We have been preparing for the annual St. John Spelling Bee during our classes since Christmas break. The sixth graders have narrowed the field for their class representatives in an exciting competition. The following sixth graders will represent their class in the bee:
Tom Miller
Alondra Rocha
Sarah Breland
Cienna Wojcieck
Sadie Nejbauer
Maddie Blenman
Karl Furman
Jesus Hernandez (Grade Six Champion)
Our seventh grade students are in the middle of their competition and will complete it this coming Wednesday, Feb. 1. Names will be posted when their competition is completed.
Due to snow days and Catholic Schools Week activities, the seventh grade spelling bee was delayed a few days. The finalists are...
Dominic Keck
Anthony Keck
Isaac Rocha
Natalie Fowler
Anya Shevchik
Alex Delia (Grade Seven Champion)
Russell Simeone
Jack Kollhoff
Our school bee will be held Feb. 7, 2017 at 1:30pm in the school cafeteria. Parents are welcome to attend.
UPDATE 2/8/17...
After a long fought contest (it had to be held over to a second day), our school Spelling Bee winner is seventh grader, Dominic Keck. This is Dominic's second year to represent St. John School in the Ashtabula County Spelling Bee which is being held at the former State Road School on Feb. 15, 2017. We wish Dominic well!
Friday, January 27, 2017
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Chem Matters December/January Issue
Thanks to Dr. Ann, our class now receives a monthly digital chemistry magazine appropriate for middle grade students. This month's issue is full of interesting articles pertinent to young people, among them
*How to help keep skin acne-free
*How the lanthanides (rare earth metals) allow us to have smart phones, computers, and TVs
*The science behind self-warming and self-cooling cans
Click HERE to access the latest issue of Chem Matters.
*How to help keep skin acne-free
*How the lanthanides (rare earth metals) allow us to have smart phones, computers, and TVs
*The science behind self-warming and self-cooling cans
Click HERE to access the latest issue of Chem Matters.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Element Report gr. 6... UPDATED 12/7/16
With the addition of our Chromebooks, our sixth graders have been able to do some exciting techology activities! One that they are currently working on is creating a Science report about an element. A report doesn't sound very exciting, but the completed report is no normal report. Rather, it is a webpage, complete with links, graphics, and text.
I had hoped to complete the webpages prior to Thanksgiving break, but our schedule was such that time did not allow. The webpages should be completed by the end of the evening on the Wednesday after break, November 30, 2016.
Please find HERE a copy of the instruction sheet that each sixth grader received. Elements have been chosen and students should have logged in to make their initial webpage. Most students have begun their research, and some have started typing text into their pages. This coming week, students will learn how to copy/paste the links into their webpages and how to download/upload photos.
Please encourage your sixth grader to be working on this so that the pages are completed on time.
HERE is the link to view all of the webpages created by our sixth graders!
I had hoped to complete the webpages prior to Thanksgiving break, but our schedule was such that time did not allow. The webpages should be completed by the end of the evening on the Wednesday after break, November 30, 2016.
Please find HERE a copy of the instruction sheet that each sixth grader received. Elements have been chosen and students should have logged in to make their initial webpage. Most students have begun their research, and some have started typing text into their pages. This coming week, students will learn how to copy/paste the links into their webpages and how to download/upload photos.
Please encourage your sixth grader to be working on this so that the pages are completed on time.
HERE is the link to view all of the webpages created by our sixth graders!
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Music Makes Learning More Fun...
... and really helps students remember information more readily!
How many of you can still sing a commercial jingle from your childhood? Amazing, isn't it? Music accesses multiple areas of brain so when we learn a song we are using more of our brain than if we just memorize a poem or math facts. However, if we add music to memorizing that poem or those facts our brains will store the words more readily, the information moves into our long term memory. Because of this, I often try to add songs to Science, Religion, or Language Arts class to help our students remember important (and often challenging) information.
Here are a few songs we've already learned this year. You might recognize one or two.
Stop back again as I'll be adding more as the year goes on!
How many of you can still sing a commercial jingle from your childhood? Amazing, isn't it? Music accesses multiple areas of brain so when we learn a song we are using more of our brain than if we just memorize a poem or math facts. However, if we add music to memorizing that poem or those facts our brains will store the words more readily, the information moves into our long term memory. Because of this, I often try to add songs to Science, Religion, or Language Arts class to help our students remember important (and often challenging) information.
Here are a few songs we've already learned this year. You might recognize one or two.
Stop back again as I'll be adding more as the year goes on!
Friday, October 21, 2016
Sweet DNA
Our sixth graders have been at it again! What's IT, you might ask? Science and candy! This time they have been learning about DNA, the building block of life and have been building models of this important molecule using Twizzlers, toothpicks, and colored marshmallows. As part of the project the students were to take home their molecule and teach parents about the importance of DNA. The molecules were a SWEET SUCCESS, and a great way to end our study of cells and cellular structures.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Plant Cell Model Cookies
Our sixth graders have been studying about the taxonomy of living organisms. Among the concepts introduced to them are the structures and functions of cellular organelles. Loads of new vocabulary words are presented to our students during this unit of study. To help them internalize the words and make concrete connections our students made models of plant cells using pop-tarts, frosting, and various candies.
Let's hope our cookies lead to sweet success in learning the cellular organelles!
Let's hope our cookies lead to sweet success in learning the cellular organelles!
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Grade Six Word Cloud Book Reports
Sixth graders have been using our school's brand new Chrome books in many ways: answering an extended response question using Padlet, taking the STARS assessment tests, and making word clouds.
What's a word cloud? It is a visual representation of multiple verbal ideas to create a theme. Word clouds have been around a long time as far as computer technology goes. Some popular websites that help users create clouds are Wordle, ABCya, Tagxedo, and Tagul.
I introduced our sixth graders to Tagul on Sept. 19th after I showed them a video of word cloud book reports created by our current eighth graders. They were hooked! Word clouds look FUN! What they didn't realize is that there is MUCH thinking involved in creating a cloud, especially for a book report. No sentences can be written; thoughts are expressed in words, actually the size of words and the number of times a word appears. Imagine trying to develop a book report using only single words!
Here is what our students created...
Now that our sixth graders are familiar with word clouds, they can use them to do projects in other classes or make gifts/cards for family and friends. Words clouds created on Tagul are able to be printed and downloaded. When you download a word cloud file from Tagul, you can use it as a computer desktop background or as part of a screen saver. It is a typical image file just as a photo is. Students are welcome to use the class account that I opened for this project or they may create their own free account at Tagul with your permission.
What's a word cloud? It is a visual representation of multiple verbal ideas to create a theme. Word clouds have been around a long time as far as computer technology goes. Some popular websites that help users create clouds are Wordle, ABCya, Tagxedo, and Tagul.
I introduced our sixth graders to Tagul on Sept. 19th after I showed them a video of word cloud book reports created by our current eighth graders. They were hooked! Word clouds look FUN! What they didn't realize is that there is MUCH thinking involved in creating a cloud, especially for a book report. No sentences can be written; thoughts are expressed in words, actually the size of words and the number of times a word appears. Imagine trying to develop a book report using only single words!
Here is what our students created...
Now that our sixth graders are familiar with word clouds, they can use them to do projects in other classes or make gifts/cards for family and friends. Words clouds created on Tagul are able to be printed and downloaded. When you download a word cloud file from Tagul, you can use it as a computer desktop background or as part of a screen saver. It is a typical image file just as a photo is. Students are welcome to use the class account that I opened for this project or they may create their own free account at Tagul with your permission.
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