We had a very exciting week last week with two major learning highlights:
-This week, I had a Level 3 student teacher from Port Elizabeth in South Africa visit and teach some lessons in Math and Reading. Mr. Hammond told us all about life in South Africa (including some great stories about monkeys on his university campus) and helped set the record straight on some stereotypes Americans have of South Africans (no, South Africans DO NOT have pet lions or ride on elephants, etc.). We plan to stay connected with Mr. Hammond via skype after he returns home and begins his teaching career.
-I challenged my students with "Genius Hour," an hour of class time where they could research something they wanted to learn about and present on it. This will lead to a "20% time" in our class where students can earn time to continue working on Genius Hour projects. I offer this to students to drive motivation and unlock their passion for learning. Here is a link to an article that talks about the benefits of Genius Hour and 20% time in learning and business (FYI- the idea originated at Google!). I'll include some other links below of photos and presentations that students created.
Here's This Week in Switzer:
Literature- We're wrapping up our focus on Genre and will take a CFA this week over types of Genre. We are also continuing with our novel learning by reading different genres in small groups. Your student will have a reading assignment EVERY NIGHT.
DEAR- I am unleashing the Masters of the Vocabuverse game this week- students will be challenged to learn vocabulary at their own pace and earn badges and experience points towards becoming the Vocab Master of the 6th grade. Vocabulary will focus on Greek and Latin root words. We will also see how students can find the difficulty level of the books they are reading and how to pick books that will challenge their reading and thinking.
WIN- Mr. Switzer's extension group in WIN will continue working through Crunchzilla, an elementary based computer programming curriculum online (JAVA programming language).
Math- We took the benchmark test last week, and I am happy to report that a vast majority of Mr. Switzer's math students Met Standards! We will continue to challenge students by moving into the next set of topics dealing with factors and divisibility.
Social Studies- Students are looking at the events that led to the Civil War in Chapter 2 of the Social Studies book. Please ask your student about their score on the Chapter 1 test.
Science- Forces and Motion are the focus for Science this week- students also took a quiz last week.
Writing- All students passed my CFA for writing blog posts, commenting, and creating a paper blog, so... we all signed up for our KidBlog accounts! Blogging gives students a great opportunity to publish their writing, evaluate thoughts, participate in the writing process, and challenge each other to become better writers and thinkers. Every week (due FRIDAYS by MIDNIGHT) students will be required to add 1 or more new blog post AND 5 or more 5 point comments (on 5 different blogs). I will give every student an opportunity to do this EVERY FRIDAY IN CLASS, but they may also work on this at home.
One last reminder- 6th graders will not participate or "dress up" for Halloween here at school. These parents have volunteered for snacks and supplies for our Harvest Party on October 31st-
Treats (24 students)- Mrs. Mudd
Juice Boxes- Mrs. White
Paper products- Mrs. Werner
Our Genius Hour Projects-
Cade, Michael, and Joey's Baseball Blog- CLICK HERE
Jackson's Stop Motion Films- CLICK HERE
Grace, Callie, and Alex's Cake Blobs- CLICK HERE
Lucas and Collin's basketball game-
Haley's Marble game- CLICK HERE
Gil's Finger Football League- CLICK HERE
Kate's Cooking Show- CLICK HERE
Jeidan's Tank-
Lauren, Alex, and Erin's 3 tiered cake-
Abby and Grace's Cupcake Pencil-
Ashley's cookie bake- CLICK HERE
Elizabeth's original violin recording- CLICK HERE
Sabrina's Robot- CLICK HERE
Kyandra's Lip Sync video-
Jack's Minecraft Creation-
Matthew Switzer
6th grade teacher
6th grade teacher
