Welcome back! It’s that time of year again with the bustle of excited children and happy teachers ready to kick off another successful year! Sixth grade is an exciting year as it has many special activities and challenging opportunities to learn and explore new ideas. Our goal is for the children to have a successfully fun, rewarding, creative, and stimulating year while we prepare for the Junior High!         As you may already know, the sixth grade at Conant is set up as a team consisting of three teachers including Mrs. Raffa, Mrs. White, and Mrs. Meek.  In this team setting your son/daughter will switch classes, seeing Mrs. Raffa for English language arts, Mrs. White for math, and Mrs. Meek for reading. Social studies and current events are taught by the homeroom teacher. Science will begin following our D.A.R.E. program and is set up as an elective where the students may choose the order in which they would like to take the three units from the three teachers. (The three science units taught are Energy with Mrs. Raffa, Microworlds with Mrs. White, and The Scientific Method and Engineering with Mrs. Meek.)         A good way to get involved in your son/daughter’s last year at Conant is to volunteer! We love to welcome parent volunteers to our classrooms and if you are interested we will be sending home a list of volunteer opportunities soon. We are fortunate to have two room mothers each who will be helping us to organize our volunteers and activities. Please look for new sixth grade updates and class volunteer information from them as well!   We encourage you to contact the appropriate teacher with any questions or concerns that you may have. We can be reached at (978) 266-2550 at the following extensions:          * Mrs. Raffa   x2011           braffa@mail.ab.mec.edu                 * Mrs. White    x2012           ewhite@mail.ab.mec.edu                 * Mrs. Meek      x2013          mmeek@mail.ab.mec.edu         We each have voice mail, so please leave a message and we will return your call as soon as possible. Please check in with your individual homeroom teachers and communicate if (and when) email or phone is better for you and the teacher. Thank you! :)   Language Arts with Mrs. Raffa Mrs. Raffa has three components to her program. The first is to encourage independent reading out of school. There is a strong connection between good writers and reading! Most students are required to read three books on a monthly basis, outside of reading class with Mrs. Meek. A comprehensive book list is available for each student. At the completion of each book an index card is filled out according to teacher specification, and all three cards are passed in at the end of the deadline. The first due date for 3 books/ 3 cards will be announced. Please check your son/daughter's assignment notebook. The second part of the program is student writing in class, otherwise known as “writing workshop”. The third element of the program encompasses the formal teaching of proofreading, capitalization, and punctuation, i.e. “grammar”. Students will be given the opportunity to use word processing skills by participating in the Conant computer lab. Friday morning is the designated time for the sixth grade to use the lab. Parent volunteers to help out with this time are always very helpful and welcome! Please contact Mrs. Raffa if you are interested in learning more.  Reading and Vocabulary with Mrs. Meek “Active reading” is the major skill that is reinforced and/or taught in class while reading literature. These skills and strategies are also being used and reinforced in other subject areas as well, like in social studies. Students in Mrs. Meek’s reading classes will begin with a cross-genre study during which students will be reading Number the Stars, The Indian in the cupboard, and Julie of the Wolves. Find out which book your son/daughter is reading! Besides enjoying the novels, they are learning new active reading strategies, and how to answer questions in depth backing up their opinions with plenty of evidence. Activities are fused throughout the book to reinforce comprehension, bring the characters alive, and to encourage students to be actively involved in their reading. Once finished with this cross-genre study, we will be doing a literature circle unit using the books The Egypt Game and The Golden Goblet.         Besides vocabulary lists (both given by the teacher, and student selected as they come up in the reading) students will be given a Word of the Week each Monday morning. Word of the Week is a thematic word chosen each week meant to reinforce student’s learning. Students are expected to learn the spelling and definition of the word as well as to be able to use the word several times in a sentence. Every 5th week, students will be given a spelling and vocabulary test in which they must not only spell the word correctly, but also use it in a sentence that demonstrates their understanding of the word’s meaning. Spelling Students are held accountable of their spelling on all of their written work. One way we will be supporting students with commonly misspelled sixth grade words is through our Word of the Week assignment. Starting Monday 10/23 we will be putting 5 commonly misspelled words on the Word of the Week worksheet that students will be directly accountable for on all written work. Every 5th week there will be a spelling test of those commonly misspelled words from the month before.  Math with Mrs. White This year, the students and I will be using the Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics series to guide our learning.  The series is completely aligned with the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) and the Massachusetts State Framework.           This series is language intense which may make the process of learning mathematical concepts more challenging for students who struggle with reading and processing information.  However, I will certainly work to break down the material into chunks that are more manageable for students who struggle with language.  In addition, as we start each new chapter students complete vocabulary handouts, which are then kept as a reference inside student binders.           Instruction throughout the first several months focuses primarily on reviewing concepts addressed in previous years; however, these concepts are also studied at a more complex level.  Our current studies include reading and interpreting graphs, displaying data in a variety of different approaches (i.e., frequency charts, line plots, and stem-and-leaf diagrams), and describing data (i.e., mean, median, mode, outliers).           In the upcoming months, our studies will focus on strategy acquisition and problem solving.  The four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) will be emphasized.  Special attention will be given to estimating, decimals, probability, measurement, geometry, mental math, recognition of patterns and relationships, fractions, calculating percentages, and making applications to other curriculum areas and daily life.  Students will learn to use the language of mathematics to effectively express their understanding of concepts through pictures, oral communication, and written communication.      ***  To make sure our mathematical studies are successful it is imperative that students stay brushed up on their math facts.          Social Studies         Our social studies curriculum begins with studies on geography and archaeology.  We will investigate what archaeology is and what an archaeologist does. Then we will begin our unit on the Neolithic Revolution. Neolithic means new stone age. The Neolithic Revolution was when stone age people settled and created farming communities. Click on the following for more helpful information: Mrs. Meek's portaportal- for helpful websites. Helpful Homework Tips! :) Preparing Children for Reading Tests: Tips for Parents