What a wonderful first few weeks of school! Our class is really starting to come together and everyone is working hard to understand and follow the routines and expectations. I will try my best to sum up our activities and goals for the past two weeks.
Reading logs will be completed through your child’s planner. A note went home about them earlier this week. Reading logs will be checked throughout the week and, as of right now, I do not require a parent signature, I plan on meeting with each student to talk about what they are reading throughout the week.
Morning Meeting:
We start every day with a Morning Meeting. This is a time for us to come together as a community and set the tone for our day. We greet each other (every day is a different greeting), we share our thoughts and feelings about a topic or we share about events we are proud of, we participate in an activity (to help support academics, to build our community, or simply to have fun), and we end with our Morning Message.
Class procedures and Expectations:
The first few weeks of school are a time to learn about and practice the expectations of the classroom and school. The Pride has been fabulous with this! I have told them all that if they continue to behave the way they are right now, this will be the BEST school year yet!!!!
Chromebooks:
The 6th grade has the privilege of having a Chromebook available for each student, just as they did in 5th grade. We have learned how to carefully get our Chromebooks from their storage space and how to place them back and charge them. We logged into our Chromebooks and signed into our "Google Classroom" site (more info to come about this soon), Class Dojo and more. Students are looking forward to using their Chromebooks this year!
Math update:
Math classes have started. Math is taught through our co-teaching model by myself, Mrs. Depatie, and Ms. Follensbee. Students are assessed and split into groups before each new unit so that we can be sure all student needs are met.
Digital Compass:
Before students are allowed to use their Chromebooks for different activities, they need to work on their "Digital Compass." This is an online program that teaches students about important skills needed in a world full of technology. To quote the website www.commonsensemedia.org:
“Digital Compass is an innovative way to give students in grades 6-9 the freedom to explore how decisions made in their digital lives can impact their relationships and futures. Through the popular choose-your-own-adventure format, students play through the perspective of one of eight main characters, each of whom is facing a different digital citizenship dilemma. The varied story paths and multiple decision points encourage students to play repeatedly in order to explore alternative courses of action.”
They will explore and make decisions in the following areas:
Science:
We started using our inferencing skills by looking at different investigation inquiries. We learned to look carefully at clues and to understand the difference between facts/evidence and guesses/inferences.
Our class has started working with Mrs. Depatie on our first Science Unit (Earth, Moon and Stars). She will be teaching both of our classes science while I teach social studies to both of our classes.
Social Studies:
We have spent a lot of time this week learning about ourselves through some “social curriculum work.” (See the next page for more information.)
Next week we will start learning about the purpose of Social Studies, the job of “Social Scientists,” and why it is so important to study the past.
The MindUp: (Mindfulness)
To quote the website: http://thehawnfoundation.org/mindup/
"MindUP™ teaches social and emotional learning skills that link cognitive neuroscience, positive psychology and mindful awareness training utilizing a brain centric approach. It is a program that fosters a classroom-learning environment where a child’s ability to academically succeed and personally thrive is maximized and directly linked to their overall state of well-being. Rigorously researched and accredited by CASEL, MindUP™ has been proven to reduce stress, improve academic performance, strengthen abilities for concentration and help children and educators thrive in a setting that becomes a community of learners."
We started our MindUp experience by learning about 3 parts of the brain and how they work together. They are the Prefrontal Cortex (decision making), the Amygdala (filter for stress), and the Hippocampus (memory).
Social Curriculum
Growth-
We spent this past week learning about the “Growth Mindset.” Students are being empowered to embrace challenges and mistakes and to realize that they can improve on anything and everything if they set their minds to it!
Grit-
We are learning that it takes determination and hard work to reach our goals. We need to use self-control to stay focused and to not give up! We are all going to work on our “Sisu” (our ability to work through things that are tough without giving up)!
Multiple Intelligences-
Lastly, we are learning about all of the different ways we are “smart.” Some of us are “word smart” while others may be “number smart.” Each of us has strengths and each of us has things that we need to work on, but we are ALL smart!
Reading logs will be completed through your child’s planner. A note went home about them earlier this week. Reading logs will be checked throughout the week and, as of right now, I do not require a parent signature, I plan on meeting with each student to talk about what they are reading throughout the week.
Morning Meeting:
We start every day with a Morning Meeting. This is a time for us to come together as a community and set the tone for our day. We greet each other (every day is a different greeting), we share our thoughts and feelings about a topic or we share about events we are proud of, we participate in an activity (to help support academics, to build our community, or simply to have fun), and we end with our Morning Message.
Class procedures and Expectations:
The first few weeks of school are a time to learn about and practice the expectations of the classroom and school. The Pride has been fabulous with this! I have told them all that if they continue to behave the way they are right now, this will be the BEST school year yet!!!!
Chromebooks:
The 6th grade has the privilege of having a Chromebook available for each student, just as they did in 5th grade. We have learned how to carefully get our Chromebooks from their storage space and how to place them back and charge them. We logged into our Chromebooks and signed into our "Google Classroom" site (more info to come about this soon), Class Dojo and more. Students are looking forward to using their Chromebooks this year!
Math update:
Math classes have started. Math is taught through our co-teaching model by myself, Mrs. Depatie, and Ms. Follensbee. Students are assessed and split into groups before each new unit so that we can be sure all student needs are met.
Digital Compass:
Before students are allowed to use their Chromebooks for different activities, they need to work on their "Digital Compass." This is an online program that teaches students about important skills needed in a world full of technology. To quote the website www.commonsensemedia.org:
“Digital Compass is an innovative way to give students in grades 6-9 the freedom to explore how decisions made in their digital lives can impact their relationships and futures. Through the popular choose-your-own-adventure format, students play through the perspective of one of eight main characters, each of whom is facing a different digital citizenship dilemma. The varied story paths and multiple decision points encourage students to play repeatedly in order to explore alternative courses of action.”
They will explore and make decisions in the following areas:
- Information Literacy
- Privacy & Security
- Self-Image & Identity
- Creative Credit & Copyright
- Cyberbullying
- Internet Safety
- Relationships & Communication
- Digital Footprint & Reputation
Science:
We started using our inferencing skills by looking at different investigation inquiries. We learned to look carefully at clues and to understand the difference between facts/evidence and guesses/inferences.
Our class has started working with Mrs. Depatie on our first Science Unit (Earth, Moon and Stars). She will be teaching both of our classes science while I teach social studies to both of our classes.
Social Studies:
We have spent a lot of time this week learning about ourselves through some “social curriculum work.” (See the next page for more information.)
Next week we will start learning about the purpose of Social Studies, the job of “Social Scientists,” and why it is so important to study the past.
The MindUp: (Mindfulness)
To quote the website: http://thehawnfoundation.org/mindup/
"MindUP™ teaches social and emotional learning skills that link cognitive neuroscience, positive psychology and mindful awareness training utilizing a brain centric approach. It is a program that fosters a classroom-learning environment where a child’s ability to academically succeed and personally thrive is maximized and directly linked to their overall state of well-being. Rigorously researched and accredited by CASEL, MindUP™ has been proven to reduce stress, improve academic performance, strengthen abilities for concentration and help children and educators thrive in a setting that becomes a community of learners."
We started our MindUp experience by learning about 3 parts of the brain and how they work together. They are the Prefrontal Cortex (decision making), the Amygdala (filter for stress), and the Hippocampus (memory).
Social Curriculum
Growth-
We spent this past week learning about the “Growth Mindset.” Students are being empowered to embrace challenges and mistakes and to realize that they can improve on anything and everything if they set their minds to it!
Grit-
We are learning that it takes determination and hard work to reach our goals. We need to use self-control to stay focused and to not give up! We are all going to work on our “Sisu” (our ability to work through things that are tough without giving up)!
Multiple Intelligences-
Lastly, we are learning about all of the different ways we are “smart.” Some of us are “word smart” while others may be “number smart.” Each of us has strengths and each of us has things that we need to work on, but we are ALL smart!