Weekly Objectives for 3/2/15 - 3/6/15

Overview - Now that the Science Fair has come to a conclusion, we will be shifting our sights back onto Social Studies.  Miss Cook, from the Drug Prevention Council of the Tribe, will be presenting her theme based unit "Too Good for Drugs."  This presentation will be held in my classroom on Monday and Tuesday of this week.  On Wednesday, the entire sixth grade class will be skiing at Titus Mountain!!!  On Thursday and Friday, the focus will shift to the next set of class projects.  
       In Social Studies, we will be focusing on the Greeks, Romans, Heirs of the Romans, and Early American Empires.  As usual, the students will take on the role of teacher when creating their lessons plans, power points and assessments.  They will work in groups to complete this next project.  The focus will be on note taking skills, organizing information, using key words, presentation skills, and peer evaluations.  As always, we will be using the 21st Century Skills of Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration and Communication, to drive the project. We learned quite a bit from our first attempt at this style of learning in order to be better prepared this time.

Monday - 3/2/15 - 
       Today, in class, we welcomed Miss Cook, from the Tribe to present her theme based unit "Too Good for Drugs."  Students were extremely attentive and participated wonderfully.  To learn more about this presentation you can visit their webpage through the St. Regis Mohawk Tribes Drug Prevention Council.

Tuesday - 3/3/15 -
       Miss Cook wrapped up her presentations today in our classroom.  We would like to give her a big thanks!! The students were actively engaged, and quite a bit of useful information was shared.  Nice job!!

Wednesday - 3/4/15 - 
       The students spent the day at Titus Mountain learning how to ski.  Everyone had a blast, and the students seem to be re-energized!!  Thanks Mr LaPage for setting us up with a wonderful day.

Thursday - 3/5/15 - 
       In Social Studies class, we began our next major project that will take us all the way up to Spring Break.  We will go more in-depth with the project description starting next week.  Today, we simply selected our project groups and then the groups created working contracts.  In the contracts, the students agree to a certain set of rules that they created.  They are now able to hold each other accountable for their work habits.
       The groups were also introduced to the four major sections they will have to decide between.   The sections are: Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Heirs of Rome and Persia, and Asian Empires and Early American Civilizations.  It was amazing to watch the students compromise and form arguments about why they wanted to present a certain section.  Amazingly, everyone agreed on a civilization.
       Tomorrow, the groups will immerse themselves in the Deep Reading process, by tearing in to their civilizations from the social studies textbook.  We are asking that all students cover the reading passage for their section by Monday.