We're in China now. we've learned about the Chinese New Year and had a small celebration. We have also worked with Chinese numbers and completed a map. Upcoming activities include manipulating tangrams, learning about Chinese traditions, and following the text book as we meet the state standards.

Many sixth grade students struggle with studying a lot of material for a test so for the time being, we are having an assessment after each section.  I hope this will help develop the concept of studying and learning material, a little at a time. Last week we had a ten-question quiz on one section and an open-note quiz on the second.  When students are asked to take notes, I always model the note taking as a way to illustrate what information is important.  Students also are being asked to complete questions 1 a and b and 2 a and b from the "Check your Progress" sections at the end of each section. Additionally, workbooks should be completed. I hope all of these strategies will prove useful!

Welcome to sixth grade social studies.  The book we will use is the Prentice Hall Ancient Civilizations. This is just the second year of the adoption but most teachers are impressed with our choice. I would like to introduce you to two of the features that I enjoy. 

First is the introduction of high-use academic words at the beginning of each chapter. Prentice Hall enlisted the help of two senior reading consultants, Dr. Kate Kinsella and Dr. Kevin Feldman, when developing the series.  I was one of a group of teachers from Poway who were lucky enough to receive training from Dr. Kate Kinsella two or three years ago. Her premise is that students need instruction in anything they are expected to know. Certainly that seems straight forward enough but it is her feeling that education presumes a great deal of background knowledge that students do not possess. You will see some of this when your students bring home their general knowledge survey.  We will work with these academic words, as well as the key terms and people. Each student will receive a spiral notebook that will serve as a personal sixth grade dictionary. We will add words, include the part of speech, definition, and a sentence containing the word.  These will be collected and graded for completeness on a regular basis. I will also utilize many of Dr. Kinsella's strategies in my teaching.

A second thing that has impressed me with the Prentice Hall series is the wonderful Internet support.  By typing in www.PHSchool.com you will be taken to their web site.  There a student can read a summary of a section, take a quiz, or, by using a special code, get more information.  For example, on page 9 the code: mwp-1011 will take you to an Interactive map.  For more information about Lucy, the biography quest on page 10 directs you to mwe-1011.  The connections are good ones.

Each student will be asked to bring a 1" binder to school for use in social studies classes. Both Staples and Office Depot have had these on sale. Some teachers will have students complete an interactive notebook but my students will have a "Travel Diary" instead. In addition to keeping most social studies assignments in their diary, students will spend the last few minutes of class writing a reflection.  They will be asked to discuss where we went (civilization), what we learned, anything that is confusing, and any topic of particular interest.  Research has shown that reflection is a crucial part of the learning process and this daily input will help me to better meet the needs of my students. I have found that using a binder is much more practical than attempting to utilize a spiral notebook where some pages need to be glued in and students forget and rip things out.

This travel diary will be a compilation of this year's learning and should reflect pride in what has been accomplished. Illustrations can be added and pictures cut out of magazines or those old National Geographic magazines that are too good to throw out. Sixth grade is an introduction to middle school and is a great time to develop good study habits including adding a little extra to assignments.

Frequently, at the end of a quarter, there is a scramble to get grades up and I am asked about extra credit projects. I very seldom provide these opportunities but I do have an idea on how students can earn some extra credit.  Should they locate a newspaper article about anything we study in social studies they can cut out the article, write a summary, and explain why this is important to us.  Until I have taught the children how to write a bibliography, if they just write down the name of the newspaper and the date of the article, that will do.

I am looking forward to a great year and although I am much more experienced with seventh graders, the sixth grade team at Twin Peaks is very supportive.  I also have a close friend who has moved into administration but is sharing her sixth grade resources, as well as offering great advice!

Feel free to contact me.  The best way is through email either at school: emoir@powayusd.com or at home: ellen@moir.org. It may take me 24 hours to respond but I will get back to you.

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Ellen Moir
Twin Peaks Middle School
14640 Tierra Bonita Road | Poway, California 92064 | (858) 748-5131
Poway Unified School District
ellen@moir.org