Dr. Martire reads to the Sixth Age!

Dr. Martire read Harry the Dirty Dog to the entire Sixth Age in the courtyard this morning, in celebration of March Reading Madness!

Students enjoyed this fellowship together and look forward to finishing March Reading book links and minute tallies throughout the week.  Next week will conclude March Reading Madness at Calvert.

Calvert Bear travels to DISNEY WORLD!

Calvert Bear recently went on a spring break adventure with a student to Disney World in Orlando, Florida! Both boy and bear had a ton of fun and even rode on Splash Mountain!

I was quite impressed by the amount of time this student spent on completing this thoughtful project- he included two pages of complete sentences and even drew accompanying pictures.  Excellent job!

Cafe du Monde

Enjoying wonderful beignets and a cafe au lait at one of this city's landmarks. 

Have you figured out where I am?

Mrs. Armstrong Travels To...

I am on a plane- headed where, you ask? I'll give you a hint: this city is often referred to as " the city that care forgot". This is because people are said to travel here to have a good time! I'll post more clues later this week.

Bon voyage, Baltimore!

Sitting on the window seat of the plane.

The 6D Tree in late winter

The 6D students visited their tree this past week, as it is showing signs of spring! Small red buds have appeared on the branches- what a beautiful sight!

Students drew a picture of the tree to add to their journals.

Sharks and Minnows

In light of the wonderful *spring* weather we've been experiencing in Baltimore this week, the 6D students played "Sharks and Minnows" with their 9th Age friends on the field.

Fun was had by all!

The Puddle

The readers read a story called The Puddle this week in class.  It is a fictitious tale of a boy who takes his toy boat out for a sail on a rainy day.  The sailboat has a wonderful adventure on the "high sea"s and meets an alligator, an elephant, and even a turtle having tea!

To celebrate this story, the students made origami sailboats in class before documenting their own fictitious boating adventure.

Ships ahoy, readers!

Dr. Trusty Reads to the Sixth Age!

Dr. Trusty read The Cat In the Hat to the entire Sixth Age in honor of March Reading Madness.  Students gathered in the small amphitheater outside and enjoyed the lovely weather.

Thank you, Dr. Trusty!

Spirit Day

The Sixth Age celebrated Spirit Week by dressing in our grade-wide banner colors last Friday!  The students had many to choose from, as the colors are: red, green, blue, black, white, and yellow.  They painted banners during the week, recited a special cheer, and enjoyed cupcakes at snack. Go, Sixth Age!

Alphabet Letter Sounds

When students are learning the alphabet and corresponding letter sounds, they often add additional vowel sounds to the end of their pronunciation. For example, some students add "UH" to consonants such as /D/, /B/, and even /M/. This can be confusing when they begin to independently sound out words. In the word DOG, for example, you would not say /duh/ for the d sound, as it takes away from the meaning of the word- in short, the pronunciation of the word dog would be incorrect if this occurred. The below is a good example of proper letter sound pronunciation. Enjoy!

Alphabet Letter Sounds

Activist Project

The 6D students have been discussing activism in class over the past several weeks.  Students defined this word and later discussed ways they could be activists in their own communities.  An idea which was spurred during discussion of activism was feeding the hungry, or less fortunate.  With support and guidance from Mrs. Nabit, a 6D class parent, students put this idea into practice last week by making a variety of food items which were donated to Our Daily Bread in Baltimore. 

After an initial discussion led by Mrs. Nabit, students were divided into small groups in the cafeteria.  Each group was responsible for putting together one of the following items:

• apple butter and cheese sandwiches
• sunbutter and jelly sandwiches
• vegetable snack bags
• trail mix snack bags

Each group was able to rotate through every food station.  The class also wore gloves to protect the donated food from germs. 

Vegetable snack bags are organized by a cheerful student.

Carefully spreading sunbutter and jelly onto delicious sandwich bread



Trail mix is carefully placed into small baggies for distribution at Our Daily Bread in Baltimore.

I am pleased with 6D's teamwork throughout this activity- and I really believe the students felt empowered in their role as "activists".  Thank you to Mrs. Nabit for providing the supplies and for spearheading this project!

Bears Fact Web

To prepare for a nonfiction story about bears, students created fact webs in small groups.  They did a nice job of listing items they wanted to share with the class.

We will utilize these webs when we complete the reading in class. 

Nice teamwork, readers!

James Marshall

Our January and February author of the month was James Marshall.  Students listened to many of his books and really appreciated his sense of humor! One of the class's favorite books was none-other than

This book is about a teacher named Miss Nelson who is having a challenging time teaching a rather roudy class.  One day she solicits the expertise of a substitute named Ms. Viola Swamp!  Ms. Swamp is everything Miss Nelson is NOT: angry, loud, and mean.  The students are scared stiff of Ms. Swamp and do everything she asks.  Miss Nelson returns a few weeks later and her class is once again on their best behavior. 

The 6D students completed a written character study of both Miss Nelson and Ms. Swamp before creating corresponding paper mache masks.  They did a fantastic job!  This is a picture of Miss Nelson

and these are the masks:

And this is a picture of Ms. Viola Swamp

and below are the masks.

Excellent job, 6D!