Mrs. V's Blog |
Mrs. V's Blog |
Today was such a fun day! Please check out the photos of our TA kids, and of some of the 7/8 TA's that walked through. The hats and costumes were creative and a lot of fun. Have a great weekend with your families!
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It was great to see so many of you yesterday, at parent-teacher-student conferences. It's nice to be able to sit down face-to-face and to be able to talk about all the great things your kids are accomplishing here in the sixth grade, especially when your child is present! We don't always get a chance to hear great things about our own children, so it's nice to be able to sit down with them and share those things with all parties involved. This week, as some of you know, we devoted Thursday morning to another team building activity. This was an activity that continued the work of the Northern Lights trip. We were working on building communication, team work, and grit. The activity was called "River Crossing." Students had to go from one end of my room, all the way to the other end of Mrs. Allen's room (we moved the dividers). They had small squares to use as "stepping stones." And they had to follow the rules below, if they broke any rules they had to start the whole trip over again: 1. They could not touch the floor (aka river!). 2. They had to remain in contact with their teammates the entire time (holding a hand, shirt etc). 3. They had to remain in contact with the stepping stones. If stepping stones were not being touched by a teammate, they lost the stones! 4. Everyone had to make it across the river. There was quite a bit of frustration during this activity. The competitive side of things started to amp up, and kids were more concerned with how well Mrs. Allen's TA was doing, and that they were "beating us." While this was not a race, it still seemed to be the kids focus. Once they got over that, and started focusing on our team, things started going well. We did have to restart quite a few times, but on about the 8th attempt to make it across the river (after about 1.5 hours of trying!) we made it successfully across. I heard positive talk, encouragement, and saw them work through a lot of frustration. It was great to see, and they should be proud of their accomplishment of making it successfully across. Reminders:** End of the quarter is Friday, October 30th.
** If students want to hand in a low scoring assignment for a redo, they should be corrected by the beginning of next week! (HINT HINT!) **Please check the parent portal at least once a week! **Friday, October 30th is Crazy Hat/Wig day in 5th/6th grade! I don't know how it's possible, but the end of the quarter is already two weeks away (October 30th!). That is crazy! It's hard to believe we've been at this for almost 9 weeks.
This week flew by because it was so short. But, in ELA we did do a lot! We started narrative writing. We started talking about how in order to write a powerful personal narrative (true story about yourself!) you must hook the reader in, focus on a small important moment in time, and describe it in deep detail. We then talked about how we can generate ideas for these stories. Students brainstormed a list about times where they have learned a valuable life lesson, They also made a list of "Firsts & Lasts." Some examples of "firsts" included "First time I scored a goal, first time I got my own pet, first time I saw my kitty ... etc" Some examples of Lasts included "Last time I saw my grandmother, last time I played soccer, the last time I saw my dog." All of these little moments in their lives could potentially be shaped into a really great narrative. On Monday, we will spend most of the class time writing and drafting these "small moments" stories. Talk with your students, help them remember the details of these important moments. The more they talk about it, the easier it is for them to write about it! I hope you all have a great week. I'll see you at conferences on Thursday! Hello everyone. It was a very busy, but very fun week! Today was Fantastic Friday and students got to play a very fun game of musical chairs. The winner of musical chairs got to then compete against the winner from Mrs. Allen's room. This morning's winner was Michael R. from our TA! Mrs. Allen's room is ready for a rematch though! Below are some reminders for the upcoming weeks. *There is no school on Monday, October 12th. *Picture day is Thursday, October 15th. *Conferences are on Thursday, October 22nd. Please sign up for conferences if you haven't already. *Grades close on October 30th, for the end of Quarter One. *Please check Infinite Campus at least once a week to view grades and to keep and eye on your child's progress. Enjoy the long weekend with your families. It looks like we are going to have beautiful weather!
I hope that your child came home excited to tell you what they did all day long. It was a fun, exciting, and challenging day, full of activities that pushed us to frustration and tested our patience. Some of the skills we worked on today were: *Communication *Teamwork *Respect *Perseverance And many many more. I would be lying if I said that every aspect of the day was all fun, smiles, and laughter. There were moments in everyone's day when they were frustrated, upset, or needed to walk a way for a minute. There were moments that they were proud, excited, and happy. There was a lot of success and there were definitely failures. So you may be asking, why do we do something that pushes kids to the point of frustration. Why do we want them doing activities that will make them upset? We do this so they will learn. They will work on their grit. They will persevere. They will work through a problem and try to find a solution. It challenges their brain and their will to work. It makes them better teammates, classmates, and members of our collective community. We hope that they will learn from these failures, these successes, and carry them over into our daily activities, classwork, and routines. Today I was proud of the students. They worked hard, listened to each other and found a lot of success using their teamwork skills. They should be proud of their hard work. I hope that even though they did feel frustrated and upset at times, that they learned from it, and they are ready to continue our work on these very important life skills! Please enjoy the very LONG slideshow that showcases photos from throughout the day. |
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