6th Grade News

As we enter our fourth week of school we want to say Welcome Back! 6th grade students have been so impressive to watch as they've made their transition to a new set of teachers and routines. The 6th grade teachers have been blown away by the respect, responsibility, and perseverance students have shown so far this school year. From the looks of it, this is going to be an amazing year!

Helpful Notes:

• Send your child with a water bottle everyday
• If you have not heard from your Tiger Time teacher please reach out to them
• Encourage your child to wash their hands as germ season arrives!
• Engage with your child! Ask them to share something about each school day

Our 6th graders have been hard at work defining our core values and how they apply in our school. They've transformed their ideas about "Respect, Responsibility and Perseverance" into "I will" statements, and each student voted on the most important ones, creating our Code of Cooperation.

Last Wednesday, the whole grade met to reinforce these expectations. This code will guide us throughout the year and help build our grade into a wonderful, kind and caring community.

We have been extremely impressed with the patience, perseverance, and personality our kids have shown to us and each on another. To keep that going, we are going to be looking for times when students are displaying the core values in and out of the classroom.

Each student will each be given a tracker for the rest of the month. There are 6 paws on it. Any time a teacher sees a student displaying one of the core values, they can punch out a paw. If students get all 6 paws punched then they will be entered into a raffle to win some prizes.

Math - 6th grade math has officially jumped into our first unit! We started the year with an All About Me math activity and have been working on various math skills to prepare for this new unit. We have practiced prime and composite numbers, explored factors, and refreshed our minds on order of operations. We will use these skills to start mastering prime factorization, common factors, and multiples. This first unit will last until the middle to end of October and we are sure to be math experts at the end! (Mrs. Fauth)

Writing - In writing students have worked to develop relationships with teachers. They have practiced open-ended questions as a way to build classroom connections. Students are also working on their questioning skills and contributing to classroom discussion. Some of the lessons students have explored include learning how to format an email properly, and working on using writing to advocate for things such as what activities are allowed in indoor recess. As the year progresses students will work on writing Claim statements with proper evidence and reasoning. (Mr. Ezzard)

Reading - ELA stands for English Language Arts. In 5th grade, students had a block of reading and a block of writing. As they have entered middle school, these classes are now combined. We start out the year going of some classic favorite short stories including - The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, Stray by Cynthia Rylant, and Thank you Ma'am by Langston Hughes. As we read these stories the kids learn about the parts that make up plot, the importance of point of view, the effect setting has and how conflict drives a story. They will build the skills to identify these elements in all the stories we will hear, watch and read through out the year. (Ms. Bowers)

Science - The school year is off to a great start. I’m extremely excited about how this year's Hills Beach Students are excited about Science. The first few weeks of school we have been focusing on class expectations, Science lab safety rules, and getting to know each other. Next week, students will begin our first unit, the Water Cycle. This is a great opportunity for students to learn about water cycles around the earth. During our first unit students will learn how the class will be structured and their classroom assignment expectations. This year all formative grades will be recorded in our Science Google Classroom. Students' formative assignments will receive a grade between zero and two. A two means the student completed the assignment and met all expectations. One means the assignment needs revision. A zero means they did not turn in the assignment. I encourage all parents or guardians to look at their child’s Google Classroom to see what they have completed this year. (Mr. Williamson)

We will have a couple of fundraisers throughout the year to raise funds for field trips. The ongoing fundraiser for the whole school year that we run is a Clynk collection on our floor.

If you are interested in donating your household returnables, it would be greatly appreciated. You can ask your kiddos; tiger time teacher for them.

Stay tuned for monthly updates!