Today in 6A!

Our day was almost entirely non-academic today. Considering that the Lenten season will be upon us this week, we found it necessary and appropriate to host a spiritual retreat for all of our students, so that we may best prepare to welcome Christ into our lives, and be Christ for others.

Students are being sent home with a small "rice box" that will serve as a donation tool for our students to focus their sacrifices during Lent. The donations will benefit Catholic Relief Services as well as the Diocese of Orange.

Today in 6A!

RELIGION: students wrote their Unit 4 Family Life quiz.

ENGLISH: Our class time for each group was used to work on our Narrative essays about a recent road trip we have taken. This is day two of this exercise and so students should have spent this class rime making use of their peers to refine their work and offer suggested edits. This assignment is due tomorrow but we will not have class time to work on it. Therefore students should submit their work this evening.

LITERATURE: This class period was also used to work on another writing assignment, also due tomorrow. I have prefaced the past week of work with benchmarks that the students should meet each day. Today's benchmark was to use the time, much like they did in English, to peer edit and refine their writing. This essay is also due tomorrow and students will not have class time to write. Tomorrow is indeed a half-day, so students may work on this after school and submit prior to 3:00 PM.
I must admit, of the essays that I have read so far, the student writing has greatly improved overall, speaking to the effort that our students are putting in on a regular basis to become better writers.

SOCIAL STUDIES: After taking up the homework, we examined the relationship between Egypt and their southern neighbors, the Nubian kingdom. Students are assigned questions 1-6 on page 110 for homework.

***Dr. O has graciously offered a free-dress day for all students tomorrow without the use of a free dress pass. Students are welcome to come to school out of uniform in proper free dress attire***

Today in 6A & 6B

ENGLISH: As promised, students received another writing assignment today. With this task, students are writing a short narrative essay about a road trip they have taken. It is a wonderful opportnity for students to make use of the grammar lessons from last week and employ some helpful transitions as well as different types of supporting details.

LITERATURE: In lieu of music class today, students were given addition time to work on their Where The Red Fern Grows essays. I unpacked a random quotation so that students could see how I might do this. Students should avoid using personal pronouns in their writing and should focus on explaining how and why the evidence supports their theme. For tomorrow's class, students should be ready to peer edit theirs and each other's work. I have also asked for students to share their writing with their families so that they can get another perspective.

RELIGION: Students reviewed the content from earlier this week to prepare for tomorrow's short quiz.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Our classroom activity today consisted of student groups presenting two sides of the same conflict. It involved them looking in to the different perspectives of the scenario and pleading their case (from both sides). The judgement was then passed down by their Pharaoh (Mr. VanRuyven).

MATH (8:00 class) WS 5-4 &5-5  (9:00 class) WS 6-6

Today in 6A & 6B

ENGLISH: After some flash cards where students identified words from their definitions, each class performed three assignments from the Sadlier website. In these assignments students were asked to derive the meaning of specific words and phrases based on the context of the written piece. From there, with the time remaining in class, students worked on their essays for Where The Red Fern Grows.

LITERATURE: Students worked on their essays for Where The Red Fern Grows. For today students should be drafting their ideas. I suggest beginning with their body paragraphs and spelling out what they would like to say. Students should avoid using personal pronouns and remove all personal references from their writing. This essay is not an opinion piece and therefore the beliefs and opinions of the writer are unimportant. Instead students should present their work as an examination of evidence and how the evidence supports their theme. They are interpreting the information without saying it is their own interpretation.

RELIGION: In today's lesson we examine how as people age they change and how those changes affect our relationships and how we experience the world. We focused on the elderly and how much our elders have to offer our community and our society.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Our lesson looked at the rule of the Pharaohs and how it was that a distant ruler was able to unite a vast area and what that necessarily looked like. In this light, we witnessed 2 pharaohs, Hatshepsut and Ramses II. One female, one male. One ruling through trade, the other through conquest. Both are significant to the story of Egypt but each are treated differently in the eyes of history. Homework for this section is on page 105 #1-7

MATH (8:00 class) pgs 262-263 1-28 all  (9:00 class) pg 308 1-31

SCIENCE  finish land form sketch due tomorrow

Today in 6A & 6B

ENGLISH: This week marks the start of another vocabulary week. We began Unit 12 iWords today, identifying associations for the given definitions. Students were also given a benchmark for where they should be with their Where the Red Fern Grows essay.

LITERATURE: This week students will be working exclusively on their Where The Red Fern Grows essays. After some light instruction on where students should be by this point, student made the most of their time together in class. For this phase of the writing process it is perfectly reasonable for students to share interpretations and ideas for themes that they share. However, beyond today this dynamic will not work as well. That said, students should take their 5 pieces of evidence and"unpack" them. This means that students should slow their brains down to answer some questions regarding WHY they interpret something a certain way. How is it that this evidence supports their theme? In what way? What are the relationships? How do you know? Answering these questions allows the writer to then establish an organization of their work that makes sense, either chronologically or logically. Students should then begin their first draft.

RELIGION: Today's conversation was about God's love for us, and how we can show that love towards others. I used an analogy that my dad used for me when I was a kid. When I was 8 we traveled to Australia for a year. Lived there. Went to school there. Made friends there. All this time I was an ambassador for my country and my family and my faith. I had to constantly ask myself, is how I am acting representative of my people? Similarly, we need to ask those same questions when we represent our faith. Do my actions show the world that I am following Jesus' example?

SOCIAL STUDIES: After our water assembly today we only had time to take up the homework from Wednesday of last week. With the remainder of class students were able to work on their cartouches from last week. This is the last period of tie students will get to work on these cartouches in school. I would like to have them for Monday, making them a tertiary priority to their writing assignments.

MATH ( 8:00 & 9:00) classes turned in their notebooks

SCIENCE pg 186 1-3