Miss Brakke's Grade Six Humanities

Students, Parents, and Guardians,  In light of recent situations, we wish to make you aware of some of the following items that may help. The first is a note from the school: The purpose of teacher blogs is to inform students and their families of day-to-day learning and activities throughout the school year.  We will continue to communicate learning opportunities and will provide links to online learning resources through these blogs.   Important information related to all school decisions will continue to be emailed to parents/guardians and can also be found on the CBE website ( www.cbe.ab.ca ). Below is a list of resources that can be supportive to you during the upcoming weeks. d2l.cbe.ab.ca (This will take students to the math/science page that Mr. Thompson has up that includes a number of links to review sites and information related to topics that we have covered or will be covering in class) math-aids.com (multiple topics from which to view w

Happy New Year! The grade sixes have been working hard since returning from the winter break. Here are some of the topics and activities we have been working on: We began our third class novel study of Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick. The story is written from the perspective of Max, a grade eight student who lives with his grandparents. He is known for his height (taller than most adults) and for not saying much. When a boy named Kevin moves in next door, Max and Kevin aka Freak quickly become friends. Freak is the opposite of Max; very small and known for being very smart. Together they are "Freak the Mighty" going on quests and adventures around their community. Students have been busy creating Matchbook Chapter Summaries as a way of reviewing and comprehending the novel.  We have been learning about Local and Provincial Government, check out the vocabulary page for the key words we have been discussing in class!  

Click this link to access the article from CBC Kids News. 

The past couple weeks in humanities, students have been working on a variety of tasks including: Completing our class novel study of The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis. Students completed their chapter summaries and wrote a quiz about the novel. We also watched the movie version of the novel and compared the similarities and differences between them.  Working on our visual notes about Local Government. Using visual note taking strategies taught in class, students created a visual note sheet that included: services, elections, law making, urban, rural, council, and school boards. We will continue to explore how local governments impact us and how we can get involved in our community.  We had a guest speaker, David Howard, visit the grade sixes and explain his role as the president of the ATCO Homes for Heroes project. Students will work towards writing news articles about the project through field trips to the site and our discussion with Mr. Howard. 

This past week in humanities we:  Continued our novel study of The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis. We have five chapters left of the novel, if students are behind in their chapter summaries, check out our class summaries here to catch up on work! There will be a quiz on the novel next Monday December 2nd :) Began our Local Government unit in Social Studies, looking at some vocabulary words including: council, mayor, local government, provincial government, services and councillors. Students are using visual note-taking techniques to create their own study sheet of important terms. We began to look at some of the answers to the question: Why do we have a local government?    Check out this video that explains what each level of government in Canada is responsible for! 

This week in humanities we:  continued our novel study of The Breadwinner  by Deborah Ellis. At the end of each chapter, students generate a short list of the main events that took place. To review the chapter summaries we have completed click here ! began our first week of RTI groupings for numeracy and literacy, this will continue for four more weeks.  learned about the history and culture of the Métis using the resources and information on the previous post.