Math Test Friday!

This week the 6th graders are finishing up our 1st chapter in the new Math textbook. The chapter has been filled with review lessons your child and hopefully seen before. Here are the lessons we covered:
1. A review of whole number operations-simple math computation
2. Estimation-students round numbers and complete the math problem
3. Powers and Exponents- students label the base, exponent, and power to find the value
4. Order of Operations- A favorite among 6th graders, they follow steps to solve expressions with multiple operations.
5. Variable and Expressions- a introduction to Algebra, students solve expressions and equations with variables
6. Equations and Mental Math- Students find the value of a variable within an equation
7. Problem Solving- Students use different steps and strategies to solve word problems

This book offers many reviews and tutorials. On pages 47-50, students can find sample problems with suggestions and hints to solve. You can also find extra problems in the back of the book or on-line using the instructions on the fist page of the book. The activation code for our textbook is 2432737-180

Character Counts Club

The main component of the Character Counts Club is our field trips to Prairie View and Elizabeth Ide. When the Club visits these schools, we enter the classroom or perform assemblies encouraging positive character traits. We will take these small field trips three times during the school year. Your son or daughter will miss part of the school day for the field trip and be responsible for the missed work.

Similar to last year, the Club will be volunteering with Market Day. On Market Day pick-up, 5-8 students from the club will be asked to help complete orders. Market Day pick-up is always on Saturdays from 11:30-1:30. Students will volunteer for the Saturdays as the dates come up.

New this year is some clean-up activities. Throughout the year the Club will be cleaning or brightening up different aspects of the schools. We would like to clean the buses using Windex and dusting with Pledge. We would also like to decorate the schools for the different seasons. More ideas will come as the year continues.

Personal Narratives

The 6th Grade Language Arts' classrooms are finishing up their revisions on our 1st composition of the year. Each student chose one problem or mistake they were able to overcome or learn about one of life's lessons. After completing their 1st draft, the students practiced peer editing each others papers and added adjectives to describe nouns. A second draft was written and students examined their own composition finding repeated, overused, or "ordinary" words, and made 5 synonym corrections. On Thursday and Friday, the entire 6th grade class will be typing their final draft of their Personal Narrative. Students were encouraged to get or bring a Flash Drive to transfer work from school to home. The final typed composition is due on Wednesday, September 17th.

RTI Reading Class

The goal of the RTI Reading Program is to teach the student the skills he/she needs in order to be successful in reading. I will be working closely with the 6th grade team and teaching the students reading comprehension strategies that hopefully the student will be able to apply in all of his/her classes. Because the main focus is reading comprehension, we will be working on the skills the student is learning in the double period of language arts and reading. For example, if the student is learning about summarizing in the double period, we would work on that skill even further to ensure that the student understands how and when to use it. I like to think of the class as filling the student’s “tool boxes,” or brains with useful tools and then working with them to realize at what occasion they use each specific tool.

The students will be formally assessed twice a month using a program called AIMS Web. This will give us a closer picture as to whether or not the student is making progress. I will also be assessing the students on a daily basis, whether it’s listening to their comments during a group discussion, working with them one on one to check for understanding, or having them read aloud to make sure they’re reading fluently. This close monitoring will help to determine the progress so that at the end of the first trimester, both the parents and I can sit down and discuss what may be working and what we need to change. Whatever the result, the main goal is obviously for the student to achieve success in reading, whether it’s reading for school or reading for pleasure.

NOTES: Students are expected to have a notebook exclusively for this reading class. Students will be allowed to keep the notebook in the classroom at all times.

STUDENT PREPARATION: Students are expected to arrive on time to class with the necessary supplies/materials for class. For this specific class, students must always have their assignment notebook and their language arts/reading supplies. Although we will be using a textbook in class, the books will remain in the classroom at all times.

If you have any questions or concerns about the RTI Reading Program, please do not hesitate to contact me at amesker@ccsd66.org or 630-783-5115