Lucas+V. 

**__Intro__ Hi! I'm Lucas. I'm in 6th Grade at SMS. I play baseball and I take Martial Arts classes. I'm interested in computer animation and programming, and I love video games. I want to be a video game developer when I grow up.

__School__ I am in Sixth Grade. I am an overall straight A student, and have been in the High Honer Roll for the entire year so far! I have really nice teachers. I don't think that they've given a detention to anyone the whole year! And they do lots of fun activities. Let me give you some examples:

__Subjects Math:__ In math, we investigated a series of topics, starting with basic vocabulary and terms that we documented and studied for the PSSA's in March. We also went into basic algebra and prealgebra topics, including exponents, variables, and P.E.M.D.A.S (Parentheses, exponents, multiplication & division, addition & subtraction). We partnered up as classmates and investigated topics such as area of a triangle, area of a circle, scientific formulas, and more. We had a whole bunch of math chants that we made into posters and put up on the wall. We sometimes used a method of note-taking called 3,2,1's. This means that we right down 3 things that we get about the lesson, two pictures we had in our heads about the lesson, and 1 question we still have about the lesson.

__Social Studies:__ We've studied five ancient civilizations this year, and we're in the process of studying our sixth. The five ancient civilizations were Egypt, China, Greece, Maya, and Mesopotamia. For Egypt, we made our own Egyptian mummies, with amulets, canopic jars, and coffins included! Then the funeral procession took place, where we all dressed up as Egyptians and paraded through the halls with our own little bier (boat-shaped Egyptian sled used to carry mummies across the desert) and put them in a showcase for everyone to see. After the procession, we returned to the classroom for a feast, followed by a few performances from classmates. One of the other civilizations that we studied was China. To celebrate China, we all prepared a big Chinese New Year celebration. We all grouped up for a project where we studied something invented by China. For example, I partnered with a few friends and we researched Chinese Martial Arts. We also had to do a presentation about the topic we researched at the celebration. My group did a big martial arts demo! We also had food and other performances by a few students with special talents. On the day that started the Chinese New Year, we all took these poppers we made that were full of candy and popped them all in a big circle. We all got a few pieces of candy! We also had a person come in and show us some authentic Chinese artifacts. The first civilization we studied, though, was Mesopotamia. There we learned about Babylonians, Assyrians, and other famous Mesopotamian city-states. Unfortunately, I don't remember much else about it, so you'll have to view someone else's page to read more on that! I do remember a lot about Greece, though. For Greece, we did a thick packet of stuff about Greece. We made our own model of a city-state, did big investigations about Greek inventions and city-states, and got pages read to us by our teacher from a book called 'The Groovy Greeks', which was mostly to give us some fun facts and entertainment from Greece. We also made big, life-sized models of famous Greek people. That was a fun project! The strangest civilization we learned about was probably Maya. For that we made a big booklet and watched episodes from 'The Second Voyage of the Mimi'. We didn't watch the first one because I don't think that it had to do with the Maya civilization. The Second Voyage of the Mimi was about a boy and his grandfather who meet a small group of archaeologists who are searching for Maya artifacts (by the way, you only say Mayan when referring to their written language). In some of the episodes, the archaeologists went S.C.U.B.A. diving. With that we strayed off into the Coral Reef Project. In this, we researched the coral reefs of the world. We then completed a packet and made our own model of an animal that lives in the coral reef. I did the scorpion fish. We also had to do a paragraph about the animal we chose. The last civilization, which we are still in the process of researching, is Rome. I can't tell you much about it, since I don't really know everything about it yet, but so far it's been a fun civilization to research. I think we're having a toga party this week or next week! Rome took a LOT from Greece. It's almost like they had the same gods, just different names! That pretty much wraps up social studies! Let's move on to science.

__Science:__ We had a few field trips that had to do with science. We started out with Birds of Prey. We learned about what birds of prey (raptors) are, how they hunt, what birds of prey can be found in our area, and how to identify them. We then went on a field trip to Bake Oven Knob, where we watched birds and documented what we saw. We stayed there almost the entire day, so we all had to pack a lunch. The next thing we learned about was Forces of Motion. We learned about Isaac Newton, who invented the Three Laws of Motion, and what the Three Laws of Motion were. We then did experiments with them, which we documented with FLIP™ Video Cameras and made into an iMovie project, which we presented to the class. We then learned about Populations & Ecosystems/Biomes. In that we learned about how ecosystems and food chains work, high populations and low populations and how it could affect the ecosystem, and what biomes are. And finally, we learned about States of Matter. In this, we learned about solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas. We also learned about the difference between mass and volume, and how matter can change states under certain conditions. All of this was documented in flipbooks that we made. That was our year in science. English/Reading: In the beginning of the year, we read a Gary Paulsen novel of our choice and did an assignment on it. We also did assignments from our English books (which I happen to be missing!). Towards the end of the year we did an assignment about a Greek Mythology book of our choice. We also made our own grammer lessons about a specific part of speech. We did vocabulary lessons and quizzes throughout the school year, with cumulative reviews after every three units and a final mastery test at the end of the year. We had a required amount of Reading Counts!™ points to aqquire each quarter.

__Special/Gifted Support:__ In 3rd Grade I entered the gifted support program, which is a program for gifted students that helps them use their knowledge to its full extent. This year, gifted was a bit different. Our new teacher was... interesting, in that his challenges were not always what we expected. Gifted has always made me think differently, in this year we went a step further with that. Of course, gifted isn't the only special class that I have. At the beginning of the year I started with Gym. For gym, we changed clothes and jogged for five minutes, which eventually elevated to 8 min. Then we had an activity, sometimes outdoors, sometimes indoors. At the beginning of the school year we had physical testing, which included TWO 1-mile runs, one for practice and one for real. In the third quarter of the year we learned how to play basic volleyball. In the second quarter of the year we had Tech Ed (Technology Education). In this we did at least two modules (Work-stations), and a third for bonus if we wanted. Each module taught us about technology and how it is applied in everyday life. The modules that I worked on were Intro to Technology, Flight Simulation, and CNC Mill. For fourth quarter we have FACS (Family and Consumer Science). In the first year of FACS, we learned about the food pyramid, how to read recipes, kitchen utensils and equipment and what they do, and how to cook a few meals. It's a fun class when you get to the cooking stage! In the first quarter of the year we had Art class. We learned how to draw a tree, how to sculpt with clay, and how to use perspective in art. We also had to make an art piece that showed reflection, either mentally or physically. A few pieces would be selected to be put in an exhibit at the Allentown Art Museum. My piece didn't make it in, but one of my poems we had to make in English did! In the Second & Third Quarter we had Computer class. We learned how to type and how to use Microsoft Word. In Fourth Quarter we had Music class. We learned about the four families of instrument, how to play the dulcimer, and we watched The Sound of Music. We also had to research an instrument chosen by our teacher. At the end of the quarter we had a couple tests, too. He only gave us three graded projects. That's all the "special" classes that we had.

__Field Trips/In-school Special Activities:__ We had a few field trips, and they were all pretty cool. In the beginning of the year we had a trip to Bake Oven Knob, where we watched for birds of prey, but I already told you about that one. the next one we went on was to The Franklin Institute and The Adventure Aquarium, both on the same day. There wasn't much work that we had to do, just a scavenger hunt at the aquarium. The Franklin Institute was simply for the fun of seeing the exhibits and viewing Philadelphia. The Franklin Institute was a cool place, with lots of interactive exhibits and activities for all of us. The Aquarium was just as cool. There was a tunnel where you could walk right through a tank full of sharks! And they had a few tanks where you could touch a jellyfish, a shark, or a stingray! There were lots of awesome fish and a cool gift shop, too. The second to last field trip that we went on was to the Bethlehem Township Community Center. It was a really cool trip! They had a pool, a basketball court, and a lot of open space to run around in. They also have a Subway™ shop where you can buy lunch if you didn't pack. We also had one sort-of in-school activity that required a permission slip. That was the Outdoor Program. We learned about plants, flowers, American History, weather, and much more. It was a fun two weeks. That's an overview of our special activities/field trips.

__Clubs:__** We had Clubs for the first time this year. There were