Girls on the Run Lemonade and Treat Sale 5/26 After School

Tuesday, May 26th, from 3:15 to 4:30, Girls on the Run will host a lemonade and treat sale as their community impact project. Lemonade and treats will be sold after school in front of the building for 50 cents each (or a donation) to raise money for the purchase of a tree for the playlot. We'd love to have you and your child join us for a tasty end to the day! Thank you for your support!

PE Year in Review Video!

Hi Everyone,

I have created a video to show everybody all the great things we have done this year in PE here at NPES! We have come a long way since the fall, and have been learning about and playing many games this year.  I hope you all enjoy this glimpse into your student's year in my class!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F59Im2cVfq8

-Mr. Hirsch

Colonies Project

This week, the 6th graders learned about different groups of colonists in North America.  They learned about the settlements created by the French and the Dutch.  They also worked on an activity where they analyzed real passenger lists from ships traveling to New England and Virginia.  They used the data to make educated guesses about the kind of people that moved to different areas and how those colonies might grow.  Over the next week, students will be working on a project about the 13 colonies.  Students will research a colony or region through the lens of the 5 themes of social studies.  Students will write their essay next Thursday and will take their test next Friday.

Questions for your 6th grader:
Is America the land of opportunity?
What can passenger lists tell us about who settled in the American colonies?

Complex algebra problems

This week in 6th grade math we are continuing to work with algebra problems.  We have learned how to use the distribute property and how to combine like terms to make algebra problems easier so that they can be solved.  For the rest of the week we will be learning how to apply this to different real world contexts especially geometry.  We will apply algebra skills to calculate volume and surface area problems.

Test next Wednesday May 27th.

Week 36: 6th Grade Science

Week: 36

Topic:  Evolution from the Virus

Objectives: 

The 6th grade will end the year by looking at how the animal and plant world have evolved  from a prokaryotic to a eukaryotic organism.  They will look at bacteria, protists (animal - like & plantlike organisms), and fungi.  I am also excited to see their model viruses and the why behind their creation.  Next week we will end the year with the worm dissection and discuss how evolved it is compared to a simple single-celled organism.  

Upcoming:  Virus presentations & worm dissections

American Colonies

On Monday, students finished their Enlightenment unit by taking a quiz.  Now, we will shift our focus from European history to American history with a unit on the American colonies.  This will help prepare students for the curriculum in 7th grade, which will cover early United States history.  Students will be using a lot of primary sources for this unit to look at the formation of the colonies from multiple perspective including the colonists, Native Americans, and slaves.

Question for your 6th grader:
Tell me about the government debate that you participated in last week.
How much say should the people of a nation have in their government?

6th Grade Language Arts: Hobbit Gazette

The sixth grade class is working on their final project to conclude the Hobbit Unit.  To complete the project they will imagine they live in the world of Middle Earth and work for a newspaper.  They will decide what events from the novel they find newsworthy.  They will design an authentic looking newspaper including feature articles, sports articles, editorials, classified ads, advice columns, interviews, advertisements, and more.  They will use their creativity and design their newspapers using their iPads.  This project is due on May 22nd.

Upcoming Dates:

Final Poetry Unit Test on Thursday, May 14th

Final 3 Poems due on Wednesday, May 20th

Hobbit Unit Test on Thursday, May 21st

Hobbit Gazette Project due on Friday, May 22nd

Algebra equations

This week in 6th grade math we are learning about the distributive property and how to use it to solve more complex algebra equations.  We have spent the last two days learning about the distributive property and how they have been using the property for a long time to do partial products multiplication.  We are going to begin to use this concept to help to solve more complex algebra problems that require the use of the distributive property and combining like terms.

Week 35: 6th Grade Science

Week: 35

Topic:  Viruses

This past week the 6th grade class has begun their unit on the virus.  They have used proportions to figure out the size of a virus and that 19 million viruses would fit on the head of a pin.  They used their prior knowledge of the circle (diameter, radius and circumference.)  

Using simple statistics the class predicted how many turns it would take to infect the whole class if one classmate is infected.  For me the best part of this lesson is the great discussion that evolves.  Next, we will look at how a virus reproduces (active and hidden) and how it is a locksmith to trick the cell membrane for entrance into the cell.

Just an FYI, please check to see if your son or daughter have begun their Virus Project.

Thanks,

Mr. T

Sixth graders are creating websites

In library, sixth graders spent a little time studying how to evaluate a credible website and what kind of questions to ask to assess accountability .  Within this context, they also viewed some hoax websites and now are designing their own.  Links will be supplied once they are completed but so far, they are very creative (and somewhat outrageous.)

Week 34: 6th Grade Science

Week: 34

Topic:  Viruses

Objectives: 

List characteristics of viruses and state reasons why viruses are considered non-living.

Describe the components of the basic structure of a virus.

Explain how both active and hidden viruses multiply.

Discuss both negative and positive ways that viruses affect living things.

Essential Question:

 Can something be non-living but alive?

This week the 6th grade class will begin the unit by discussing the essential question.  They will look at why a virus is similar to a key, their size (proportions), and then create their own virus. 

Key Terms:

virus

host

parasite

bacteriophage

Differentiation:

Inferring

Making Models

Math: Proportions and dimensions of a circle

Upcoming:

Students will be making their own virus models.

Test and more algebra

This week in 6th grade we are finishing our unit on ratios, proportions, and percents.  We will be taking a test on Thursday and Friday of this week.  This test takes two days to complete because it requires a great deal of computation and they are not allowed to use calculators to solve the problems.  After the test we will begin our last unit of the year on algebra.  The students will learn about the distributive property and how to solve more complex algebra problems.  They will also learn about the pythagorean theorem.

Test on Thursday and Friday of the week.