JUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNE!

We have hit June and there was great rejoicing in 6B this morning (well, I allowed 30 seconds, anyway).

We are quickly wrapping up all that we are doing for regular work, with only 1.5 school weeks before the PATs. As such, we have been stealing time from composition to complete other subjects, notably Social Studies. We did spend a little more time on the class newspaper, and I hope to have it completed and 'published' next week.

This week we spent a lot of time on science, ending the week with a Field Test of an electronic version of the exam. We still had time to fit in all of our Flight Challenges and begin preparations for the unit test on Tuesday. I am very proud of the unique and interesting things the kids did this unit, including this little attempt at making a hot air balloon:



It was a neat project that had a lot of success, just not in the way it was intended!

I am encouraging all students to bring in all of their previous units of science, or at least look at them at home, so they can bring in questions about what they want more focus on during their review periods next week.

And though I did send out an invitation to bring in materials so we could view the Transit of Venus on Tuesday, it is happening too late, so we will not be able to see it. But do check out the Rothney Observatory to look at it there!

In social studies we spent a lot of time looking at old PAT questions and examining how to best answer multiple choice questions. We will continue that in the coming week.

In CE, we did a neat project where the kids shared their personal feelings about faith, God and how others (including GCA) have affected this. I am looking through them and will return them to the kids next week. So far, I have been impressed by the clarity and depth of thought presented.

Just a reminder that the MTO hours for Christian Education class need to come in as soon as possible. I would like to have all of them before the first PAT on the 14th.

I remain available for questions or conversations as we head into the PATs.

Mother's Day

A deep and sincere thank you goes out from me to all of the mother's of my students this week. This is a weekend where (hopefully) your child remembers to thank you for all that you do. In my opinion, there are more than a few kids who would not only go hungry without their moms, but may not be nearly clothed enough either! (ha ha)  I very much appreciate all the moms in 6B and wish you all a wonderful weekend of being celebrated.

We spent a great deal of time this week working in and around the activities supporting the PATs. We did a lot of practise, including a Field Test of PAT questions from Alberta Education. It was a  great chance to experience what a PAT would 'feel' like and then to discuss the kinds of questions that came as a result. Overall it was a very positive experience and I was very proud of how the kids did.

We continue to work hard on our science as well, exploring the aspects of air and Bernoulli's principle that allow living and mechanical objects to achieve flight. Students are finding creative ways to express their ideas and deepen their knowledge. I will also be giving a vocabulary test (12-15 words) in two weeks to ensure the terms we have been using are indeed as well understood as I believe. Encourage your child to review their glossaries in anticipation of this quiz.

In Social Studies, we are looking at the Iroquois Confederacy. We are doing a quick project on the longhouse to understand this important dwelling and metaphor for the Iroquois.

In CE we are looking at the life of Paul in the Book of Acts, with students acting out vignettes to demonstrate the interesting events of this early apostle's life.

Once again, I wish you all a wonderful weekend and will speak with you again, next week.

Week Twenty-seven

A short week, an inconsistent weather week, but the promise of a beautiful weekend week, all adds up to a good week in my books.

6B spent a great deal of time working on the various aspects of our curriculum this week, getting through some very interesting things. In LA we moved from narrative writing (stories) to functional writing (news articles) by jumping into the creation of our own class newspaper. We are giving ourselves a few weeks to work on this, but the kids are excited. They have chosen their own editors, have assigned themselves topics to research and write on and will be laying it all out in the way they want when all is said and done. I am excited by the sense of responsibility demonstrated and look forward to seeing what they can create.

In Science we spent the week investigating the properties of air, by making experiments to demonstrate things like air's mass, volume, increased or decreased pressure, the fluidity of air or if it can be compressed. As with our last unit, the kids are deciding which topic they will explore and then designing an experiment (or using experiments I have already) and then testing them out in class. So far no fires (well, no major fires!) and many, many (many) balloons have been used. And one egg got sucked into an erlenmeyer flask!



In Social Studies, we took the occasion of the provincial election to investigate the parties involved and the main issues they are talking about. We are also using this information for some of our articles in the class newspaper.  We will continue to investigate representative democracy next week.

In CE we finished up our investigation of modern day martyrs, looking first at the story of Stephen in Acts, to see in what ways Christians face persecution today for calling themselves followers of Christ.  We will be presenting these on Monday.

All in all, a good week, and one in which we got lots accomplished. I hope you have a great weekend and look forward to seeing everyone again on Monday.

Week Twenty-five

I am  pretty sure that I am well off the right number of weeks by now. With some breaks and short weeks and general tiredness, we might well be off by 5 or 6!  Still, it was nice to get back to the classroom and see all the familiar faces.

We spent a great deal of time this week in LA doing writing. We finished up a composition piece we started before the break, which many of us had finished already, then jumped into another composition right away. "Just like riding a bike," might be the metaphor we would use to describe our process this week.  We will be moving to news article writing next week, which will allow us to combine Social Studies and LA by looking at the provincial election. We also continued to move forward in our novel study of The Cay, dealing with related subjects that come up as we are reading this interesting story.

Speaking of Social Studies, we have been studying Representative Government, both its processes and examples of it. Focusing on the representative associations that exist here in Alberta, notably the ACFA and MNA, we are looking at how representative government can provide services and represent the interests of its members. Students researched these associations and presented to the class on their findings.

In Science this week, we spent our time watching a movie based on the early days of flight. A number of intriguing and historically based flying machines were shown and we were entertained watching those machines fly or not. We will jump into explorations of the properties of air next week after we do our unit pre-test.

In CE this week we looked at martyrdom, starting with the story of Stephen in Acts 6-7 and expanded to look at current persecutions of other Christians that are happening today.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will have another great week next week.

Week Twenty-four

This week we looked at the Middle East. Below are some of the projects that were submitted from students who became 'experts' on a country over the last few periods.

Here's a link to Saudi Arabia's group and Syria's group work.





As you can see, the kids learned a lot about different countries in the middle east and how democracy is slowly making inroads there.  I was very pleased with their efforts and the things they created.

In Science we have been working hard at our parachutes, preparing for the Science Fair next week. The 6's will be on display from 9-10:15am in the Innovation Centre (upstairs above the cafeteria) so please feel free to stop by and see all the exciting work they have done.

In LA this week we were in a writing frenzy. We finished one story and began another, which we will edit on Monday, so the kids need to make sure they bring it to school that day. And we completed a couple of quizzes on the book we are reading (The Cay) and will continue on as far as we can get next week.

And in CE, we continued with our exploration into the early church, looking at them through the lense of the Book of Acts. It is neat to see how a small group of Christians started on the road to carry the gospel of all nations (which connects with our chat with Prof. Thiessen last week very neatly!).

I hope you all have a great weekend, and we will talk more next week!

Twenty-three

Not much new to share this week, as I spent a lot of time wrapping up science and getting report cards ready to run.We did have a great experience on Wednesday, when Prof. Wes Thiessen came in to the school and we took advantage of his availability to tell us about the events of last year's Arab Spring. He was in Tunisia in January as the regime which was in place was toppled by the popular movement, and his insights into what occurred was fascinating. As a result, the students of 6B decided to do a project on the Arab Spring, becoming experts on 7 different countries and teach their classmates about them. I am very excited to see what will be produced, and since the projects are going to be web-based, I will try to post them on the blog for next week.As far as science goes, we are in the midst of our parachute projects, coming up with good designs for landing probes on different planets in our solar system. The projects will be completed for the Science Fair on March 21st and will be on display for the morning in the Innovation Centre. Feel free to come by and see what the kids have done.There is not too much more to report, as this week was a bit of a blur, but we did some neat things, and I am looking forward to an almost full, normal week next week. Have a great long weekend.

Week Twenty-two

A rarity occured this week - we had a full 5 days! It was a treat to see the kids all week - though they may not have felt the same!

In LA this week we continued our reading of The Cay. It is a great novel and is giving us some insights into racial prejudice (a topic our class admits is not an issue for them here at school) in the form of a great adventure story. We finished up to the end of chapter 4 and did some assignment work related to it this week. We also began work on new compositions this week, taking the format of the PATs, by using a picture to prompt our writing. The thing that shocked me was how hard the kids worked on it! I gave some instruction and then let them start writing. After a half-hour of silence, I asked if everyone was enjoying themselves or if they wanted to do something else, and the class as a whole said they were having fun and wanted to keep writing. A great moment in 6B history!

In CE we had a slower week. Because of the stops and starts that we had this month, along with the large number of absences, we worked on both John 1:12 and Titus 3:5 this week. Whichever verse was not done this week, can be done next week along with Eph 2:8-9 (a great verse to discuss at home - I encourage you to ask your child about this verse and what they think it might mean and join your thoughts with theirs).

During Social Studies this week we worked on our walking tour of Athens maps. This was a very interesting project, where the kids were to describe not only how to get to the various important locations of Athenian democratic practise, but to describe why these places are important.  These projects will be presented next week.
We started off the week with a visit to the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory. It was a beautiful night for viewing (three planets and a crescent moon!) and everyone who was able to make it out had a great time. In Science class we wrapped up our Sky Science unit. The units all finished, we can now go on to the unit test which is on Tuesday. I am very proud of all the kids and how hard they worked to accomplish their goals. I think it was a positive learning experience for all of us. Next up is our parachute challenge for the GCA Jr High Science Fair on March 21st.  This should be fun.

I wish you all a wonderful weekend and please, as always, contact me with any questions or concerns.

Week Nineteen

For a change we decided to have a full week of school this week. Not that the week went by any more slowly mind you!

In LA we wrapped up the composition projects we have been working on, and jumped full on into our latest Reading project. We are looking at the novel "The Cay" and answering questions on it as we go along. This novel by Theodore Taylor is one we have enjoyed at GCA for some years now and it has a lot of action and introspection in it. Good fodder for us teachers to get some thinking happening in our students.

In Social Studies we moved towards our mapping project of ancient Athens, looking at the major locations of democratic activity in the classical Athenian period. The kids are currently researching the importance of the three areas we have focused on (Agora, Bouleterion and Pnyx Hill) and will then write/create an ancient walking tour guide of the three sites.

In Science we are coming down to the homestretch on the Sky Science unit. Kids are working hard every class to complete as much as they can to answer the questions posed in class. I am very impressed with the work 6B has done up to this point and how deep some kids are going to achieve their answers. This has been a worthwhile activity!

In CE we had another great chapel reminding us of the ways that God can use us in our brokenness and imperfection. A repentant heart and willing spirit are all that He needs! Additionally we wrapped up our presentations on the last week of Jesus' life and will be moving on to the acts of the apostles and early church to finish up the year. A reminder that it is never too early to do your MTO hours, and the form needed is on the wiki (here).

I hope you all have a great long weekend (or week off) and encourage you to think about attending the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory field trip on the 27th of February.  It is an evening field trip, and you need to arrange transportation for your child as there will be no school transportation provided. It is about 2 hours long and a great chance to see the night sky as you never have before!

Week Fifteen, no umm, Seventeen?

My deepest apologies for the last two weeks of silence on this blog. I have been fighting a cold and with the move and attendant chaos, I have neglected this mode of communication.

As you are well aware, we have numerous big changes, not least of which is a new wing, new classroom and new lockers. The kids have transitioned very well, although we are finding it a bit odd being in a busy hallway with all different grades again!

A main focus of the last couple of weeks has been our science program, getting on track and keeping up with the questions we need to learn about. The kids have been very industrious, but despite that, it is quite apparent we will be generally missing the target number of assignments for next week. As a result, I am pushing the timeline back a week, making the second three questions due for the 17th of Feb, not the 10th.  This will allow us some time to catch-up, and we will still have a chance to finish before the report cards are due.

In LA we are wrapping up a couple of different assignments, the composition assignments about the Camp Kuriakos memories and the Parent Rules are both finishing up. And we have begun to present our novel study projects in class as well. I am hopeful that after our three field trip days next week we will be able to start on some new material.

In Social Studies we spent a great deal of time on the social structures of Athens and ancient Greece in general. We are currently working on a project to describe some of the everyday products Greeks used in the ancient world and will move on to the physical structures involved in democracy after that.

We didn't really have a CE class this week, but will make up for the memory verse we didn't do this week on Tuesday next week.

As was sent out in the e-mail this week, the field trips are all set up for next week. If you have further questions or concerns, please contact me or the other grade 6 teachers. I will have contacted all the parent volunteers for the science centre field trip by e-mail this past Friday.

Have a great weekend!

Week Fourteen

Welcome back, and to the year 2012 too!  What a treat to have such a nice break (with such warm weather too) and then to come back and jump right into school again. Although I think the students felt the break could've gone a little longer, which I won't take offense at.

We jumped right back into things with our LA work, starting out with a creative writing exercise, imagining ourselves as a student who needed to forge an excuse note. Now, we weren't going for excellence in forging ability, but for entertainment value. The kids thought I was crazy asking them to forge a note from their parent(s) but they loved doing it. At the same time we started a free-choice novel assignment. The kids are required to read a novel in class and provide a summary of the novel. I am asking for this to be done just before our long weekend at the end of the month, but I will monitor how things are going and adjust as necessary.

In Social Studies we are all excited to be looking at ancient Athens. Our focus is to explore the processes that this Greek city-state used to carry out its decision-making, but we started with a little primer on Greek culture, and an assignment on transcribing English words into Greek characters. I was surprised at how much the kids enjoyed doing it, with some of them writing more neatly in Greek than they do in English! Go figure.

In CE we finished our Jesus stories, presenting what we have done to the class. We also had a great speaker in chapel this week, challenging us about different ways we can live out our faith. Another great week in that regard.

And finally, in Science we started our Sky Science unit. We are approaching it a little differently, as I put all the sections of the unit in front of the kids (on the wiki) and told them to research and locate the answers on their own. I am still testing them after they finish each assignment, but they at least can choose the assignment they want to do to answer that question. It has been an exciting and interesting week in class, with all the kids really pushing to show their best understanding of each question they research. If you want more information on how this unit is working, I encourage you to come to the information meeting I am holding on Monday, January 16th in my room at 7pm (finishing no later than 7:45) to hear more about what we are doing.

I thank you for all your support and your trust as I get to spend time with your kids. God Bless!