Crain's Nest

EOYEOYEOYEOYEOYEOYEOYEOYEOYEOYEOYEOYEOY

Before you go thinking that the title of this blog has to do with Eeyore braying in the woods- just understand that teachers (correction: ALL teachers) know that this means END OF YEAR.

Or as I have told the kids- TTD:  Things to Do

Before I talk about assignments, let me take this opportunity to say how much I've enjoyed my second year in 6th grade.  Of course, I had my own first year in about 1968,  but 2007-08 has been extremely fun, satisfying, and eye-opening.  I had no idea of the amount of growth that could happen in this school year, and I am honored and thankful to have been here at Simpson.  Working side by side with such knowledgeable and caring teachers, meeting and learning about your great kids, and getting to know you parents has been a boon to me.  Thanks again for your conscientious and compassionate assistance throughout this year, and best of luck to you all in 7th grade.  They are a great set of teachers and professionals up there, too!

Today (Monday) and tomorrow we will be finishing our projects and sharing them in class.  From what I understand from the Mrs Schmidt (sub) and Mrs McQuinor (para), some students thought that when I was out on Friday it was a play day.  Unfortunately, that is not true. I heard that everbody did well on the test that I left; I knew you would after drilling you verbally on Wednesday.   For the students who only have a few pictures here and there on their posters or powerpoints, let this remind you to look at your instructions or rubric.

You need to have WRITING on the POSTER that ILLUSTRATES the THEME that YOU chose. Students that get my "OK" will be working ahead on short fun assignments or peer tutoring ---- that I will grade as extra credit.

This is a WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY to raise your grade with this final activity. Since our letter writing website did not work as well as we thought it would, we will create a letter to the author as a whole group on Thursday.

If you have an questions about the project please email me as soon as possible.  Peace, Mrs. Crain

Middle of the Dust

I sat down with all the LA students yesterday (amidst the fire drill) and looked at their individual plans for their story map for OUT OF THE DUST.

These will be tentatively due on Monday May 19th- and we may have some time to work on them in class.  I have quite a bit of art stuff leftover from previous years that we can use on posters, however I will give a little extra credit to those students who create theirs on the computer (showing their technology skills).

I expect quite a bit more from this project than I have received from some earlier in the year.  Students need to come to me with any specific questions/concerns as soon as possible.  DO NOT WAIT until the Friday before the story map is DUE please!!!!!!  This is a great opportunity to bring up some grades here at the end of the year. Students have been told to use vocabulary from the book and images that reflect/pictures the story as well.

Our last writing assignment will be a letter to the author of the book, which we will do in class.

April 28-May 2

Today we will start our unit on Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse.  I will split the class in half and let each group research one of two topics on the internet (topics are - the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl).  Tomorrow they will share the info they found, and then Wed they will receive some info on the author .

For their final product, students will need to pick a strand (Character, Setting, Conflict) to base their final product and their letter on.  They can either do an artistic rendering of a STORY graphic organizer on a poster or the computer (Inspirations)  or they can choose to create a power point for their topic.

This assignment will have some small grades attached to it, however the final product will be the largest part of their grade for the rest of this nine weeks.  Please let me know if you have any questions. 

We will have our CRCT celebration on Wednesday as I will be out at a workshop. 

Last Unit

Hellooooooo, we are now moving towards the last unit for this year in Language Arts.  We will be starting the book entitled Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse, which is a short book written like poetry, but tells a compelling story as well.  If anybody has this book, I would appreciate it if you'd bring it to class to use, as I do not have enough copies for everybody to have one.

I have created a rubric for all of the activities associated with the novel, and students will write down when each component is due so there will be little question about issues like that.  Each day there will be pre-reading questions and answers that students may have classtime to complete.  In addition, students will be required to write a letter to the author when we get towards the end of the book.  They will also create either a powerpoint illustrating one main concept (setting, conflict, characters) or they will make a poster using cut out pictures or drawings. I think it is important for students to know these things in advance, so they have more time to think about their ideas and somewhat plan ahead.  Check back later for more info.

BY THE WAY, THEY HAVE BEEN DOING GREAT SO FAR ON THE CRCT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yehaaa!  Time for CRCT's!!!  I'm excited, how about you???  PLEASE  PLEASE   PLEASE make sure you get plenty of SLEEP (I could take a nap right now....zzzzzzz) and ou eat a good breakfast- tell your mom you want WAFFLES with MY favorite topping, peanut butter and syrup....Yum, yum! Boys and Girls, please take your time with these and remember all the TOOLS we have given you this year so far.  They will serve you well IF you use them.  And don't be the first one through when you are testing---that is NOT a good sign......

In my 6th period LA this week we will be doing centers (as we did today) to practice specific parts of speech.  Later on we will start on our novel study- Out of the Dust.  If anybody has a copy of this book please let me know and bring it as well.  Thanks!

Happy Monday- Glad to see (almost) everybody back from Spring Break-  Only 28 more days to go, but who's counting???? In my 6th period class we are focusing on preparing for the big bad CRCT's........ I say that jokingly, as I have put forth a challenge to my small group LA students.  This is what I told them, "If you do better on your LA CRCT score this year than you did last year, you can have a post-test celebration one day in 6th period"

I will give them their personal 'score to beat' this week in class, so they will have an idea of where they need to go.  We also spent all of the first half of class today talking about questions they had concerning the special ed continuum, the meaning of the word aptitude (which lead to a diagram of how IQ (aptitude) and achievement are used to place learning disabled students in special ed), ADD, and coping skills.  I spoke simply and honestly to them, as I have always done, but did not go into great depth.  They seemed to appreciate having some of their burning questions answered, but in the end, I placed the onus back on them.  I told them that their success relies on their attitudes and their desire, or motivation, to do well in school.  We concluded by talking about coping skills, which some of them have already begun to use, without realizing it. We talked about how not everybody is destined to go to college, but how many of them had special programs or accomodations in place to assist them at that level.

So if your child comes home this week talking about any of these ideas, at least you will know where they came from.  And if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me.  I will return your answers as best I can within a timely manner.

In class we are going to be working on specific subskills, such as comma usage and direct quotes, two things students always need help with.  They will then work in small homogenous groups (based on skill levels) on the items that they (individually) need most, according to their CRCT practice tests.  The best thing you can do at home is talk about how to take tests and let them discuss their thoughts on the matter openly, while you reassure them that as long as they do their best, that's all that matters!

In our 4th period Study Skills class we are also working on test taking skills- and will have short quiz (Thur or Fri) on the terms we are going over in class right now.

>>>>>>>>>>> THERE IS A MISTAKE IN THE DIRECT QUOTE I GAVE ABOVE AT THE END OF THE FIRST PARAGRAPH ------ IF A STUDENT COMES TO ME ANY TIME THIS WEEK AND TELLS ME WHAT IT IS, I WILL GIVE THEM AN EXTRA 5 POINTS ON THEIR NEXT TEST/QUIZ SCORE. GOOD LUCK!!! mRS cRAIN

Two days and counting.......

We have been preparing to present our commercials  on Thursday or Friday.  Please make sure your students' poster is concise and does not contain too many words- it should look like a magazine ad or billboard. Test today over persuasive techniques - we have been talking about it daily- it is also pretty "short and sweet".

The rest of the week when we are not working on the commerical we will be practicing daily oral language, as students need work on their editing skills.

Two days and counting.......

We have been preparing to present our commercials  on Thursday or Friday.  Please make sure your students' poster is concise and does not contain too many words- it should look like a magazine ad or billboard. Test today over persuasive techniques - we have been talking about it daily- it is also pretty "short and sweet".

The rest of the week when we are not working on the commerical we will be practicing daily oral language, as students need work on their editing skills.

We are continuing our unit on Persuasion/Propaganda this week by doing some activities in class that embrace the idea of of being 'sold to' by the use of specific persuasive techniques.  We will analyze magazine articles that I will bring to class, learn important vocabulary that relates to techniques, and culminate in a mini-project where your student will have to 'sell' a toy to adults.  Therefore, one of the things that will be needed will be some toy that your student can bring to school to use in their 'commericial'.

I will tell the class about the project tomorrow, so they can bring their toy in the next 2-3 days. They need to bring these asap, so they can begin working on their 'sales pitch'. 

We will also be viewing some clips on the computers from Discovery Learning. 

One skill that I am having difficulty with is having the students use good editing skills; we have practiced with Daily Oral Language sentences, our own work, and as a whole group using an overhead projector.  Please help by requiring them to be specific and precise in their work habits----- they need to use good capitalization, punctuation, and spelling skills everywhere, not just in language arts class! 

   

Update

Download propaganda_6th_grade.ppt

    The kids coerced me yesterday in 6th period and I conceded a HW assignment to them - the CRCT practice packet will be due on MONDAY.  No big deal either way; the only reason I gave in was because they came up with logical reasonable reasons, not excuses.  This is something that I will stress to them as we have been studying these types of interactions in LA all year.

     We are now into the Persuasion Unit, and I'm sure your student told you last nite that their HW was to WATCH TV!  While you are driving around the community, if you could point out some ads that you see daily and ask your student to explain the different types of propaganda that'd be great!

I have included the powerpoint that we watched in class on Wed so students can see it repeatedly- that would be a good study activity.

Parents if you ever have a questtion about our class or the assignments please feel free to contact me via email- my voice mail does not work here at school so email or notes in agenda are best.

We are now on the downhill slide-----but don't let them slide too far!  Have a wonderful Easter weekend!  Mrs Crain