Inservice

No School on Monday and Tuesday (October 10-11, 2022) due to KIBSD District/Building Inservice.

School Meals

Beginning Wednesday, October 12, school there will be a fee for school lunches and breakfasts. Contact the KMS 6th grade office for information on how to add money to your student's account, or check for eligibility and register for Free and Reduced Meal program.

Recess/Clubs

This week was a good week due to the weather to begin clubs during Recess. Students had the option to sign up for Reading/Writing/School work Club, Doodle/Drawing Club, Board Games (no electronics), or Recess. These clubs will run for approximately 3 weeks. Once a student signs up for an activity, they will be expected to attend that activity as staff will be taking attendance. Teachers have the option to take their clubs out to recess.

Have a great weekend! We will look forward to seeing students next Wednesday.

Assistant Principal Norton

Email: hnorton01@kibsd.org
Website: www.kibsd.org/kms
Location: 722 Mill Bay Road, Kodiak, AK, USA
Phone: (907) 486-7459

This was an interesting week of learning responsibility with our iPads, battling technology, and learning the proper way to organize our writing in email form. Today/Friday they had their first assessment in ELA where they had to write me an official email based on a scenario that they chose. Next week, we will dive into responding to emails properly, as well as the ins and outs of organizing our inboxes! We have also started some small writing homework each night, and this was a challenge for some. I changed our homework to at least 10 minutes of reading (because we also read for 10 minutes during class) and approximately 10 minutes of writing. The goal is that they are practicing the writing skills that we are learning/reviewing during class to continue their growth with writing. Please encourage your student to take time to do their ELA homework each night, which should rarely exceed 20 minutes. This year we’re going to grow so much as readers and writers together!

This week we learned about things in our solar system that aren’t planets, and we practiced different methods of studying to review. We played online review games, used crosswords, and did a classic review sheet. We spent some time talking about how Pluto is considered a Dwarf Planet and why that is. (It is because in 2005 we discovered more objects like it and decided to make a new category). On Thursday, we did a lab to conceptualize how large and far apart planets are in relation to each other. It involved a lot of tape in the hallway, students counting steps, measuring with their bodies, and the realization that Jupiter is very large. This weekend, their challenge is to explore a star app on their ipad with someone else. Perhaps Monday night will be clear enough to see the stars?

This week we finished and turned in our Geographic Units Chart and did some more exploring in GoogleEarth. We used Wednesday as an extra workday to catch up on missing or unfinished assignments. I showed students how to read my feedback in PowerSchool using the speech bubble icon. Students learned a fun mnemonic device to remember the countries in South America and began creating a map (due Wed 10/7). We finished the week with a quiz on Continents & Oceans. Students can re-take quizzes if they can show me they have been practicing.

Students have been working on statistics in math class. We worked on a project last week in which students came up with their own statistical question, conducted a survey of their classmates, calculated averages (mean, median, mode), and made a nice presentation using the Numbers program on their iPads for 60 points (due Friday, October 7.) We are continuing to work on calculation skills on Mondays (adding, subtracting, and multiplying whole numbers and decimals) while finishing up our statistics unit. We will be starting our algebra unit next. Homework is given out on Mondays and due on Fridays in math class.

We read an article discussing high school students’ perspectives on the significance of Hispanic Heritage Month and learned to connect different text features to improve our understanding. After completing the I-Ready Reading Diagnostic, we also began individual conferences to discuss each student’s reading progress and set individual goals for the first semester. Students will begin their Hispanic Heritage Month collage projects this week by choosing a career field and highlighting the contributions of three famous Hispanic Americans within that field.

This week in GT, we discussed strategic and collaborative thinking strategies and how knowledge can be constructed and affirmed through individual and group processes. Students are continuing their work on their GT Group Project Contest to solve a real-world problem and are encouraged to reach out to me to discuss any extension or academic support they may need individually. Next week, Grade 6 GT pullout will take place on Wednesday, October 12th during Period 6!