Hi all,
Wow - lots of snow to play in (or move) this weekend! Students have been enjoying the snow at recess, and seem happy to have a real winter. Team Fusion will be wrapping up the trimester with a bowling trip on Thursday of next week; then their will be a whole school activity on Friday. Please let the team know if your child will not be attending school on next Friday.
Parent Conferences in March
The team will release the conference sign-up schedule over the next few days. The priority will be for 8th grade parents, as they will be transitioning to MMU next fall. An email will go out to 8th grade parents first, then to 7th grade families. As always, the team will do its best to accommodate families whose schedules conflict with the scheduled conference times.
8th Grade Only: Career Unit
The career unit will be introduced during the next PLP meeting (Monday, 2/20). Please read through the letter; please note - there is a job shadow expectation for this unit. February Break is a great time to get those completed.
Career Panel February 22, 8-9am
The 8th graders will be starting the annual career unit this coming Monday. The team would like to provide a panel of Fusion parents willing to discuss their career choices, the pathways they took to their present career, and the challenges/rewards of that career with these 8th graders. Right now the team has five confirmations for the career panel - we would love for a couple more people to join.
Field Trip Permission Form
Please check in with your child regarding the field trip permission form to Spare Time on Thursday, Feb. 23rd. We are still missing a few. Thank you.
Calendar
February 20 - Introduce Career Unit to 8th Graders
February 22 - 8th grade Career Unit Panel, 8-9am
February 23 - Field Trip to Bowling/Lunch of Pizza and Chinese
February 24 - Day before break: All school activity in afternoon (please notify team if your child is not attending school that day)
February 24 - close of Trimester 2 report card
March 17 - ½ student day/Parent Conference Day
April 12 - Delayed Start
April 13 - Career Unit Fair - 8th Grade only (7th graders are welcome to attend)
May 16 - Delayed Start
Curriculum Update
LA -
Because both grades are currently in a reading unit, NO reading logs will be assigned until after the February break! Students will be completing daily and weekly tasks to demonstrate comprehension of events and details in these texts.
7th -- In preparation for our next writing unit, we have begun reading the novel Holes by Louis Sachar together as a class. Once we have completed the book, students will begin working on their next writing piece -- Companion Books. This writing piece will combine argument, narrative and information writing skills.
For this piece, students will be able to choose from the following options:
- Write a companion book about our class novel, Holes
- Re-read a favorite book and write a companion book about it.
- Challenge Option: Read a NEW book independently and write about that.
8th -- We will likely wrap up reading our class novel, Chains a week or two after the February break. Students will complete a short assignment demonstrating their understanding of the book. Next, we will move into our final writing unit for the year. During this information writing unit, students will examine social issues that exist in the world. We will look at one issue together as a class, to model the writing process. The structure of the essay will be problem/solution Students will then duplicate this process with a topic of their choice for the on demand assessment at the end of the unit.
Science
7th - Students completed the final assessment within the cells and heredity unit today! We will carry several topics into next week, and will begin a unit on body systems after the break.
8th - Students used prisms to refract visible light into different colored wavelengths this week, and are putting visible light into the context of the electromagnetic spectrum. Mike Longevin, the Resource Officer at MMU will join our class on Monday bringing with him tools of his profession that make use of different forms of radiation. After the break, we begin to explore properties of matter.
SS
7th - The Sovereign State Challenge got off the ground this week - ask your children about the first challenge: the country of Genosha’s lack of respect for other nations’ sovereignty. Students also began working on the district assessment, which is a project. Students were allowed to bring home their laptops to complete the district assessment over the weekend. Please ask your child about their progress.
8th - Students finished their investigation of the Bill of Rights and are starting the district assessment. Please see the notice above about the career unit.
Math
7th: We continued with Comparing & Scaling this week developing strategies for comparing ratios. Today we purchased our first stocks in the Stock Market Game. Students have a login and password and should be able to share with you their purchases so far.
8th Grade CMP: We are in the processing of reviewing for a unit assessment for next Wednesday. Yesterday we purchased our first stocks in the Stock Market Game. Students have a login and password and should be able to share with you their purchases so far.
8th Algebra: We are in the processing of reviewing for a unit assessment for next Wednesday. Yesterday we purchased our first stocks in the Stock Market Game. Students have a login and password and should be able to share with you their purchases so far.
