I will be sending home Synergy ParentVue Activation Keys with your students this afternoon. The purpose of the letter is to help families track student grades from home. Last year, I noticed there was a lot of confusion about how to effectively use the information from Synergy to keep your kids on track. Therefore, I have created the following Google Slides presentation.
I'm hoping the presentation will prove helpful. If you feel I missed any important details, please let me know. My goal is to help empower families to use this tool. I try to keep Synergy updated on a weekly basis. Work from the previous week is usually on Synergy by the Wednesday of the following week. If you ever have a question about your student's performance, please let me know. I'm here to help.
This week we have been working hard to complete a number of assignments. In social studies, students are working on illustrated geography dictionaries. In addition, we started our first simulation of the year. Be sure to ask your student about their Caravans team and what supplies they are taking on their treasure hunting trip.
Working hard on Geography Dictionaries
During enrichment, we are learning about the different types of point of view; a challenging concept teachers and students alike. (Do you remember learning about third person limited, omniscient, and objective in sixth grade?!) These lessons are being used to support our language arts selection, a short biography by Jerry Spinelli (who also happens to be the author of our read aloud, Crash).
Ms. B is doing a great job of teaching our genetics unit. The kids love learning about how they inherited their various traits and are full of interesting (and unusual!) questions. We will wrap up this unit mid-October, and then the class will head to Mrs. Baker to learn about cells. Finally, we have started writing interview questions for our first formal writing piece of the year. The students will be creating short multi-media presentation about a classmate using Adobe Spark- a great digital storytelling tool. You may need to check in with your student this afternoon to go through their backpacks and homework folders. We had the students empty their mailboxes this morning, and I noticed a number of school picture order forms still needing to be taken home. Picture day will be next Monday. We also passed back a number of graded assignments. This is a good chance to get a feel for how your student is performing. As you can see, we are busy in sixth grade! If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to send an email. I am always excited to hear from my new parents.
Ms. B has put together a presentation with beautiful pictures of the different land forms covered in your geography dictionaries. You may use this as an additional resource as you work through the assignment.
Your students might have mentioned that we are allowing them to use personal electronic devices for research in social studies. If your student has a device they would like to bring to school, it is allowed. However, they may be asked to leave it at home if they are not using it appropriately, or at inappropriate times. I will also not be able to monitor the care of the device. It is the student's responsibility to keep it safe. We have a number of electronic devices available in class if your student does not have a phone of their own.
Last week was an absolute success. All of the students were well behaved, worked hard, and had great attitudes. I am very excited to see what our year has in store for us. Yesterday was what I like to call "The Real First Day". We had a full schedule, which included moving to our new math classes and starting our language arts program. Again, the students were able to pull it off with success. They were definitely tired by the end of the day (I think I was too), but I am impressed by their willingness to push through the long afternoons and deliver great work. A couple of announcements for this week. Band starts this afternoon. If your student rents an instrument from Beaverton Music, they will also be here today passing out equipment. In addition, I assigned our first writing homework of the year. I have asked students to be sure a parent signs their completed assignment. If you have any questions about the homework expectations, please do not hesitate to contact me at school. Remember, writing homework is due on Fridays. Hopefully your students has also been asking you to sign their planner each evening (or, at least on Thursday evenings). I have asked the class to be sure to read 30 minutes each night and get a parent signature confirming their reading minutes. Again, if you need help motivating your student to read nightly, please let me know what I can do to help. Sometimes it is helpful to have motivation from both home and school. Finally, I am still sorting through the parent responses from our "Whoooo Can Volunteer" forms. If you have signed up to help out, I will be trying to contact you before the end of the week to start a volunteer schedule. If you do not hear from me by next week, and are desperate to be here, please do not hesitate to email. I welcome parent support! Have an excellent week, Ms. Kinsman
We had an AMAZING first day. Thank you so much for sending your students to school ready to learn and succeed. There are just a few items I want to cover this afternoon.
First, if you student has not already completed the last page of the orange packet, please make sure this gets finished tonight. Parents, please complete the second two pages of the same packet. I will use the information to help serve your students this year.
I did not send home planners today. We will go over their use tomorrow, and I will assign a short homework assignment to review classroom expectations. Please be ready to sign your student's work.
P.E. is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. Please be sure to remind your student to dress accordingly.
I am really looking forward to this year. The kids were all on their best behavior, were excellent and engaged listeners, and showed their best effort on the few classroom assignments we completed.
Here is a short video we watched to wrap up our day. I talked to the students about my expectations for excellence in the sixth grade. I promised that, like the presenter in the clip, I would be providing guidance along way to help all my learners create beautiful and interesting work. I can't wait to rise to the challenge!
