First 14 Days! AND MORE!

What a great first few weeks it has been!  We have been busy in the classroom creating a strong classroom community and learning how to work together!

As a team, we started our year bringing all three classes together to learn about working in a group.    The first thing we did was called Broken Squares.  Students were placed in groups of 5 and given an envelope with pieces of a square inside.  The activity was complete when ALL members of the group had a square.  Now the tricky part was that they were not allowed to talk to each other and they couldn't take a piece from someone else....they COULD give someone a piece.  After 10 minutes, we stopped the students and asked what they needed to succeed.  It was clear that communication was needed.  Students were then allowed to talk to each other to solve the problem.  Success was had!  Activities like this have continued each day for students to understand what is need to work with others.  Collaboration Communication No one is done until everyone is done  In my class, I have also incorporated Building Our Character.  We are focused on  Responsibility Respect Perseverance Confidence Enthusiastic 
We have been brainstorming ways that we can build our character within ourselves and keep a chart for reference throughout the day.  Some things that the students thought of:  Get up with their own alarm clock Believe in yourself  Engage in your own learning Persevere Use strategies to stay focused

I just can't express how exciting this is in the classroom each day.  I'm feeling very enthusiastic and love coming to work each day to see these smiling faces!

PART 2 I started to write this a few weeks ago and to work on it over a weekend and get it out to all of you.  Well, that didn't happen.  I don't remember what I had going on that weekend but it stopped me from continuing this blog post.  So here I am back again, with more exciting things we are doing.  In our ELA block, we are reading Fish in a Tree. This is a wonderful book and is about a classroom that is filled with students that all learn differently and all have stuff.  It also offers us a lot of opportunities to talk about our classroom and how we are building our character by recognizing the differences we all have.  Today we had Fun Friday and with the theme of the book, made Friendship Bracelets that we will give out within the school to let them know, they have a friend in us.  Four girls from our class taught us all how to make them and we spent a great morning listening to music and making bracelets and most importantly building our relationships together.  In writing, we are beginning our Narrative writing.  We are using videos from Pixar Story Tellers and how they develop their stories to guide us in developing ours.  It's been really engaging to see how the work that we do in 6th-grade could possibly, maybe, someday lead to being a storyteller at Pixar.  One activity for character development was picturing our character trapped in an elevator.  What would their reaction be?

In science, we completed our Science Secret Agency Training preparing us for working with matter and how we measure it.  Our training agents had to pass a series of tests to move onto our first official Secret Science Agent Assignment.   Chemistry!   This is a great unit filled with hands-on activities that are engaging and exciting for students. It's one of my favorites and is great practice after completing the Scientific Method and helping us be ready for our Science Fair in March.