Weekly Update 10/4/12

We hope you like our blog this week!  This pyramid shows that we all work together, even though it was a little painful.:)

Bottom:  Alex S., Cecelia, Ben

Middle:  Claire, Kayce

Top:  Morgan

 Morgan, Claire, Kayce, Ben, Alex S.

Front:  Cecelia

After blogging today, Mrs. Ziegenfuss took us to Mrs. Kirr's 7th grade classroom to play the cardboard games her students created for the Cardboard Challenge.  The games were really creative and fun!

Ben and Alex S. playing a ball toss game

Ben and Alex S. playing a cool foosball game complete with lights.
Can you see Ben's face peeking through the other end of the game? 

Morgan, Cecelia, Kayce, and Claire playing a timed color matching game

 We are having so much fun working in our community projects!  Right now we are researching our topics to get ideas.  Here are some of the things we're doing to help others:

Providing necessities to a homeless shelter

Annie, Patrycja, Emilia, Jackie, and Cassy

Collecting toys and supplies for animals at Kay's Animal Shelter

Cecelia, Morgan, Kayce, and Claire

Designing a nonviolent video game

Michael B., Henry, Jack S., Connor

Giving toys and treats to needy dogs

Ziran, Nathan W., Ben, Michael P.

Providing warm clothing for people

Michael K., Colin, Ben, William

Making crafts and selling them to elementary school kids to raise money to protect wildlife

Devin, Keatyn, Isabel (Owen not pictured)

Collecting new and used sports equipment for kids who can't afford it

Trey, Rocco, Matt, Jack B.

Organizing an intramural tournament to promote fitness

Paul, Alex Y., Sean

Helping prevent bullying 

Om, Alex S., Tyler

(Nathan H. not pictured)

Providing art supplies for kids who don't have them

Emma, Rhea, Carol, Lorie, Veronica

In science we made an online poster in Glogster about shadows, light, and mirrors.  Ben learned that diamonds are translucent, transparent, and opaque, too.  Alex S. learned that water is all three, too.  When water is in its liquid form it's translucent, when it's a solid it's opaque, and when it's a gas, it's transparent.  

Emilia working on her project

Kayce making her Glogster

In LA we wrote stories about superheroes saving the day, using our "ject" root words.  We also illustrated our stories.  Here are three of our favorites:

by Devin

by Michael B.

by Annie

 In Advisory today we had a special assembly with BMX biker Matt Wilhelm.  We not only saw him do cool tricks, but we also learned what it was like for him to be bullied.  He told us that if we saw someone being bullied, we should speak up and not be bystanders.  He also told us to never give up on our dreams.

We all had fun watching the tricks.

This is the great Matt Willhelm.

Matt doing a trick called the "tornado" that he did on "America's Got Talent:"

Matt jumped over our gym teachers, Ms. Renno and Mr. Craig, and luckily didn't injure them.  

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)