February 19 - 23

I can use my creative thinking processes by communicating an intent, experimenting with ideas and evaluating and adapting ideas to producing a desired effect (Grade 6 ELAL)

Loose Parts Play is hands-on, unstructured play, using interesting materials that can be moved, combined, redesigned, taken apart, and put back together again. Loose Parts Play encourages creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking skills. Plus, it's super fun!

Loose Parts began as an early learning tool, but research shows that older kids benefit from exploring and tinkering with a variety of objects as well! In grade six this week, we created pieces of art out of loose parts.

Later in the week, before we began our story writing, we invited students to create their story using loose parts. They had the choice of working on their own or in partners and they used their imaginations to decide on the elements of their stories and to tell their stories. 

After plenty of time with loose parts, students spent some time jotting down their ideas on a planning diamond. There was no shortage of ideas - Thank you Loose Parts! Next week we will spend time writing and editing our stories. 

February 12-14

 I can incorporate a variety of strategies to comprehend, interpret, and manage information from fiction and non-fiction texts (Grade 6 ELAL)

In grade 6, we continue to practice comprehension skills by reading increasingly complex texts. We use critical thinking skills such as predicting, inferring, making connections, summarizing, synthesizing, and visualizing. 

Students are supported with these skills through small and large group reading instruction. We just started a new full-class read-aloud, "Alone," by Megan Freeman. While students are listening to the novel, they have been using their visualization strategies and adding little bits to their visual journal page. They are able to use summarizing skills and deeper thinking skills to choose the images and words to add to their page. 

This week, we also read some information about Black History Month together as a class in order to practice our non-fiction reading strategies and learn more about the importance of Black History in North America.

Students then had the opportunity to choose an article to read about a specific person who demonstrated the Power of One. The choices were Viola Desmond, Willie O'Ree, Malcolm X, and Nelson Mandela. Ask your child which article they chose! 

After reading, students answered some comprehension questions then used the visualization strategy to create a page representing the information they learned about important people in Black History. 

We are so proud of our grade six group for their ability to read or listen to different texts and engage in rich discussion connected to our learning! 

February 5 - 9

 

I can confirm the accuracy of information presented in non-fiction texts (Grade 6 ELAL)

I can recognize that the sun and stars emit light and most other bodies in the sky are seen by reflecting light. I understand what a constellation is and can describe the location and movement of constellations as they move through the sky (Grade 6 Science)

This week, we talked about the importance of thinking critically and evaluating information we find on the Internet. A few of us were fooled by the famous Tree Octopus! We talked about trustworthy websites (ending in gov or edu) and tips for deciding if information found online is accurate.

                            

We asked students to keep these tips in mind as we began our next research project.  They have been working hard researching and creating a Google Slides presentation about constellations.

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I can apply the processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to problem solving (Grade 6 Math)

We continued to use our vertical whiteboards this week! Evidence shows that when students use "non-permanent vertical spaces," they think longer, discuss more mathematics, and persist when tasks are hard! If you have any questions about this, fire me off an email!!  Ask your child about their thoughts around the vertical whiteboards. Here is one of the tricky problems students worked on this week: 

January 29- February 2

I can simplify algebraic expressions on both sides of an equation by combining like terms.

I can solve equations, limited to equations with one or two operations.

Grade 6 Math

We learned that a variable represents an unknown or changing quantity and a

variable represents an unknown amount you want to figure out. For example,

13 + 10 = b (b represents 23, the amount you get when you add 10 to 13.)

2 + n = 10 (n represents 8, the number you add to 2 to get 10.)

Since an equation is a balance, we can solve it by modelling the equation and

keeping the balance. We can model the balanced equation with algebra tiles.

We practiced arranging the tiles to show the parts of the equation that balance

each other:

Once students had a good understanding of balancing equations, we

challenged them with a tricky problem: Create a balance scale using one

manipulative as the unknown variable and other manipulatives to represent

the known quantities.

After making balanced scales, we took photos and had students solve each other's

algebraic equations.These felt like exciting puzzles to solve!

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I can demonstrate how movement patterns are applied across various physical activities and I  can adapt movement patterns to improve accuracy, speed, and proficiency in a variety of dynamic physical activities (Grade 6 Wellness)

Cross country skiing was a huge success! Grade six absolutely loved going out there to work

with Rachel, Rachel, and Rob to learn skills related to this sport. I was so proud of their

excitement, perseverance, and positive attitude this week during PE! Here are some great

photos of your kids trying it out: