Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Johnson's Journal December 4, 2013

Just a note to let you know that Mrs. Suntken and I mailed out midterm grade reports tonight (Wednesday).  If you do not receive a report by Friday, please let us know.  These reports were generated Monday at 4:00.  If your child turned in  work after that time, it will not show up on the midterm report but has been recorded in the Campus gradebook.  Your must current information is always available there.

We talked to the sixth graders about their grades today.   All those students who are doing well were encouraged to keep up their good work. We also wanted to make sure any student (and their parents) who is not doing well is aware of their standing at this point and can then take steps to improve their performance before grades come out later in January.  If you have questions or concerns, please be sure to contact us.

Coordinate Graphing: Creating Geometry Quilts Grade 4 & UpWe have taken a break from all the computation we have been doing recently in math.  I have a resource book called Coordinate Graphing: Creating Geometry Quilts. By following the directions given  and graphing the ordered pairs the students create a quilt block.  They are so excited by their creations as  you never know what your quilt block is going to look like until it is done! The kids are begging to do more during study hall and are taking home the directions to make more quilts there.  Since this project has proved to be so popular, I have told them I will try to find  similar activities!  Little do they know that they are developing graphing and geometry skills, as well as learning about positive and negative integers!!


Our science lessons have focused on classifying living things.  Did you know that all living things can be classified as either animalia, plante, fungi, protista, or monera?  Your sixth grader does and knows the characteristics of each kingdom.  Also ask them if they know anything about kings playing chess on funny green stools (or Katie Perry's cat ordering funny green spaghetti).  These catchy sayings help us remember the subdivisions of a kingdom. Tomorrow we will begin a project in which we determine what kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species we belong to.  When we are done with our research we will compile the information into a booklet called, What Am I?

As you can see, sixth graders are busy learning all kinds of new things.  I so appreciate the enthusiasm they bring to school each day.  I have a super job working with super kids!

0 comments:

Post a Comment