Social Studies - Time for Kids Webquest Challenge

Your task for today is to use the Time for Kids website to answer some questions. Each question you answer today will earn you $25 dollars into your LiveSchool account. There's a lot of questions, so you have a chance to earn a lot of LiveSchool money!

Here's the challenge... The answers for the questions below are scattered throughout the Time for Kids website. You're going to have to search the website and read a lot of articles to be able to find all the answers.

Good luck!


ps.
Here's a picture of me dunking!

English March (and April...) Madness Tournament!

Coming in mid-April, sixth grade ELA students will be taking the official New York State Common Core exam. To prepare for this exam (and to have a lot of fun!) students will be participating in Mr. Maxim's English March (and April...) Madness Tournament!

Here's how it works:

Students are randomly placed onto one of four class teams. Each team member has to individually answer questions aligned to the official New York State Common Core exam. Each time a team member answers a question correctly, they earn points for their team. The team with the most points at the end of two weeks wins!

These are the basic rules, but you can read more detailed rules here (click the link!)

Each student's work is specifically differentiated to his/her exact level of ELA proficiency. That means no two students have the exact same questions in this tournament. Each student is working on questions that precisely address his or her weaknesses on the last Common Core practice exam.

Because the tournament is happening in class, there is no online work for students or parents to access at home for this tournament. If you have questions about student work during the tournament, click this link and let me know!

Social Studies Assignment for March 19, 2013

Make sure you read the whole blog post before you begin.

 

Everyone knows sugary drinks like Arizona, Coke, or Iced Tea can be bad when you drink a lot of them. Should the government ban these types of drinks? What do you think? Read on to find out what's going on in New York City with sugary drinks. 

Today’s Assignment

Read through the Times for Kids article titled "Big Drinks are Back" (click on the link to access the article). After reading the article, your task is to find the answer to several questions (those questions are listed below). Make sure you read the questions before you start so that you know what you're looking when you read the article.

If you have questions

There are several things you can do if you have questions.

• Try asking a friend at your table.
• Check out the “cliff notes” version of the directions here (click the link).
• Skip the part you don’t understand and go on to a part you do understand.
• Raise your hand for a teacher and patiently wait your turn (ONLY if you’re really stuck).

If you finish early

Check out the "Enrichment Links" tab at the top of the page and find something fun to do!

ps. check out my bike in Times Square!

English Assignment for March 18, 2013

Make sure you read the whole blog post before you begin.

Do you think students from low-income (poorer) neighborhoods go to as good of colleges as students from high-income (richer) neighborhoods?  Read through today’s assignment to find out how the neighborhood you grow up in affects what college you go to.

Today’s Assignment

Today’s assignment has two parts.

First, read through the New York Times article titled, “Better Colleges Failing to Lure Talented Poor” (click on the link to access the article). We will be close reading the article, which means we’ll carefully read the difficult article several times.  After reading the article, write a gist statement about the article, which is a few sentences that tell what you remember after reading the article.

Second, read the article a second time. This time, your task is to find four words or phrases you don’t understand in the article, then use context clues to define those words. For example, you might choose “economic inequality” as the phrase you don’t understand, or you may choose “institutions” as the word you don’t understand.  You will write and define those words in the space below, using context clues to support your answer.

If you have questions

There are several things you can do if you have questions.

• Try asking a friend at your table.
• Check out the “cliff notes” version of the directions here (click the link).
• Skip the part you don’t understand and go on to a part you do understand.
• Raise your hand for a teacher and patiently wait your turn (ONLY if you’re really stuck).

Exit Slip

Your exit slip is the multiple choice question at the end of the form below.

If you finish early

Check out the "Enrichment Links" tab at the top of the page and find something fun to do!

Ps.

Mr. Maxim went to Swarthmore College and The University of Pennsylvania. Ask him about it!

English on March 14, 2013

Today's English assignment is a Quiz. Students are taking the quiz in class, but you can also find a digital copy of the quiz at this link: March 14, 2013 English Quiz.

Why am I giving this quiz today? Two reasons...

Self-Assessments
The quiz has a self-assessment section. I like self-assessments because they help students reflect on what they're good at and what they need improvement with.

Non-Multiple Choice Questions
I want to find out what my students can do on non-multiple choice questions. This quiz asks students to write short-answer questions.

I've found that there are many students who can verbally answer a question such as, "What is the main idea of this reading?". But these same students might get a multiple choice questions about main idea (for example) wrong, usually because they pick the distractor answer. While there is definitely a strong rational for including distractor answers on multiple choice exams (which you can read about here), I want to use this exam to see how students can do when they're not being purposefully distracted. 

Social Studies on March 14, 2013

Hello sixth grade social studies students. Welcome to my blog! Read on to find out what your assignment is for today...

Today's Assignment
 Click this link to find today's assignment: Today's Social Studies Virtual Worksheet. All the directions are on that worksheet. You will need to download a copy of the worksheet to your computer before you begin to work on it.

How to Download the Assignment 
The link will take you to a google doc. In google docs, click on file ---> download as ---> microsoft word. This will download this assignment to your computer. Then, in Open Office, save your work to the following location on your hard drive:

P:\maxim\(your homeroom)\classwork\2013-3-14

If you have Questions
If you have questions about how to save to that folder, make sure you check with a teacher or someone at your table who knows how to do this. There are MANY people in the room who know how to download the assignment, so make sure you check with a classmate. If you don't get your work saved to that folder, YOU WON'T GET CREDIT!!

If you finish everything
Click on the "Enrichment Links" tab at the top of the blog and find something fun to play with!

Quote of the day: 

"Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love."

-Victor Hugo

ps.

check out this picture of Rehana and Enzo

March 13, 2013

Today's assignment: Your assignment for today is to complete classwork from Monday and Tuesday. You can find links to these assignments in the "Calendar" tab at the top of this page. If you need a paper-copy of any of the readings or assignments, you can raise your hand for a teacher.

Your Grades: If you're not sure about what you've completed, see the gradebook for this week here: Assignments and Grades

In order to view your grades for this week, you need to click the tab at the bottom right that has this week's date and your class number. For example, Mercedes homeroom will click the tab that says "3-11 -- 601".

How to open your work: You may have questions about how to use the computer to open the work you did on Tuesday (on the Ronald Regan article). Your work is located in the folder at this location:

P:\maxim\(your homeroom)\classwork\2013-3-12

If you're still stuck, ask Keith D., Mr. Maxim, Ms. May, or someone at your table to help.

How to hand in your work:  Tuesday's assignment should be submitted electronically by saving into the folder listed above. Monday's assignment is a paper-based worksheet and should be handed in to Mr. Maxim

Quote of the Day: 
"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
-Margaret Thatcher

ps.
here's my bike under the George Washington Bridge

March 12, 2013

Your assignment for today is a virtual worksheet. It is available at this address: Mr. Maxim's Worksheet for March 12, 2013

All the directions are on that worksheet. You will need to download a copy of the worksheet to your computer before you begin to work on it.

If you need extra help on how to annotate a text, check out this link: example of how to annotate.

This example shows you how an high school student has annotated a difficult text.

When you're done, save your work to the following location on your hard drive:

P:\maxim\(your homeroom)\classwork\2013-3-12

If you have questions about how to save to that folder, make sure you check with a teacher. If you don't get your work saved to that folder, YOU WON'T GET CREDIT!!

When you're done everything, get the SSW assignment from Mr. Maxim.

Quote of the day:
 "The future belongs to those who prepare for it today"

-Malcolm X

ps. 

here's a picture of Enzo