Great 1st Week

As we finish up the first week, I am pleased about such a great first week of school. Many of the procedures we will use throughout the year are already habits. The sixth grade students worked hard and accomplished a lot. If this kind of effort continues, this class will go down as one of the best!

Congratulations to the Study Island Student of the Day,

Dillon Y., Cody C., Shayna T., and Justin H.

Students receive a certificate, piece of candy, and get their name on the door recognizing outstanding performance on our on-line learning program.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Letter Writing

Today we focused on writing a friendly letter and the proper format. We discussed setting the tone in the opening, putting facts and details in the body, and wrapping it up in the closing. The topic of this "Dear Mr. McGuire" letter is "Reasons Why I Like the Book I am Reading for SSR." Students must support their reasons with details from the book. This will count as a reading and writing grade.

Students are becoming a little more familiar with Ubuntu, the operating system of the 24 dells in our classroom. We use Open Office 2.2 to word process all of the published pieces of writing. This freeware is similar to Office, but without the cost. The on-line learning with Study Island is done using the Firefox browser.

Read Aloud

The first book to be read aloud this year is a Time Warp Trio book, The Not So Jolly Roger, written by Jon Scieszka. This is the tale of 3 boys traveling through time to face an adventure with Blackbeard the Pirate.

This series of books are small chapter books, filled with adventure, and a lot of laughs. The Not So . . . is one of my favorites because it is exciting and it gives the teacher many chances to sing like a pirate.

Secret to Success

Today we had a special visitor in our class. Jennifer Hardwick, an LE grad, and sixth grade student from a few years ago came in and talked with students about how to be successful in the sixth grade. Jennifer discussed ways she managed to do well, and ideas students could use.

Some of her tips included:
1. make doing assignments a habit;
2. constantly work at being organized;
3. always do your best.

Thanks to Jennifer for her contribution to the success of Laurelville students. It is a great day for a teacher when you get to see one of your former students doing well.

Students have begun work on Study Island, the computer on-line learning program. This week we are doing pretests in reading and math.

Congrats to Conner H. for answering a Question of the Day!

Today's journal topic--"Mr. McGuire Admires Hard Workers . . ." due tomorrow.

1st Day of School

The 2007/08 school year is officially under way. Today was a great start with students involved and participating.

We began language arts thinking about the theme from High School Musical. As part of our reading class we are singing "We're All in This Together." The lyrics have a great message talking about how working together makes it best for everyone.

Trevor G. and Luke O. earned a special treat for their participation in class today.

Students received Reading Logs. The first one is due on Friday, 9/7/2007.

Student information applications are due tomorrow.

Welcome!

Welcome back to school and welcome to sixth grade. Hopefully this will be the best year ever for students coming in to sixth grade language arts. We have a lot of exciting activities planned for this year.

This is the place to find out all the latest information about what is going on at Laurelville in sixth grade reading and writing classes.