New Year!

Hello Parents! I'm sorry I am just now posting on my blog. This school year is going by so fast! My New Year's resolution is to be organized and start posting in my blog. We will see how this goes. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. I am glad to be back at school and excited to start our new units. 6th Grade-During the next two weeks students will be participating in literature discussion groups. For this unit, we will be reading, The Liberation of Gabriel King. Literature Discussion Groups allow students opportunities to practice and develop the skills and strategies of good readers. Students will start the Conway Performance Task January 20th. They will be researching and writing an informational essay based on the articles, "Civil Rights Era" and "Rosa Parks". This will take us to the end of the month. Our next module test dates are February 4th and 5th. 5th Grade-This week students have been working on the Conway Writing Performance Task. They are using the texts, "Parcheesi", from Toys and "Parcheesi: the Classic Game of India" to write a explanatory/informative text. We will spend Thursday and Friday in the computer lab typing their essays. Monday we will review for our module test. The module test is January 14th and 15th. After module tests we will begin unit 3. In this unit students will read historical fiction and informational texts about the Great Depression with the underlying theme of Coming of age. Coming of Age is a learning process that can be understood through the study of fictional characters and historical figures. Students will study the historical context through the novels of Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis and The Trial by Jen Bryant. The informational text for this unit of study will be Children of the Great Depression by Russell Freedman. Students will use multiple sources to form an opinion and write an essay expressing their thoughts about whether or not they think life was more difficult for kids during the Great Depression Era or for kids in today’s society.