Homework:

• Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
• Due Tuesday, December 17th: Complete "Conquer Verb-Tense Consistency" worksheet.

Homework:

• Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
• Due Thursday, December 12th: Complete "Practice 3: Chunking to Imitate" on page 7 of your Learning Sentence Imitating worksheet.

Homework:

• Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
• Due Thursday, December 6th: What is carbon dating? Special prize if you can answer the question.
• Due Friday, December 7th: Write a mystery entitled "Who Killed Otzi, the Iceman?" Make sure you use facts from the video we watched and the book Frozen Man by David Getz.

Homework:

• Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
• Due Wednesday, November 14th: Read Chapters 5-7 of Maroo of the Winter Caves
• Due Wednesday, November 14th: Complete Wordly Wise lessons 2A, 2B, 2C, and 2D

Homework:

• Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
• Due Thursday (rescheduled from today), November 8th: Read Maroo of the Winter Caves, Chapters 1-4. Please complete the reading journal assignments.
• Due Wednesday, November 14th: Complete Wordly Wise lessons 2A, 2B, 2C, and 2D

Maroo of The Winter Caves

Homework:

• Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
• Due Wednesday, November 7th: Read Maroo of the Winter Caves, Chapters 1-4. Please complete the reading journal assignments.

Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
Due Tuesday, October 30th: Finish assignment on page 6 of Daily Reading Record and Journal worksheet if you did not finish it in class.
Due Wednesday, October 31st: Review Lesson One vocabulary words. 

READING ASSESSMENTS continued

After a couple of days out with a cold I returned to work today and heard from Stephanie that the sixth graders had been great, focused, Humanities students while I was out. They continued working on the first drafts of their Wants & Needs Project presentations, giving each other positive feedback and asking helpful questions.

MaryBeth and I will continue doing reading assessments of the sixth graders during tomorrow's Writing Workshop class, and in the afternoon we will try to finish the first round of presentations.

Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes

READING ASSESSMENTS

This morning learning specialist MaryBeth and I began doing reading assessments of the sixth graders. During Writing Workshop, while the rest of the class worked on their writing, individual students took their assessments. 

In the afternoon we began our first look at Wants & Needs Project presentations. The rubric for the presentations was similar to the rubric used for the stories.

1. Presentation is incomplete, and does not properly categorize specific basic wants and needs.
2. Presentation is incomplete, but does properly categorize some specific wants and needs.
3. Presentation is complete, and properly categorizes some specific wants and needs.
4. Presentation is complete, and properly categorizes specific wants and needs.
5. Presentation is complete, properly categorizes specific wants and needs, and has additional information.

Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes

STORIES ARE IN

The sixth graders turned in the first drafts of their stories based on their Wants & Needs Project. The stories will be assessed according to the following rubric:

1. Story is incomplete, and does not properly categorize specific basic wants and needs.
2. Story is incomplete, but does properly categorize some specific wants and needs.
3. Story is complete, and properly categorizes some specific wants and needs.
4. Story is complete, and properly categorizes specific wants and needs.
5. Story is complete, properly categorizes specific wants and needs, and has additional information.

On Wednesday the students will perform the first draft of their presentations for their classmates.

Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes

WORDLY WISE 3000: Book 6

In lieu of their Writing Workshop class today the sixth graders were introduced to the vocabulary workbook, WORDLY WISE 3000: Book 6. We spent the class working on the first couple of exercises in lesson one. Lesson 1C was assigned for homework.

In their afternoon Humanities class the sixth graders continued working on their Wants & Needs Project.

Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
Due Wednesday, October 10: WORDLY WISE 3000; Finish exercise 1B & complete exercise 1C.

Long Weekend

The sixth graders continued working on their Wants & Needs Project today

Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes

Space Ship Kidnapping

The sixth graders started a project today that is intended to clarify their understanding of the difference between wants and needs, and cement their grasp of fundamental human needs. The description of the assignment is below:

Wants & Needs Project: Part 2

You can perform this exercise individually, or in pairs.

Imagine that an alien spaceship flew through the atmosphere of the planet and kidnapped everyone in the world except your family. The ship will return in 10 years and bring everyone back. Nothing else was affected at all, so all of the buildings, animals and plants are still alive.

Write a story about how your family would survive until everyone returns that answers the following questions:
·   How will you and your family find food and water?
·   Where will you live?
·   How will you prepare food?
·   How will you heat or cool their homes?
·   How will you survive the winter?
·   What happens if someone gets sick or injured?
·   What happens if there is an earthquake?

Students will read their stories, or create a presentation for the class to present their ideas and solutions.

The sixth graders received a handout of their assignment, called Wants & Needs ll. They will work on the project in class, but can work at home if the want to. The first deadline is at the end of class on Wednesday, October 3rd., when the students should have answered the main questions in their notebooks.


Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes

Wants & Needs Presentations

Today was the final presentation of the sixth graders Want's and Needs Project.

Meeting fundamental needs on K-2

 In groups ranging in size from one to four the students presented their ideas on how the basic human fundamental needs of air, water, food, warmth, and shelter would be met int environments they had chosen. During the presentation there was a lively class discussion on whether education and hospitals should be categorized as fundamental needs, needs, or wants. One of the students stated that this sounded like the kinds of things, "Republicans and Democrats are talking about."

Learning specialist MaryBeth Ventura, who was visiting the class, pointed out that there was also a national debate on this very issue.


Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
Due Friday, September 28th: Reading Response Letter.

Wants & Needs Group Project II

Today in class we finished up our Wants and Needs project. The next step is to present the project to each other. We ended the class today by creating the first draft of a rubric with which we can assess this project. After brainstorming together, below are the criteria the  class came up with:

• how well we worked together
• positive communication
• volume during classwork
• does the poster make sense
• presentation

In tomorrow's class we plan to present our projects to each other.


Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
Due Friday, September 28th: Reading Response Letter.

Community Agreements

One of our focuses this year in Wildcat Humanities will be looking at early societies and their journey towards becoming civilizations. In our exploration of early humans and ancient civilizations we will learn about the various ways that communities came up with rules, laws and agreements.

Sixth Graders working on community agreements.

In keeping with this theme, The Berkeley School sixth, seventh, and eighth graders are in the process of creating their own community agreements which will be used to guide the Middle School's values throughout the year. 

In Humanities class today the sixth graders worked in their table groups of four to five students to create three community agreements. When each group had finished, they joined with another group to synthesize their ideas and create another three agreements. This continued until a final three agreements was agreed upon. The student worked hard to collaborate and come up with a consensus.

Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
Due Thursday, September 20th: Reading Response Letter.

Wants & Needs

Today we continued our work on our Wants & Needs Project.  Last week we established that the basic needs of humans were air, food, water, clothing, and shelter. Working in small groups today, the students chose an environment that did not have any air, and then began working on their assignment, to design a method of living in that environment for one year.

Homework:
Due every day: Reading for 30 minutes
Due Thursday, September 20th: Reading Response Letter.

And We Are Off!

After the first week of the 2012/13 school year, I have been really impressed by how all of you sixth graders have dived headfirst into the beginning of the school year.

We have already thought about what a writing workshop looks, sounds, and feels like. We have used the I See, I Think, I Wonder, thinking routine to discuss the Ronald Wallace poem, "You Can't Write A Poem About McDonalds." Finally you have all attempted your own 1st drafts of a poem. 

I am impressed by how immersed in reading you all seem to be during our Silent Sustained Reading periods.

I will be using this blog about the 2012/13 Wildcat Humanities class to reflect, discuss, and share some of what we do throughout the year. I hope this helps all of you to do some of your own reflecting, as well as giving your families an opportunity to see what we are doing in class.

I will also use this space to post homework, and class handouts.