Here are a selection of quick sixth grade teacher recaps from Middle School Head Joe Williamson’s newsletters this year to give a peek into the sixth grade classrooms in action.
Sixth Grade Field Trip to SF Public Works
Thanks to Board Member and CAIS parent, Chris Tom, sixth grade students were given the opportunity to visit the San Francisco Public Works for an Open House. This field trip included a presentation of the people, projects, and engineering practices that go into making San Francisco’s infrastructure. Students eagerly answered questions for the chance to win a coveted traffic cone stress ball. Afterwards, students were broken up into groups, given a myriad of crafting materials (popsicle sticks, crepe paper, piper cleaners etc.) and were tasked with building their very own city block! Imaginations ran wild as students built playgrounds, rock walls, bus stops, towers and even statues of Ms. Farrell and Mr. Mosconi! In the end, each group got to put their city on an earthquake simulator to test its structural integrity. It was a fantastic and fun way to show students how STEM is used in the real world!
Talk Show: Chinese Philosophies (Confucianism, Legalism & Daoism)
Our sixth graders recently completed a Talk Show performance-based assessment for this unit. The purpose of this Talk Show was to give students opportunities to apply Chinese philosophies to real world context. Each group of students took different roles, including Confucius (Confucianism), Hanfeizi (Legalism), and Laozi (Daoism), to respond to questions with each ancient philosophy. They were also working together to create questions that the hosts needed to ask for this presentation. While students were preparing for the Talk Show, I had more opportunities to observe individual student growth for developing Chinese language and collaboration skills.