6th Grade Language Arts – Mrs. Dear & Mrs. Edgerton

Hi There,

We hope that you are all enjoying your Spring Break! 

This is just a friendly reminder that you should be working on your 60 minutes of Moby Max this week. Make sure to complete it by Sunday night, April 7th, 2019.

https://clever.com/in/dearborn/teacher/applications?skip=1

 

See everyone on Monday!

Mrs. Edgerton & Mrs. Dear

Wow! I cannot believe it is February already. Where does time go?

Last week was such a strange week being off for three days because of the cold/snow days.  Since we missed out on some of our testing days, we will be continuing them this week.

Monday we will be taking the Science NWEA and Tuesday, we will take the Language Arts portion, which tests the student’s knowledge of vocabulary.

In addition to that, we will be wrapping up the play we read in class called, “The Prince and the Pauper.”  We will be watching the movie version  this week and writing our final compare and contrast papers on the two versions, the play to the movie.

Upcoming dates to remember

February 6th – Late Start 

February 14th – Half day for students

February 15-18 students and teachers are off school

****** Please ask your child to share their scores from the NWEA  for the subjects they took last week for math and reading, their winter score should be written in their planners along with their fall scores so you can see if they made an improvement. a good majority of the students did improve.

 

Mrs. Dear and Mrs. Edgerton

Last week, we read two Cinderella stories, one was a version from China called “Yeh-Shen,”
and the other was told by an Ojibwa tribe called “Sootface.” We learned how to compare and contrast two stories we looked at the settings, characters, and the thesis. We started working on a five paragraph comparing and contrasting essay. Most of the students finished their rough drafts, so they just need to type it on the document that we put on Google Classroom. It will be due on Monday at midnight.

This week, we started reading a drama called, “The Prince and the Pauper.”   We will finish the story next week or so.

Upcoming Schedule

Monday, January 21st, 2019 – All students are off

Tuesday and Wednesday, the 24th & 25th, 2019- all students have a half day. 

Tuesday – Friday – January 28-Feb. 1st,  – Students will be taking all areas of the NWEA testing for Winter and the last one will be in the Spring. The kids all set goals on how they will raise their scores.

Students should be working on Moby Max each night for 15-20 minutes to help raise their scores.

 

Have a nice long weekend.

Mrs. Dear and Mrs. Edgerton

We hope that all of you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Enjoy your time off with your family and friends.

Remember though that you must complete 90 minutes of Moby Max while you are off so that you can be ready for NWEA testing when you come back. Please try to do 15-20 minutes every other day, do not try to do all of it at once.

Here are the instructions to log in from home.

Over break  you will be responsible for completing 90 minutes on Moby Max. You will be graded on it too!

This will help with raise your NWEA test score if you complete all 90 minutes (try for 15 minutes every other day).

Steps to sign in to Moby Max.

1. Log on to the computer with your student I.D.
2. Next, go to the Dearborn Public School website.
3. Then, to to the Resources tab and use the pull down the tab for students.
4. After that, scroll down to the blue box that says Clever and click on it.
5. Finally, click on the green whale box that says, Moby Max.

Areas you can work on

Vocabulary, Reading Skills Literature, Reading Skills Informational, Foundational Reading

Have safe and fun break everyone.

Mrs. Dear and Mrs. Edgerton

 

Last week, we finished up writing our argumentative essays on Mr. S., a man who had an extraordinary memory. The week prior, the students were supposed to finished up  their argumentative essays on pets. There are still a lot of the students who have not turned them in yet.

This coming up week, our last week before Christmas break, we will be reading two different folktales, which are different versions of Cinderella stories, one from China and one from the Ojibway tribe. We will be comparing and contrasting the stories and the characters too. 

*******

Please note:  During break, there will be an assignment for a grade. The students will be required to complete at 90 mins.  on Moby Max practicing reading passages and answering questions and also practicing vocabulary. This will help prepare us for the NWEA winter test we will take. 

We would like to wish all our Smith students and families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Enjoy your time with your family and make lots of memories.

Mrs. Dear & Mrs. Edgerton

Last week, the students learned how to cite evidence from a text and also  to give reasoning for it We also started writing an argumentative essay learning how to make a claim or take a stand on a topic making sure to give evidence and reasoning to support our claim, which is a CER (Claim, Evidence Reasoning). We also learned what strong evidence looks like as opposed to weak evidence which is more like an opinion.

This coming up week, the students will wrap up their argumentative essays, edit with a peer , and finally type it up in Google Classroom, which will be due by Friday. Later in the week, we will be learning about the theme of the story and how an author uses their character’s action to determine the theme.  We will be reading a story called “The Jacket” by Gary Soto, to help us learn about theme.

Make sure your student is reading their good fit books every night for 20-30 minutes because after Christmas break, we will be taking the NWEA again. They have all set goals to make improvements on their  scores and reading will definitely help raise their scores. 

Mrs. Dear & Mrs. Edgerton

 

On Tuesday, November 20th, 2018, we will be showing a 26 minute documentary made by the Detroit zoo that is rated PG. We sent home a permission slip on Friday and asked the students to have them signed by Monday in order to watch it on Tuesday. The movie is about animals who are exploited and goes along with the topic we are exploring about whether wild animals should be kept in captivity or as pets.

I have attached a copy of the permission slip in case your child forget the one that was passed out.

See link below on the right hand side to bring up a copy of the permission slip.

 

We truly enjoyed meeting all of the parents who came to parent-teacher conferences last week. Thank you!

Several parents asked about homework in our class, but we explained that since we have the block schedule, we usually finish what we need to during class time, however, any unfinished work would definitely become homework.  However, Mrs. Edgerton and I explained that the students should be reading every night for 20-30 minutes.  Also, the students can go on to a website called Newsela. com and login through Google Classroom to access it through their Google email from school. This website is amazing there are thousands of articles with just about every topic you can think of. There is also a comprehension quiz for every article to practice which is  similar to the NWEA. Lastly, you can change the reading level of the article to make it easier to read or more challenging too.

The last two weeks, we have been learning about argumentative writing developing our knowledge on how to take a stand on a certain topic to make a claim including three reasons which then becomes our thesis in our argumentative essays that we will be writing. We have also learned the elements that are needed  to write an introductory paragraph and a conclusion. 

Looking ahead after Thanksgiving break, the students will be writing an argumentative essay of their own.

We wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving with your family and enjoy your time off. 

Mrs. Dear & Mrs. Edgerton & Mr. Kisskalt too

 

Last week, the students finished their personal narrative  essays focusing on one small moment in their lives where they learned something. Then, we switched gears learning about argumentative writing with the parts of it, claim, evidence and reasoning or CER. We also started learning how to take a Stand on an issue. We ended the week  and the first marking on Friday, Nov. 2nd. 

This coming up week, we do not have school on November 6th because it’s election Day. The rest of the week, we will continue learning about CER learning to better understand each part of it. 

 

The following week, will be Parent-Teacher Conferences on Monday, Nov. 12th, and Wednesday, Nov, 14th, 2018 from 4-7:00 p.m. We hope to see all of our students parents. Report cards will be handed out to the patents on those nights.

 

Please make sure you are checking your child’s Student Connect to make sure they are keeping up on their assignments and encourage them to do so as well. Please email us if you have any questions regarding your child.

Mrs. Dear and Mrs. Edgerton

dearl@dearbornschools.org

edgertd@dearbornschools.org

This week was another great week of learning. Our students learned about the three points of view that an author uses when they write a fictional story. Then we started learning how author’s use figurative language to add pizzazz to their stories,  and finally, we looked for examples of  similes with the story we read in class called, “Eleven” In addition, we found a lot of similes, personification, alliteration, and even hyperbole too using a strategy called guided highlighting. We ended off the week using our metacognition to understand the meanings of similes and made a list of ideas of personal experiences that we can write about getting ready for the personal narratives that we will start beginning to write next week.

We are looking forward to going with our 6th graders to Blakes Apple Orchard on Tuesday.  Our 7th and 8th grader Web leaders will be taking the lead of making sure our 6th graders have a good time. The teachers are looking forward to it.

We will begin writing our narrative essays next week. 

On Wednesday, October 24th, we will have a quiz on POV, Plot and story elements. 

Here is the Study Guide, although each student received one in class already,

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uXm5Mx_1jeUz3G4AQY2a2eIlRgNiWtpyIlfZMVHj4Uc/edit

Nov. 2nd Card Marking 1 ends

Nov. 6th, No School for students, teachers have PD

Nov. 12th and 14th – Parent Teachers Conferences 6-7:30 p.m.

Nov. 21st – 23rd No school for teachers and students

Nov. 26 School reopens for everyone