Social Studies: Ms. Saillant
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We are beginning our fourth unit of the year with ancient Egypt! Students will investigate the civilization by considering these two essential questions: How do historians and archaeologists learn about ancient Egypt? How did the Nile shape ancient Egypt? This week students will be creating dramatization skits about the daily life of ancient egyptian people. Ask your students “how did social class affect daily life in ancient Egypt?
Science: Mr. Phil Nerboso
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Sixth grade science scholars are investigating what causes populations to change in ecosystems. Students are discovering how energy and matter move through an ecosystem by developing food web models. Students are diving further into the EcoMUVE virtual ecosystem by building food webs with organisms that live in North American forests. Students will investigate interactions and show connections between organisms living in the same ecosystem. Ask your budding scientist what food chains and food webs help us understand about ecosystems.
Math: Ms. Alexandra Spencer
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During the month of April students will be investigating the exciting world of algebra! Within algebra we will be writing, reading, and evaluating expressions in which letters stand for numbers. We will also write and solve equations. Ask your student what the difference is between an expression and equation! Our work within algebra this year will serve as a strong foundation for the work they’ll be doing over the next several years in math classes. Please encourage your student to seek before or after school support with me if they need it!
English Language Arts: Dan Tobin, aka Mr. Tobin
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As March ended, we finished
The Giver, and we’ll be taking a pause to prepare for and take the ELA MCAS exam. Most content covers things we’ve been working on all year, which means a lot of our focus will be on negotiating the quirks of the test, especially making the transition from paper-based to computer-based test. After vacation, we’ll return to
The Giver, connecting the dystopian novel to real-life totalitarian and authoritarian states. We’ll look at nonfiction texts like
Red Scarf Girl, which deals with life during China’s Cultural Revolution, and
I Am Malala, focusing on the teen activist’s work in female literacy. We’ll see how a work of fiction mirrors and doesn’t mirror the real-life accounts.