Today in 6A!

ENGLISH: For class, students worked on rewriting their essays that they have worked on all week. This should be submitted today. If it has not been submitted it is homework.

SOCIAL STUDIES: I did have a nice craft planned for our students today but it appears as though a number of things went wrong. Foremost of all, my instructions were a tad flawed, in the sense that the Mezuzahs we were making would end up looking more like a cubic box rather than the square prism that I had hoped. This has been adjusted and future iterations of this craft will be vastly improved. This experience has highlighted the problem-solving abilities, or lack there of, for the large majority of our class. Which also gives me food for thought. Onward and upward.

Happy St. Patrick's Day this weekend to all!

Today in 6A & 6B

RELIGION: In class we examined the Act of Contrition. We took the prayer itself, used during reconciliation, and unpacked the language used and why we say what we say in that prayer. We drew connections to our own lives and that helped students understand how and why we address God in the way we do for this prayer.

ENGLISH: Day two in examining our own writing. Students were tasked with peer editing through multiple passes, each time looking for a specific feature and providing suggestions on how to improve the problems identified. The biggest trouble most students are having is in applying good concluding sentences to their paragraphs. These can be employed in one of two ways; either to wrap up the current paragraph (most common), or to lead into the next paragraph. Both are acceptable but students need to try to use at least one each paragraph.

LITERATURE: As The Egypt Game progresses, the newest members of the gang become more and more involved and interested in the game. Ken and Toby have ideas of their own and appear to be trying to steer the game off course. Trouble finds them as they begin acting as "oracles" to each other.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Our lesson helps us to understand the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews. We do this by examining the different sacred scriptures and what their purpose is, as well as the role of the Rabbi in this process. These texts are the foundation of their belief in "ethical thinking" which has had an enormous impact on the values of the entire world (basic human rights, definitions for atrocities like genocide, etc.). Homework for this section is on page 142 #1-7.

MATH (8:00 class) pg 298 11-29  (9:00 class) pg 343 1-25

Today in 6A & 6B

ENGLISH: For this week's writing composition, students have a hard copy of their writing composition from last week. Today they identified the structure of their writing, which forces them to examine how they wrote this piece. I consistently stress a robust pre-writing phase to help students road map their writing prior to drafting. This exercise helps to identify why that is a strong process. Similarly, it forces students to examine their writing for what is missing or not sully develop[ed, thus training their eye on how to better examine theirs and others' work.

RELIGION: In our lesson we spoke about the ways in which we can and do prepare for the coming of Jesus' resurrection. How is it that we can open the doors and windows of our soul to let the sun and fresh air in, rejuvenating our spirits. This leads us to our topic of reconciliation. I would love to take our class over to the church to take part in this sacrament but understand that this might not be received by all students and families in the same spirit that it is offered, so Fr. Daniel has agreed to come to our class on Friday and speak to the 6th grade about reconciliation and why it is a beautiful and essential part of our faith and spiritual health.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Building on yesterday's lesson about the Ancient Hebrews, their movement from Mesopotamia into Egypt and then their exile from Egypt, we examined chapters 7-11 in Exodus and the role that the 10 plagues played in this event, their symbolic nature, and the connections to what we learned about in our Ancient Egypt unit. I showed clips of the 1956 Bible epic The Ten Commandments that the scripture details, to give students a visual representation of this action.

MATH (8:00 class) pg 298 1-10  (9:00 class) pg 338 1-31

SCIENCE  Pg 203 1-5

Today in 6A & 6B

ENGLISH: After some flash cards, we completed three exercises on Sadlier, all of which are exactly the same format as previous lessons/exercises as each week: Vocabulary in Context, Passage-based Reading, Improving Sentences. With the remaining time in class we played Scrabble.

LITERATURE: Today our Egypt gang in "The Egypt Game" has grown by two. Two classmates of April and Melanie, Ken and Toby, have expressed some interest in participating in the Egypt game. It was after their joining that the members all chose Egyptian names for themselves and a hieroglyphic representation of that name so that they can communicate in secret. This moment, of children choosing names for themselves, is an important moment to examine action and what a specific name, chosen by that same individual, might say about that person's personality and values, particularly about what that choice says about how they see themselves.

RELIGION: Continuing with our examination of Lent we dissected the phrase, "Lent is the Springtime of the Soul" and what that means. Our students made strong comparisons to what things occur during Spring, particularly when it comes to cleaning and to new life. These are powerful analogies to focus on when we seek to understand the purpose of Lent.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Our lesson today was an introduction to our new chapter on the Ancient Hebrews. This unit comes at a very opportune time for us since as we conclude this chapter, we will be visiting a Synagogue for a Seder that celebrates Passover. Our lesson today addressed Passover as well as the foundations of the Hebrew faith, which are our own Christian foundations as well. Homework for tonight is on p.137 #1-7

MATH (8:00 class) pgs 293-294 1-42  (9:00 class) Accelerated Math

Today in 6A & 6B

RELIGION: As we have now finished Family Life for this year, we return to our Christ Our Life texts and the special lesson on Lent.Today we spoke in short about Ash Wednesday, which was last week, and why we use ashes to signify our repentance.

ENGLISH: Today marks the beginning of our Vocabulary week. In the interest of maintaining some of the patterns set at the start of the year, we will continue until the end of unit 15 for vocabulary, testing every 2 weeks. While we will not be having grammar lessons, students will now have more time to examine texts and write thorough analyses of said texts. Next week we will examine a piece of poetry and determine the subtle, and not so subtle, meanings.

LITERATURE: As we see our "gang" of wanna-be Egyptians, they are adjusting to life after a local child was murdered and are unable to play independently outside. On Halloween these youngsters finally find an opportunity to return to "Egypt" and a mysterious figure crashes the party.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Students wrote their Ancient Egypt test today. Those students who were absent will make up the test on their return to class.

MATH (8:00 class)  Accelerated Math (9:00 class) pgs 328-330 1-43  Chp 6 Test tomorrow

SCIENCE chp 6 Test Tomorrow