Mrs. Madalon Segelken
by Madalon Segelken
November 14, 2003
Madalon Segelken
My school years were spent in the York Public Schools. I graduated from York High School in 1966. I spent one year attending York College and then transferred to Kearney State College (Now University of Nebraska at Kearney). I graduated in 1970.
I started teaching in the Hebron Public Schools in the fall of 1970. I have taught Grades 2, 4, and 6. I have also taught Title I Reading and Math, for first through eighth graders, during my 33 years of teaching.
This is my first year of teaching 6th grade. It is also my first year of teaching at the Middle School. I am enjoying the experience, which has been made easier because I have worked with this class as second graders and also as fourth graders. This is my third year with a lot of the students. They are a great group of students to work with!
I teach reading, English, and science this year. In reading class we use a literature book that has a lot of great stories. This book does a very good job of presenting both fiction and nonfiction selections. We have also read the novel Charlie Skedaddle by Patricia Beatty. Charlie Skedaddle is a historical fiction novel set during the Civil War. Charlie is a 12 year-old boy who wants to fight with the Union Army, to avenge his brother's death. He becomes a drummer boy and soon finds out that war is not exciting but that it is a horrifying experience. I believe that any of the sixth graders would recommend this as a "must read" book. We connected this story with the students' study of the Civil War in Social Studies.
In English we have done two major writing projects so far this year. The students wrote an autobiographical incident in September and an essay about the importance of The Pledge of Allegiance in October. We also do grammar lessons and spelling as part of our English class.
In Science we will do four units this year. We have completed the Landforms unit. In this unit we studied and created models. We did Stream Table experiments to study the causes and effects of erosion and deposition. We created a map and also learned how to make a profile map. We studied topographic maps and identified the features and the structures shown on this type of map. We also compared topographic maps to aerial photographs taken of the same area. A special event connected with this unit was our trip to the 2003 Water Jamboree, near Lawrence Nebraska, which was organized by the Little Blue NRD. At the Jamboree we saw a lot of real life examples of the things we were studying in science class. Our next unit will be Models and Designs. Stay tuned!
