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OLD POSTS START HERE. POSTS BELOW THIS ARE FROM THE 2014/2015 SCHOOL YEAR.
Informational Text Structures
Use
Read each task card and identify the text structure used: Compare and Contrast, Description, Problem/Solution, Cause and Effect, or Order/Sequence.
Prepositions and prepositional phrases
This is a good place to start: click here for preposition wheel (simply identifying the best preposition for the sentence)
Click here to practice choosing between whether a word is a preposition or the object of the preposition.
Ready for a challenge? Click here to play "launch the teacher" and practice identifying the prepositional phrase.
After you've practiced prepositions, this website is a great review for all parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc.)
Click here to practice choosing between whether a word is a preposition or the object of the preposition.
Ready for a challenge? Click here to play "launch the teacher" and practice identifying the prepositional phrase.
After you've practiced prepositions, this website is a great review for all parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc.)
How to order children's books:
Upcoming Children's Book dates to consider:
March 10th: covers should be illustrated and colored (complete)
March 10th-March 25th-illustrating book. We'll have about 25 minutes in class each day to work on this, what isn't done at school will need to be completed at home.
March 26th-organizing all pages, prep to send in!!
March 10th-March 25th-illustrating book. We'll have about 25 minutes in class each day to work on this, what isn't done at school will need to be completed at home.
March 26th-organizing all pages, prep to send in!!
Analyzing and writing from different points of view
After learning about the various points of view, students were given an image and asked to: identify all perspectives and write in first, second, third limited, third omniscient and third objective. See their work below!
Color of My Words by Lynn Joseph
We've begun our novel study of Color of My Words as a tie-in to our poetry study! The students have been learning a bit of Spanish along the way as this story is set in the "Republica Dominica" (Dominican Republic). Tonight's reading assignment is shown below.
Check out some of our class poetry! Students were given the challenge of creating a poem based on the roll of the dice! Here's what they came up with (sorry for the sideways pictures)!
Spelling Week 13 (test 1/9)
Gift of Words
As a way to wrap up our poetry study, and celebrate Christmas as a class "family," we're going to be giving the gift of words. Here's how it goes:
1. Find a poem OR a quote that inspires you (examples of poems/quotes that inspire me can be found above and on the home page)
2. Type the poem/quote OR write it very neatly.
3. If you want to mount it on thicker paper or add an illustration that would be GREAT!
4. Wrap up your words. Put your poem/quote in a box or gift bag and wrap it like you would a gift for someone.
5. Bring it to class by Friday for our dice game!
Spelling Week 12
12/15/14 Introducing...our class representative...for Poetry Idol!
After narrowing it down from 27, our top five performed their poems again as we scored each of them on a rubric (assessing preparedness, posture, pitch, pauses, etc.). Students then used their rubric to select the ONE person who would represent our class this Thursday for the 6th Grade Poetry Idol competition. While everyone did a wonderful job with their performances, one winner was chosen...and that person is....
MEGAN GREGORY! Congratulations Megan! We're confident that you'll represent our class well :)
MEGAN GREGORY! Congratulations Megan! We're confident that you'll represent our class well :)
12/12/14 This week we began our study of poetry! We learned about the important parts of a poem, such as lines, stanzas, form, rhyme and rhythm, and how all of its parts make the poem what it is! We used this knowledge to analyze a poem by Robert Frost titled "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Check it out!
The students also got a chance to interpret the meaning of different poems. We chose another Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken," and, after hearing it read through twice, reflected individually. The next day each table group was given the poem taped to a large piece of paper and students were instructed to respond to the poem and interact with other's responses WITHOUT talking (which...let's be honest...for my little social butterflies...I thought this would be incredibly difficult). THEY BLEW ME AWAY!!! For 25 minutes they floated around their group's paper sharing insightful thoughts and unique interpretations of a high-level, well-known poem! I was so proud I hung their work for all to see in the 6th grade pod and have gotten MANY compliments from other teachers :) **Very proud teacher over here**
Mood and Tone
Lastly, to help enhance their Poetry Idol performances (more on that later), we learned about the difference between tone and mood. Tone is the emotions the author invokes into their writing. Mood is the way the reader feels when interacting with the piece of writing. To really drive it home, I showed the students the following Disney movie trailers and what would happen to our MOOD if we changed the TONE of each clip. Take a look:
Lastly, to help enhance their Poetry Idol performances (more on that later), we learned about the difference between tone and mood. Tone is the emotions the author invokes into their writing. Mood is the way the reader feels when interacting with the piece of writing. To really drive it home, I showed the students the following Disney movie trailers and what would happen to our MOOD if we changed the TONE of each clip. Take a look:
Now we change the tone...
Mary Poppins (which MANY kids haven't seen!)
I introduce to you..."Scary Mary"