Happy Wednesday!
Another short week has come to a close. We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch at Elizabeth and Christoph’s home. The atmosphere was cozy and welcoming, and the food was truly some of the best I’ve had at any of our JFK Thanksgiving gatherings. Thank you all for the time, energy, and care you put into organizing such a memorable experience for our last Thanksgiving lunch together.
Natural History Museum
We will be visiting the Natural History Museum on Thursday, December 18th. Our group will leave school at 8:45, right after first hour, and our guided tour is scheduled for 11:00. Thank you to Yvonne and Clara for joining us on this trip. I’m very much looking forward to it.
Trivia Night Fundraiser
On December 5th, during Trivia Night, the 6th grade will be hosting a fundraiser to support our end-of-year activities. Students will be selling waffles and other snacks to event participants. Several students have volunteered to bake items, and many have signed up to help during the fundraiser. We will purchase the needed materials using funds from the 6th grade class accounts, but we do need waffle makers. If you have one we could loan for the evening, please let us know.
English Homeroom
This week in English Homeroom, we continued our news unit. Students learned how to evaluate sources for credibility and accuracy and practiced identifying reliable information during reading instruction. In writing, we discussed what makes a news story newsworthy. Students were asked to write a rough draft based on their previous observations, incorporating the newsworthiness elements we studied. Next week, we will finalize these drafts as a formative assessment, and students will share their short news stories with the class.
English Differentiation
Students were reassigned today for English Differentiation. Some students have been placed with different teachers to ensure they are appropriately supported or challenged in their English development. Most of our homeroom will continue to work with me on Mondays and Wednesdays for leveled instruction. Thursday’s differentiation hour has now become a homeroom English hour, so all 6A students will be with me during that time for additional reading and writing instruction.
Students also took home their new spelling words today. Our base word for the week is form. In class, students created word sums and counted syllables using the matrix. The twenty word sums they generated will be the words they are quizzed on next Wednesday during English Differentiation. If your child is new to my English Differentiation group, please encourage them to join my English Differentiation Google Classroom, which is listed under the Google Classroom tab on my website. I will do my best to post the weekly words there in case students misplace their word sums worksheet. On Monday, we will work together to define the words during our vocabulary instruction.
Math
This week in math, we practiced finding the lowest common multiple of two numbers by listing multiples and using factor trees, which are especially helpful with larger numbers. We reviewed adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators and learned three strategies for finding common denominators when working with unlike denominators. Students have been informed that our second test of the year will take place after Christmas break on January 8th. I will provide study materials before the break.
Social Studies
With the recent short weeks, Thanksgiving events, and matinee concerts, we haven’t had much time for Social Studies. I’m looking forward to continuing our work next week as we return to early humans and primary and secondary sources.
Art
Like Social Studies, Art has also been limited due to scheduling, but we have collected additional materials. After the break, we should be able to fully dive into our urban planning project.
Wishing you all a wonderful and restful long Thanksgiving weekend!