Research

Today we continued our Weather Research project with Ms. Zbacnik in the library.  We all had our own note taking sheets and with a partner used Pebble Go to research our own topic.  We were very excited to learn more about our topic.  Ask your child what type of extreme weather they area researching.

It was hard work reading the information, putting it into our own words and writing it on out note taking paper. 

"Snowflake" Field Trip

Today we went to see "Snowflake" at the Children's Theatre in Minneapolis.  It was a wonderful play.

A chilly day for a field trip!

The play was about a real man named Snowflake who lived in Michigan.  The author of the play wrote about this man and his life living in an alley.   There was no speaking in the entire play and it was performed by one man.  Snowflake did some pretty cool tricks that made us laugh out loud!  He was very creative with what other people considered trash.  There was an underlying theme or lesson to the play.  Snowflake wanted something that other people had...see if your child can tell you what that was.

Door Decorating!

As a part of the February "I Love to Read" month activities each classroom decorates their door and area outside their room with the theme of their favorite book.  As a class, we selected to decorate our door like The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld.

We talked about the meaning of the book and the simplicity of the illustrations and decided to mimic the book by naming something we are OK at such as reading, ice skating or doing art and then making a simple drawing to go with the sentence.

The illustrations look like they were easy to do, but once we started drawing them, it was a bit more challenging than we thought.  The person in the picture has to be the OK stick figure with the "O" as the head and the "K" as the arms and legs.  We worked hard and in the end they look very nice!  

Weather Research

Yesterday we started talking about our Weather Research project.  Each student will work in a group to research one type of extreme weather.

Today, we practiced using Pebble Go, and online research source, to take notes.  We talked about using our own words, not copying from another author.  As a class, we are researching droughts.  We practiced writing short phrases on our notes page that we will turn into sentences in a paragraph.

Taking notes together.

Pebble Go!

Oh yeah, we changed desks.  It was long overdue! 

Stoplight Paragraphs

Today we practiced writing strong and organized paragraphs.  We talked about how a paragraph is organized like a stoplight, well an upside down stoplight.  The first sentence is the Topic Sentence.  It tells the main idea of the paragraph.  The next sentences are the Detail Sentences and they tell details that relate to the main idea.  The last sentence is the Closing Sentence.  It wraps up the paragraph and can be almost the same as the first sentence.

To help us create a visual, we underlined each of the sentences like a stoplight.
Green - Topic Sentence - GO!
Yellow - Detail Sentences - Important ideas
Red - Closing Sentence - STOP!

We practiced by writing about our favorite season.  We have some really good paragraphs!

Here are a few examples:

6th Grade Honor Choir and Reader's Theater

Today we had the opportunity to enjoy the District Honor Choir performance.  This choir is  made up of students from all of the elementary schools and each music teacher from each school conducted a song.  It was a wonderful performance!

During one song a small group of students sang and then the rest of the choir joined them.  There was one student from each school in the small group. 

We came back, had a quick snack and had did Literacy.  Today we practiced and performed our book Grace for President as a reader's theater.  We listed to one group perform today and the other group will perform tomorrow.  It was a new experience for most of the students. 

Balance, Motion and Fractions

Today we reviewed Balance and Motion concepts by reading a book that goes along with our science materials.  We also completed an activity with our desk partners.  We will have a test tomorrow!

We also started learning about fractions!  We made our own sets of fraction cards to show 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and 1/3.  We learned the words numerator and denominator.  We also talked about comparing fractions to 1/2?  Ask your child which is more 1/2 or 1/4?