6th Grade News: End-of-Year Edition

Humanities: 

It’s hard to believe we’re already at the end of the year, and it feels good to welcome the summer season with a sense of hopefulness and normalcy. I so enjoyed teaching all of your children this year! It was fun to end the year with creative, hands-on projects in both Social Studies and ELA.

As you witnessed at the parent showcase last Friday, students finished the semester in ELA with a literature and project-based unit all about social justice. They completed social action projects inspired by the books they read in small book clubs: The Pants Project, and A Good Kind of Trouble, and Operation Redwood. Their projects related to the themes in their books — LGBTQ+ issues and equality, racial justice, and the environment, respectively. If you didn’t get a chance to see all the projects, here is a list of everything they accomplished! You can find photos of some of their projects in this album, and you can find links to the resources they created in the list below. 

Social Action Projects & themes:  

• LGBTQ+
  • Lev T. and Anais created these “Pride Slides” for teachers to display in their classes in order to teach about the LGBTQ+ community during June, Pride month.
  • Ezra, Bar, and Lev R. completed a “Fund Run,” inviting the whole grade to run laps to raise money for an LGBTQ+ organization, Campus Pride.
• Racial Justice:
  • Jacob L., Josef, and Felix ran a free-throw shooting challenge to raise money for the ACLU.
  • Talia, Mia, Rohan, and Michaella built this website to highlight underrepresented Black artists in NYC.
  • Gali wrote an informative essay about racial disparities and bias in the U.S. justice system.
• Environment: 
  • Zelig and Noa picked up trash at JJ Byrne/Old Stone House and hung up anti-littering signs there
  • Matan, Sam, and Jacob B. built this website to advertise a cafe that they hope to open this summer, where they will donate some of the proceeds to organizations that plant trees and clean up the ocean.
  • Shai, Gabriel, and Adam created and hung up fliers with resources about how to combat deforestation, ocean pollution, and other environmental issues.
  • Henry drew chalk drawings and made an informational flier about cleaning up the Gowanus River.
  • Keren built this website to teach people about how to better preserve their household items.
  • Leo and Elliot created and hung up fliers about how to help Prospect Park thrive.

In Social Studies, students were hard at work for a few weeks working on their “Make Your Own Medieval Manor” projects. In small groups, students imagined their own medieval manor (rural, self-sufficient village) complete with kings and queens, nobles, knights, and peasants. They wrote diary entries, newspaper articles, and dialogues to bring their manors to life, and then they spent a few lessons building their manors in class using a variety of creative materials. I was so impressed with the mini worlds each group created using pipe cleaners, model magic, paint, cardboard, feathers, tissue paper, and popsicle sticks. And more than that: I was proud of how they learned to overcome disagreements and collaborate as a team toward a common goal. Here are some photos of their fabulous manors; ask your child which one is theirs!

Thank you for collaborating with me and supporting your child’s learning in my classes throughout the year. I hope you have a restful, restorative, and relatively “normal” summer!

Naomi

Judaics: 

It was so nice to see so many of you last week at the showcase. I hope you got to see first hand how incredibly talented and deep your children are. It has been such a privilege to see how they are able to allow the Torah and prayer to guide and nurture them with such important steps in their lives. As they become B-mitzvah age and take on leadership roles, I hope that they remember that even Moses was nervous and open to help from God. I also hope that they forever keep their eyes open for those burning bushes around them calling them to action. At the end of the year we watched a documentary called, “Patters of Evidence: The Exodus” by Timothy P. Mahoney   It is a wonderful documentary showing all sides of the argument on if there is proof that the Torah stories occurred. It focuses on the text we studied this year in Exodus. We discussed how we can all have different opinions and still value the Text together. If you are into history and the Bible, I highly recommend it! Its main take- away is that if you look in a different Kingdom time period in Egypt then there is a lot of cool evidence!

Wishing you all an incredible summer and Shabbat Shalom,

Laura

Science:

In the final weeks of science, we conducted a project that merged all the scientific knowledge of the body systems. Students research a list of common diseases that affect the body systems we studied. Then, they did full research on a single disease. They used this research in order to create their own informative disease game using the coding program called Scratch. Everyone rose to the challenge and created unique games that taught the user about their disease. Please enjoy the links to all of the students’ disease games below. 

What an amazing set of games and a great way to finish our school year.

6th Grade Informative Disease Games

Mike Noll

Math:

What a year! I am so proud of the 6th grade for their hard work all year long. This year, they were pushed to think outside of the box and analyze math problems like they haven’t been in the past. They all built a strong foundation that will be a base for where they start up in the 7th grade. Way to go, 6th grade! I hope that everyone has a restful and restorative summer. 

Hebrew: