Jessicca

=It Wasn't The Teachers, It Was The Freshman!= Coming into 6th grade it wasn't the teachers that I was worried about it was the students. I had heard stories about hte older kids telling the "little sixth graders" to go the wrong places and just making their first year of Middle School a horrible year. Well I was sooo wrong turns out they help you out more that anything. The teachers ofcourse are a little bit of a scare at first but you just have to learn how to understand them. Sixth grade is definetly going to be an awesome year. = = =__Egypt: A Time To Remember__=

When you think of egypt you think of pharaohs and pyramids but thanks to Mrs. Fuini-Hetten and Mrs. Yurconic we actually got the chance to experience the Egyptian life by embalming our very own pharoahs. First, We reaserched all we needed to know about embalming by going to http://www.virtual-egypt.com/newhtml/mummies/ here we learned different tricks to ensure the body for the afterlife. Then, we got all of the supplies needed including natron (baking soda and salt) to perserve the actual mummy (which was really an orange.) Now, it was time to embalm so as it describes at the site our teachers made a small incision in the body where we would take all the inside out to put into canopic jars ( jars to hold the organs) Next, we constructed a sarcophigus (coffin) for the mummy to be buried in. And we then made death mask and added our own artistic touch to it. The last part (and most fun and/or embarrassing) was the actual funeral. We all paraded around the school in costume and brought our mummies to the the final resting place. After, we all had a feast and celebrated our pharaoh. Egypt really is a time to remember!

= = =__Science: An Interesting Discovery__=

Oceanography
~ For oceanography we got to make our own web pages! http://www.stsd.org/sms/staff/lfuinihetten/ocean/index.html here you can learn about different topics about the ocean. We also got to make a coral reef project. This was very fun because we all were asigned a fish and then we got the chance to make a model of one and learn about it too.

Biomes
~ I learned alot while doing my biome project! I had the biome dessert so it was very interesting to see the different survival tacticts for anything out in the dessert. We also learned about Newton's First,Second, and Third Law! To help us understand these laws we created demonstrations. It was very cool to demonstrate something that happens to us all the time.

Bake Oven Knob
~This year my class and I took a trip to Bake Oven Knob. Bake Oven Knob is a place where you can go and do bird-watching. We went there to do bird watching because we had devoted our science class to learning about the birds of prey that we would be watching up there. We saw birds such as the Red Tailed Hawk and the Golden Eagle.

Adventure Aquarium
~ The adventure aquarium was a very fun expeirience. We saw animals such as sharks that we're really interesting to look at up close, turtles witch are probably one of the majestic animals of the sea by the way that they glide through the water, seahorses that were so cool because of their fins how small they are and how fast they move and many, many more sea animals.

Outdoor Program
~ At the outdoor program we talked about diferent subjects like what kind of invertabrates are in water and how we can tell if the water is clean or not, learning how to use compasses, going on a historical trip and learning about the church and what battles they faced.

My View Of Science:
I realized that for science the littlest things are what keeps this world going. My view of Science has changed alot, before I thought it was just a class now I realize it's part of life.

=__Reading / English__= Book Projects~ Awwwww! You think as you hear the word book project but in Mrs. Fuini-Hetten's class book project has a whole new meaning. For our book projects we get a number of different projects to choose from. Like for instance, this book project, we all had to read Sci Fi books and one of the choices were create a song. Connor chose this and he sang for everybody in the class room. I like the project choices because you can always find something that you'll like to do! Vocab~ I liked doing vocab this year because I learned many wordds that I now use in my vocabulary. As I was taking the PSSA I noticed some of the words that I had for vocab were in the PSSA test so I could better understand the text. Lit Circles~ When we do Lit Cirles we get to discuss a book that a group is reading with each other. In my mind this really helps my understanding of the book since we as a group are discussing it.

My Writing Skills:
I feel that over the course of the year my writing has shown great improvement. I feel more confident now when I have writing assignments that I will be able to give it my best and that includes when we're taking tests like the PSSA or just doing free writes.

Tech Skills Too:
I learned a great deal of new skills when we did our ocean pages. I had never made a website before so this was a completely new experience for me that I really enjoyed. I was very happy that I got the chance to do alot with computers and I will definetly carry these skills through all the rest of my years.

__Books I Have Read This Year: [[image:boybook.jpg width="107" height="160"]] [[image:0439324599.01.LZZZZZZZ width="110" height="153"]] [[image:speak.jpg width="104" height="153"]]__
1. The Boy Book: My Rating: 5 I thought this was a very good book. I really enjoyed it because as a kid in Middle School I could relate to the drama that they go through. This book is a very good book but it does have alot questionable content so you should probably check with your parents before reading it. 2. Cut My Rating: 4 This book again was a very good book and the main reason is because this book relates to life that some people experience. Again this book also has questionable content so check with the parents! 3. Speak My Rating: 4 This book was my first Lit Circle book and I really liked it!! This book was a bout a teenager strugling about a problem that happened at a party, it was all fun in games until the police came and learned about what had happened. This book does have some mature content so it will probably be a good idea to check with your parents. I have read many good books so my advice is to check out your library and see which books your interested in!!!!

I Thought Talking In Class Was Bad
With all the presentations that we did this year I am now longer nervous to get up infront of my class. I think this is essential to know how to do because for all of our life we're going to know how to have to speak infront of others.

=_______________________________________________________________________= =Math=

Math Chants~ This year Mrs. Yurconic showed us Math Chants! Math Chants are a way for us to remember things like exponents, whole numbers,intergers and many more!Here's some of our chants! 1. Rational Numbers include decimals and fractions, now isn't that a really cool attraction! 2. Integers are wholpe numbers on a number line, negative and positive, now isn't that divine! 3. Exponents are little numbers way up high, they tell you how many times the base gets multiplied! 4. Whole numbers start with 1,2,3, and then they keep on going to infinity!

End Of The Year Project:
Our end of the year project for math was looking at the world differently and noticing that there is math in everything we do. I did the subject of baseball, things like bases can be seen as quadrilaterals, baselines as line segments, pitching mounds as circles, the batting averages as means, and the angles on the field as angles. I really enjoyed seeing how much more there is to math as we know it. = = =________________________________________________________________________= =__My Groovy Greek Week__= Greek Week was very fun! During Greek Week we watched people give presentations about the topics that they have been researching. We also took part in a Greek Feast with many of the food items like grapes, fig newtons, baklava and many more. We also participateed in the Olympics where four of us hosted different games for everyone to try out. I did a report on Women in the Olympics and here it is below.

__Bibliography

[|__http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=12&hid=104&sid=bddae89b-5cac-4a01-81e1-860d96217d8f%40sessionmgr18__]

[|__http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/olympicsexism.shtml__]

[|__http://www.library.thinkquest.org/J0110469/history_of_the_olympics.htm__]

Women Of Ancient Greece © 2000 pages 66-68__

=__Ancient Rome: My Favorite Civilazation By Far__= Even though all the other civilazations were very interesting to learn about my favorite civilazation was Ancient Rome. The reason rome was my favorite civilazation was because they took alot of ideas from other civilazations and made them their own by improving them. I also think the Roman army was very interesting because the different tactics that they used were very clever. I also thought learning about the goverment was exciting because of all the different things the Romans would do like murder someone just to get them off the throne. I was very interested in the gladiator fights because even though the fights were gory it showed how cruel a society can become. The interesting thing about the gladiator fights though was that they would throw people in the the ring to be eaten alive by angry animals just for believing in a certain faith. Rome was definetly a very interesting civilazation. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ =Seminar= Our Seminar classes are tought by Mr. Wetherhold. (K-Train) while we go in there to learn we also have much fun learning about the topics. We recently played a game involving what things are essential for a good community, like education, military, goverment, and many more. Its not all fun in games though we also have many deep discussions about many topics one of them including Plato's Republic. I found though that even though Seminar may be challenging it is also very good to participate in.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ =What I've Taken From Sixth Grade= Wow!! This year was amazing! I am really going to miss sixth grade but atleast I have aquired many new skills. I feel for writing I will be able to do anything succesfully that is thrown at me. For math I feel very confident, when I first stepped into the room for math class I was afraid. I didn't want to participate in math because I normally didn't understand anything but now that I have had alot of practice I'm going to walk into the room next year with a look of confidence. I have definetly grown more aware of histry thanks to socail studies this year and learning about ancient civilazations. I as a student just feel like I have grown more aware of my surroundings and I think being around all the other kids helped me to see that, they taught me that you should have respect for older kids or teachers and they will show it back. I am really going to miss sixth grade!!!

=One Thing Left To Say= LOOK OUT SEVENTH GRADE!!!!!