Cummings 6th Grade Team

We’re into our final trimester! Can you believe it?  It’s easy for students to feel like letting down effort.  However, we have many major units, projects, and  field trips yet to come, so effort needs to still be on high.  Please call us if you have any concerns about your child’s progress as relayed to you via the last trimester’s report card.

Reading- We’re just finishing our study of character.  Our final project is a complete character analysis of a main character of our choice from the Outsiders. We also will be comparing the theme of two stories: Ruby Bridges and Outsiders.  Students will write a theme comparison essay.

The second week of March, we will begin reading news articles and analyzing their structure.  We’re doing this to prepare for writing our own news articles for the Cumming’s Chronicles!  ***We need complete newspapers (in order and minus the advertisements) to use in studying news paper and editorial formats.***

Book Recommendations-Students should never be home without the current book that they are reading.  Students who read all the recommended genre will receive a special award at the end of the year.   Keep on reading!  Book Recommendation V due 3/23/10 by 3:45.

Writing- March finds us finishing up our narrative story.  It’s been a long haul, but well worth it!  We will be studying the correct use of dialogue (including interrupted format), narrative paragraphing, and using interjections.  We’ve got some wonderful writing.  Look for a letter about publishing a book! (Free thanks to our PTC!)

Once we’re done with that, we will chose the topics for our news articles.  The weeks following will be full of developing questions for research, setting up interviews, finding information, and writing articles. Reporters (your students) will turn in their articles for a grade (ask them for the requirements.)  Even though we are having a very late start this year in getting the Cummings’ Chronicles up and running, we hope to still have one for the end of the year.

Professionally published books: Thanks to the PTC for the $350.00 grant, 30 6th grade students will have the opportunity to create a hardcover professionally published book of their fictional stories they  created.  This is an after-school, out-side of school activity that will take some extra work on the part of the committed writer (book illustrations, designing page layouts, etc.) which Mrs. Clark will guide. *Parent helpers are needed.

Social Studies: Over the past month, we have been studying the ancient civilizations of Latin America.  We will continue our study of Latin America the next few weeks. During the early part of the third trimester, our students will begin research projects related to the countries of Latin America and the provinces of Canada.  We will put our recent research practice into action!

Math - Updated coming soon!

Science – Thank you so much for the help with the heart dissections!! I believe this was one of the best years ever and we have the parents to thank for the extra assistance! We are finishing the unit on the Cardiovascular System with the test and another lab where students investigated the affects of exercise on their heart rate and made “blood” using the components of corn syrup plasma, licorice red blood cells, marshmallow white blood cells, and candy sprinkle platelets.

Learning Connections– As mentioned in the social studies section.  We will begin research projects soon.  This will connect the to an oral report (standard 6:12) of social studies topic of your student’s choice in which he/she will research the topic, note-take, and then create an oral report and visual.

As always, please make sure your student is studying their weekly spelling words.  They make their list every Monday!

6th grade Cummings/East Camp: Please mark your calendars; more information to come as we get closer.  There will be a meeting  on April 20th at 6:30 in the Cummings’ gym  for students and parents led by Bill Rankin, Camp Pinewood’s director. He will get into more details of what to expect.  We will need approximately 10 chaperones from Cummings and another 10 from East. Adult chaperones will have to pay $21.00 for the cost of the 3 meals.

Currently, we have the cost down from $57.00 per student to $25.00 per student after our fall conference sub-sale and the grade-level money from the PTC.  With our spring sub-sales, we will need to earn $400.00 profit to get the cost down to $20.00 for each of our 80 students. This fee will pay for the camp staff who led activities, use of their cabins and other facilities, and a breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Please contact your student’s homeroom teacher with any questions or if you would like to sign up for chaperone.  (If you are able to stay the night in a cabin but not for the two days/meals, you could come just to monitor a cabin at no cost.)

Eligibility Policy– We’ve spoken to students about eligibility.  As stated in the last letter the policy is: All students are eligible to go, but if a student’s classroom behavior deems it, the homeroom teacher may request for his/her parent to chaperone (which may or may not require a fee for that parent.)  Students are expected to behave appropriately because they represent Grandville Public Schools while on this trip.  Any students who receive more than 2 suspensions or more than 5 pink slips from January 18 and May 15th will not be eligible to participate in this trip but will still be expected to attend school for those 2 days.  Please contact your student’s homeroom teacher with any questions, suggestions, or concerns.

IMPORTANT DATES:

March 1-31: Reading Month

March 5th: 2nd Trimester Report Cards come home/ Read-A-Thon (Remember- you can check your students grades anytime on Infinite Campus.)

March 9th & 11th:

Student-led conferences (4:00 to 7:00 p.m.)

April 2nd–9th: Spring Break!

CONTACT US:

kclark@gpsk12.net

btravis@gpsk12.net

chorton@gpsk12.net

Office: 254-6041