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Mrs. McDonald's Classroom Edit display name

  • Perry Meridian Sixth Grade Academy
  • Indianapolis, IN
  • More than half of students from low‑income households Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more

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This spring, we will be doing a novel study as part of our 6th grade curriculum. Our school has some class sets of novels, but many of them are books my students have already read or familiar with. When researching what I wanted to use for our novel study, I loved the idea of combining our language arts with social studies, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas does just that. It's an amazingly heartbreaking story that takes place in the heart of the Holocaust. We will be learning about European history as we start reading this book, so the two go hand in hand. I absolutely love teaching the Holocaust because often, my students don't have a large working knowledge of what actually happened during that period in history. Getting 6th graders to read can be a struggle sometimes. I have found that if I use high interest, grade level texts that engage them and force them to think critically, they absorb so much more than reading out of a textbook or doing a worksheet. Having a book for every student will allow us to read it together, as well as break into small groups for further discussion. Our school is a 1:1 with Chromebooks, which is awesome because there is so much I can do with access to technology. However, there are many things I'd like to do that require my students to watch videos independently, and with 30+ kiddos in one room, that can be extremely difficult with everyone's volumes way up. Headphones will give them the opportunity to listen and work at their own pace. I will keep them in my classroom as a set and when they are finished with them, we will wipe them down to keep things clean and avoid sharing germs!

About my class

This spring, we will be doing a novel study as part of our 6th grade curriculum. Our school has some class sets of novels, but many of them are books my students have already read or familiar with. When researching what I wanted to use for our novel study, I loved the idea of combining our language arts with social studies, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas does just that. It's an amazingly heartbreaking story that takes place in the heart of the Holocaust. We will be learning about European history as we start reading this book, so the two go hand in hand. I absolutely love teaching the Holocaust because often, my students don't have a large working knowledge of what actually happened during that period in history. Getting 6th graders to read can be a struggle sometimes. I have found that if I use high interest, grade level texts that engage them and force them to think critically, they absorb so much more than reading out of a textbook or doing a worksheet. Having a book for every student will allow us to read it together, as well as break into small groups for further discussion. Our school is a 1:1 with Chromebooks, which is awesome because there is so much I can do with access to technology. However, there are many things I'd like to do that require my students to watch videos independently, and with 30+ kiddos in one room, that can be extremely difficult with everyone's volumes way up. Headphones will give them the opportunity to listen and work at their own pace. I will keep them in my classroom as a set and when they are finished with them, we will wipe them down to keep things clean and avoid sharing germs!

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About my class

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