April Newsletter!

5th-6th Grade Dance - April 11th from 2-4

Professional Staff Comp Day - April 18th (no school)

April Vacation - April 21- 25th

Gulf of Maine Research Institute Field Trip May 1-2. (Permission slips are due before April Break)

Homework Haven is held every Thursday from 2:00-4:00 p.m. and a Late Bus is available.

Mrs. Bedard sarah.bedard@rsu4.org

Mrs. Collins allyson.collins@rsu4.org

Ms. Cornish madelyn.cornish@rsu4.org

Mrs. Dupee carolyn.dupee@rsu4.org

Ms. Pfeffer beth.pfeffer@rsu4.org

Mrs. Richardson jen.richardson@rsu4.org

Students have been CRUSHING IT in ELA. They have been cruising through the final parts of our punctuation unit and understanding how we pause in our writing. They proved they could use commas, and now they are working on colons and semi-colons. I'm so proud of them!

We have also been working hard to distinguish between a fact and an opinion. From there, we will work our way into reading articles online to see what is a good source vs. a not so great source.

After we get the base layers down with nonfiction, we will continue to work on creating questions, finding answers for those questions, and making sure to cite the sources that we use.

I can't wait to see what the end of the year brings. I'm always amazed by our 6th-grade kiddos!

We have finished Egypt! The students completed the final chapter of study involving Egypt by comparing and contrasting the social classes, preparing for and taking a vocabulary quiz, completing a test review, playing review games to prepare for the final assessment, and finally taking the Chapter 9 Test. PHEW! This last chapter was a ton of work, but the students learned so much!

Next, we will be jumping over to Greece! In our first chapter of study, students will be learning about the “Geography and Settlement of Ancient Greece”. We will begin with an opening activity where they will have to try to claim enough land in order to live in ancient Greece. They will learn that most Greek settlements had to send their own people away to create colonies elsewhere so they could get the resources necessary for survival. This activity is a fun way to help the students understand the concept of settlement and colonization.

In March, we transitioned from our unit on Weather to Severe Weather/ Natural Disasters. Students worked to learn about how to stay safe if exposed to different situations. They asked great questions, such as, what would you do if you were caught in a hurricane that then became a flood? Each student researched and then created a digital poster, interactive poster, or presentation on Canva. Please ask them to share their work! Topics explored were tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic explosions, earthquakes, and wildfires. We then shared our work with the class.

Before April break, I will be asking students to return field trip information/permission slips for our May 1 and 2 field trip to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. I will need to have a count of students who will need lunch on the day of the field trip before April Break. We will continue to learn about interactions between the Hydrosphere and the Geosphere in April.

After we completed our Historical Fiction Unit and wrapped things up with a PPT Project on The Great Depression we started our mini-unit on Figurative Language. We have been focusing on 1-2 of the following every week (similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, idioms, and hyperboles). The students have been having fun with these and it shows in their work and carry over into their other classes. Students really got into the idioms last week and created their own digital posters on Canva. We will finish March with hyperboles, but students will show their learning by writing about themselves. It is called “The Best Part of Me.” It is based on the book by the same title, written by Wendy Ewald. Students will be using these creative figurative strategies to write about what they love about themselves. In April and May we will focus on Nonfiction. Students should still be reading daily and logging into their reading logs which are glued into their Literature Notebooks. As a reminder, all assignments are posted on Google Classroom daily, for those students who need reminders, or who have been absent so they know what they missed. Homework Haven is also a great way to get caught up and stay caught up as we are looking at less than 3 months of school left. April Break will be here before we know it and then we are looking at the home stretch. Thank you for supporting your child’s education.

WOW! Unit 5 (Arithmetic in Base Ten) wrapped up this month. Students worked extremely hard to master addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with decimals. Many have demonstrated mastery of the standard algorithm for multiplication (2 digit by 4 digit) and long division. (two digit divisors). Practice at home is encouraged! Homework continues to be an expectation as practicing what is introduced in class is essential for mastering new concepts. It also builds a sense of responsibility for their success and supports advocating for help when they come to class with a specific question that can help clarify their thinking. (This can’t happen if they aren’t attempting the work independently.

We started Unit 6 (Expressions and Equations) which will focus on balanced/true equations, (equivalent expressions) exponents, independent and dependent variables, and coordinate planes (horizontal and vertical axis). I will attempt to complete the Unit BEFORE April vacation if possible, but may need to refresh after vacation and wrap up when we return. April will be a very busy month for sure.