and adjectives. Be sure to know the different areas of figurative language.



Math-

Ms. Wallwork's class is working on unit multipliers, with a test on Thursday. Don't forget we take the NWEA math test this Wednesday. Get plenty of sleep and eat a fabulous breakfast. We have a regular math test on Thursday.



Mrs. Swanson's class is working on subtracting mixed numbers with regrouping, classifying quadrilaterals, prime factorization, division by primes, and factor trees. Students will take another assessment on Wednesday and complete an enrichment day on Friday. The focus for the enrichment day will be decimal numbers. Students will complete a variety of operations using decimal numbers.



Reading- We learned today that Miep Gies died in Amsterdam at the age of 100 on Monday, January 11th, 2010. She was the last known person alive to have helped Anne Frank and her family while in hiding. She worked for Anne's father and found ways to get extra ration cards in order to get the Franks food. As a class we made a rubric for a poster presentation each student will do. Each student will research a person involved with the Franks and present to the class. We also continue to expand our vocabulary, be sure to go over a few words every night.

Next up Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck.



Updates and Reminders:



The next round of NWEA testing is taking place this week and next week. 6th grade students will test in math on Wednesday, January 13th and Reading and Language on Wednesday, January 20th. Be sure your child gets a good night sleep and eats a healthy breakfast.



The next school board meeting is taking place on Tuesday, January 19th at 6:30pm at STRIDE.



There is NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 18th.



Students who completed all academic and behavioral expectations are participating in an incentive day on Friday, January 15th.