In a Grade 6 Classroom

My grade 6 class has been very busy wrapping up the end of this year. We have had a chance to do some pretty cool projects that I thought I would share with you. Last month we finished up our Science unit on Electricty and our class had the opportunity to build Robo Critters. They created the circuits themselves, wired up the controllers, soldered it themselves and then had a chance to design whatever creature they wanted.  Most of them turned out quite wonderfully (a few got their wires mixed up so when they moved the controller forward it went backwards or when they wanted it to turn left it turned right but c'est le vie!) After the Robo Critters were complete we held our own Robo Critter Olympics with the other Grade 6 class. We had relay races, Robo Critter soccer, a maze, a cup push and a balance  station. For the most part it was a lot of fun.

Now we are studying Space which has been a blast. We started off by writing our own Constellation stories. Students came up with their own myth and then created a picture of their constellation to go along with it.

While we were studying the stars I thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce my students' to the painting A Starry Night. We created our own versions of this painting using oil pastels and the hatching technique. I was impressed at some of the work my student's produced.

The Original by Van Gogh

Then we looked at the size of the planets to scale. Here is some art we produced while studying the planets' sizes. And yes we had a few good laughs when students were looking at pictures to copy from and asking the colours of each planet (What colour is Uranus? Can I see Uranus?).  haha I must admit I was laughing along side them.

Today we went outside and drew the distances of the planets from the sun to scale using sidewalk chalk.  It was a great way to visualize just how far apart the outer planets are. It also wasn't a bad way to get outside on such a gorgeous day.

In Social Studies students completed their own "Decades Project". Each student selected a decade from the 1900s to the 1990s to study and present to the class in the format of their choice. We had a lot of Power Points and Prezi presentations, a game show, one skit and a couple dioramas. This was probably the most unique presentation of facts done for the 1910s. This student discovered that the NHL started during his decade so he made a model of an NHL rink and then added his facts for each topic around the boards.  This was his end result:

Well 3 weeks left of school and it will be a busy three weeks. Field Day, a talent show, Grade 6 Farewell, Fun Mountain, a picnic in the school yard as well as a few other activities to finish off the year.  Kind of sad to see this group go and to have to say goodbye to them but two months of summer holidays will help console me :)