Writing Sparks

      Writing sparks are an important part of our weekly homework routine. Each week students bring home a writing prompt and are expected to write a rough draft, edit it, and then write or type a final draft. (These are due every Monday) Students in Mrs. Dessert's class have been turning these in in class, and also submitting them online through Edmodo. Both are totally acceptable- but please do the assignment and turn it in. There has been a decrease in the amount of homework being turned in, and what better way to start the new quarter than with an increased emphasis on homework?! So parents, please help your children with their writing to encourage these excellent writers!

    Not sure what a quality writing sparks looks like? Here are a few examples from past weeks you can check out. Requirements: Introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion, 300+ words

     Things that make our school a good school is the teaching . The teachers know how to teach really good , I think their really good role models to the students. For example Mrs. Dessert is always so excited and a hard working teacher and gives us the motivation to do better . Also my peers are really safe , respectful , and responsible . Not just that the teachers have taught us a lot to do what's right and that had helped us a lot .

    Another thing that makes our school a good school is the programs they do with parents and students . For example when they do after school programs like blast and P.T.O meetings , for parents who want to volunteer to help our school with fun projects or ideas . It also helps us a lot because they give you homework time to do your homework , for after school programs .

    Last but not least , what makes my school a good school is the physical active time . In my school they give us 40 minutes every Thursday and any other Friday . Well I think it's good because it keeps your brain active and keeps you healthy . It is a little before we enter class , and it wakes me up and full of energy . Doing P.E helps you a lot by running , throwing , playing and doing exercises that keep you away from diseases .

    love my school , it might not be one of the biggest or richest schools , but it had a lot of fun and intertwining things other schools might not have , Free orchards Elementary school had a lot of discipline , and safe , respectful , and responsible .
               By: Citlali


     One thing that makes my school a good school are the teachers. All the teachers are caring and helpful. When someone is not understanding something, the teachers help them until they do understand. The teachers are really nice because when the class does something good or works hard, sometimes they give us celebrations. They even let us use technology to help us learn.

     Another thing that makes my school a good school are the students. Every day, I see kids walking through the halls. They are always walking and not running and they are always silent. When the kids are presented at student-of-the month, I see and hear about so many wonderful kids. Most kids in the school get either a nearly meets or a meets on their tests.

     Also, one thing that makes my school a good school is the band program that is after school. Band can make kids get better grades and the students who are in band are most likely to go into college. Band students have fun playing their instruments, even if it means staying at school an extra hour. Kids all have fun finding new ways to make new sounds on their instruments. Every student in band would be devastated if the school canceled band.

    Now you have heard of my thoughts about what makes my school a good school. You have heard about how I think the teachers and band are the most effective of how my school is a good school. Students are also a big part of it, too. What do you think makes my school a good school? Is it the programs? The play ground? Or is it simply just the people around you? I think you have a pretty good idea though. That is what I think makes my school a good school.
               By: Jacqi

          What things make my school a good school? Well my school is awesome and many things make it that way, in this paper I will tell you 2 things that make it that way. The first one is the teachers are very nice, and the second one is that my school is very open.

          First, the teachers are nice. I have been in this school since 1^st grade and I have never had a bad teacher.  For 1^st grade I started out with a BANG! I had Ms. Hill and she was the nicest teacher ever and I still help in her class today.  In 2^nd grade I had Mrs. Scott and I learned so much in her class and always had fun.  In 3^rd grade I had Mrs. Dessert; she was awesome, always happy to see us and kept us learning new things each day.  For 4^th grade I had Harrington and Mrs. Kinsman, they where amazing, they wrote grants for our class to travel on many field trips. Then for 5^th grade I had Mrs. Anderson and I definitely miss her right now she is on maternity leave.  I really enjoyed how she always made our math program fun. This wonderful 6^th grade year I have Mrs. Dessert. Yes, I am lucky to have the same teacher as I did in 3^rd grade, it helps that she works super hard to bring her class the latest technology and she is helping us learn how to use it for educational things, not just games. All the teachers here make me feel at home.  I really love my school!

           I think that my school is very open. I think this because when we have a new student all of the teachers wave to them and help them through their first day. The students help them too, if they need to know where to go or how to do something. Also the teachers and the students are always open to help one another. I stay in for resses a lot to help my teacher or my prior teachers to do anything that they need. Like correcting papers or sorting papers. The teachers are always thankful that we give up our time to help them even if it does not help us. I do this because I am very close with my prior teachers.  

         This is just two things that I like about my school, I could go on and on with more things.   I will always have good memories of Free Orchards Elementary.

                        By: Madi

        

OAKS Prep

   It's that time of year again... OAKS testing has arrived! Mrs Dessert's class will start with our OAKS reading test on Monday, February 3 and go through February 6. We will have an hour each day, so everyone will have plenty of time to slow down and complete the test.

  This past week in class we have been preparing and building our stamina for the test. I have no doubt that all our students can meet or exceed on this test, it's just a matter of physical and mental preparation now. I know you all want what is best for your student, so I have included a few tips for parents and students and will reiterate what I have been telling the kids all week.
 

     TIPS FOR OAKS SUCCCESS:

 - Each day we take the test please ensure that your child gets to bed early the night before and has a good breakfast before the test. If your child eats at school, please remind them of how important this is, and remind them to grab their breakfast before coming to class. 

- We will also take a snack break before we head down to take the test, so if you would like to pack a healthy energy filled snack for them to eat before, please do! Bananas, oranges, granola bars, string cheese, etc are all great! 

 - Encourage your child to do their best and be a positive support for them. Too much pressure is never good, just encourage them to shine with the skills they already have. 

  - Remind your child that the OAKS test is NOT A RACE. We have plenty of time to get through the test, and they can have more if they don't finish in the time allotted. We would rather they take their time the first time, and not have to retake the test later. 

  - We have been working on our C.A.F.E. goals all year (making inferences, asking questions, using context clues to figure out new vocabulary, etc.) so please remind your child to use these skills while taking the test. Also, citing evidence is a big one too. If they can prove to themselves where they found the answer they can feel confident in their decision. 

  - Finally, all the students should have brought home the practice tests we went over in class. Help them to review these and see where they need to improve or celebrate their successes with them if they did well! I have added a link to some other practice tests if you would like to use those as a study tool. 

                                                        Link to Past OAKS Practice Tests

  This is a great group of kids with so many different skills and strengths. We are looking forward to a successful testing season with lots to celebrate. Good luck sixth graders! 

                                    Don't forget to check us out on the district website too!

        

Mad Swag

   Today we had a special guest, Mrs. Dessert's brother, entrepreneur, graphic designer, and Creative 35 owner, Marcus Harvey. He spoke to us about the importance of college and math in his career, and showed us how he started his company.
      

       

       

    We then got a chance to work together as a class to create our own t-shirt company. We determined our target demographic, decided what products we would sell, created a logo and slogan, and then designed our own t-shirts.

        

         

                                                           Check out our designs!

         

         

  

        

                                    Big thanks to Marcus for sharing his talent with us!

        

Lights, Camera, Action!

      Congratulations to the whole 6th grade, and a big thank you to Mrs. Boling, on a wonderful performance to complete our integrated study of Mesoamerican cultures. Our students put on a great performance, while telling an ancient Aztec myth about how music, dancing, and joy were brought to Earth. If you weren't able to catch the live performance, here is a condensed version. 

Many hours of practice in music class and rehearsals created a great show for all. Just listen to how well they all play their instruments and recite their lines. Way to go Free Orchards 6th Grade! You guys rock! 

Talented 6th Graders

    We have so many talents in the 6th grade this year! Yesterday we were lucky enough to showcase two of our students Madi and Brian. Madi played us some of the songs she has been working on in band, and Brian presented a multimedia presentation of his origami paper. He even helped us all make our own foxes. Way to go!
 

21st Century Kids = 21st Century Technology In The Classroom

   At the beginning of the year I applied for a technology grant from the school district and was lucky enough to be one of 27 teachers throughout the district to be awarded a $5,000 grant for our classroom! I am so excited to announce that we will be getting 15 iPads for our classroom, as well as money to purchase apps that will help improve reading fluency, comprehension, and math concepts. My goal for the grant was to be able to use technology to help students improve in their reading and math achievement, but also to connect parents to their children's learning through the blog and other online resources.
 

    Over the break I have worked on finding new resources to use, as well as setting up classroom logins  to be used both in the classroom and at home. Below I will explain what each of the different resources is, as well as provide our specific codes to sign up your child for their own account. I will be going through this process with them this week in class in order to help them keep track of their usernames and passwords. This page can be used for you to access the different sites for the rest of the year.


Edmodo: This is an online community for the students in our classroom to participate in classroom discussions online, as well as look at assignments, and turn in assignments electronically. I am still learning about this site, but my hope is to also use the grade book that is associated with it so you can keep track of your student's missing assignments and grades by signing into their account.

                  https://www.edmodo.com     Sign up as a student- our class code is: 22xj7v 

newsela.com : This is a website with great non-fiction articles based on current events which are leveled. Most of the articles come with a quiz that the students will take to give me feedback on their comprehension. These questions are very similar to questions they will see on the new SBAC state test next year, and are of course good practice for OAKS. (Look for homework from this site at times!)
    Once in the site, students will be able to look at their "Binder" where I will place articles they should read and take the quiz on. These would be great articles to reread at home for their Reading Log, or feel free to search the site for other articles that are of interest as well.

                                newsela.com              Sign up and use our class code: DXILU

CPM Online Textbook: I have now signed up each student for their own online textbook. I will give each student an already created username and password that they will use to login. This site has everything that is in the paper textbook, however they can now access the different electronic tools we use in class to help solve problems, get extra copies of the resource pages if they need them at home, and get hints on the homework problems if they are stuck. Your child can access this textbook from any device that has internet. They will need to access the textbook from a class specific link:

 Dessert's Online Textbook   or   http://ha6859.textbooks.cpm.org/

      Their username will be their first and last initial with the number 1. Example: Kayla Dessert= kd1

       Their password is a four number combination I will give to them in class. 

Oxford Owl: The students are familiar with this site, as we have been using it all year. There are preloaded leveled books on this site that they can read or listen to. Even good readers can benefit from listening to a good reader's fluency and expression too! Great for reading time at home and your younger readers as well.

       http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk            Class Login: Dessert6       Password: Ducks

   As you can tell, I'm very excited to get back to school and dig into learning again. Please e-mail me if you have any questions or need help with any of these sites at any time. Let's let our Little Techies explore and soar!! 

Oh What Fun!

   As we end 2013 and get ready to head back to school for 2014, we take a look at some of our fun culminating activities that took place our last week of school before break.

   Over the past month we have been diligently working on our engineering and design standards by learning about bridges, determining different problems that engineers have to address when building bridges, and then building and testing our own toothpick bridges. Check out the designs our 6th grade engineers came up with!

 

     Everyone's bridges were very strong and withheld ten or more books! Wow! Ask your child about some of the bridge vocabulary, interesting bridges, and bridge problems we learned about. 

      We also celebrated winter break with some fun "Minute To Win It" winter games. There were lots of laughs and good sportmanship to be found around the classroom during the afternoon. Games included cereal box puzzles, snowball toss, cup stacking, and getting a cookie in your mouth without using your hands. 

     To top of 2013, we sent off our student teacher Mrs. Garrett with a mini graduation ceremony. We wish her good luck with her teaching career!

       Can you believe that was all in one day?! We sure are busy in 6th Grade City this year. Although Winter Break was nice, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's smiling faces on Monday morning. Here's to a great 2014 and lots of learning!