6th+Grade

=Week of October 22-26= Your students have a busy week! This week, with the help of the BA SADD club, we will recognize National Red Ribbon week.

Tuesday-The students will attend a session with Doug Kahn, a Beaufort Academy parent and DEA officer.

Thursday-You and your family are invited to the SADD pancake breakfast (7:00-7:50). A breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and juice will be just $5. Hot chocolate will also be sold for $1. Also on Thursday- The Fall Festival (3:00-5:00) BA families and friends are all welcome to come join in the fun of our old fashioned Halloween Carnival. This event is free!

Friday-The students will attend an educational session led by Frank Hamilton from MADD.

Ongoing-We are collecting canned goods and other non-perishable food items for HELP of Beaufort.

Uniform exceptions for the week: Thursday-Students may wear any Fall Festival t-shirt from this year or years past. Friday-Students are encouraged to wear a red shirt.

In class, we are still reading __Bud Not Buddy__. Please ask your students about it. Bud, the main character, is entertaining the students already. He is a strong-willed, witty boy, and he has already encountered hardships along his journey to find his father. Christopher Paul Curtis is a genius with figurative language, and the students will benefit from this real-life application. I am looking forward to seeing his examples shine through in the students' writing.

We have also begun the WordMasters Challenge. Please encourage your student to use the words from our list as well as look for them in his or her reading. Please visit the website to learn more about the challenge. [|WordMasters website]

=Fall Festival Info:=

The 6th grade booth will be a Dessert Walk. I have attached a schedule of the students' shift times and the volunteer dessert list.[[file:6th Grade Dessert Walk Shifts.docx]]
=Week of October 15-19= Test on Tuesday. The students have a chapter packet and a study guide.

This week I will introduce a new program called WordMasters Challenge. This is a national analogy-based competition that will enble our students to develop their critical thinking, reasoning, and vocabulary skills. I am excited that we have been allowed to participate in this program. The students will be given the first list tomorrow in class.

=Week of October 9-12= Short and fast week! This week we jumped into __Bud, Not Buddy__, a novel by Christopher Paul Curtis. This is a historical fiction study of a young orphan on a search to find his father during the Great Depression. Believe it or not, it is just as funny as it is touching, and the students will love it.

The students will have a test on chapters 1-6 on Tuesday, October 16th.

=Week of October 1-5= We will have our 1st grammar test tomorrow. The students received a study guide. It is also attached. We had a nice review today, and the students should do well. I recommend studying the notes and the book. Please note, however, that we have not covered all of the sections in Chapter 2. The sections we have covered are listed on the study guide.

We reached the mid-way point of our first trimester. Time flies! If you have not done so, please check your student's grades online. We have set aside time for parent conferences this Thursday afternoon. If we have not requested a conference with you, then we do not feel a conference is necessary at this time.

Don't forget...Friday is a half day, and we will dismiss at 11:30. Lunch will not be served. Monday is a holiday. We will see you on Tuesday, October 9th.

School picture proofs should be in soon. I will send those home once I receive them. Retakes are scheduled for Thursday, October 11th if necessary.

=***Grammar Test*** Wednesday, October 3rd= =We will begin __Bud Not Buddy__ next week.= =Week of September 24-28= The sixth grade has become the grammar police! We are concentrating on improving writing skills by learning how to avoid or fix fragments and run-on sentences. Toward the end of the week we will move on to word choice and parallelism. Research has proven that applied grammar lesson produce greater and longer lasting results than the grammar lessons like you and I had. It is fun to watch the students apply these lessons or even spot them in our reading. They are so smart!

Next week, we will have time set aside for parent conferences. If you would like to schedule a conference for Thursday evening, let me know. If I feel as though a conference is necessary, I will contact you. Otherwise, a conference is not necessary. We will have a half-day Friday, October 5th and no school on Monday, October 8th. Enjoy your fall break!

Noteworthy: Fall Festival t-shirts are order forms were sent via email. Those orders are due October 2nd. Students will be allowed to wear those shirts every Friday throughout the school year. Fall Festival is Thursday, October 25th.

=Week of September 17-21= This was a week of guest speakers! Mrs. Melville, our school's guidance counselor scheduled a special lesson for our class. Mrs. Melville is a fabulous resource for our school as she is able to assist students with social, school, or even out of school issues. We also had a visit from Mrs. Reilly, our school media specialist. Mrs. Reilly had the tough job of expalining our school's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to us. Please ask your student about our policy. Hopefully, you will hear that we all need to be responsible when it comes to using any kind of electronic devices both on and off campus. If you and your student have not signed the school's behavior pledge with the agreement to abide by the AUP, please do so. Your student has a copy if you have not yet turned one in to the school. It can also be found on the BA website.

We ended the week with many of our classmates participating in a flash mob! What a surprise to see about half of the class join other middle and high schoolers in a well-rehearsed dance during the pep rally. It was a treat! =Week of September 10-14= This week the school had an assembly and a flag ceremony to honor the memory of those killed in the September 11th attacks. It was meaningful to watch as the school sat quietly and listened to Mrs. Corner speak about the day.

Tomorrow is picture day! Students are to wear the regular dress code. Proofs and order forms will be be sent home in a few weeks. = =

=Week of September 4-7=

Welcome back from a well-deserved day off. The first few weeks of school are such fun but tiring!

This week we started reading from our Scholastic Scope magazine. These magazines are issued monthly and are filled with articles, stories, poems, and plays. Currently, we are reading a non-fiction story about grizzly bears in Yosemite and comparing it with a newspaper article about an ever-growing population of Rhesus monkeys in Delhi, India. We will end the study with a reading of Robert Frost's poem, "A Minor Bird." I am excited to watch the students compare and contrast the three texts. We will end the week with article on manners that should spark lots of debate. Our first writer's workshop will also be introduced later in the week-an argumentative essay. =Week of August 23-24=

What a great first day! I loved seeing all of the eager faces. The students seemed to do quite well with lockers, schedules, and new teachers.

A couple of things: Please remember to buy your books at your earliest convenience. [|Click here for MBS Direct website]

Uniforms are khaki bottoms and solid color tops. Students must wear tennis shoes for PE. They may not wear Tom's, Uggs, Sperries, etc.

Fridays are BA t-shirt days. Students may wear khaki bottoms and a BA t-shirt. Shirts must be tucked in, and belts must be worn.

We'll begin going over our summer reading Monday.

= Week of August 27-31 =

Happy second week of school! This week we are finishing up our genre study as well as reviewing our summer reading. We have seen some fabulous collages on __The Man Who Loved Clowns__.

We are going to practice our genre knowledge by categorizing our independent summer novels into the appropriate genres. I am also going to collect a baseline writing sample from each student (in class) so we can watch the fabulous progress throughout the year.

Just a few things to remember:


 * please make sure your student is adhering to the dress code
 * Running club will start next week. Your student will need a signed permission slip to participate. Mrs. Ambrose spoke to the class today about running club and passed out permission slips to those students who were interested.
 * Remind your students that homework assignments will not be posted on my wikispace. If there are questions about an assignment, please have your student call a friend in the class first. This is a wonderful lesson in accountability for them, and it takes the pressure off the parent!

Most importantly...we have a school holiday next Monday, September 3 to celebrate Labor Day with our friends and families. Enjoy!