Happy Fall, Y'all!

Look at this plate of gooey-ness! Thank you to our parents who came and helped with our classroom party Friday. We had apples with caramel, chocolate, and toppings. You can see, some chose a little bit of apples and a lot of toppings!  Then, we played charades with Core Knowledge topics over the years! A special thank you to Mrs. Waters for planning it all for us. 

This week we took a field trip. Ooops! You didn't know we went out of country to Egypt? Yep. We took a virtual field trip to Egypt! Using Nearpod, we explored the outside of pyramids and went into the tomb of Ramesses VI!

Photo credit: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ramessesvit.htm

It was so fun watching the students turn their iPads 360 degrees to look around! 

We are looking forward to fun adventures next week as we travel down the Nile River! Don't worry, parents...I'll cover the cost for you. (smile) 

During our e-block times we have been working on putting together our 4 foot robot, coding Osmo and Dash, researching careers via Classcraft, and working on skills in language and reading. MobyMax is a GREAT tool that I use to help reinforce skills. MobyMax works at filling in gaps and giving students that are ready to move on to the next level. All students may also use MobyMax from home! They have their own personal log in. SO - if you want your child to have extra practice in any subject (not just ELA and history) have your child log in to MobyMax. Students are also working on standards re-takes through MobyMax for ELA standards in which a 3 has not yet been achieved. I have assigned these students specific standards to practice. 

We cleaned out and collected our Lightning Thief books. Get a load of the evidence flags collected out of one book! I just had to snap a photo of it!!

This week students will finish their "hero" stories and turn them into mini-movies using Toon-tastic! I can't wait to share these with you. Toon-tastic has turned 3D which should be really fun!

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Keep The Quote

One of my favorite things in our room is "Keep the Quote."  At the beginning of the year, students turned in their very favorite quote. Each week, I choose a new one to write on our Keep the Quote paper that hangs up at the front of the room. At the end of the week, I cut it off and give it to the student and place a new one up! I love all the quotes they chose!

This week students will work on their end of module assessment - an analytical essay comparing a common theme found in The Lightning Thief and the myth of Cronus. Wow. Sounds impressive, doesn't it?  I know they will do a wonderful job! We are using many graphic organizers, rough drafts, peer editing, and typing up the final paper. 

We will also have tons of fun with building a Ziggurat and an activity with Hammurabi's Code! These activities will culminate our study of Ancient Mesopotamia before we move on to Ancient Egypt. I can't wait to see their Ziggurats and will be posting pictures next week!

Enjoy the journey!

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Love Our 6th Graders!

 Parents - you have done an amazing job. Really. Our students continue to be respectful, responsible, and resourceful! They take pride in their work and are ready to learn new things.

Our e-block time has been fun this week! We are rotating centers and were able to begin our robotics and coding with items donated from Donor's Choose! We are having fun with ClassCraft and students are writing about their favorite career choice. They are researching colleges, wages, and important information to present in a poster, Keynote, or essay. If we finish in time, we can get $200 on Donor's Choose to purchase more items for our class!

I am super proud of our students for doing a wonderful job this past week on their essays and flip books! We finished our Judaism and Christianity unit with an informational flip book. They were so fun to read!! I wish I could share them all with you but here are a few highlights:

Our mid-unit assessment was writing a mini analytical essay about the theme and elements of mythology in Prometheus. Again - great work!

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Running Along!

How was your weekend?  Ours was awesome! We had our daughter and son-in-law visit from Santa Barbara. It is always so nice to see them! They were both running in the Sacramento Urban Cow Half Marathon. Lauren took first last year and made the course record. She took first again! AND - her husband Seth took first for men! Yep - it was an exciting day!

Guess who also ran the half marathon?  Ms. Dowd!! YES!  Way to go!!! 

We had another great week! This week we will finish up our unit on Judaism and Christianity. Our test will be Friday. Be on the look out for the study guide Wednesday night.  Our next unit will be Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. It should be fun!

In ELA we will begin our first mini analytical essay. Students will be writing about the theme of Prometheus and Lightning Thief and proving why Prometheus is a classical myth. We have been "capturing" vocabulary words in our word catchers to increase vocabulary skills. Hopefully they will use some of these words in their own writing.

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