Wow! It is crazy to think that we are past the halfway point of this school year. Time is flying by! It was a fun few months with a lot of activity. Here is what has been happening and what’s coming up….
Reading – Looking Back– We are just finishing our spy unit this coming week, which required students to work hard on understanding, analyzing, and finding the main idea of very challenging spy themed texts. The unit will end this week with the culminating spy lab activity, where students will slither through the spy lab trying to avoid the “lasers.” Be on the look out for a video coming soon! We will have our Unit 3 assessment next Tuesday, February 7th. Looking Forward- We will kick off unit 4 by reviewing point of view and perspective before beginning our next novel, Nothing But the Truth. Students will analyze how a character’s point of view contributes to the plot of a text. It is an engaging story that will challenge students to examine the whole truth and how perspective affects it. There will be short comprehension check ups throughout the book and a unit assessment at the end. *Please continue to encourage your child to be reading for at least 15 minutes each evening to work toward the reading challenge of 40 books. This is their daily reading homework.
Science-Looking Back… 6P has been experimenting through the chemistry unit, identifying chemical and physical changes, learning the difference between mixtures and pure substances, and experimenting with mass, volume, and density. Food demonstrations and the rocket lab were highlights in this unit. 6P will finish the chemistry unit with a fun liquid density experiment and take the Chemistry assessment this coming Friday, February 3rd. Looking Forward…6P will switch back to social studies and 6F will begin our Physics unit in science, investigating the various forms of energy and the transfer of energy. See the science page for an overview of all the topics included in this unit. Hopefully, we can get some snow and have some hands-on learning fun through Physics sledding activities to introduce the concepts of Newton’s laws of motion, as well as speed and velocity. If not, we will participate in inside physics activities to demonstrate these concepts. Encourage your child to review class notes regularly. Science concepts often require some memorization and regular review will benefit your child. **Remember Quizlet and GimKit are great resources to review science concepts.
Writing- Looking Back-Before beginning to research for the informational website students will be working on, we conducted some research on a very in-depth site that gave lots of information about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. The students were very intrigued by this very interesting creature and gathered a lot of information…UNTIL they realized it was all fake! “Why would a teacher do that?” you may ask… It was a great lesson in choosing reliable websites for online research and learning to fact check before believing everything you read! Looking Forward- Students are doing research on a country for informational writing which will be presented in the form of an informational website. Their website will demonstrate their knowledge of the writing, grammar, and reading skills we’ve been working on, as well as highlight some cultural aspects of that country.