6-B Celebrates The Holidays!

Thank you for Visiting!

6-B was so lucky to have class visitors come in and share about Lucia Day in Sweden! We loved learning about a new holiday tradition! We worked on a fun craft and had a sweet treat!

Thank you for sharing with us!

Busy Bee's

We completed the 1-1 Reader and will begin stories in the 1-2 Reader after the New Year!

Thank you for visiting!

Happy (almost) Hanukkah!
We loved learning about Hanukkah traditions from Mrs. K-B. Thank you for reading a story, serving a delicious treat, and providing a fun craft activity!
Love,
6B

More with Mittens- Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

After reading "The Mitten" by Alvin Tresselt 6B read another adapted version of "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. Before reading, 6B students were encouraged to think about whether the story would be exactly the same or if there may be some differences? We found that there were quite a few differences! For this discovery lesson we decided to compare the actual mittens in each story using a Venn Diagram.

This lesson was geared towards visual and auditory learners.

A Venn Diagram is a wonderful tool for comparing and contrasting. You can write details that show how the subjects are different in the outer circles. Then, where the circles overlap, you write details that tell how the subjects are alike.

To complete our diagram, we re-read both stories and added details as we encountered them in the text. Our findings are displayed above. Below, you can see them in list form:

Ivan's Mitten (Alvin Treselt)

1. Feathery fur cuff

2. Red wool lining

3. Yellow mitten

4. Burst into pieces.

Nicki's Mitten (Jan Brett)

1. White wool

2. Stretched out but did not burst.

Ivan and Nicki's Mittens (shared attributes)

1. Warm

2. Lost in the woods

3. crowded (with animals)

4. Stretched out

5. Found (by their owner at the end of the story).

The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt

This week, 6B continued our discovery unit on mittens. We read the an old Ukranian folktale,"The Mitten", by Alvin Tresselt. In the story a little boy named Ivan goes out to gather wood in the forest. On his travels he looses one of his mittens. Nine different animals crawled into Ivan's mitten that cold winter day. Ask your child if they can remember what happened to the mitten when the tiny cricket crawled in?

After reading the story we began our extension lessons. We first made our very own mittens that fit the description of Ivan's lost mitten. We colored the outside yellow, and the inside red. Then, as a fine motor activity, we used yarn to sew the two sides of our mitten together. Once we had made our mittens we colored in and cut out the nine animals that crawled into the mitten during the story.

With all of our materials ready, we revisited the story during our next discovery class. As I read aloud, each student placed the proper animal into their own mitten. This activity was beneficial for all our learning styles. Auditory learners heard me read the story, while visual learners could see the illustrations in the book. Kinesthetic/tactile learners benefited from touching and physically placing the animals into mittens.

It was interesting to see if our mittens would stretch and pull like the mitten in the folktale? We quickly surmised that our mitten would not stretch because our animals were merely flat pieces of paper.

After we finished the story, we shook our animals out of the mittens. Then we were challenged with properly sequencing the animals as the appear in the folktale.

Great work 6B! Our story really came alive with this lesson.

Mittens!

Our current discovery unit is on mittens. We recently read "The Mitten Tree", by Candice Christiansen. This story is about kindness and generosity. An elderly woman, Sarah, watches children as they play and wait for their school bus to arrive. Sarah notices that one small boy is not playing with the cold snow because he did not have any mittens. She kindly knitts a pair for him, and anonymously places them on the blue spruce tree next to the bus stop. Soon this becomes a game and the children eagerly check the mysterious mitten tree each morning to see if there are any new pairs of mittens?

After reading our story we talked quite a bit about mittens. Why would you need to wear them? What do they look like? How are they different from gloves? We discussed that mittens come in pairs that match. We then had an opportunity to decorate and cut out our very own pair of mittens.

After our mittens were complete, 6B all gathered on the rug and received one mitten each. We faced away from one another and closed our eyes as each friend took a turn to open their eyes and describe the mitten that they were given (a great experience for auditory learners). As we listened to the descriptions, the person who created that mitten had to raise their hand the moment they knew that it was theirs. We each did a wonderful job, and properly identified our own mittens! Once each pair was matched, they went up on our 6B mitten tree.

As an extension to this lesson we all brought in a real pair of mittens (or gloves) from home. This provided an opportunity for a tactile learning experience. 6B students needed to explore and discuss their mittens with a friend using describing words that explained how the mittens looked and felt.

After we compiled a class list of describing words (patterned, colorful, fuzzy, soft etc.) we worked on a portfolio page for the month of December. We had to properly write two describing words and accurately illustrate a picture of our mittens.

Bravo friends!

Happy Thanksgiving

6B learned all about Pilgrims and Native Americans to prepare for our Thanksgiving play.

Partnership With Mrs. Kamp's Sixth Grade Advisory

This past Thursday 6-B partnered with new buddies, Mrs. Kamp's Sixth Grade Advisory group! We were so excited to travel all the way over to the middle school for a Thanksgiving activity. 6-B students were partnered up with the middle school girls to discuss what we are thankful for this year. The older girls wrote down our thoughts on leaves and helped us make "trees of thanks".

We all had the opportunity to enjoy a snack together and chat together after our craft was finished. What a wonderful experience. Thank you Mrs. Kamp! We can't wait to meet with you and your advisory again in January!

Head on over to Mrs. Kamp's blog to see her post on our time together.

Directional Tracking Can be Fun!

Tracking the words from left to right as you read is very important. Physically using your finger to follow under the words you are reading helps students to keep their place. Additionally, it encourages the child to notice all of the sounds in each individual word. Tracking was fun because we were able to use witch fingers! As we read aloud everyone was able to follow (whether they were reading aloud, or following along). How much fun!

Happy Halloween!

We had such a wonderful time celebrating Halloween together. Thank you to all of the 6-B parents for making our party so special! We had delicious treats, an exciting Halloween story, and a wonderful mummy craft activity.

Discovery Unit: Pumpkins

We are so lucky to have a student that has an apple orchard and a pumpkin patch at his home. The pictures from his farm helped us learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin.

We know that first a pumpkin sead is placed in the soil. A shoot grows from the pumpkin seed into the ground. Then, a stem grows from the seed. Above, you can see that the pumpkin seed is now a plant. It has many leaves and a flower!

The pumpkin flower is very important because it helps a pumpkin grow. The pollen inside the flower will help to make more pumpkins. Bee's take pollen from the flower and bring the pollen to other flowers. An interesting fact that we learned is that it takes lots of bees to pollinate the pumpkins. The bee must touch the male flower and then fertilize the female flower before the flowers close in the morning from the heat of the sun. Our friends family actually brings in bee hives to assist with this process!

The pumpkin flowers begin to change and the petals become smaller until they are gone. The bottom of the flower becomes larger. Above you can see a small green shape. That is the pumpkin forming!

The pumpkins continue to grow in the patch until they are large enough to pick.

Here is a perfectly ripe pumpkin picked from the patch!

What an incredible journey from seed to pumpkin! Thank you so much for sharing your pumpkin patch with us.

Using Our Five Senses for Apple Tasting- A Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Tactile Learning Experience

Before tasting apples, 6B read a story that described our five senses. We then discussed how we could use our five senses to explore apples.

***

We used our eyes to identify different types of apples.
Our noses helped us smell the apples.
Our hands helped us feel the apples. We noted the different textures of the apples skin and flesh.
Our mouths tasted the apples.
Our ears helped us hear the crunching sound as we bit into and chewed the apples.

***

Below we created a web to describe the way the apples looked, felt, tasted, smelled, and sounded.

Below, we tally our favorite apple!

Golden delicious was our favorite!

Thank you 6B friends for bringing in apples from home.

Art with Apples

What a fun tactile experience!

I cut real apples in half and sliced out a handle so that 6B students were able to create apple prints. Friends had to be sure to dip the apples into paint and then apply just the right amount of pressure to successfully create an apple print.

Our work is now on display downstairs on our 6B bulletin board.

Bravo friends!

Illustrating The Life Cycle of an Apple

After studying the life cycle of an apple 6B students were ready to use their knowledge to illustrate the process (a great experience for our visual and tactile learners). Before we began our illustrations we reviewed our life cycle poem. This activity incorporated auditory and kinesthetic elements. Watch us below as we recite our poem and perform complimentary body movements.

Fine Motor

One of the letters we worked on forming properly this week was "l". We practiced both uppercase and lowercase letters in our workbooks. We also compiled a list of words that begin with "l". At the end of class we had a chance to dance to the beginning of the song "Lollipop" by the Chordettes.

Discovery Unit: Apples

One of our friends in 6B has an apple orchard at his house! He was kind enough to share the above photos with us. We heard all about the different types of apples in his orchard. We also learned how close the apple tree's are to his home. We had an opportunity to ask questions, such as "what do the apple tree's look like in the winter?" Ask your 6B student for the answer!

There will be more apple fun to come! Next up, an art project using apples!

Safety City Field Trip

Safety City, was a small scale replica of Baltimore. Sixth Age students took a guided tour of the city and practiced safely crossing the streets.

Ms. Harrison taught us that we need to look FOUR ways before crossing: left, right, left over our shoulder, and forward. We practiced the appropriate crossing technique as we traveled through Safety City. We also learned that when crossing a street we must always walk in the middle of the crosswalk.

At the end of our walking tour, students were able to ride big wheels through the city. Each friend needed to stop their "vehicle" at a stop sign and look to be sure traffic was clear before taking a right turn. We looked left, right, and then left again.

As we rode the bus back to Calvert school (sitting with our buddies) we looked outside of the windows to spy signs that we recognized as well as crosswalks.

Ms. McCormick Visits 6B

We are so excited to have our lower school intern, Ms. McCormick, visiting with 6B today and tomorrow! We did a great job greeting her this morning when we arrived.

We are looking forward to having Ms. McCormick help us with our Sharing time tomorrow!

Sight Word Memory

Sixth Age readers did a phenomenal job reviewing our popcorn words through a game of memory.
Each friend was able to get a match!