September Newsletter
NDMS 6th Grade
General Announcements
-September 19-21 - Percussion Experience through classes
-September 28 - Early Release
-September 29 - Fall Pictures
Language Arts
The past few weeks Mr Brooks' language arts classes been engaged in numerous activities and methods. Students have reviewed proper nouns,punctuation, and avoiding run-on sentences. They have also jumped feet first into vocabulary working with the classroom interactive word wall.
Some dates to remember:
Newsela due every Friday (2nd period)
BiblioNasium Challenge due Friday, Sept 30th
Mrs. Dyson
Mrs. Dyson's Lang. Arts class is off to a fabulous start. All classes are reading Touching Spirit Bear. During our novel study students will be focused on various story elements and terms. Be sure to ask your child about the meaning of an author's purpose, context clues, flashbacks and plot. Students should be reading nightly for 30 minutes to help increase their fluency and endurance.
Mrs. Kerr
Mrs. Kerr's Language Arts class spent the first week of school setting up their interactive notebooks, with clock partners, an annotation sample, and 40 Book Challenge information. We are currently reading Touching Spirit Bear, which is the story of Cole, an angry young man who is isolated in the wilderness.
Math
Sixth grade mathematicians in Ms. Baldwin's math classes have been working with decimals. They have been finding ways they use decimals every day. Playing Four Square with decimals was a favorite activity in this unit!
Mrs. Lowery
Students have been reviewing decimal operations. Students will be able to fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals at the end of this unit. We have been working with everyone's favorite thing - FOOD! Students have gotten real-world practice with decimals in our "Hamburger Hut" and "Let's Go Shopping" activities. Our "Restaurant Menu" project will be assigned this month where students become the owners of their very own restaurant.
Science
Sixth grade scientists in Ms. Baldwin's science classes have been employing the scientific method to solve problems and answer questions. This week they have explored how Kepler and Newton employed the scientific method to prove their ideas about forces and motion in the universe.
Mr. Strickland
Not only have we learned about the world around us. We have gone beyond our universe. Our class has studied the scientific method and applied it to various problems and questions. Capitalizing on our individual experiences, while learning about our new classmates, has proven to be an invaluable resource while tackling theses challenges.The pursuit of discovery and understanding is awesome and fun! I am looking forward to working with all of my students and I hope to make this first year of middle school a great one.
Social Studies
Each day students work with an Atlas on reviewing, sharpening, and gaining essential map skills. We have worked with scale to measure distance and discussed the difference between a political and physical map. Students spent this week studying lines of latitude and longitude.
Our first civilization of study, Mesopotamia, is right around the corner.
Mrs. Smith
Mrs. Smith's Social Studies classes have been busy learning map skills, cardinal and intermediate directions,reviewing the Continents and Oceans and hemispheres. Students have learned how to use an atlas to locate places and determine what hemispheres they are located in. Next we will begin our study of the Five Themes of Geography which will take us into discussion about what makes a civilization and then begin our study of the first ancient civilization, Mesopotamia.