Happy Thanksgiving

in 6th grade math this week we completed unit 3 on algebra.  We finished the test today and we will start a unit on fractions next week.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your time off.

Week 13: 6th Grade Science

To all 6th Grade Families,

Have a safe and Thankful holiday.

Sincerely,
Mr. T

6th Grade Language Arts: Coming of Age Book Clubs

Students will have their final book club meeting on Tuesday.  The concluding assessment projects for the Coming of Age Book Club Unit will be completed in December.  Students will create a book review individually and work as a group to develop a talk show presentation as the characters from their book.  Check back to see how these projects are developing!

Upcoming Due Dates:

Book Review First Draft Due: Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Book Review Final Draft Due: Monday, December 14, 2015

Book Club Talk Show Presentation: Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Technology in Your Daily Lives

Do you use technology in a creative way on a daily basis? Is there a robot that builds things in your industry? Are you able to provide better care to your patients because of technology? We want to hear from you!
We would like to connect the NPES theme of Humans of Chicago and our Hour of Code experience by bringing in guest speakers that use technology in a creative way. NPES hopes to inspire our students to change the world. From Anthony Atala who is exploring 3D printing as an alternative to organ procurement programs to Brittany Wenger who at the age of 17 turned her love of asking questions in to an award winning cloud based artificial intelligence program for diagnosing breast cancer, technology is changing the way we live our lives and experience health and happiness.
NPES students are our future. Exposing them to humans of Chicago who utilize technology everyday, gives our students the opportunity to look towards that future. Please contact Kim Smith or Brad Riggs if you would like to share your story.

Hour of Code is Coming

The Hour of Code experience at North Park needs you! The entire middle school will participate at the same time the morning of December 11, 2015. Beyond the desire to create and explore with some really great kids,  there are no specific skills required of volunteers. Everything we will do with the kids is something that you can do too. Please sign up for a time that works with your schedule. We would love to have you with your own child's class or with another class. 

Week 12: 6th Grade Science

Dear Parents,

There is not much to report this week.  We are ending our Physical Science Unit and will begin our Anatomy Unit.  The kids have enjoyed building circuits, learning how series and parallel circuits work, drawing electrical schematics, and trouble shouting some real life electrical problems.  I wouldn't let them put in a light fixture just yet.  They need some more practice.

Some of the highlights for the upcoming unit is to study the Integumentary (skin), Skeletal and Muscular systems, learn how to use a microscope, and the "Hierarchy of Life."

Sincerely,
Mr. T

Finishing Unit 3 on algebra

This week in 6th grade math we are finishing up unit 3 on algebra.  This week we have been continuing to work on the rule, table, and graph relationship with several different activities and we learned a new game called Over and Up Squares that works with plotting ordered pairs on the coordinate plane.  Today, we learned how to write equations in a spreadsheet and reviewed adding negative and positive numbers while playing another new game called Spreadsheet Scramble.  For the rest of the week, we will be continuing to learn about spreadsheets and how to use them and we will be learning how to tell a story by drawing a graph.

Upcoming assignments:

Test on Tuesday November 24th

6th Grade Language Arts: Coming of Age Book Clubs

Counting By 7s

“Willow is an adopted kid who is basically a genius. She makes some unusual friends while having to do counseling. Her life is about to change like it never has before. This book gives an unique twist on the classic story plot of a middle schooler's life. Join Willow as she grows and learns in the roller coaster of the world we live in today.”

-Brecken, Katey, & Aino

Religions Project

This week, the 6th graders are working on turning their research about world religions into projects that can be shared with an audience.  They are working on creating websites, editing their final products, and putting on the finishing touches. Mr. Riggs, our technology specialist, has been team teaching with Mrs. Wells on this project and he is working closely with the students to help them create websites and videos. Tomorrow, they will share their projects with the class and get constructive feedback from their peers.  They will then use this feedback to improve their projects. Later this week, students will learn more about how they will use their knowledge about their religions to participate in a summit.

6th Grade Language Arts: Coming of Age Book Clubs

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

“The book so far is about two kids named Jeremy and Lizzy. They received a box that had the words, “For Jeremy Fink on his 13th birthday,” a month before his 13th birthday. His dad is dead now, and the keys were in the safety of a colleague the dad was close friends with. The colleague lost the keys, and now Jeremy and Lizzy are on an adventure to find the four keys. A few mishaps have happened, making it harder to find the keys.”

-Mai-Linh, Ellana, Lily, Lia

Grecian Urns and Optical Illusions in Art.

The 6th graders read Ode to a Grecian Urn by John Keats and wrote an ode to something they love in language arts. Then they learned about the shapes and uses of Grecian urns in art.  Next they were asked to designed a Grecian urn to represent their ode.  We made them out of paper only because we don't have the right clay facilities to make them 3-D. I think they got some really nice results using paper and only two colors.

Last week we looked at the work of Op artist Victor Vasarely, the "grandfather" of the Op art movement. The 6th graders started to draw their own op art compositions using lines and circles. Many of them pushed the project further to try a more complicated design. 

Adding color and shading will really give these movement and make them look 3-dimensional.

  

Algebra

This week in 6th grade math we are continuing to work on our unit on algebra and variables.  We started the week learning about variables.  We worked with general patterns that used variables and then applied this to special cases were we replaced the general patterns with actual numbers.  Making the connection that variables can represent any number.  Today we learned how to write algebraic expressions for real world situations and how to use words in the sentence to identify what operation was needed in the expression.  For the rest of the week, we will be substituting values into equations to solve area and perimeter problems.  We will finish of the week with our first of two lessons on formulas, tables and graphs.  During this lesson the students will be connecting the math they are doing to a visual representation of a graph.

6th Grade Language Arts: Coming of Age Book Clubs

The Outsiders

“We like the book The Outsiders because it is full of action, suspense, and mystery. The characters’ personalities are very interesting and you can clearly see them change throughout the book. In this book, there are two rival gangs fighting. The Greasers, who are the main characters, fight against their rivals, the rich Socs. There is fighting between the two gangs and people get hurt. Will the Greasers be able to fend off the Socs and keep them out of their territory? To find out more, read the book, The Outsiders, and find out what happens between the two rival gangs.” 
-Lorenzo, Toby, Ethan G., Collin, & Ethan B.

The Girl Who Threw Butterflies 

“This book is about a girl who can throw a knuckleball and is trying out for a boys baseball team. It is significant because her dad died and the one thing he wanted her to do was play baseball not softball. We like this book because it is a tragedy, but the book itself is not sad.”

-Jonathan, Wyatt, & Marcus

Project Creation

After weeks of creating questions and doing research about their religions, the 6th graders are finally hard at work creating their team projects.  Students are using many different forms of media to demonstrate their knowledge.  Over the next few weeks, their projects will evolve into a final product that they will share on project fair night, Thursday, December 3 from 6:30-8:00 p.m.  This Thursday, they will have a quiz about the religion that they researched to make sure that each group is on track with their research.  They will present their works-in-progress to their classmates next Tuesday, November 17.

Question for your 6th grader:

• What are you and your team creating to show knowledge about the religion that you have been researching?

Week 11: 6th Grade Science

Week: 11

Topic:  Electricity:  Electric Circuits

Objectives: 

Explain what Ohm’s Law is.  

Describe the basic features of an electric circuit.  

Identify how many paths currents can take in a series and parallel circuits.

Essential Question:

Which path will the current take?  

This week the kids will build and observe series and parallel circuits, then they will add a switch to their circuits.   While doing these experiments they will apply Ohm’s Law and see the relationship of resistance, voltage, and current. They will learn how to use a ammeter and a voltmeter. 

Key Terms:

Ohm’s Law

series and parallel Circuits

ammeter

voltmeter

Differentiation:

Observing

Predicting

Concluding

Math integration

Upcoming:

Next week we will conclude the unit by looking at electrical safety.

Lacrosse in PE

"This unit, 6th grade learned how to play lacrosse. At the beginning of the unit we learn how to cradle the ball. That was very hard! Also the majestic Mr. Hirsch would not let us pick up the ball with our hands if we dropped it. That got us MAD! Then we began to play games. Playing games was challenging because you had to cradle, pass, and make sure you were safe at the same time. In conclusion, the lacrosse unit was fun and challenging."

-Katey

Focus Questions and Research

Last week, the 6th graders created focus questions to help guide their research for their project about a major world religion.  Students used photographs, religious texts, videos of worship, and news articles to help them ask questions worth researching.  This week, they are using books and websites to answer those questions.  The inquiry process requires making multiple drafts of questions.  As students are researching, they are getting closer to finding the questions that they will eventually answer for their group project.  By the end of the week, students will brainstorm different ways to share their knowledge with an audience.

Question for your 6th grader:

• What are the three focus questions that your are trying to answer about your religion?

Finishing unit 2

This week in 6th grade math we are finishing up our second unit on large and small numbers.  Yesterday we had our last lesson of the unit, which was on using calculators to work with scientific notation.  Today the kids worked with a partner to complete the open response portion of the test and they will have the test on Thursday.  They received a study guide last week to help them prepare for the test on Thursday.  Parts of this tend to be a little challenging because they have only worked a little with negative exponents and scientific notation.

On Friday we will start our third unit of the year on algebra.  We will start by looking at patterns and what variable really mean.

Week 10: 6th Grade Science

Week: 10

Topic:  Electricity:  Electric Current

Objectives: 

Explain how an electric current is produced.

Explain how conductors are different from insulators.  

Describe what causes electric charges to flow in a circuit.  

Explain how resistance affects current.

Essential Question:

What does it mean when someone says, “I took the path of least resistance?”

This week the kids will explore the components of an electric current.  Our “Ice Breaker”  was watching Lucy working in the chocolate factory and identify the components of an electric current.

Key Terms:

electric current

electric circuit

conductor & insulator

voltage and voltage source

resistance

Differentiation:

Observing

Predicting

Inferring

Classifying

Skits

Upcoming:

Next week we will begin creating circuits and look at Ohm’s Law and the relationship of resistance, voltage and current in a circuit.

1st Quarter Grades Posted by 5:00 pm on 11/9/15

Today marks the beginning of the 2nd quarter for middle school students. Grades for the 1st quarter will be posted to Net Community by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, 11/9/15.