TWIS 12/16-12/20

Parents,

  Welcome to the final week before our Holiday Break!  Here are a few quick announcements:

-The food drive ends this week- please send canned food or money to school with your student.  This will be donated to the Northeast Iowa Foodbank by the Student Council.

-We have a Holiday party planned for Friday afternoon- thank you to these parents for volunteering snacks: Tracy M. for bringing juice boxes and Wendy W. for bringing paper products.  We did not have any volunteers for bringing treats- so let me know if that interests you.  Thanks!

-My math students finished up the National Hour of Code week by creating some incredible web sites, apps, games, etc.  Make sure you check those out by going to Lincoln6.com and clicking on the Angry Bird.  Special thanks to these community members and parents for coming in to assist us this week with the Hour of Code:

UNI Computer Science Professor Eugene Wallingford

UNI Computer Science student Anthony Spoerl

Chris Rouw and Mike Cole from Far Reach Incorporated

School Board member Doug Shaw

Jonathan Taiber

Randy Klug

Travis Ficklin

Thanks for all your help and for making time for us this week!

Here's This Week in Switzer:

Literature: Students are wrapping up their novels this week and SHOULD BE READING THOSE EVERY NIGHT!  I even put it in BOLDFACE!  Seriously, this is important to completing our final project- creating an infographic about a news event and comparing it to our novels.  History repeats, right?

WIN: This week in WIN, Mrs. Bonwell has a special treat in store for us...

Social Studies: Students are researching a topic for a Time magazine article dealing with the Civil War.  Students also took a test over Chapter 3 last week- look for the results soon.

Science: Students are continuing their work in potential and kinetic energy.

Writing: We hit our blogging goal, and are now looking to connect our blogs with other classrooms in the district.  We are working very hard on creating a common core worthy narrative to share on our blogs.

Have a great week, and thanks for your support- 

--

Matthew Switzer
6th grade teacher
Lincoln Elementary

TWIS 12/9-12/13

Parents,

   Today brings another reminder to have your students bring warm snow clothes, gloves and hats everyday.  Also, check the lost and found in the lobby by the gym for lost or misplaced items.  We have an exciting week this week!  Here's This Week in Switzer:

Literature- We are reading our Narrative Non-fiction books in Literature circles the next two weeks- expect your student to have a reading assignment every night.  Please ask them about their books and what they are reading- we were fortunate enough to be able to purchase brand-new books for this unit.  Books include Lincoln's Last Days by Bill O'Reilly, The Notorious Benedict Arnold and Bomb: the race to build and steal the world's most powerful weapon by Steve Sheinkin, Anne Frank: A Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank, Titanic: Voices of a Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson, and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen.  Our ultimate goal is to take the lessons and themes from these novels and apply them to a current situation.  We will want to raise awareness and promote action by creating infographics using Canva.com.  We will finish novels before the holiday break.

DEAR- Students should continue to read their independent reading books.  I am encouraging them to think about their book projects and get something completed soon.

WIN- Mr. Switzer's WIN group is focused on practicing for the Math Bee in March.  

Math- This week, Mr. Switzer's math class is participating in the National Hour of Code sponsored by EdWeek and Code.org.  Here's a great video talking about why we are participating.  We have parent volunteers, UNI Computer Science professors and Student volunteers, and volunteers from Far Reach Incorporated coming in and working with your student to teach them code.  Ideally, I'd like every student to create something- a webpage, a javascript code, an iPad app- by the end of the week that they can demonstrate for the class.  Students will also be partnered with 4th grade students in Mr. Sprau's class.  We'll continue to look at coding throughout the year.

Social Studies- Students will begin a mini-research project over a topic from the Civil War to create a Time Magazine-like article.  Ask you student this week about their topic.

Science- Students will have a quiz this week- more information to come.

Writing- We are slowly working towards a completed Narrative using descriptive language, internal monologue, paragraphs, transitional phrases, and narrative elements.  This week we'll add a little more to our stories by looking at elaborating our stories through character development and pacing.  Look for those stories to develop on our blogs!

The good news- our chromebooks arrived last Friday!  What this means is:

-Mrs. Bonwell and myself have a classroom set of 27 chromebooks to share between us.

-Unlike at the high school, students WILL NOT be allowed to take the Chromebooks home

-We WILL BE allowed to learn and create using technology in new and previously incomprehensible ways!

Have a great week!

--

Matthew Switzer
6th grade teacher

Math by Sabrina 12/3/13

Math,

In math we are learning how to "Multiply a Fraction and a Whole Number". Yesterday we had an assignment it was 12 Problems that we had to answer and today we are going to correct them! Today in Math class we are going to learn Estimating Products.

Social Studies. By Sabrina

Social Studies,

In social studies we are on lesson 3 and Learning about Abe Lincoln, and how he was assassinated. The chapter that we are working on is called "Reconstruction". We all have blue booklets that we fill out every time we go to social studies, at the end of the chapter we can use our Blue booklet to studie. And then we take a test over the chapter! 

Science Spelling By kyandra

Spelling

   In spelling are 8points are due tomorrow 12/4/13

Science

      This Week in Science we have new groups! We are learning about Energy, Power, and work. 

Social Studies and Spelling 12/2/13 By Kyandra

 Social Studies
  In Social Studies last week, We finished Watching Brother Future It was a  really good movie! The whole class enjoyed It! We finished Some of the pages in are Blue book. She says we are flying right by in it! Yes, we got new Social Studies Pamphlets for are new chapters. Social Studies Pamphlets are where we right down all the Important things about these next chapters, then we do a Test.

 Spelling
  In Spelling This week We have new Spelling books. We have to do 8pts every week, due Wednesday, Then we have a Test. We have different 8points options in are spelling book now. So make sure you read them!  If you do not finish them you have to stay in for recess. That's why we have to take them home every Monday.

Science,

In science we are getting new groups, we are starting unit 2. We took five quizzes, and a big test last week over everything that we learned so far in the year!