Week of February 2-6, 2026
*Congrats to Emma for making it to the Regional Spelling Bee that will take place on Feb. 10 at HCC--Woohoo!!
*Valentine's Day Party will be Friday, Feb. 13 in the morning (since it's an early release at 11:15 that day), and the committee met last week to plan "breakfast-type" treats. Valentines for classmates are optional in sixth grade, but if kids DO plan to hand-out Valentines, they need to give one to everyone in the class (class list is on a slide on the new monthly newsletter). 
*National Honor Society provided order forms for a "Valentine" fundraiser that allows kids to order various treats for someone else at school (this is NOT connected to our classroom party).  Yearbook order directions and PTO Hanging Basket Fundraiser forms were sent home previously.
*Watch for Mall of Life info to come home with your child in the next week or so--it's a short trip to HCC to practice adult budgeting skills by visiting stations to "purchase" life necessities like insurance and groceries.
*Also, look for a note soon about donations for a baking-themed basket (money or items) to be raffled the night of Open House March 5 during the elementary concert.
*WIN Time this week is ELA focused. Some groups changed due to testing results. Check-ups and Diagnostic Arena on Fridays.
*Be sure to check-out the photo gallery! Recent pictures I've added pics include a STEM challenge of building a sleigh to hold as many pennies as possible.
*Chess: Chess does meet this week, Wednesday, Feb. 4. Schedule and permission slip available on the tab on my webpage. 
February, 2026 monthly newsletter added--Check it out!! Each month, an updated version will be posted that contains general info and is available through a link on the left side of this webpage.

Scott BR Book reading:  (Some kids are finishing the ToSEEC about setting for the Novel in an Envelope project, due Tuesday, since we needed to get a little further into our Heroism & Setting slideshow work).
New work--Kids will again be choosing their own novels for the next BR Book & Project. The project is a "flip book" with each section needing different elements: 1) Basic book info like title, author, copyright year, setting, & main idea; 2) eight drawings of main events that move the story forward; 3) Cool Quote Graffiti (find some great lines from the book and write them in fun lettering); 4) ToSEEC making a claim of the theme of the story with cited evidence and elaborations for each--kids have become much more confident in this process!). 
This project and the signed bookmark will be due Thursday, February 26. 
"In-Class"  Reading: Together, we're finishing work with a slideshow involving the theme of "Heroism" and using connected texts. We'll paraphrase, stanza by stanza, an emotional poem entitled "A Soldier's Kiss" before filling-in a Venn diagram that finds what that poem and "The Great Serum Race" have in common and how they differ. Using that Venn, kids will construct an evidence-supported compare and contrast essay.
Next up: Inspiration! Sources of inspiration exist everywhere; after creating a class definition for "inspiration", we'll focus on four sources with connected texts: Being true to yourself, Understanding, Advice, and Nature. To start with being true to yourself, kids will read & respond to a Color Personality Quiz, focusing on the end goal of why such a quiz can help people accept others' true selves. Before reading the first story ("How Tia Lola Came to Stay"), we'll practice paraphrasing several quotes.

Scott Math--Monday: Together, we'll do a Group Jam in iXL to practice balancing equations following the process that was introduced last week. HW: 2 short iXL "quizzes" to practice balancing equations (one is +/-, the other x/division). Tuesday: Substituting values for variables and evaluating the expressions will be the focus, using a worksheet version of the workbook pages to give more room for work. HW: Wkbk pg. 148 #5-14. Wednesday: While I'm on a Kami, kids will take notes in Lesson 3-5 in their workbooks and work with a desk partner to solve problems 26-35 in the lesson (word problems). HW: Finish any word problems not done in class. Thursday: Half of a Self-checking slideshow with a partner, showing work on big paper; the problems are from XL 3-5 Additional Practice. HW: Fluency Practice on page 171 of the workbook, Across B-M. Friday: Rest of the slideshow started on Thursday. More work on page 171 if the slideshow is finished. No HW on Fridays.

Language:  This week, the ongoing Fortunately/Unfortunately story that is being written as a little illustrated book from the Google Doc rough draft will be due by end of Thursday (several have already finished and they are displayed in the hallway).
We began Pattern 12: Open with an adjective phrase on Friday when partners glued their solved sentences & wrote a cursive version with correct punctuation and capital. Next, they'll dictate their sentence to the rest of the class as we type (to practice listening & correct grammar). On the same glued paper, two more examples will be written by partners, then they'll be placed around the room for others to choose from to type onto the slideshow for examples.
Once that finishes, Pattern 13 comes next--Open with a present infinitive (basically, To do this, he did that.). First, each student will assemble a cut-apart picture puzzle (these pics will become prompts for this pattern). Then, they'll unscramble sentences on a slideshow that follow the pattern. We'll return to the puzzle pics and each student will choose which ones they'd like to use as prompts for more sentences.

Social Studies:  Currently, two groups continue working on a castle defense analysis--a big focus is on pros and cons of certain features, but how to work well in a group is also a major factor.
Since we've moved into Feudalism, we'll be writing two evidence supported arguments using quotes from a provided article. First, I'll demo support that castles were a good place to live. Individually, using my demo as reference, students will write the opposite view: castles were not a good place to live. 
Using the textbook, kids will find evidence of what kind of person Charlemagne (Charles the Great) was during Medieval Times; using an article, evidence will be found to support how well King John led his people--eventually, these two men will be compared and contrasted with a Venn diagram and response.

Science: 
We'll continue the Metabolism Unit of Amplify, finishing our annotating of an article about molecules and evaluating evidence to help determine why the girl in the original video is so tired. Nutrition will also be a focus, creating a pie graph to show percentages of necessary intakes; labels on food will also be investigated.