Chelsea

=__6th grade__= When I first walk into the middle scool I had no idea what expect. I was worried that I would get alot of homework and be stuck in my house the whole day doing it. But every year you worry for something that nevers happens, so of course that didnt happen.How was I supposed to know I would get the best and most fun teachers in the world!

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Making Mummies: a time of mourning
My favorite part of social studies was learning about Egypt making mummies. I had a lot of fun while working on them. It deffinitly showed me how much work the Egyptians put in to making sarcophagus. It took a while for me, and my partner and we only made one layer instead of a couple layers like most people were buried in. I thought the most fun part was coloring the sarcuophagus because you got to create how you wanted yours to look. Also I could make my own patterns and designs. Then we had to walk around the whole school in our funny outfits pretending to be sad! I was glad though that my sarcophagus was done and looking great!!! If you want to check out more about mummies go here http://www.virtual-egypt.com/newhtml/mummies/

**Maya**
I also learned about the Maya. They were one of my favorite to learn about. They loved to play this game with a rubber ball (which they were the first to invent) in a ball field. They wore headdresses, fine jewelry, and their nicest clothes. The Maya would sacrifice people and ripe their hearts out just to please the gods. We watched the MIMI which was a fun way to learn about a subject but not have to be bored too. They would throw them into water to drown in which they would go get a drink from later. They had alot of temples to worship their gods in and had a good number system. I learned alot in social this year but I cant name it all.

What makes a civiization
What does make a civilization? Well we live in one today. A civilization MUST include these things to survive and keep on going. The civilization must have enginneering, social structure, arts, government, education, and agriculture. Agriculture provides foods so they can live. Social structure is the oder of the most important people to the least important. Arts is making pottery or painting and can be in the home or even sold or traded to make money. Goverment is very important. It keeps the country organized and in oder. They give laws for the citizens to follow so they dont get unruley. Engeneering makes the needed tools to hunt or even to build something. Lastly, education is a way for the children to learn. Boys went to school back then for longer than girls because they thought girls had to go work in the kitchen all the time. Girls went to school for only about three years if they were lucky. Our civilization today uses those same basic ideas just different. = =

=__Exploring in science__=

In science we did alot of activities. One of my favorite was the making oceanography web pages. We looked up information about a certian topic of the ocean. My topic was plants. I had a lot of fun making the pages because they would go on the internet and other people could see them! Then we checked out other peoples sites by doing a scavenger hunt. I never knew how much work web pages were, but know i do. If you want to check out mine it is right here http://www.stsd.org/sms/staff/lfuinihetten/ocean/index.html.

Me as a result of science
Know that I have learned so much this year I see science everywhere. The outdoor program really helped. I can kind of tell what fish are what, and what kind of leaves are compound and which are single. I can even tell the kind of vains they have!! Know when I go in to a river or srteam i will look for macro invertabrates. I can also tell if a stream is healthy or not by what is in it. KNow that the year is over I will be seeing science everywhere!

Biomes
Also a while ago we worked on taiga biomes. I researched taiga temperatures and its precipitation. I also found interesting places that you could visit while still being in taiga land. Then when i had all my information i made two powerpionts. My group made a whole one with everything about taiga lands and were there located.____



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Birds of Prey
There are many types of birds of prey. We learned about almost all of them! The peregrine falcon is our school bird. It has small wings and is made for diving down to get its prey. Also there are buteos which have wide wings and are made for gliding. They are the kind of birds that you see in the sky circling and gliding around their prey. Everyone went bake oven knob to see birds of prey. It is a tall mountain where you can hike up to the top. I wasnt there so I wouldnt know what birds they saw. =__Math__= In math I have learned and discovered many knew things this year. The first things we learned was a set of math chants. They were used to help us remember how to find answers or what something was called. Also I learned a lot about exponents and how to find the number it represents. I actually thought exponents were fun to work on. Another subject we did that was new to me was finding area of an irregular shape and of triangles. Sometimes the irregular shapes got very detailed and were very difficult to find the total are or even some little parts of it. Then during the year we had the PSSAs. We had special math books that were set up like the PSSA test. I like that book because it was nice and light! Lastly we are working on math connections. We need to take a sport or just everyday activities andwrite and draw how that connect to some things we learned in math. I am working on tennis. = =
 * Here are __some__ things that we worked on during the year**
 * adding
 * subtracting
 * multiplying
 * dividing
 * perimeter
 * area
 * fractions
 * decimals
 * exponents

=__Reading__= = =

In reading one of my favorite activities is lit circles. My first lit circle book was Flipped. I thought that book was good because it shows you the two sides of a story between a girl and a boy. The stories are totally different. Then my second book was Zach's Lie. WOW that was a really good book. It was always fast moving and was never slow or boring. My most recent lit circle book is tales of ancient Greece. It was a nice way of learning about all these different tales because they were interesting and they didn't take a while. Now that a stated what books i read let me tell what lit circles are like. __A day in the life of having a lit circle.__A day in the life of having a lit circle. First all the people in our group gather together. This time there was only three people in our group which is nice because you can be heard, but then we someone is absent (which happened a lot) there is only 2 people there. Anyways,Then we retell all the stories and share our think alouds when we get to where we left one. Our group had to leave a least one think aloud that was a question. I left questions, connections, or just thoughts about what was happening. Lastly, we fill out our evaluation and we are done!! The best books I've ever read

[[image:worm_book.jpg width="113" height="153" align="right"]]
I never really used reading srategies until this year. I now think and utilize them all the time while I am reading. Some that I use are..
 * 1) double identity
 * 2) Zach's lie
 * 3) a series of unfortunate events
 * 4) abduction
 * 5) dairy of a worm
 * 6) Others i cant remember
 * Reading stratgies**
 * Predictions
 * questions
 * context clues (to understand a word)
 * synthesizing
 * cause/effect
 * connections
 * infering
 * visualize
 * summerizing

=__Writing__= This year in writing we worked on many different subjects. We wrote persuasive the most because we needed the most practice in that. These are some of my writing pieces.

Have I improved?
I think that I have improved this year in writing a little bit. It is deffinitly not one of my favorite subjects. I guess i improved in trying to write a little more interesting more sentances, which is hard somtimes.

=__The groovyest Greek week__= During Greek week I had a lot of fun. We got to listen to everyones projects and what they researched. I heard a lot of things i never even would have thought about like the tools that they used to operate on people with. I can't believe that they wouldn't even wash the tools that they used after operating on someone. EEWWW. Jessicca, Conner, Dee, and I worked on the Olympics. It was a lot of fun. I mainly worked on the origin of the Olympics and discus. This is the slide show i made for the origin of the Olympics. This is the slide show for discus (have to put them in) =__Field trips__=

Tut
The most fun field trip that we took is definitely the franklin institute and aquarium one. We went to the FI to see the main attraction: King Tut. It was definitely cool to see real artifacts instead of just pictures in books. The items looked pretty new, considering that they were thousands of years old. I really likes seeing all the detail and time they put into all the pieces. I thought the canopic jars and the king tuts relatives sarcophagus were the most awwing to me.

Aquarium
I couldn't believe all the different fish and and animals that live in the ocean! The shark realm and tunnel was the best part. It was kind of intimidating knowing that if the tank broke these sharks could over power me and get me. They had so many, dirty teeth with food and other things stuck in them. I could even see where humans get some inventions from. One being the chainsaw. There was the shark that was shaped like a chainsaw! It looked like this: = =__How I love Technology__= I cant believe how much I have learned about computers this year. I know how to work all the different tools on the computer. Some like microsoft word, powerpoint, and publisher. It was fun in Photo story when we made one with our vocab words and we would find words and pictures that represents our word. Our latest is working on our digital portfolios right here in wikispaces! We soon are going to add new pictures in photostory for the video that they show the new, soon to be 6th grades at the oreintation. =__Out door Program__= During the last 6 days we have been outside learning about what is in nature and how some things are classified. The first day we went to the fish hatchery and learned about fish with Mr.Shweyer. I feed the fish with food that I got too. Then during the afternoon I went with Mrs.Krause(sub for deolivara) and she told us about leaves. I learned a song. It goes a little something like this: = = (To the tune of three blind mice) Three vain structures Three vain structures Pinnate, Palmate,and Parallel Pinnate, palmate,and Parallel Pinnate,goes in one direction Palmate goes in all directions and Parallels easy to tell and Parallels easy to tell

Then the next day we went and seen a little skit done by the people at the church. We looked at gravestones and a man shoot a gun from the war. I couldn't believe how loud it was with just one gun. I feel bad for the people in the war because they had to hear that noise all day. Then we took a big long hike to different places and filled out a little booklet. The next day we looked for shapes in nature with Mrs.Yurconic. In the afternoon we went to the river to find macro invertebrates. We took them back to the room to investigate. Some of them were very hard to classify what macro invertebrates they were.

= = =__How I changed__= Now that the school year is almost done there is alot of ways that I have changed. Before this year social studies was my least favorite subject but now, I can't believe im saying it, but I like it now. Also I am more confident that I am doing things right and I dont ask as many questions as I did in the last years and begining of this year. My oral speaking skills have increased the most this year so for. I dont have to be staring down at my notes. This year has been really fun, and I improved while doing it!