Happy Halloween weekend! Enjoy!

Students reviewed pronouns by playing a pronoun review game. Mikael and Reid did excellent current event presentations.

Then, students did research on their upstander. All research and notes are due on Monday.

Homework: Do pronoun word search to prepare for Monday's pronoun quiz! Read your new book. Finish your upstander research and bring it with you on Monday.

Research, research

Pronoun review and then....

Miss Devine explained that students will continue reading throughout their upstander projects and that they will be reading Europe related books. Students selected books from the classroom selection and learned that they would have "pop summaries" on these books over the next couple of weeks as well as the opportunity to do an extra credit "book talk" after upstander projects were completed.

Miss Devine modeled doing internet research and how to complete a bibliography for internet sources. Students did research on their upstander.

Homework: Red and yellow tables have current events due tomorrow! Don't forget!

Upstander research

Today we:

Practiced with interrogative pronouns (who, what, whose, whom, which) and demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those). Students have a pronoun review sheet for homework.

Then, we began the research process for our upstander project. Miss Devine gave the students Cornell note taking system sheets and modeled how to take notes using the Cornell method and how to cite sources using the appropriate bibliography format. Then, students gathered books and encyclopedias on their upstander and began to take notes and cite sources using the modeled process.

Homework: Pronoun review sheet. If you have time to gather information on your upstander, do so. The more information you have, the easier your project will be.

European upstander project!

Today, we practiced with reflexive pronouns and learned about indefinite pronouns (everyone, everything, everybody, anybody, many, most, few, each, some, someone, all, nothing, nobody and no one).

Students in 6B finished watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and in 6A, Duvan did his current event presentation. Then, we discussed our European Upstander project which we started today. Here are links to the:

-project description
-upstander choices
-rubric for essay
-rubric for writing process
-multiple intelligences choice project options
-choice project rubric
-oral presentation rubric
-research rubric

We will be working on this project for the next 3 weeks.

Homework: Indefinite pronoun sheet. 6B should do KWL about upstander.

Quiz & movie

Today, we reviewed Holocaust vocab words and took a quiz over those words. We practiced with relexive pronouns (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves) and students have a practice sheet to do for homework. Then, we finished watching the rest of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and had a discussion about the movie and its relevance to all that we've studied.

Weekend homework: Reflexive pronoun practice sheet. Don't forget to bring back book club books if you haven't already done so.

More presentations & then movie day!

Yesterday, we had a great trip to the Alliance Theater to see Middle School, the Musical. Today, students finished book project presentations, returned their book club books, practiced with possessive pronouns and began to watch the movie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. We concluded with students giving each other "props" for their projects.

Homework: Orange and blue tables have Europe current events due tomorrow. Duvan and Kalei are our extra credit current events presenters. Study Holocaust vocab for quiz tomorrow. Complete possessive pronoun practice sheet.

Book projects, reflecting on the Bremen

Today, we learned about possessive pronouns. These are pronouns that have the special job of showing ownership in a sentence: my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs. Students have a possessive pronoun practice sheet for homework.

We discussed our trip to the Bremen yesterday and students had the chance to retell the stories of the survivors who they heard speak. The homework due on Thursday is to write letter (one page minimum) thanking the survivor for speaking. Students can also include anything they learned about the Holocaust or anything they found interesting in the survivor's story.

Later, we presented book projects. The kids did a great job so far. Those kids who did not get to present today will finish presenting on Thursday. The Holocaust vocab quiz has been moved to Friday.

Homework: Possessive pronoun sheet. Write a thank-you letter to Holocaust survivor speaker.

A great trip to the Bremen

The visit to the Bremen today was a great success. Kids, tell your families what you learned. Thanks to all chaperones who accompanied us.

Current events & book projects

TGIF, TGIF. Need we repeat?

We did some practice with personal pronouns today. What are personal pronouns, you ask?

Well, those are pronouns that stand in for a noun. Here are the 12 personal pronouns: I me, us, she, him, he, them, they, we, her, you, it. Students have a personal pronoun practice sheet for homework.

Vinnie and Josh gave fantastic current event presentations and did a good job facilitating class discussion. Who knew that Maldives was having Cabinet meetings underwater to bring attention to issues of global warming?

Students had the rest of class to work on book projects which will be presented on Tuesday.

Homework: Personal pronoun sheet.

Announcements: We're excited for the Bremen field trip on Monday. Unfortunately, those who have not brought in permission forms by Monday will not be able to go. (Bring them!)

Holocaust vocab quiz will be Thursday.

Book project work

Today, we reviewed pronouns and students broke off into their book project groups to work on their projects.

Then, we watched Daniel's Story in order to prepare for our Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum trip on Monday.

We reviewed vocabulary. Even though Miss D said that there would be a vocab quiz tomorrow, there will not. In an effort to give kids more time to work on book projects, the vocab quiz will be next Thursday.

Homework: Pronoun sheet. Work on book project stuff. PERMISSION SLIPS FOR MUSEUM field trip.

Holocaust discussion & Intro to book projects

Today, we had a big discussion about the Holocaust and Miss Devine graded student participation. We began by reading Terrible Things: An allegory of the Holocaust and then we discussed messages in this book as well as our own discussion questions we brought to the circle.

We introduced pronouns and students took home a practice sheet "The Case of the Pronoun Prank" to complete for homework.

Then, we broke off into our book clubs to begin brainstorming and working on our Just Read It book projects. Here is an explanation of the Just Read It project, the Book Reflection Sheet and project rubric.

Homework: Pronoun practice sheet. Someone in the project group needs to complete the book project planning sheet and bring it to class tomorrow.

Friday....book clubs & nouns!

Welcome to Friday...oh yeah! Miss Devine passed out the permission forms for the Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum field trip on October 19th. Permission forms can be found here.

Today, we started working on Holocaust vocabulary. This week's vocabulary is:

1. bystander
2. upstander
3. holocaust
4. genocide
5. dehumanize
6. concentration camps
7. racism
8. scapegoat

Then, we took a quiz on nouns.

Students met in their last book club, reading the last chapter of their book together and then discussing their book as a whole. Later, they evaluated each other on their performance in reading and discussing in clubs.

Homework: Complete Holocaust vocab sheet. Enjoy the weekend. Bring back permission forms and $8 for museum trip!

Continuing with the Holocaust...

Today we reviewed the forms of nouns we've practiced over the last few weeks. The students will have a quiz over nouns (collective, common, proper, plural, singular, possessive) tomorrow. We did funny mad libs to practice our understanding.

We met in book clubs and discussed our reflections from Mrs. Waldman's Holocaust presentation yesterday and how what we learned connected to our books.

Then we watched a film, One Survivor Remembers, and discussed the film and looked at artifacts from Gerda Weissmann's life.

Homework: Study for noun quiz tomorrow. Finish your book club books! Blue and orange tables have Europe current events due tomorrow. Be ready for a final book club discussion on the whole book

Further exploration of the Jewish Holocaust

Possessive nouns...where to put the apostrophe? We spent the first part of class talking about this type of noun. Students have a practice sheet on possessive nouns for homework.

Then, in groups, we sorted through a folder of pictures from WWII and the Holocaust. Using our keen observation skills we noticed details of the pictures and made guesses as to which events they represented on our timeline of WWII and the Holocaust. We labeled the pictures and then as a class we went over what the pictures were actually of and we made a class timeline of events.

Later, we listened to Mrs. Waldman's presentation about the Holocaust. It was verrrry interesting.

Homework: Possessive noun practice sheet. Write a reflection in your journal about your thoughts and feelings after listening to Mrs. Waldman's presentation today. Do your assigned book club reading.

REMINDER TIME:
1. Blue and orange tables have current events due Friday. Use the "It's a Small World" sheet.
2. Noun quiz on Friday.
3. All assigned book club reading must be completed Thursday night.

A plague of locusts...

Singular? Plural? Women? Woman? We spent the beginning of class practicing with singular and plural nouns.

A plague of locusts, a mob of kangaroos, a smack of jellyfish, a colony of beavers, a box of crayons, a class of students....these are COLLECTIVE NOUNS, or words that describe a group of things. The kids had fun exploring a long, long list of collective nouns to describe groups of animals. They chose a collective noun phrase to illustrate and made a mini poster with their drawing and collective noun phrase. We shared these out with the class and hung the pictures on the wall.

We looked at the timeline and connections we made with the timeline and talked with our group about the historical context of our book. Together, we made a poster to show the historical context of our book and shared these with the rest of the class.

Tomorrow, Ms. Waldman will speak to our classes about the Holocaust.

Homework: Do assigned book club reading. Finish NOUN index card/ bookmark. If you have questions about the Holocaust to ask Ms. Waldman, bring them with you.

Book clubs: what's the historical context of my book?

Today we went over our common and proper noun homework from Friday. Then, we practiced with singular and plural nouns. There will be a noun quiz on Friday and students who are having trouble understanding the noun activities we've done in class need to get lunchtime help from Ms. Devine or Mrs. Tillery before Friday.

We did a LOT of organizing in class today, especially of pizza boxes and folders.

We met in book clubs and began with a member grid activity. Then we discussed the idea of "historical context" in our books. We decided that historical context is what parts of history are actually true in our books. In book clubs, we made a list of all the events, people, dates and instances that seem like part of the historical context of our book. Then, using a timeline of WWII and the Holocaust, we highlighted words, phrases and dates that seemed to connect with the historical context of our book and then wrote down WHY what we highlighted connects with our book. This is to be finished for homework if it's not finished in class.

Homework: Singular/plural noun sheet- both sides. Read. Continue to work on noun index card/bookmark (due Wednesday). Finish timeline activity (highlighting and writing connections) if you did not do so in class.

Photos from WWII day!

Here are some photos of the WWII dress-up hour during our time with the WWII speaker from the Atlanta History Center last Friday. Enjoy!

Setting and mood sharing, Current Events

Happy Friday.

Hula Hoop contest was amazing today!

Today, we went over the common and proper noun homework from the past 2 days. We met in book clubs to complete our setting and mood group project. Students finished posters and shared out in class. Jory and Brittney led the class in current events discussions about European events.

Homework over weekend: Finish the practice sheet Miss Devine handed out on common and proper nouns. Start on your NOUN INDEX CARD, writing common and proper nouns from your book on your "index card book mark."

Book clubs: setting & mood

Today students gathered in book clubs to complete a member grid and have a discussion using their deep discussion questions and role activities from last night. We did a move-around-the-room group evaluation activity afterwards.

Then, we talked about setting and mood in our books. Students completed this setting and mood activity with their group and then began the setting/mood group project with posterboard, markers and crayons. Tomorrow, students will have part of the class time to complete their setting/mood posters before they share them with the class.

We then talked about common and proper nouns and did part of the noun homework sheet in class.

Reminder: Red and yellow tables have Europe current events due tomorrow. Use this sheet for reporting your bi-weekly current event.

Homework: Do your assigned book club reading. Do your role. Complete the common and proper noun side of the noun worksheet. Be prepared with current event if you are at the red or yellow table!