Schoology

All students were assigned a Schoology Reading Response that was due today (Monday, Sept. 29). This assignment was assigned on Wednesday, September 24th to allow students enough time to complete the assignment or touch base with  me.  If you received a Class Dojo notification that your student was "missing homework" or if you receive an Infinite Campus notification that your child is missing homework this week, this is the assignment to which its referring.

Students are responsible for the keeping of their login and password information and were asked to check that they were able to log in without problems BEFORE the weekend to ensure that they could accurately login, knew their password was correct and/or anticipate any internet concerns (example: no computer, internet issues, etc).  I reminded them that they could attend lunch help sessions or study sessions before school if arrangements were made between us.  

Thank you for taking the time to discuss the importance of your child assuming responsibility for their time management and ability to complete assignments online. Please support me in reminding them that they should keep their logins and passwords in a safe place so that they can complete assignments, and that if situations arise where they need assistance, they should plan ahead so they can still complete homework on time. 

Test Your Brain!

We watched the first 15 minutes of this video in class yesterday to remind ourselves what perception is and how we can tie it to our novels. Students had a lot of amazing analysis and discussion after seeing the first part of this video. I promised I'd put the whole video up in case students wanted to finish watching it. Enjoy!


National Geographic: Test Your Brain Episode 2... by procrastinator87

Learning Goes Beyond Four Walls

Making connections to our characters/events in the text and tracking our thinking in our journal, will help tie everything back to our concept of perception.  I am so proud of the hard work and deep thinking I have already begun to see.  Students are REALLY excited about our concept, our read aloud Wonder and their own mentor text.  

I encourage students to bring in any ideas, texts, articles or other examples of the idea of perception, misconception, unfair judgement or being misunderstood.  

In-Class Novels (Mentor Texts)

Unit 2:  Authors as Mentors and our overarching concept of perception is under way! This week we started our read aloud Wonder.  Everyone is LOVING this text and are working together to make excellent connections to August and his struggles, all while tying everything back to our overarching concept of perception. Ask your kids about this book, it's a great read! 

Students also began their own novel in class that they will be reading during the unit. We are working together to build reading stamina while interacting with the text.  

Mentor Texts (selected by students--to be read in class)

Students are welcome to get a copy of the text to read at home to keep up with reading in class if necessary.  

• Freak the Mighty By Rodman Philbrick
• All About Sam by Sam Krupnik
• The Truth About Truman School by Dori Hillestad Butler
• Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements
• Define Normal by Julie Anne Peters
• The Loser List by H.N. Kowitt
• Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Honors students were given the choice to select one of the above books or select a book on their own, as long as they could tell me how it relates to our overarching concept of perception. 

Unit 2 Begins

Please check the What Are We Studying? tab for information on Unit 2: Authors as Mentors. Our work with Unit 2 begins tomorrow, Sept. 16 and runs through October 31.

Theme

Students are studying how to find theme, and more importantly, selecting relevant evidence from the text to back up their ideas about theme! Students will be assessed on theme on Friday, Sept. 12 and Monday, Sept. 15. You can find the rubric for these assessments here.

Ask your child about working on Table Talks today; we read a short story and then wrote our ideas about its main idea and theme down on large sheets of butcher paper at our tables. This is a great way to collaboratively interact with a text while each student is still responsible for their own thinking.

Close Reading

We completed our MAPS testing today and are getting into the groove of Readers/Writers Workshop. This week we worked on a technique of reading called Close Reading using nonfiction articles. By looking at the text multiple times for different purposes, we are able to notice new details we hadn't noticed before, pull out the main idea, and discover evidence to back up our thinking.

Students have been told that this is an important skill since finding text evidence to support ideas is the crux of our standards in sixth grade. We require evidence for EVERYTHING. This is important practice for a skill they will continually be asked to demonstrate.

Ask your child about what they learned while reading "Dogs on Duty" or "Hard Knocks." Both articles were very enjoyable to read!

Homework this week was simply reading every night. I hope your children are all into a novel of their choice right now. Scholastic flyers went home today. If you'd like a cheap way to get a book for your child, Scholastic is the way to go. Return orders to me or order online by Wednesday, Sept. 10. Our classroom code for online orders is HYGYZ.