Today in 6A

ENGLISH: Students spent the day finalizing their writing. We've seen some enormous progress in this area and I can't wait to share. Thank you to all friends and family who took the time to read their student's work. This process really helps our 6th graders learn and understand their language. Bravo!

Today in 6A

ENGLISH: As mentioned in yesterday's post, today's class was entirely dedicated to the writing process for the students' argumentative essay. Entering class, students should have their road map completed, their pre-writing phase complete. The example provided on the assignment page and in class shows a minimum of 3 body paragraphs to be sandwiched by an introductory paragraph and a concluding paragraph. With this road map student have worked on developing their first draft. Some of our students are already editing each others' papers and this is excellent. I encourage all students to get as many eyes on their writing as they can. Please take some time to help your kids by reading their compositions. Tomorrow, students will be finalizing their last draft and submitting to the Google Classroom page for assessment.

Today in 6A & 6B

ENGLISH: Since Monday I have been explaining the format of this chapter/unit's English test, to the students. Today we began the initial work to determine our footing for this assessment. Students will be writing an argumentative essay and will be working on it for the remainder of the week, submitting after class on Friday. Please see the assignment on Google Classroom to understand the requirements, grading structure, how you might assist your student, and brainstorming resources that have been made available to all students.

MATH (8:00 class) pg 148 27-49  (9:00 class) Accelerated Math

Today in 6A & 6B

ENGLISH: Building on yesterday's lesson we explored Compound Subjects and other problems with verb-subject agreements. As a visual learner myself, I drew up 3 linear equations that should help students understand when to apply singular and plural verbs to a compound subject.

Plural Subject (PS) Singular Subject (SS)

(PS) / (SS) when joined by AND (PS) / (SS) = Plural Verb

(PS) / (SS) when joined by OR/NOR (PS) = Plural Verb

(PS) / (SS) when joined by OR/NOR (SS) = Singular Verb

The biggest trouble students seem to have is in identifying the singular and plural verb forms. This visual helps in identifying what should be used, but knowing what the plural and singular forms of specific verbs are can be confusing. The logic is often reversed from plural and singular nouns. With Nouns we add an "s" to the end to pluralize. With Verbs it is the opposite, we add "s" to the end of a singular verb. Johnny acts weird. Johnny and Suzie act weird.

MATH (8:00 class) pg 148 1-26all  (9:00 class) pg 167 1-42 Chp 3 Test Tomorrow

Today in 6A & 6B

ENGLISH: We started a new set of Grammar lessons today as we explored the agreement between subject and verb. The key to this lesson was to ensure that the subject and verb carry matching plural or singular forms. Adding complexity to this was the prepositional phrases between the subject and verb. By having students first identify the subject and and prepositional phrase, they could easily identify the verb and then the proper form of that verb.

LITERATURE: We read chapter 2 "October" of the Wednesday Wars where we saw our first person narrator and middle schooler, Holling Hoodhood, surrender his Wednesday afternoons to Mrs. Baker's chores. The cream puffs were ruined by chalk dust and the classroom rats escaped. A lot of excitement for a single 7th grader.

RELIGION: We observed the last two presentations from our work before Thanksgiving in connection with the World Food Programme.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Students used partner reading to review the section we read the week prior to Thanksgiving. They were assigned questions 1-7 on page 175. If this was not completed in class it is homework.

MATH (8:00 class) pg 143 1-27  (9:00 class) WS 3-6 & 3-7 Chp 3 Test Wed