6th Grade Newsletter
Autrey Mill Lions
February 26, 2018 to March 9, 2018
Help support the new AMMS Virtual Reality Lab by donating USED iPhones!
Imagine exploring the Eiffel Tower right from your very own desk in French class or experience walking on the moon in your science class. Virtual Reality allows students to explore far off places without ever leaving the classroom.
AMMS Instructional Technology is working to build a Virtual Reality Lab to provide these experiences for all Autrey Mill students. Through your donations, you will be providing our students at AMMS with cutting edge opportunities and preparing our students for the jobs of tomorrow.
The request for Apple iPhone(s) will allow us to build the virtual lab and overcome compatibility restraints. Requesting USED iPhone 6, 6Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7, or 7Plus. Apple iOS devices are able to seamlessly work with our system at Autrey MIll. Selecting iPhones offers an optimal experience for students to hone in on the virtual experience through the use of goggles that cannot be accomplished with iPads or laptop devices.
Check out the following website for more information!
Donations may be turned in to the school front office or to Mrs. Andrea Tseng-Rioux in the media center.
Questions?? Email Mrs. Andrea Tseng-Rioux (riouxa@fultonschools.org)
Class Updates
Social Studies
Next week, we will continue our study of Latin American History by learning about the trials of slaves in Latin America and the cultural contributions made by people who were placed in slavery. We will also learn about the Mission System in Latin America and its role in spreading the Catholic religion and the Spanish and Portuguese languages. After learning about all these different influences on culture in Latin America (Ancient Civilizations, Columbian Exchange, Triangle Trade, Slavery, and Missions), students will be working to create a story book in the style of Fortunately by Remy Charlip to show their understanding of the positive and negative impacts of these influences on Latin America. Students will be working individually and will be given three class days to work on the assignment, which will count as a quiz grade and be due Monday, 3/5.
Following this project, we will look at independence in Latin America by learning about the revolutions in Haiti, Mexico, and Latin America, which were led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, Father Miguel Hidalgo, and Simon Bolivar, respectively. We will wrap the week with a review activity for the first half of Latin American History and an activity on Digital Day (3/9) where students will be able to look at the impact of NAFTA and tie it back to some of the concepts they have learned in the History unit, before we begin our study of 20th century Cuba and Modern Latin America in the following weeks.
ELA
We are beginning to wrap up our most recent unit in ELA! In the next few weeks to come, we will be focusing more on our grammar standards, including pronoun case (subjective, objective, and possessive) and intensive pronouns. We’ll also be working with a word’s implied and stated meaning, including connotative and denotative word meaning (RL4). We are also working with the persuasive writing standard (W1), and using persuasive techniques that we have learned in class to effectively convince others. Our test for this unit is scheduled for Wednesday, March 7.
Spanish
I am really impressed with the listening and reading skills 6th graders are developing. While studying for my Masters in Spanish, I learned that 50% of language proficiency comes from listening comprehension. We practice listening in class and this practice should be reinforced at home by listening to the audio book each day. At home students control replay and should make note of words or phrases they are not sure about. After listening twice they need to look up words and phrases they are still not certain about. They can use the Quizlet flashcards to check the meaning and to listen and repeat the words in Spanish several times. After getting clear on the meaning, they should listen again to the audio book until they have complete comprehension. This cycle is what is called deep practice. It is essential to developing the neurological networks that will manifest as language skills. We focus on listening, because that is the skill we are developing. Thank you for your support from home.
French:
Bonjour parents,
Please refer to Madame Blackburn’s emails and Google Classroom for the most up-to-date information.
Mathematics:
60:
We are finishing up Unit 5 on Geometry. The test is scheduled for 2/27 and will cover finding the area of triangles and regular and irregular polygons (6.G.1), identifying 3-dimensional shapes, drawing 3-dimensional nets, finding surface area of rectangular and triangular prisms (6.G.4), and finding the volume of rectangular prisms (6.G.2).
Our next unit will be Rational Explorations: Numbers and their opposites. We will be learning about positive and negative numbers and representing those numbers in real-world contexts (6.NS.5). We will learn that every positive and negative number has an opposite (ex. -3 and 3 are opposites). Students will learn about absolute value, which is the distance between a number and zero. Absolute value is always positive. (6.NS.6a) We will be ordering positive and negative numbers and placing them as points on a number line. (6.NS.6)
6A:
In 6A, we are working on our 2D Geometry unit. We will be learning how to find area and circumference of a circle (7.G.4) and finding the missing point of a polygon on a graph. The 2D Geometry test is scheduled for 3/2 and will cover angle equations(7.G.5), triangles(7.G.2), area of trapezoids(6.G.1), area of irregular figures(6.G.1), area of regular polygons (6.G.1), circles, and finding the missing point of a polygon(6.G.3)
Next, we will begin our 3D Geometry unit by naming the shapes then finding surface area of rectangular prisms, triangular prisms, rectangular pyramids and triangular pyramids (6.G.4 and 6.G.6).
7A:
We will continue to work with finding cross sections of 3D shapes (7.G.3). Then we will find surface area of rectangular prisms, triangular prisms, rectangular pyramids and triangular pyramids (7.G.6). Next, we will find volume of prisms and pyramids (7.G.6). The test is scheduled for 3/8.
Science:
Last week we finished up our look at Hydrology with a focus on severe weather. Students created fantastic Public Service Announcements about hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorms!
Next week in science we will be beginning our Astronomy unit! This unit will carry us through to Spring Break, with a mini unit about moons to follow.
This unit will focus on the universe as well as our solar system. We will cover seasons, the formation of the universe, the progression of our understanding of the universe, galaxies, gravity and inertia, and the solar system.
This unit is always high interest with students – we are very excited to get started!
Other Academic News
Mrs. Meredith, the AMMS Graduation Coach, will host organization sessions each Thursday from 8:30 through 8:55 in room G103. Any student who needs to organize notebooks, backpacks, etc. is welcome.