The sixth grade recently finished reading the novel "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson. It's about a 13-year-old boy named Brian who finds himself stranded in the Canadian wilderness. Brian has to rely on his survival skills, both physical and mental, to stay alive. To celebrate the completion of the book, our class took a field trip to Mudcreek in New Boston, Texas. Our gracious hosts were Gary and Mary Ted Mayo (my parents) and our activities director was Gene Joyce (my husband). We began our day by going on a hayride and touring the property

. 

After our tour, we came back to the cabin and did our first "survival" activity. We built fires using flint and steel kits. We learned from our novel how important it is to have just the right types of brush and kindling, and practicing this skill was challenging.

The Mayos treated us to grilled burgers for lunch, cooked by Joe Mayo. 

After lunch, we headed for the woods to begin our next activity - a shelter-building contest. We split up into 3 teams. After receiving some tips on where to find certain wooded materials and discussing how Brian improved his shelter in the book...the contest began! 

After lots of bamboo-weaving, cedar brush gathering, and problem-solving...we had a winner!

We wrapped up the day with an ice-cold popsicle back at the cabin. It was a beautiful day to be outside and enjoy nature. We had a great time and made some amazing memories. 

WHAT AN AWESOME DAY!!!

Thanksgiving has come and gone. It's hard to believe Christmas is right around the corner. The Middle School had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast with lots of family and friends. 

This has been a busy week in 6th grade. We've been gearing up for a big Science test on cellular structure and division. We've also been studying Pi in Math. Understanding Pi is much easier when you can actually see the calculation in practice. We did a fun activity where we used string to measure the diameter of various circular objects and then showed ourselves the relationship between diameter and circumference. 

Next week will be busy too as we are winding up the year in many areas. However, it never seems like a bad idea to step outside and take a breath of fresh air. The weather is beautiful now and we have been enjoying getting out of the classroom for a little recess. Sixth graders are not too old to enjoy the swings every now and then!

Have a great week!!

The sixth grade held its annual Egyptian Fair recently. The fair is the culmination of our Ancient Civilizations unit on ancient Egypt. We studied this ancient culture in many subject areas. We researched and wrote in Language Arts, including the study of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. One of Egypt's most well-known rituals was mummification. We mummified apples in Science, hypothesizing on which combination of various salts mummified the best. We studied ancient artifacts, such as the pyramids, and learned in Math how skilled the ancient Egyptians were in this subject area. 

For our Egyptian Fair, each student chose an ancient Egyptian occupation or profession. The students researched and wrote paragraphs about their occupations of choice. Then each student was asked to come up with a business regarding their profession. They had to create a business name, a slogan, a logo, and business cards. Each student wrote a persuasive paragraph about their business and constructed a tri-fold board to display elements of learning. 

The fair consisted of an Ancient Egyptian Marketplace, an Ancient Egyptian Food Court (with lots of good snacks), and an Ancient Egyptian Museum. The museum featured some interesting artifacts, as well as King Tut Death Masks painted by each student in Art class. The younger students and adults alike all enjoyed their time visiting the fair.

My students all worked very hard and I'm extremely proud of their efforts. The Egyptian Fair was a huge success!!

Please enjoy the slideshow below; clicking on the picture will show the next one.

St. James classes were offered the opportunity to do a community service project with the residents at Cornerstone Retirement Community. We painted all different types of rocks with the residents, which will then be placed all over the community. This is part of a larger "Spread the Kindness" project, and each rock has our school hashtag and instructions to post a picture of the rocks on Facebook. The kids thoroughly enjoyed painting with the residents. They showed impressive creative skills as well as practiced their manners and social skills with the residents. Everyone had a really great time!

Another fun October activity for the 6th grade has been our unit of study on ancient Egypt. Our Egyptian Fair is coming up soon, and I will save most details of this amazing event for my next post. However, since today is Halloween, I will share one fun science activity we did in our Egypt unit. Mummification is one of ancient Egypt's most well-known rituals. In studying the reasons behind this, the process, and the procedure, we mummified apple slices in different combinations of salts. We applied the scientific method and went through the process of hypothesizing, researching, observing, and concluding. Most of the class felt that iodized salt and Epsom salt preserved the apples the best. What a fun and hands-on way to study something that's actually kind of gross!

Lastly, our class took their 6th-grade field trip to Mo-Ranch in Hunt, Texas, last week. It was such a fantastic leadership and bonding experience. This class made memories together that they will always cherish. Mo-Ranch is definitely one of the special things St. James has to offer our 6th graders.

What a fun first day of school! The sixth grade enjoyed the solar eclipse with the whole campus, then cooled off with some popsicle treats. The new sixth graders have stepped right in and are doing a great job with their new responsibilities. They are very serious about caring for our flags and putting them up and taking them down daily. They have worked very hard to learn how to properly set up and lead Big Chapel on Tuesdays. We are the leaders of the school and make major efforts to set a good example and be kind to the younger kids. A lot is expected of sixth graders at St. James!

Viewing the eclipse was a great way to begin our first unit in science, which is solar energy. We traced our own shadows at different times of the day, as well as graphed data from a shadow tracking device we built. This is an active and visual way to study how the earth moves around the sun. The next element in our unit is solar heat. 

We're off to a great start, it's going to be an awesome year!