The Month of May

Oh my goodness, did we have lots going on this last month of sixth grade!

Field Day was early on and even though we did not win at Tug O' War, we were definitely good sports! We congratulated each opponent no matter the outcome of the game, no matter the game. We thought back to our Good Sportsmanship lessons from earlier in the year. We were, however, #FIERCE!!!

We had a field trip to a nonprofit in town that works with kids on their computer coding skills (Codecraft Lab).

To learn more about our legal system, we were invited to our local courthouse to see juvenile court, tour the courthouse, and have our own mock trial. They all did such a great job on the trial. They took it very seriously, as you can see from their facial expressions and body language!

Later that night, we had our Sixth Grade Dance!

Our graduation was bittersweet. So happy to see all of our students recognized for the hard work this year! Tears were shed. By many. After graduation, we had a beach party! If you live in a beach town, what else would you do?!

These kids are moving on to middle school next year! I am so happy that they were my people this year! We did get to have our chat with Clark, although we had technical difficulties! After trying the video chat, we just called him. So thankful that he was able to do that for us. It was great to get to say thank you and good bye and to wish him luck on his new job! The kids were talking about it all day. No pictures since I was using my phone (camera!) to talk to Clark! 

The day after school was out, I was able to go once again to the Ron Clark Academy!!! So inspiring! Great to see such fabulous teachers who love what they do, do what they do!

Next year, BIGGER AND BETTER Sabal 6th Grade!!!

Healthy Living - April Update Classroom Champions

Our challenge from Clark this month was to come up with small goals to help us live a healthier life. Students had spring break this month and decided to include their family in this healthy living goal. One student planned to get more sleep over the break, while another's goal was to hike the mountains with her mom. Students are still working on their illustrations of their goals. These pictures will be uploaded later, as students complete them.

We have begun our testing for this school year and have had conversations about eating properly for our brains to work their best and how getting enough, not too much, sleep is important, not only to do well on tests, but to be at our maximum energy level to perform anything well.

The year is winding down. We have only 17 more school days in our year, but we have our sixth grade graduation four days prior to that. I am very proud of my students. They have prepared well for middles school and I know that there are big things in their future!

March Update - Classroom Champions

We're a little late posting our update for the month of March. It has been a jam-packed month! Our challenge this month is all about leadership.

We brainstormed characteristics of a good leader and who we thought were good leaders in our community:

One leader that we agreed upon was a policeman. We were actually approached by one of our local police chiefs about the anti-bullying activities we did last month. He insisted that WE were leaders because we are taking a stand against bullying in our school. Vince Pryce came to our school to speak to our students about this. Some students were even selected to be interviewed for our local news station. We appreciated the recognition and agreed that we will continue to be leaders in our school. As sixth graders, we are the examples for all the other younger grades at Sabal. 

Another leadership role sixth graders took was to host a car wash to help cut costs for our field trips this spring. Not all students are able to come up with money to go on the trips. We want everyone included, so we were proactive with fund raisers this year. The car wash was our biggest and we raised over $1000, thanks to the leadership within sixth grade. Students did all the work greeting each driver, collecting donations, rinsing, washing, and drying ALL cars. It was a proud day for all sixth grade teachers!

Our Spring Break is FINALLY next week! We have accepted Clark's new challenge for April and will focus on that during our time away from school.

~ Mayor James

February - Friendship

Students were challenged by Clark this month to make new friends! Our students are getting to know younger students at our school and making new friends in other sixth grade classes through our House System. Each student was put into one of four houses at the beginning of the school year and we meet periodically as Houses so that students can get to know each other whether or not they are in the same homeroom. We see more interactions during recess between all classes.

We also honored Pink Shirt Day using this awesome lesson:
http://www.rundesroom.com/2015/02/think-pink-anti-bullying-resource.html

Ms. Runde is an incredible teacher and I get ideas from her often! This link takes you to her post about Pink Shirt Day and a link to the activity we used through Teachers Pay Teachers.

Students were randomly assigned a role: the bully, the bullied, the bystander, and the brave. They wrote "I Am" poems from that point of view. Then, students designed a Pink Shirt Day Anti-Bullying t-shirt. It was a very powerful lesson. Students were reflective of themselves and things they have seen and done.

On of my students created this video as a result of our Pink Shirt Day lesson. 

In another class, students wrote encouraging messages that were posted throughout the school. This inspired other students in different grades to do the same.

Looking forward to March and new challenges on Leadership!