Hi all,
Hard to believe it’s December - didn’t the team just have an overnight field trip? Team Fusion is back in the swing of things - see all the happenings below.
Report Cards
First Trimester report cards will be mailed Monday. Please contact the team if you have questions
All Laptops are at school over the weekend
You will be contacted if your child’s laptop is missing from the cart. If you are contacted, please secure the laptop for the weekend. Student should bring it back on Monday morning.
7th Grade Field Trip to VIF
Team had a great time at the Vermont International Festival. Thanks to the following folks who chaperoned:
Marie Sawyer
Sally Wade
Amy Fisher
Robyn Mundell
Meg Beliveau
Pam Clark
Tim Harvey
Kim Norman
Jean Kelly
Christa Alexander
Calendar
December 13 - Two Hour Delay
December 15 - 8th grade field trip to University of Vermont physics lab.
December Break - December 25-29, January 1, 2018!
January 10 - Delayed Start
January 15 - Martin Luther King Day; No school for students
February 14 - Delayed Start
Reading
Books should be brought to all study halls and LA class each day.
LA
Important Information Regarding the LA Report Card:
Please note that students will now see a pre-assessment score for writing on the report card. While having these scores on the report card is new, please know that the use of these assessments remains the same. They are used by teachers to plan units and assess growth at the end of the trimester. Pre-assessment scores are derived by comparing at a sample piece of each student’s writing against grade level standards at the beginning of the year before any writing lessons have been taught. Pre-assessment scores are then compared to the post assessment in order to determine areas of growth and suggestions for next steps.
Process grades for reading are also new. These scores represent a collection of reading work done over the course of the trimester (journals and in class work). Students are encouraged to try out different methods for showing their thinking and the hope is that as the trimester goes on, students demonstrate deeper thinking about texts. Again, suggestions and celebrations related to this work will show up in the comments section.
Science
7 - Students are in the middle of writing a research paper on human body systems. They selected one disease/condition to investigate and completed a lead paragraph for their paper outlining the disease and establishing the claim that the human body is a system of interacting subsystems. Currently, they are focused on writing about the function and structures of 2 body systems directly related to their disease/condition. This paper will continue into next week.
8 - Energy transfer is the topic this week. During investigations, students determined how to predict the final temperature of a mixture of hot and cold water, and then learned how to calculate the amount of energy transfer in calories. They will apply their knowledge of energy transfer and thermal conductivity with a water bottle design challenge next week.
SS
7 - Students embarked on an exploration of cuisine and religion this week. These topics fit within the culture unit and will lead to a food project in two weeks where students will link certain recipes to certain religions. There will also be a geography component, as climate and topography are also major drivers of food/cuisine. Students will collect
8 - The students are finishing up the American Revolution unit by studying the Boston Massacre. Thursday’s class featured a mock trial of the soldiers - students did great! The final assessment for the American Revolution will be Tuesday, then off to the film unit where students will watch five films (2 Schoolhouse Rock, Johnny Tremain, April Morning, The Crossing) and evaluate how the Revolution is portrayed in popular culture - and also how that portrayal has changed over time.
Math
7 - This week, we explored strategies for finding area of a circle as well as applying our knowledge of surface area of prism and circumference and area of circle to developing strategies for finding surface area of a cylinder. Next week, we will wrap up the unit by developing strategies for finding volume of a cylinder. We are shooting to have a unit assessment at the end of the week.
8 - We have gotten off to a great start with our new unit, Looking for Pythagoras. Students spent this week exploring how to find the area of a square that are set on a diagonal in a dot grid plane. This will help them in work next week of determining and proving the Pythagorean Theorem. Students also defined square roots as the side length of a square with a given area.
Hope everyone has a great weekend.
The Fusion Team
