The first frost, paired with Daylight Savings, always kickstarts my urges to move more slowly, choose the cozier evenings, and rest when I could keep going. It’s hard to keep moving full steam ahead – especially during the busy holiday season – when the early darkness and chill in the air calls you home. A frequent saying I use with the kids is “let’s finish what we started” – whether it’s something small like circling the answer to a math problem, or something a bit bigger when we need to have a peace table with a friend. In August, the kiddos set some pretty big goals for themselves as middle schoolers – and will do so again in January. Now is the time to hunker down and make sure we finish strong over the next five weeks, while still leaving room for the cozy nights and self-care we all desperately crave this time of year. With Thanksgiving Break right around the corner, we’ll (hopefully) be able to give ourselves the rest we need to finish what we started before our loooong Winter Break!
-Allison
Upcoming Dates:
- November 21 – Harvest Feast (Half Day)
- November 22 – November 30 – Thanksgiving Break
- December 10 – Cluster Lunch
- December 19 – Holiday Extravaganza & PJ Day (Half Day)
- December 20 – January 5 – Winter break
ELA- 6th graders began a literary essay writing unit this week. They entered the unit well prepared, with note catchers full of text evidence to use in their essays. Writers considered what their evidence was “telling them” and how to form a thesis statement from that. We also started unit 4 of vocabulary study.
Next week, 6th grade will begin outlining their essays and organizing evidence as they step into their first drafts! We will test vocabulary on 11/20, so be sure to study now.
Science- This week in science, 6th graders started exploring the characteristics of life. Students discussed a variety of items and categorized them as living, nonliving, or undecided. As we continue to discover characteristics of living things we will refine our categories. Next week students will continue exploring characteristics of living things by experimenting with unknown (to them) materials in different environments. This will help students learn to use observations to support their ideas.
Social Studies- We are finishing our work on Egypt and getting ready for the test next Thursday. We finished the study guide and I have posted it onto google classroom. They also have copies of the notes and study guide as well. Once we are finished with Egypt we will be moving on to India and China.
Math- This week in math, sixth graders reviewed for our end of unit assessment – which assessed our mastery of mutli-digit multiplication and division before we move on to applying those skills to decimals! Next week, we will dive into some pre-algebra – understanding what a variable is and how to apply them to math, how to use equations to represent math problems, and how to represent equations with diagrams.
