Mr. Light’s Blog

I’ve been doing lots of great things this summer!  For two weeks in the middle of July I was at Bowdoin College with about 40 other teachers involved in an American Biography class.  This is something both Mrs. Koskela and I have been involved in.  We had afternoon meetings last year, two weeks this summer, and will do the same thing again next year!  We’ve read a lot of great biographies and I have learned a lot!  Here some photos.

One thing we did was go on field trips.  The bus ride look familiar?

We went to Pemaquid to visit the museum, fort, and archaeology dig.

Here we are listening to Ken, the archaeologist who did a lot

of the work here, explain the site.

Here I am outside the Bowdoin Art Museum.

So what do you think this photo represents?  The contents of the bucket to the right in the first photo shows in the second photo.  If you think you know what this is, post a comment and tell us!  If you know why it was particularly tricky to use this, tell us that, too!

We spent 4 hours most days listening to a lecture about one of the

biographies we read.  Afraid I didn’t have a photo of us, so I borrowed

this one from creativecommons.org.

I’m looking forward to seeing you all!  I plan to post a blog with a mystery from a local cemetery next week, so stay posted!

Mr. Light

Saturday six of our classmates and a couple of parents met me at the school to do some moving and planning for next year.  Here’s our crew!

We did some clearing of the room, and uncovered the beautiful slate blackboard! Some of the artists made a welcome sign for us!

I suggested that we paint a couple of the book cases to brighten the room up.  Two years ago, my class decided to do this and just painting a couple of the bookcases really brightened the room up!  The kids decided on orange on the inside and green on the outside!  Our school colors!!

The hard work was when we sat down with “maps” of the room and experimented with different arrangements.  We agreed to start with the plan below.

We are hoping that we will be able to get large bookshelves similar to what were in my old room so we can display books nicely.  Of course, this plan may change.  Once the radiators are out and the new fire exit is finished, we will be able to move things into the room and see how it works.

After we finished our planning, everyone helped move boxes.  I am hoping that by early August, we will be able to move into the room.  We’ll get together again to do this.

Thanks to everyone who helped out!  Besides the kids, Katie’s dad helped moving some of the large items and with thinking about bookshelves.  Colin’s mom picked up the pizza.  Mallard Mart gave us a very good deal on the pizza!

Here are some ways that families can help us:

• We would love to have some hanging plants (and a watering can) donated to spruce up the room.
• We need paint and brushes.  I will contact some of our local businesses to see if I can get donations.
• The district maintenance folks are looking for some bookshelves or wood to make shelves with.  If they don’t find what we need, we will need: 2′ square 3/4″ plywood for corner shelves for 3-ring binders and, if possible, boards to build book shelves with.
• Parents who would help paint some of our shelves.
• Katie’s dad has volunteered to help building shelves.  It might help to have someone else who’s willing to help out.
• We will need all sorts of help to move in!  I’ll plan a “moving party” later in the summer.  Perhaps we could have a welcome back potluck on that day.  Some parent organizers would be great!

I am incredibly excited for next year!  What a great group of kids the Agnes Gray sixth graders are!

June 18, 2009

Dear Sixth Grade and Parents,

Welcome! I’m looking forward to working with each of you next year. There are a few things I want to share with you as we prepare for the end of this school year.

READ! This is the one most important thing I want each of you to do this summer! Find a book that you enjoy and read it. Write on my blog to let us know about your book and how you liked it. Then, choose another book and read some more!

Visit my Blog! I will be using my blog to keep in touch with you and your families. Please check it out at http://tlight.edublogs.org Please leave me a message when you visit. Knowing that people are reading and writing keeps me motivated to publish to it. I am also hoping that you will share the books you read this summer. Click on the “comment” button. If you don’t want your comment to be posted, just let me know in the note.

Home Improvement! As you know, I will be trading rooms with Mrs. Koskela so you will all fit in the room. On top of that, some renovations will be happening in the building this summer. I want you to help me make decisions about our space.

I had hoped to invite you all to join me to help plan our space Monday, June 22. I want to get your ideas about where to have our class library, where to have a science space, and perhaps on some brighter colors for some of the book shelves. Unfortunately, the contractors will be starting to take out the radiators that day so we won’t be able to get into the classroom. I am hoping to get some of you in before school starts to help plan and arrange our room. I will contact you when I have a date when we can get into the classroom.

Needs: I would like to build some bookshelves for the classroom similar to the ones in my old classroom. I also want to build some corner shelves for 3-ring binders. To do this, we need:
9-10″ shelving boards.
2″ strapping
4-5 2′ square 3/4″ plywood (for notebook shelves)
Nails
Paint (colors to be determined by our new sixth graders)
Help building shelves and painting

Fundraising We are planning a 3-day trip to Bryant Pond 4-H camp this fall to strengthen our team and deepen our understanding of our reading and writing. We will need to raise some money to help pay for this opportunity. Please help out however you can! I will be contacting some parents who have offered to help with this in the next few weeks.

School Supplies!
It is worthwile to buy sturdy materials. We want them to last all year long. I’ve added links to some Office Max (they are in Auburn) products that look sturdy.

3-ring binder (1 inch) with paper. Look for one that is sturdy! http://www.officemax.com/office-supplies/binders-accessories/daily-use-binders-3/1-non-view-binders/product-ARS25748

Pocket dividers for 3-ring binder (These have pockets to slip in papers that are not hole-punched.) http://www.officemax.com/catalog/sku.jsp?skuId=04013454

Writer’s Journal: Composition notebook (or a journal with lined pages)
 

Math and Wordwork – 2 (70 page) Spiral notebooks

Reading: We will use your reader’s notebooks from last year. If yours is full, you can use a spiral notebook or a composition notebook.

Plenty of Pens and Pencils!! Extra erasers. You can make yours unique with paint or tape!

Optional but helpful:

Markers, Colored Pencils, Scissors, Calculator

The Oxford Hills sixth grade writing curriculum moves the focus from narrative writing (personal narratives, fiction, etc.) toward writing expository essays.  In this genre, students write about ideas.  Usually these essays are about serious ideas such as qualities of a good friend or my favorite season.

In class we have discussed the steps for writing essays. Except for the first two steps, the order that you do them in isn’t really important.

1. Unless a topic is assigned, you must first choose a topic.  Here are a couple of ways we have practiced.
   • List people, places, or things that are important to you and then list some of the ideas these make you think of.  For example, you may think of your best friend and then ideas about what makes a good friend.
   • Think of an idea that is important to you and choose that as your topic.  For example, you may choose patriotism, animal cruelty, or poverty.
2. The next step is to decide on a thesis.  This is the time to decide what you believe about the topic and write that.  Here are a couple of examples.
   • Adults should take kids seriously.
   • Winter is my favorite season.
   • Sometimes it is OK to lie.
3. What are the reasons or evidence that this is true.?  It is important to come up with several reasons to support your thesis.
4. For each reason it is important to have supporting details and/or examples.
5. Plan an introduction for your essay.  It helps to try several different ways to introduce your essay.  The introduction should contain your thesis statement and often briefly mentions the evidence or reasons that show the thesis is true.  Some start with stories that illustrate the thesis.  Try to plan an introduction that will capture the reader’s interest.
6. Plan a conclusion.  Often this restates the thesis and evidence in a different way.  Sometimes the conclusion speaks to some of the ways that acting on the thesis will make things better.  This is another step where it is helpful to plan a couple of different ways to write this and then choose your favorite.
7. Plan how to transition from one idea to the next.  It is important to have smooth connections between ideas so the essay doesn’t become a list of ideas.
8. Plan a title.  A good title will show what the essay is about while capturing the reader’s interest.
9. Start writing!

Remember that writing an essay should be something you enjoy.  Finding a topic that interests you or that you care a lot about is the key.  Sometimes essays lend themselves to humor.  The book, The Truth about Poop in our classroom library is one example.  David Barry has several collections of funny essays as does David Sedaris.

As a parent, there are several things you can do to help your child become a good essay writer.  Ask your child to bring home their writing so you can read it.  Have your child give evidence for their beliefs.  Perhaps the best thing you can do is to talk about ideas with your child.

OK, sixth grade!  I can’t be in class today (Friday) but I have a couple of web sites I want you to use to practice decimals and fractions today.

First, go to this site and try the game.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/fractiondecimalpercentage/comparing/fractionsdecimals/game.shtml Please turn OFF your sound and then click “How to Play”.  When you are ready, click “Start”.  Make sure you choose fractions and decimals (not percents).  See how you do.

After you have tried the game, try these quizzes.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/fractiondecimalpercentage/comparing/fractionsdecimals/quiz.shtml Start with level A and work yourself up to the highest level.

When you are done, write a comment and let me know how you did and how you liked using this website to practice math.

Thank you,

Mr. Light

OOPS!  Just realized I forgot to post this before vacation!

We have started to study decimals in math.  As we begin, we look at money as one way to understand them.  Five dollars and two cents is written $5.02 (NOT 5.20!).  From here, we review place value and extend it to the right of the decimal.  We have a chart up in class.

At this stage, we are representing fractions as decimals, decimals as fractions, and ordering fractions and decimals from least to greatest.  Here are a few common mistakes kids make.

• A fraction such as 7/100 is represented as 0.07 (the 7 is in the hundredths place) as opposed to 0.7 (which is 7/10 with the 7 in the tenths place).
• A fraction such as 23/50 must be converted to hundredths before converting it to a decimal.  23/50 = 46/100 = 0.46
• When ordering decimals from least to greatest, you must pay attention to place value.  0.6 is greater than 0.59 – (The number in the tenths place is what is most important here!) 16.01 is greater than 16.0045 -

I recommend that kids do a couple of things.

1. Recognize the equivalent decimals of  common fractions such as:
   • 1/4 = 0.25, 1/2 = 0.5, 3/4 = 0.75
   • 1/5 = 0.2, 2/5 = 0.4, etc.
   • 1/3 = 0.333. . . which rounds to 0.33, 2/3 = 0.6666. . . which rounds to 0.67.
   • 1/8 = 0.125, 3/8 = 0.375, etc. (These are handy to know, but less important than the previous
2. Practice!  Web sites at our portaportal are a good place to find practice exercises.

We have been working on multiplying fractions (and mixed numbers) this week.  We will be practicing dividing fractions soon.  Use some of the links at portaportal (guest access: westparis) to practice more with fractions.

Remember to take advantage of math club after school on Thursdays!

Here a few words to review:

• fraction
• mixed number
• improper fraction (topheavy!)
• proper fraction
• numerator
• denominator
• common denominator
• How is a fraction like division??

This week we have focused our reading and writing on poetry.  We have all enjoyed, “Love That Dog”, the poetic journal of a boy, Jack, who writes,

• I don’t want to
• because boys
• don’t write poetry.
• Girls do.

As he continues to explore poetry with his class, he becomes a poet, finishing his journal with a poem inspired by Walter Dean Myers’ “Love that Boy”

• Love that dog,
• like a bird loves to fly
• I said I love that dog
• like a bird loves to fly
• Love to call him in the morning
• love to call him
• “Hey there, Sky!”

We are all reading lots of poems, sharing our favorites, learning about different poetic forms and tools, writing poems, and sharing our poems.  Hopefully, we will publish some of what we write here in a week!

Send links to some of your favorite poems in your comments!

Mr. Light

P.S.  I apologize for the bullets.  I couldn’t figure out how to make this blog editing tool write with an indent and without skipping a line between every line of the poem.

PPS:  Ask some of these questions:

• What is alliteration?
• What is a simile? A metaphore?
• What’s Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven” about?  Who is Lenore?  Why does the raven keep saying, “Nevermore”? What makes you think that?
• What poems do you like?
• What’s inferring?  What do you mean by “Read between the lines”?

Dear 6th Graders,

We had a visit from Matt and Lyndsay today. Although you all recognized that we didn’t approach problems as well as we might, remember what Matt said.  He works with lots of groups and overall our class does a good job of communicating.

We still have room to grow!  We talked a lot about communication and inclusion.

Communication has two parts: sending out information (talking) and receiving information (listening).  Some of us are really good at the talking part and not so good at the listening.  Others are really good listeners, but have a harder time speaking.  We all like to be listened to.  Each of you has important things to say.

Sometimes, we hurt peoples feelings by not listening.  We also have trouble making sure that everybody feels like a welcome and valued member of our class.

What can YOU do to help each person be heard and feel valued?

What can YOU do when it seems that others are not listening to you or they are hurting your feelings?

Mr. Light

PS  Here a few photos!

Circled Up!

Turnstile.

Gotcha!

Frogman!

It’s already been several weeks since we returned from camp.  On Friday, Lyndsay will be back with us working on some of the skills we focused on at camp – Communication, Trust, Teamwork, Goal Setting and Meeting Challenges!  Each of the sixth graders were able to participate in this trip, and we learned that we are stronger when each person is a valued member of the team!

Here are some photo’s!

When we arrived, we warmed up with some games.  This is Wompit tag.

Then we brought our bags to our cabins.  For some of us, this was a great challenge!

We often sang songs after we lined up at the dining hall.

Gino and Brady practicing trust falls.

Briana catches Chey!

We spent some time journaling about our goals for our time at Camp Susan Curtis.

We had some free-choice time.  Here are some of us
“Dancing with the Stars”!

A world record was set in this activity – we had to hook and then move the block by controlling the strings.

It’s harder than it looks!

Meanwhile, another team was trying to figure out how to span an 8-foot distance with short boards.

Here is another teamwork activity.

We had some quiet reading time before bed.

Getting each of us across “the Wall” was another challenge which involved communication and trust!

Here is our expert “spotting” team.

Perhaps the highlight was the zip line.  Here, David is preparing for his “launch”!

I’m not sure if I like this!

Ian watching Gino!