Weekly Update 9/28/12

This week's bloggers are having fun!

Emilia, Nathan W., Cassy, Jack B., Ziran

Here we are again!  Ziran, Emilia, Nathan W., Jack B., Cassy

Community Projects:
For our community projects we have been brainstorming ideas on how to do things to help others.  We started researching ideas for our topics and answering questions on our Wikipages.  We also learned how to search more effectively by using things like quotation marks to get exact words and using "and" or "or" to limit our searches. 
 Check back to follow our progress on our projects!

Mrs. Ziegenfuss showing the Wikipage.

ADVISORY:

In homeroom we made Bystander/Paw PRIDE bumper stickers with slogans to get people to not bully and to be positive.  They will be displayed above our lockers in the hallways.  We voted for our favorites from each homeroom.  Then we will vote for the best one in the whole sixth grade to be made into a poster that will hang in the commons.

Here are the winning bumper stickers from our Sigma homerooms:

by Cecelia, 6-12

by Veronica, 6-12

by Lorie, 6-11

Isabel, 6-11

MONUMENT PROJECTS!!

We finally finished building our monuments and started presenting our research.  Jack B. thinks it is exciting to present to the class and answer their questions.

THE TAJ MAHAL 

Keatyn, Rhea, Ziran, and their Taj Mahal

The towers and the dome were the highlights of the project.

Patrycja, Trey, Jack
They liked the beauty of the details of their Taj Mahal.

THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA

Michael P., Morgan, and Devin

They added creative details like their names written in hieroglyphics and a tour bus parked in front of the pyramid.

Annie, Michael K., and Tyler

Their pyramid was hard to make because they glued all of the their cardboard pieces to a small base.

Their favorite part is the opening they made out of an egg carton.

THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA

Jack, Isabel, Tyler.  

They built just three sections of the tower.  The hardest part was that people kept knocking into it!

They built a huge model.  Our favorite parts are the walls and the towers.

THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

Alex S., Sean, and Owen. 

They added the water pumps and lots of plants for the garden.

       Cassy, William, and Emilia

They worked hard on the chain pump that brought water to the plants!

THE COLOSSEUM

Charlie, Alex Y., Connor

They created the stage where the battles took place, and they even created seats for the spectators, too.

Om, Matt, Michael B.

Their model shows the remains of the monument today.

CHARTES CATHEDRAL

Carol, Jackie, Henry

They used bottles to create the cathedral's towers.

Rocco, Paul, Nathan W.  

Paul had a great idea to use egg cartons to make the cross on the roof.

THE PARTHENON

Kayce, Lorie, Veronica

This group was very creative and used straws for columns.

Cecelia and Emma 

They made two different versions of the Parthenon and then decided on this one with detailed drawings.

MATH EXCEL PROJECT:

We learned how to use Microsoft Excel.  We watched a tutorial on YouTube and then we played around on Excel.  Emilia liked that she learned how to average all numbers together.  Pressing the SIGMA sign ∑ helps to sum up numbers!!  (Thanks to Keatyn for showing us how to type the Sigma sign by pressing "control" and "w.")

Connor and Michael P.

Sean

WONDER:

In Wonder, Auggie's teacher talks about precepts in school.  When we hear a precept, we think about what it means and how to use it and to respect people.

This is a picture of the precepts from Wonder that we think can be our precepts, too.  We are adding to the list as they come up in the book.

In Wonder one of the character's special songs is Beautiful.  We listened to Christina Aguilera sing it and some of us sang along in the video below.  This song represents Auggie's friend Summer because she doesn't think people should say mean things to Auggie.
She also thinks he shouldn't let mean comments affect him. 

ART:

Some of us are in art for our Creative Arts hexter right now.  We are designing logos in Fireworks.  Cassy learned how to use the tools in the program, including creating different layers.
Here is Connor's "chain link" logo.



Sigma Celebrations!


Patrycja  wearing her Sigma shirt to school!


This month's T-Wolf Pride award winners.  Congratulations to Henry and Carol!

Annie's birthday was Wednesday, and Patrycja's was last Sunday, so our Polish-speaking students decided to sing "Happy Birthday" in Polish.  We recorded on the video below:

Veronica, Patrycja, Annie, Henry, Emilia (and Jackie)

Weekly Update 9/21/12

Weekly Update by Tyler, Colin, Michael K., 
Charlie, and Isabel
This week was a great week here on Sigma. We had many exciting activities. We got to continue our world problem activity. LA has been exciting especially in the book Wonder. Science and math have been very fun too. We got to do many activities including travel brochures, animal eye movies, and science in the news. We have been continuing our monument project in social studies.

Here are this week's bloggers: Tyler, Colin, Michael K., Charlie, and Isabel. Where are we?

Here are almost all of us during Sigma Celebrations enjoying the end of a great week!

Michael P. surprised us all with the word of the week recording he did last Friday.  He suggested the word "cantankerous" to Mr. Goldstein, and his word was chosen!

Listen to Michael's recording!

Mr. Aho's homeroom watching the announcements, including Michael's surprise.

In social studies we are working on our monument research and project.  We each got to choose  a famous world monument to learn about.  Mr. Goldstein came in and helped teach with Mrs. Z.  We each read two challenging texts about our monument and decided on the most important ideas.  Then we did more research and posted it on our group's wiki.  Now we are designing our monuments and building them out of recyclables.

Isabel, Conner, Alex Y., Will, and Colin are in this picture. Can you find them?

Michael and Om talking with Mr. Goldstein about their readings.

 Rocco is researching and Nathan W. is starting to build their Chartres Cathedral.

Lorie, Veronica and Kayce found really great sites with tours and music for the Parthenon.

Here is the Taj Mahal's design, sketched by Trey.

Trey, Patrycja, and Jack S. are starting to build the Taj Mahal.

Morgan, Michael P., and Devin are researching their monument.  Morgan made her own Great Pyramid of Giza and brought it in to class!

We started our community projects last Thursday. They are about finding community problems and fixing them.  Last week we brainstormed all of the problems we see in our communities.  Then each group chose a problem to try to solve.  We hope to help with many different things including protecting endangered animals, finding a way for everyone to be able to have sports equipment, designing nonviolent video games, and raising awareness about the importance of art.  

Ziran, Nathan W., Ben, and Michael K.

Nathan H, Om, and Tyler

Carol, Rhea, Emma, Veronica, and Lorie

Paul, Sean, and Alex Y.

In math we created geometric shapes on a computerized rubber band board.  Then we converted our designs into pdfs.

Nathan W. doing his geometry project.

In LA the class is reading the book WONDER.  It's about a kid with birth defects.  We like that the book is creative and funny.  Emma likes that she always WONDERS what will happen next!

Animal Eye Projects

We voted on the best projects and posted them this week. 

Butterfly Eyes by Patrycja S.

Cuttlefish Eye by Michael P.

Hippo Eyes by Morgan

Chameleon Eyes by Trey

Gecko Eyes by Annie

Weekly Update 9/14/12

This week's bloggers are very funny:  Trey, Jackie, Michael P, Carol and Matt!  Can you find their alien faces?

In Advisory we are making bumper stickers.  They represent the T-wolf pride and Thomas pride. They are very colorful, and we are going to hang them up above the lockers when we are done.  The best ones will be hung up in the office on a big banner!  Some of them say, "Bully free since 1963," "Paw-pride is on your side," "Bully free zone,"  and "TMS Thomas is a bully free zone."  When we are done we will post pictures of our finished bumper stickers.

Charlie and Ben

Jack and Michael K.

Rocco and Annie

Kayce

Nathan H, Tyler, and Connor

Morgan and Devin

Lorie

Isabel and William

Emilia, Cecelia, and Keatyn tracing designs

In science Mr. Aho assigned each of us different animals' eyes to study.  We had to go on Google and look up facts about the animal's pupils, whether it could see color or not, and how it could see in different lights.  We learned that some animals can see objects better than others.  Matt learned that the cuttlefish has a "W" shaped pupil and can see better in dim light than in bright light.  Carol learned that the chameleon has eyes that move around really easily, so that gives chameleons really good eyesight.

Jack researching a husky's fantastic eyes.

Isabel learning about the gecko's eyes.

In social studies we each brought in an artifact from home.  An artifact is an object that has cultural or historical significance.  We shared our artifacts with partners who then told the class about what we brought. Our artifacts are important to us and our families for different reasons.

Ziran and Emilia

Lorie and Nathan

Emma and Cecelia 

Carol, Owen, and Nathan

Ben and Matt

Morgan and Devin

Michael P. and Jackie

Henry and Claire

Jack S. and Patrycja

Trey and Sean

Veronica

Alex Y. and Connor

Jack B. and Rhea

Tyler and Paul 

In science, we studied famous scientists that had something to do with light. This is Isabel as Albert Einstein showing his theory of relativity.

Just can't stop those Sigmaniacs!  Elton, James, Shane, and Kyle from last year's team stopping by after school to help Mrs. Ziegenfuss with a tech project!