Welcome back everyone. 

Welcome back everyone. Miss Hunsaker and I will be homeroom teachers for the 6th graders and I will be teaching the sciences. Our textbooks and the curriculum program is “Stemscopes” which is a hands on, inquiry based program. The "Stemscopes" program aligns beautifully with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) which our school has adopted.  


This year the 6th graders will be studying Earth Science. We will begin the year by becoming familiar with laboratory procedures: lab safety, tools we use in the lab, measurement using the metric system followed by setting up and performing experiments. We will pay attention to the scientific method and work on lab write-ups going from formulating hypotheses through gathering pertinent data to developing appropriate conclusions.

Earth science is a study of the earth and of its position in the universe. Throughout the year students will become familiar with the structure of our earth and with the forces that formed it. We will begin by looking at rocks and minerals, plate tectonics, earthquakes and volcanoes. We will follow that with a study of weather and water factors that shape the earth and finally a look at where in the universe our earth can be found.

 

We will be using different ways of obtaining information throughout the year including note-taking, discussion and labs. Students will be required to have a spiral-bound notebook for my class and I would also encourage them to have their own pens, pencils, graph paper and metric rulers.

            

 Labs will be performed in the classroom as often as possible and lab write-ups will be completed during school time.  Students will be paired up for experiments and each student will be responsible for a portion of the write-up. Quizzes on the lab procedures will follow each lab write up to ensure all students understand the process. 

Yearly grades will be obtained from: 

 

This year, in the middle school, we are trying something new with our days together. We will going to try a 'block schedule' which will be exceptionally beneficial to our science classes. Instead of having a 50 minute class everyday, we will be trying a block of 90 minutes every other day. That means if I see a science block on Monday, my next block with them will be on Thursday and if the science block is on a Tuesday, the next block time will be on Friday. This will allow us to go through the whole scientific method process completely - from hypothesis to conclusion - with time to discuss results as well. I am so looking forward to having the time for the students to reflect over the process and discuss what they have learned with each other. I will start the week with content - note taking, diagrams, basic understanding of concepts and end the week with labs (fingers crossed!!) Wednesdays will be our mass day, which will reduce our face to face time to 30 minutes BUT I will be able to meet with all my classes. I am hoping to keep Wednesday for review and/or quizzes. 


I am really looking forward to a great, productive year. If you have any questions or concerns, please email me here at school. My address is mcclurem@stjoes.com


Link to signing up your student for MOSS 2024

Here is the slide deck from the Back to School night (MOSS presentation)

Here is the link to the list of what to bring for winter/spring in McCall

Here is the link to the health forms

 




Daily Assignments 

6th Grade Science

My Google classroom links are here...

All communication to students will be found there.