Day 19: Friday, September 30th, 2016 - TGIF!

Hello, everybody!  It's Thursday, and I loves me some Thursday!

It's also a D Day, and you guys will be visiting Mr. Bryant for your Special today.  Don't forget to bring your sneakers to PE.

• Please make your Lunch choice before you forget.  KATIE is our Lunch Slip Runner today, so let's take care of business so she can do her job.
• Get all of your materials for your Morning Classes.  Everything. 
• Hork down your breakfast and clean up your mess.  Nobody, but nobody, likes a slob.
• Sit and work on the Morning Work, and do this quietly, please.
• If you didn't finish last night's homework, you could work on that.

Today in Social Studies we'll be continuing with the Five Themes of Geography. We'll be going more deeply into the second theme, PLACE, today in class.  We'll be comparing our school's place  with that of the Hong Kong.

Day 18: Thursday, September 29th, 2016 - Yeah, Thursday!

Hello, everybody!  It's Thursday, and I loves me some Thursday!

It's also a C Day, and you guys will be visiting Mrs. Ruffels for your Special today.  Don't forget to bring a folder to FCS.

• Please make your Lunch choice before you forget.  ASPEN is our Lunch Slip Runner today, so let's take care of business so he can do his job.
• Get all of your materials for your Morning Classes.  Everything.  Pretty soon, you won't be able to go back to your locker for your ISN, and you'll have to make it up during Lunch...
• Inhale your breakfast and clean up your mess.  Nobody, but nobody, likes a slob.
• Sit and work on the Morning Work, and do this quietly, please.

Today in Social Studies we'll be revisiting the Five Themes of Geography.  We didn't get a chance to really go back over what you did for your Student Input Responses (Monday's Homework), so we'll do that in a little bit.  Make sure that you are ready to share what you have written down in your ISN.

We'll be going more deeply into the first theme, Location, today in class.  We'll be comparing our school's location with that of the Sydney Opera House.

Don't forget that tonight is Open House here at APW Elementary School.  It starts at 6:00, and you and your parents are invited to come and visit the school.

Day 17: Wednesday, September 28th, 2016 - Happy Middle of the Week!

Hey kids!  It's Wednesday!  You know what that means??? YESSSS, it's QUIZ day!  Woooohooooo!

Ok, so seriously, let's take care of our Morning Routine:

• It's a B Day, and like every other B Day this year, you have Music for your Special today.  Please make sure that you have your folder.
• Get everything you need for your Morning Classes because it stinks when you ask to go back to your locker to get stuff that you should know to get the first time.  Really.  It does.
• Sign up for Lunch.  MIKAYLA is our Lunch Slip Runner today, so get it done.
• Force your breakfast down your throat and take care of your mess, cause ain't nobody got time for a mess.
• Take time this morning to look over your ISN.  You know, your Interactive Student Notebook?  You have a QUIZ today on Latitude and Longitude (more about that later).  You might want to look over your notes before we have the QUIZ in a few minutes.

As mentioned right above (go ahead, look UP), you have a QUIZ today.  It's on things like latitude and longitude, coordinates, words like intersect and climate zones, meridians, Equator, Prime Meridian, blah blah blah.  You'll also be asked to find cities on a map using coordinates.  Yep, it's all in there.  So buckle up!

Day 16: Tuesday, September 27th, 2016

Good morning, kids!  How is everybody doing on this fine Tuesday morning?  Hopefully pretty well!  Are you ready for another day of learning?

You have new seats today.  Find your desk and put your name stick back into the  stick can.

Today is an A Day, so you get to go to PE today for Special.  Please make sure that you bring your sneakers to the Gymnasium today.

• Remember to sign up for lunch up front.  It looks like Hailey is our Lunch Slip Runner for today, so let's take of it so she can do her job.
• Eat your breakfast and clean up your mess.
• Make sure you have all of your morning materials.
• Work quietly on the Morning Work.

Today in Social Studies, we'll be having a homework catch-up day in class.    We'll also be finding out who won the coloring contest today!

Your notebook should have the following pages in it, as of yesterday:

Day 15: Monday, September 26th, 2016 - Welcome Back!

Welcome back from the weekend, kids!  I hope you were able to enjoy sleeping in and having a little more free time.  I played golf on Saturday with my friends, and watched my son, Demetri, play a doubleheader yesterday.

Today is an E day, so you guys have Art for your Special today.  Once again, if you are not sure if you are a "Flynn" or a "Fuller", check your schedule. It will tell where you need to go.

• Please make sure that you have signed up for Lunch.  Someone will have to be the Lunch Slip Runner.
• Make sure that you have all of your materials for the morning.
• Scarf down your breakfast and take care of your garbage.
• Work on the Morning Work.

In Social Studies, we are going to be moving on to the 5 Themes of Geography today. The 5 Themes are ways in which we as students and teachers think about the world around us.  As we mentioned last week, the world not only includes the physical spaces, such as continents and oceans, it also includes the people that live here.

To get us started, we're going to take a look at a short BrainPop video that addresses the 5 Themes.

BrainPop: 5 Themes of Geography

Day 14: Friday, September 23rd, 2016 - Welcome to Friday!

It's Friday once again!  What's everybody doing for the weekend?

It's a D day, and you have PE today.  Get good marks in the gradebook by being prepared for class.

• Make sure to sign up for lunch.  JAMES is our Lunch Slip Runner today, so let's make sure everybody gets this taken care of.
• Double-check that you have all of your materials for the morning, including a SILENT READING BOOK.  There will be times when you finish your work before others and you will need to keep yourselves occupied.  Reading is an excellent way of doing that.
• Finish your breakfast and throw away your garbage.
• If you haven't finished last night's SS homework, do it now.
• Otherwise, sit quietly and work on your Morning Work.

In Social Studies, we'll be doing a Coloring Contest that involves plotting latitude and longitude coordinates on a graph.  It's called "Ye Olde Pumpkin Patch".  You'll be graded on your accuracy in plotting the points, but you'll also be entering your work into a contest where winners are chosen by how creative they make their finished products!  SO, you're going to need your colored pencils today.

Day 13 - Thursday, September 22nd, 2016 - Happy Thursday!

Good morning, kiddos!  It's Thursday again!  Yahoooooooooooo!

It's also a C day, so you have Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) today.  Mrs. Ruffels needs you to bring your computer log in information with you, because you'll be going to the computer lab for class.

• Sign up for Lunch so KATIE, today's Lunch Slip Runner, can take it down.
• Make sure you have all of your materials for your morning classes, INCLUDING A SILENT READING BOOK.
• Finish up your breakfast and take of your mess.
• Work on the Morning Work.  Its a paragraph that you have to find and edit mistakes.

Today in Social Studies, we'll be doing more practice with Latitude and Longitude in class.  You're going to be writing the names of places in the U.S. based on coordinates.

 

For homework tonight, you'll be solving a puzzle where you have to place dots on a map that represent coordinates.  You'll be connecting the dots with straight lines, one after the other, to form a continent.

 

Day 12: Wednesday, September 21st, 2016 - It's The Middle Of The Week!

Good morning, kids!  It's Wednesday already...boy do these weeks zoooooooom by!

So, it's a B day once again, and you guys get to go to Music for Special.  I'm hoping that everyone has been respectful to their Specials teachers.

• We will be changing the Lunch Count procedure very soon.  It appears as though we may not need to be doing a Lunch Count in 6th grade.  I'm not sure when we will stop doing it, but soon.  That will be one less thing to worry about, but for now, keep signing up.  HARLEY is our Lunch Slip Runner today.
• However, you still need to be getting everything that you need for the morning when you go to your locker off the bus.  This includes all of the things on your "What Do I Need?" lists in your lockers.  Some of us have been careless and have been forgetting to get the right notebooks, folders, etc. for class.  Remember that you also need to bring in a Silent Reading book everyday also.
• Get your breakfast eaten and your garbage taken care of.  Trays go out by the garbage can.
• Sharpen your pencils.
• Work on the Morning Work.

Today in Social Studies, we'll be returning to the World Map and practicing finding places on it using coordinates (numbers based on latitude and longitude that represent a place on Earth).

We'll also be updating our Table of Contents (if you haven't done so already).  We may even jot a few notes down about latitude and longitude (Teacher Input) that you'll respond to (Student Input) later on...

Day 11: Tuesday, September 20th, 2016

Good morning, crazies!  Welcome to Tuesday. Kind of a no feeling sort of day really.  It doesn't have a distinct vibe to it.

Today is an A day, so you'll get to burn off some energy and calories when you run around in PE later on!  Make sure you bring your sneakers and gym clothes or you'll earn a cruddy grade for preparedness.

• Sign up for lunch.  JACK will be taking the lunch slip down for us today.
• If anyone has their quiz corrections done, please hand them into the basket.
• Scarf down your breakfast and clean up your mess.
• Double check to make sure you have all of your materials for the morning.
• Work on the Morning Work.

In Social Studies today, we'll start by doing a small group discussion about the Student Input Questions that you had for homework last night.  Then, we'll reconvene and discuss as a whole group the responses you came up with.

After that, we'll begin discussing how intersecting lines of latitude and longitude help us find specific points on Earth's surface.

 

Your ISN will include the following updates from today:

Day 10: Monday, September 19th, 2016 - Welcome Back From THe Weekend!

Good morning, sixth graders!  Welcome back to school!  Boy, these weekends sure do fly by pretty quickly, don't they?

• Today is an E day, which means that you guys have Art today for Special.  Don't forget that some of you go to Mrs. Flynn's and some of you go to Mrs. Fuller's.  If you cannot remember, check out your schedule.  You can also try to remember who was with you last Monday for that class.
• Remember to sign up for Lunch.  I believe ADRIANNA has signed up for the Lunch Slip Runner today.  Others need to sign up for the rest of the week, please.
• As a gentle reminder, please be a little quicker with getting ready in the morning.  This means:
1. Getting your materials from your locker for the morning.
2. Finishing breakfast and taking care of your garbage/tray.
3. Working on the Morning Work.
4. Of course, signing up for lunch :)

Today in Social Studies, we will be attaching your cutouts from Friday onto page 17 of your ISN.  We'll also be coloring it a little to reflect a couple of things, like climate zones.  To help us understand climate zones, we'll be watching a short YouTube video clip called "Basics of Geography: Climate".

You'll also be responding to some questions that I'm going to give you to answer in your notebook.  We're going to introduce the interactive nature to our use of the notebooks by having a "Teacher Input" and a "Student Input" section on occasion.

Notebook Pages Update - here is what students should have in their SS ISN as of the end of school today:

 

Day 9: Friday, September 16th, 2016 - Happy Friday!

Wow!  Can you believe it?  It's the SECOND Friday of the year already!!!

• Just like last Friday, you guys end the week with a D day, so that means its PE for you during 7th period today.  Bring those sneakers and PE clothes - you don't want to get marked unprepared!
• Get yourself signed up for lunch so ALEX can take that lunch slip down to the office. The Lunch Slip Runners did a great job this week!  Let's keep it up.
• Hand in last night's homework: Geography A to Z - Letter A.

In our Social Studies classes today, you'll be getting your Continents and Oceans quizzes back.  Tonight's homework will be for you to make corrections.  Let's talk about the guidelines for making corrections (these apply to Mr. Pappa's class ONLY).

• Make your corrections on the same quiz sheet.  You do not have to have a separate sheet.
• Doing corrections allows you to receive back 1/2 of the points back that you missed out on the first time around.  For example: if I scored a 70 on the quiz, but I made ALL of my corrections and they were ALL correct, my second score would be 85 (half of 30, the points I missed, is 15, and added to 70 equals 85).  
• The corrections count as a separate score in the grade book.
• You can only get credit for corrections if you fix all of your mistakes.
• If you don't do corrections, or you don't fix all of your mistakes, the original quiz score gets counted twice.  For example: again, if I scored a 70 on the quiz, but decided not to do corrections, or decided to only fix part of my mistakes, my "second" score stays a 70.
• You cannot earn a 100 through corrections.  The reason for this is that it "lessens the integrity" of the 100 received by someone the first time.  Basically, I'm not willing to award a 100 to someone who took 2 times to do it when someone else did it in one try.
• That said, the only scores that do not require corrections are a 99 and a 100.  A score of 99 cannot be improved upon simply because, as stated above, you cannot earn a 100 from corrections.  A student scoring a 99 may, of course, decide to correct a mistake simply to know and understand why the answer was incorrect.

We'll also be continuing on with Geography, as we begin to explore other elements, such as latitude and longitude, using coordinates to locate points on a map, and describing different types of maps.

Day 8: Thursday, September 15th, 2016

Good morning, class!  How's everybody doing today?

• Today is a C day, and on this letter day you guys have Family and Consumer Science (FCS).  Does Mrs. Ruffels require a folder?  If so, make sure that you bring it to her class.
• Make sure to sign up for lunch.  KATIE will be bringing the lunch slip down today, so take care of that task.
• Also make sure that you have all of your materials for your two morning classes.
• If there are any leftover chairs that are still stacked, please put them at desks.

In Social Studies today, you will be taking a QUIZ on the Continents and Oceans.  Yesterday in class, we played a review game that asked you to indicate where these geographical features are located on a map. Today, it's the same basic idea, except that you will also have to put them in order from LARGEST to SMALLEST.

Day 7: Wednesday, September 14th, 2016

Good morning, creatures of Room 402!  How is everyone doing?

• Today is a B day, and that means that for Special, you'll be going to see Mrs. Catania for Music.  Please remember to bring a folder to this class.

• Remember to have all of your materials for the morning: whatever you need for your first two core classes of the day.  You will not need glue sticks or colored pencils for my class.

• Make sure that you have signed up for lunch.  HEATHER has signed up to take the slip down today, so take care of that, please.

 

In Social Studies class today, we are going to be doing a review session for a QUIZ tomorrow.  The quiz will be on the Continents and the Oceans: where they are in the world and their order in terms of size.  For the review, I have made a SmartBoard matching game that asks you to tap a spot on the screen that matches the name of the continent or ocean that you are given.

Double check to make sure your notebooks are up to date.  Take a look at the images below to verify that you have what you need in your notebook, and where it belongs.

Day 6: Tuesday, September 13th, 2016: Basic World Geography - Continued

Morning, kids!  Welcome back.  Today is an A day, and that means that you all have PE for your special today.  Make sure that you bring your clothes and sneakers to the gym today.

Don't forget:

• Sign up for Lunch.  JACK will be bringing the Lunch Slip down today.
• Throw away your breakfast garbage (hallway trashcan, please), and put your tray by the garbage can.
• Double-check to make sure you have the correct notebooks and materials.
• If you have any forms for me, please hand them in to the basket.

We'll be continuing with our World Maps today, we're going to be adding them and some other things to our ISNs (Interactive Student Notebooks).  Please bring your colored pencils and a glue stick to class today.  During class, you may look at my example to check for correctness and completeness.  Don't forget to write neatly and to label those important lines of latitude and longitude!

 

Day 5: Monday, September 12th, 2016 - Basic Geography and World Maps

Good morning, kids!  Welcome back to school on this bright Monday morning.  It feels a little cooler outside right now.  Hopefully that means that we will be trending toward cooler temperatures...fingers crossed!

• Today is an E day, so for students in my homeroom, that means that you have Art today.  In 6th grade, we split up the class into two different sections: one section goes to Mrs. Flynn and one section goes to Mrs. Fuller. See the sections below.

          Mrs. Flynn's Section                                     Mrs. Fuller's Section
                      James                                                            Dominique
                   Adrianna                                                             Hailey
                       Alex                                                               Jackson
                     Kaitlyn                                                              Aspen
                    Rebecca                                                            Caleigh
                      Rylee                                                                 Katie
                    Mikayla                                                             Heather
                     Blaine                                                                Harley
                      Wyatt                                                                Joshua
                                                                                                 Derrik

• Make sure that you know where you are going today for Art.  Mrs. Flynn's room is in the back hallway (to the LEFT of the Library), and Mrs. Fuller's room is in the front hallway (to the RIGHT of the Library).

• Make sure you sign up for lunch.  Somebody needs to take the lunch slip down.

• We have to get ready quicker during Homeroom!

• We'll be working on Basic Geography today, so you'll need colored pencils and a glue stick (possibly) today.

Friday, September 9th, 2016 - We Made it to Friday!

Morning, kids! It's Friday at last!  Today is a D day, so that means that you have PE for Special.  I don't know if you'll be changing today, so if you brought your clothes to change into, make sure you take them with you.

As usual, make sure you sign up for lunch today at the front of the room.  Today, JAMES will be bringing the Lunch Slip down to the office.  Get signed up as soon as possible.  Also, get your breakfast eaten so you can take care of your garbage and your tray.

Today in Social Studies, we will be getting our Interactive Student Notebooks ready to start using on Monday.  We have to add some things like a Table of Contents and a Vocabulary section (and of course, page numbers).  We'll do this today so we can hit the ground running on Monday.  (If you have a GLUE STICK, please bring that in today.  We will NOT be using tabs today.  I will let you know when you will need them.)

Thursday, September 8th, 2016 - I LOVE THURSDAYS!

Good morning, kids!  Welcome to Day 3 of the school year.  It's Thursday, which just so happens to be my FAVORITE day of the week!  Hmmmmmm, are you wondering why?  Why would Thursday, of all the days, be Mr. Pappa's favorite day?  Think about it, and see if you can guess why.  I'll talk about it in a little bit.

It's a C day today, and that means you have Family and Consumer Science for your Special.  Don't forget to sign up for lunch (Rebecca is taking the slip to the office this morning), and then sit and work on the word search on your desks.  We will be writing and posting our "What Do I Need?" locker sheets during first period today also.

For Social Studies, we'll be playing a game called "Roll and Share".  For my homeroom, this is where the stamping that you did on Tuesday will be used, for grouping.  For my other classes, we'll draw sticks from the Stick Cans of Doom...mwahahahahahahaha!

Wednesday, September 7th, 2016

Good morning, boys and girls!  Welcome back to on this SECOND day of school.  We're going to be having more of a normal schedule today, so pay close attention to your schedule today.  Your time with me today will consist of homeroom and 1st period, then I'll see you again for last period (RTI and Enrichment).  In between, you will travel to your other core classes (ELA, Science and Math), as well as lunch and Special (which today is Music, so do not forget your FOLDER).

How about those forms that I sent home with you yesterday?  Does anyone want to turn these in?  Remember, the sooner the better, but try to get them in by this Friday.

Here's the form I sent home that parents are responsible for.  It asks them to answer questions about you so that I can get a better understanding of you!

Tuesday, September 6th, 2016 - Welcome to the 2016 - 2017 School Year!

Hello, everybody!  Welcome back to school, and welcome to my blog!  This is a place where I will post things about class that you can access either during class, or if you are able to, at home on you own device.

I'll post things here like: class assignments, school happenings, surveys, videos, photographs, etc.  Check as often as you want!  Feel free to offer suggestions as to how I can improve the blog!  As you can see (when you get a chance to look), I didn't do very much blogging last year --- but I'm hoping to change that this year.

So again, welcome to class!  I can't wait to get to know all of you as the year progresses!

 Below are some things that your child will be bringing home tonight.  The first one is the direction sheet for joining the Remind notification system.  This is something that the 6th grade team uses to let parents know about things that are happening in our classes, such as homework or important reminders.

 The two sheets below are the front and back of a welcome back sheet to our sixth graders, and their parents.  Your teachers will be going over this with your children, but it would be prudent for you to go over it also.  On the back, there is a place for both you and your child to sign.  Have them return it to school as quickly as possible.