Vanessa Mann's Website

As the fall comes to a close, we have a lot to celebrate in room 333. These sixth graders are industrious students busy studying Egypt, practicing essay writing, and becoming fraction experts. Read on to learn about more highlights and thank you for your support this fall.

If you walked into our classroom today you would find 5 maps of Egypt covered with 3D clay objects representing many aspects of ancient Egypt. Students are divided into 5 city-states called nomes. Ask your child which nome s/he is in. Each nome must work together to complete a variety of assignments. As the groups finish their work, they earn points to move up the Nile River. The first major assignment was the 3D maps and map guide books. Students researched information about Egypt such as farming on the Nile, boats on the Nile, and plants and animals in Egypt. Ask your child what s/he researched. Then they worked together to create a map of Egypt featuring the Nile River, major landmarks of Egypt and many Egyptian facts. I know the students look forward to sharing these with you during their student-led conferences in early February. By then, students will have other nome work to share with you as well.

Students are practicing their skills in writing three types of essays: expository, narrative and persuasive. The narrative essay is most familiar to students. Students wrote each type of essay on the topic of Thanksgiving. This gave them the opportunity to clearly distinguish between the three types on non-fiction writing. Persuasive writing was the newest type of writing. In preparation for writing a persuasive essay about school uniforms, students divided into two groups and debated the pros and cons of wearing uniforms to school. Then they used their telling points as sentences to support their point of view in their essay writing. Students used information on topics they are studying in Egypt to write expository essays. Writing these essays gave students experience with writing in this style and helped them solidify new concepts on an ancient civilization.

Students are gaining more experience reading for information with nonfiction texts on Egypt. Students often answer questions on the material to check comprehension or use their new knowledge to help complete a group project like the Egyptian 3D map. In addition to the nonfiction reading, students have spent time reading books of their choice and finding connections to the literature. Students are asked to make connections such as text to self, text to world, and text to another text. Students are also engaged in numerous book projects including our most recent one: creating a new book jacket. These will also be featured at student-led conferences.

We completed units one through three in the Everyday Math program and we are currently two-thirds through unit 4. Unit four focuses on fractions. Students are adding, subtracting and multiplying fractions. Students are finding common denominators and equivalent fractions. Students are converting improper factions. Strong multiplication and division fact skills are necessary for the complexity of these types of problems. Next unit will focus on Geometry.

Since microworlds ended, we are slowly moving into our Human, Growth and Development unit in health and science. First, we are discussing nutrition and sleep. After vacation we will watch a movie that discusses some of the physical and emotional changes that tweens encounter. This is a co-ed movie. We are also discussing topics such as stress and time management. Connected to these ideas, I have also talked explicitly to the class about how students will begin to drive their own "education car" next year. Ask your child what this means and ask them about the pink card.

Alyson and I are teaming up to give each other the opportunity to teach the single-gender lessons to our own classes. Therefore, I will just have the girls in our class when discussing the more sensitive topics and I will also just have the boys in our class. Our assistant teacher will also be present during the lessons. These lessons are scheduled to begin January 24, 2011.

We will continue to meet a couple of times a week in our Open Circle format to explicitly work on social skills. We continue to talk about issues that are interesting and complicated. We've had discussion on inclusion and bullying. We are also meeting once a week with the D.A.R.E. officer who addresses topics related to social emotion learning such as peer pressure, speaking up and making right decisions.