This week we are wrapping up our reading of the fantasy novel, The Witches, and taking a look at the text features of another genre- drama.  To incorporate their understanding of these two concepts, students will write and perform a script for an emergency news broadcast, notifying television viewers of the events that unfolded in our novel.  Students can bring in props and costume pieces to make their emergency news broadcasts come to life.  These broadcasts will be recorded late next week and if all goes as planned, they will be available for your viewing at parent teacher conferences on November 10.

Students have also completed a mini lesson on the difference between there, their, and they’re and made poster comic strips using each version of the homophone correctly.

Finally, as shown in the picture, students’ silhouettes now hang above their lockers in the 6th grade hallway.  On each is a self portrait poem written by the student, showing their ability to use simile, metaphor, alliteration and personification.  Please check them out when you come in for parent teacher conferences in November!

Students received their first spelling and vocabulary list this week for Roald Dahl’s fantasy novel The Witches.  We will compare how this fantasy approaches the subject of witches to how a non-fiction, historical fiction, and a drama approach the same topic.

By Thursday, ELA students should write their spelling/vocabulary words in alphabetical order in their composition notebook.  Then they should list all of the smaller words that they notice are contained within the spelling word.  Please note that they are not rearranging letters.  They are looking for letter patterns that they are already familiar with that make up the new word that they are learning.

Example:

personification                    per, person, so, son, on, I, if, cat, a, at, ion, on

The assignment is due Thursday and will be used in class.  Students will be tested on these words on Friday October 16.

This week in class, we are reviewing different types of figurative language- when words take on meaning that is deeper that their literal definitions.  This type of language that requires us to “figure it” out, includes hyperbole, metaphor, simile, personification, and idioms.  This weeks activities include:

Revisiting the childhood story Amelia Bedelia for a look at how she takes words literally (and out of context) and by doing do is always getting things mixed up…

Practicing using hyperbole as students face off using their best exaggerations: It was so hot, that _________!  I was so tired, that __________!  My room is so messy, that ________!

Identifying metaphors and similes as students listen to the lyrics of their favorite songs looking for comparisons.  Those that use like or as are similes- ex. Hungry like the Wolf.  Those that say one thing IS another thing are metaphors- ex. Love is a Battlefield.

Creating idiom illustrations that show how silly the literal meanings of our “figures of speech” really are…ex. if some of us really had green thumbs…

As a reminder, students should be reading a bit of their books each night in order to be prepared to meet the due date of their first book reviews which is next Wednesday.    That is just one day before I am required to submit progress report grades, so if reviews are handed in after the deadline, students will have a lowered ELA grade.  However, they will still be able to bounce back before the end of the quarter by submitting their reviews ASAP.

At this point, we have reviewed all roots for our Roots Scavenger Hunt and all booklets should have been completed by students and handed in.  We now are in the process of reviewing genre- students presented skits showing the various types of literature and took notes based on the presentations.  Now students are applying their knowledge to identify the genres of various books in our classroom library.  They will use this skill in completing every book review this year.

Students have practiced using the book review form with partners at school.  This form both ensures students read independently to practice strategies learned in school AND promotes proper paragraph format and use of specific details to support claims.  They are required to read and complete these for two books per quarter- one by progress report time and the other by report card time.  This means that students’ first book reviews are due September 30.  Please have them continue reading their books at home each night since the 15 minutes of SSR they get at school each day may not be enough time to complete their books and get their book reviews done.  A form is attached below if your child would like to print/complete their work at home.  Otherwise, forms are always available in the classroom and can be submitted at any time- they do not have to wait until the September 30th due date!

BOOK REVIEW FORM

Scholastic book clubs are a great and inexpensive way to keep students supplied with high interest books for their book reviews. Watch your 6th grader’s backpack for book order forms or visit scholastic.com/readingclubs to shop online.  Search for your child’s homeroom teacher, or if you need an activation code, you can enter F3W6V.

We spent the first week of school getting to know a bit about each other and establishing routines.

Academically, we began reviewing word roots.  Knowing the meaning of these roots is a vocabulary strategy which packs a lot of punch.  For instance, by learning the root bio (life) we learn about the words biology, biography, antibiotics, biome, etc., which all contain the root and all have to do with life/living things.

By this Thursday, students will have all 5 pages needed to make their Roots Review Booklet.  Their job is to complete all the drawings and examples for the roots contained therein by Friday.  This book will remain in their ELA folders all year as a reference to help them with their Roots Scavenger Hunt, a challenge where they get paid hillbills for noticing words with roots in their SSR books.  The roots scavenger hunt encourages students to apply the word route strategy during their independent reading.

I’d like to extend a warm welcome to our new batch of Owlets. We’re excited to have you on our team, and look forward to a great year together! Check back often for updates, or even better, join the mailing list so that you are notified whenever important information is added here.  Enter your email address below to the left where it says “Subscribe by email.”

Don’t forget to sign up so text reminders can be sent to your phone!  To do so, send the message @teamowltxt to 81010   🙂

Students are wrapping up the year by reading a book in a group with four of their peers.  After each day’s reading, students in the group must complete a job on their blogs.  Each student received a paper outlining these roles, but in case they misplaced or forgot it:

Group Leader: Develop three open-ended discussion questions about today’s reading and post them on your blog.  Each of the other group members should respond to the post with their answers/thoughts on the questions.  Ex: What was going through your head when…? How did you react when…? Etc.

Summarizer:  Write a three sentence summary of the day’s reading and post onto your blog.  For bonus points, other group members can comment with an important detail that was left out.

Literary Device Locator: List 3 examples of simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idiom, etc. from the days reading on your blog.  For bonus points, other group members can comment with another that wasn’t included on your list that jumped out to them.

Connector: Post to your blog three connections between the day’s reading and other books/articles we’ve read this year or to quotes or warm-ups that we have talked about, or to something that has happened to you or your friends outside of school or on a tv show or in a movie you’ve seen.  For bonus points, other group members could each comment with one connection of their own.

Word Wizard: Choose three challenging words from this days reading selection and post them on your blog along with their definitions and parts of speech.   Other group members should comment with a sentence for each word.

Once their job is done, they must also comment on the group leaders blog answering the three questions there, and they must also write a sentence for each of the three words on the Word Wizard’s blog.

As we wrap up the novel “The Phantom Tollbooth” this week, students are to complete a short project using the book’s words of wisdom.  They brought home information about the project last Friday the 15th, but in case they can’t find that, their choices were:  1) creating horoscopes for each sign of the zodiac using a combination of their own predictions and the words of wisdom 2) Creating an advice column where at least three letters are written in asking advice on typical middle school problems and the advice given in response incorporates the words of wisdom from the book (two quotes per advice column), or 3) looking up a recipe for fortune cookies online and making them for the class, putting the words of wisdom from the book inside the cookies as the fortunes.

These projects are due Friday, May 22.  No late fortune cookie projects will be accepted- the plan is that students can share their cookies with the class Friday as we watch the video version of the book.

Samples of words of wisdom from the book include:  “Things which are equally bad are also equally good.  Try to look on the bright side of things.”  “You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry.”  “There is a lot to see everywhere if you only keep your eyes open.”  “The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between.”  “What a dull place the world would be without color.”

Here is a link to a great article about the book we’ve been enjoying:

http://www.bustle.com/articles/29606-23-ways-the-phantom-tollbooth-prepared-us-for-adulthood

Good luck to students as they complete their last round of MCAS testing this Wednesday and Thursday in the subject of Math.  Due to these assessments, there is no homework Tuesday or Wednesday.  Students should get adequate rest and be sure to eat a breakfast that will hold them through the morning testing hours.

We are currently half way through our class novel, The Phantom Tollbooth.  Students will complete a project on the book, using the words of wisdom that we collected throughout the chapters.  Students have the choice of 1) creating horoscopes for each sign of the zodiac using a combination of their own predictions and the words of wisdom 2) Creating an advice column where at least three letters are written in asking advice on typical middle school problems and the advice given in response incorporates the words of wisdom from the book, or 3) looking up a recipe for fortune cookies online and making them for the class, putting the words of wisdom from the book inside the cookies as the fortunes.   These projects will be due Firday, May 22.

Final book reviews for the year should be in by June 5.

In the spirit of the NCAA Basketball finals, students’ ELA homework this week consists of a Vocabulary Bracket battle which is due Thursday.  Students should put the 8 bulleted words (listed on the upper right corner of the worksheet) in random order to the left of the brackets so that they can face off against each other in pairs.  Students then write a sentence using BOTH words and declare which word seems to be more powerful in the sentence and thus the winner (completely up to the student’s discretion).  They do this for all four pairs, and then two pairs of winners face off again until a winner is declared.

This worksheet is double-sided with the nouns battling on the first side and adjectives from our list battling on the back.  Students who declare the same winner as the majority of the class will receive hillbills.  An example is provided below: