Karate

I was able to visit one of my students earn his light brown belt during a karate lesson last week.  He did a wonderful job!  Thank you to this student and his parents for inviting me to this special occasion!

Scarecrow Glyphs with 9A

6D met with the 9A girls last week to make scarecrow glyphs.  They had so much fun!  Isn't this picture perfect?  It really sums up the wonderful collaboration and friendship taking place between both classes. 

Ms. Gust reads to 6D!

Ms. Gust read to 6D this past week and the students were wonderful listeners.  We LOVED the stories she brought in to share!  Thank you, Ms. Gust!

Reading Tip

Beginning readers often face many obstacles as they navigate through the written world.  An example of one such obstacle is encountering an unfamiliar word within a text or storybook.  Unfamiliar words can be intimidating, which is why proper decoding strategies are vital to a student's reading success.  Employment of decoding strategies during reading will not only allow a child's confidence to grow, it will also allow them to become more independent readers.

One decoding strategy is to look at pictures in a story for clues.  When reading with your child, take time to reflect on the pictures.  Ask questions such as, "What do you see?" "How do you think the character feels? What makes you think that?" or "What type of story do you think this is? (A fantasy/ nonfiction, etc.)" and also "How do you think this story will end?/ What will happen next?"

Picture words can also pop up within text.  Take this particular story, for example.  The sentence begins, "Space Pup helps people at night, but when the s__ comes up, he rests all day."   A child may encounter this word and will not be able to read it with immediacy. If you guide them towards the pictures, you may ask, "What do you see?"  A child may say "the sun".  If they don't immediatly give the sun as an example, draw their attention to the larger items on the page.  Do you notice how large the sun is?  I try to tell my students that illustrators often make more important pictures (like the sun, for example) more prominent.  After your child says "the sun", you can guide them back to the word.  Notice how SUN begins with S as does the first letter of this word? 

Another fun idea is to provide finger puppets as tracking devices for your child to use as they read.  I purchased a set from IKEA which my students simply love.  It will also provide you as a parent with valuable clues on how your child is reading.  Do they pause on unfamiliar words and try to decode independently?  Do they spend thoughtful time looking at each word, or are they quick to rush through, missing written text along the way?

I hope the suggestions above will serve as aids when you read with your child!

The 6D Tree- Autumn

The 6D students adopted and visited a tree on Calvert's campus this past week.  We will visit the tree multiple times throughout the year, documenting its growth and change throughout the four seasons.  Some students noticed that some of the leaves had already begun to change from green to yellow, red, and brown.  Pictures of our tree will be included in our 6th Age journals.

Phoneme Jump

Reading students practiced their listening skills this week with a phonemic awareness activity which took us outside. What is a phoneme, you ask? A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound- and as parents or teachers you are already familiar with the alphabet sounds, most of which have their own phonemes (an example of an exception is C which "steals" sounds from other letters like K and S). Phonemic awareness activities increase a child's understanding of phonemes and can be particularly helpful as they segwey into blending words and completing writing activities.

Students first chose a picture card from a large stack, then as a group we isolated each sound before jumping it out with a jumprope. For example, in the word CAT, there are three phonemes: /C/, /A/, and /T/. In RING, there are three as well (one is a digraph): /R/, /I/, /NG/. Students enjoyed being so active in reading- and of course, the fact that is was raining (on and off) was a bonus!

Below are pictures of two students with their picture cards before jumproping.

Zero Is the Leaves on the Tree

The mathematicians listened to the following story today, as the learned about the number zero.

Each student then thought of a circumstance when there was zero of an item, and why.  They colored pictures to correspond with their ideas- take a peak!

Outdoor Learning

The 6D and 6C students joined forces last Friday to count squirrels and squirrel food, utilizing Calvert's great outdoors!  Upon being paired together, the friends traveled through Molly's Garden and Castalia to graph the number of squirrels, seeds, pinecones, and nuts found on their journey. 

The students LOVED this experience outdoors, and I look forward to sharing many similar outdoor projects them in the near future.  Nice job to both classes for their hard work together as well.

Mrs. Nabit cooks with 6D!

Mrs. Nabit visited 6D last week, where she taught the bakers how to make cake clowns! These fun treats are created by mixing a slice of cake with a heavy tablespoon of icing. Mrs. Nabit told the bakers that the icing acts as the glue that holds the cake together- isn't that funny? We had a truly tasty time balling our cake and icing together (this was deliciously messy!) before adding various sweet candies, such as mini chocolate chips and sprinkles. When the ball was complete, Mrs. Nabit helped us to add a cake cone to the top before adding whipped cream and decorative icing.

This was such a fun way to end the day- thank you, Mrs. Nabit!

Mrs. Spahn visits 6D!

Mrs. Spahn visited 6D last week. She brought in some of her favorite stories to share!

My favorite was Morris Goes to School, a story about a silly moose who spends a day in school.

Thank you, Mrs. Spahn, for spending time with us!

Tactile Numbers

Last week we practiced writing our numbers in colored-sand! When complete, we took turns within our groups to draw a corresponding number picture. Nice work, mathematicians!

Click on "Fine Motor Ideas" for additional suggestions on how to keep writing fun at home!

Mystery Messenger

My reading class and I have been visited several times this year by someone named the "Mystery Messenger".  This messenger delivers special notes to us in Mrs. Armstrong's mailbox.  We even had an opportunity to send the Mystery Messenger written questions. The identity of this messenger has not yet been revealed, but we did learn that the messenger is a girl, not a boy.  This ruled out our previous guess that Dr. Trusty was the messenger! 

Last week the Mystery Messenger sent us each a letter where we had to locate and circle our sight words hidden inside.

What a treat it has been communicating with you, M. M.! We look forward to continuing our correspondence throughout the year!

Soccer Stars!

This morning I visited some Calvert soccer stars for a weekend game. Outside of school these girls were polite, friendly, and awesome athletes! Thank you to the 6th Age parents for inviting me to this game!

Webers Farm

This afternoon I visited Webers Farm- on such a crisp, fall day it was the perfect outing! I took home some farm-grown apples and pumpkins, and even sampled their homemade apple cider donuts- yum, yum!

Can you estimate how many apples and pumpkins you see?  Are there more than 10? Less than 100?

Happy Fall!

Apple Tasting

The 6D students had an apple tasting on Friday afternoon. The students utilized their five senses during the tasting:

• sense of sight to view the skin color of the apples
• sense of smell (some apples smelled especially sweet)
• sense of touch
• sense of hearing (how did the apple sound when we took a bite?)
• sense of taste (this was our favorite!)

Thank you to all parents who contributed apples for our tasting- the class enjoyed this activity!

Mama Cat Had Three Kittens

On Friday during math I read Mama Cat Has Three Kittens, a story illustrating the numbers 1, 2, and 3.

The students liked the name of the kittens: Fluffy, Skinny, and Boris. Boris was a silly kitten because he slept a lot! After a brief discussion of the story, the students drew the three kittens on a dry erase board,

after which they were labeled with a number 1, 2, and 3. Then the mathematicians practiced proper letter formation on a partner's back utilizing number rhymes taught in Pilot. Watch the below video of a student reciting my favorite rhyme:

"Around a tree, around a tree, that's the way you make a three!"

Lastly the students practiced these numbers on dry erase boards.

Click on the "6th Age Math" side bar to find a listing of these number rhymes for practice at home!

Mrs. Armstrong's Reading Class Skypes Switzerland

On Friday morning my reading class and I Skyped Mr. Gilbert's second grade class in Zurich, Switzerland!  I was able to establish Mr. Gilbert as a Skype contact when I visited Zurich last March.  His students were preparing for afternoon dismissal while we were just beginning our school day (the readers thought this was very funny!), as Zurich is 6 hours ahead of Baltimore. 

Mr. Gilbert did not tell his class where they were Skyping so his students asked the readers a series of questions, such as, "What time is it?" and, "Where do you go to school?" before finally asking, "Where are you from?"  We learned that Mr. Gilbert's class plays some of the same games we like, such as UNO. 

The readers were understandably nervous and excited as they waited to ask questions of their new friends.  I am proud of my class for being brave despite their nerves, and I'm sure the more people we meet over Skype, the less anxious some will become.

After Skyping, the readers and I discussed how the conversation went between us and our new Swiss friends.  We agreed that when talking to someone over Skype your voice has to be:

• loud (not so loud you are yelling, but louder than your normal talking voice),
• clear (this was important because the Swiss students had British accents and we have American accents so the clearer we were in expressing ourselves, the easier we were to understand),
• slow (when we talked fast we often had to repeat ourselves), and
• full of expression (adding inflections when asking questions or acting excited was important).

We decided that the qualities we used to speak to our new friends are the same qualities we must remember as we read orally.  It is important to speak so that others can hear us, read distinctly and slowly, and add inflection to our voices.

We wrapped up class by re-reading the textbook story, Dan's Pet, recalling these sentiments.

Excellent job to my class and our new friends!  Thank you, Mr. Gilbert- we look forward to chatting again soon.