Fusion Communication: March 31

Hi all,

It’s getting really muddy out there. We are in that middling week period where the light at the end of the tunnel is not yet in view but students continue to make progress, and move forward.

Dance Success - Glow-in-the-Dark! (So many black lights!)We made about $50 after costs - thank you to all who donated. It was amazing!

8th Grade Career Unit UpdateStudents began developing budgets for the salary of their job shadow, and are beginning to create materials for the posters and the presentations. 

 PLEASE NOTE: any appointments or absences the morning of April 16 should be communicated to the team as soon as possible - that is the official morning of presentations for the career unit.

**Trifold posters can be purchased from Mr. Pless for $4 (which is a very good price).

Team blog link:
https://teamfusion78.blogspot.com/

All laptops should remain at school over the weekend.
Calendar:April 10: Delayed Start
April 16: 8th Grade Career Presentations (during school day in team area)
April 18: Change! 8th grade Career Fair - 5:30-6:30pm
April 20-28: Spring Break (no school)
May 8: Last Delayed Start
June 3: Tentative Move-up Day - 8th Graders to MMU
June 5: Tentative Great Escape Field Trip for 8th Grade
June 12: Very Tentative Recognition Night for 8th Grade; last day of middle school for 8th grade
June 17: Very Tentative Last day of school for grades 5-7

Curriculum Updates
LA
Will return next week.

Math
7: This week, we combined our understanding of circles and prisms and developed strategies for calculating surface area and volume of cylinders. Next week, we will be doing some review in preparation for a unit test on Thursday or Friday as well as some extension work for students are ready for it.

8: This week, we have been developing rules for working with exponents as well as strategies for operations with Scientific Notation. Next week, we will be reviewing and assessing the learning from the unit. We will assess students understanding of exponent rules and Scientific Notation on Tuesday, with an assessment on exponential vs. linear functions on Thursday or Friday.

Science
7: Students focused on patterns of inheritance by reading about Gregor Mendel’s experiments with pea plants, by creating Punnett Squares to predict the probability of certain traits in offspring, and by modeling the inheritance of dominant/recessive, co-dominant, and incomplete dominance pattern of traits in fictional critters. (Students created their final critter offspring using styrofoam balls, push pins, colored straws, and pipe cleaners! Of course, they now all have names!)

8: Students began a new set of investigations focused on chemical reactions this week! They explored how chemical processes are used to create circuit boards; in small groups, they designed a circuit board pattern, etched their sample circuit board overnight, and tested their designs to see if it could create a circuit and light a bulb! They are now exploring several different chemical reactions to clarify which pieces of evidence can be used to suggest a chemical reaction is taking place.

SS
7 - Students continue to build background knowledge about the major economic systems/theories and collect evidence to support those ideas. One activity asked students to compare findings from the World Happiness Report to economic systems, and then World Population to “Happiness”. Many questions arose when they made those comparisons….

8 - Students delved into a deeper exploration of the Industrial Revolution through note taking activities, comparisons of inventions and a survey of artwork produced from the time period. Ask them about the interpretation and meaning of the Experiment on Bird in Air Pump, Joseph Wright, 1768.

Looks Spring has sprung… with the usual mud and rain. Just three more weeks until the next break.

The Fusion Team

Fusion Communication: March 16

Hi all,

We fought our way through the time change and wild temperature swings. As was reported by Mr. Hamilton in an email yesterday, there are changes coming next year for the school, and Fusion 7 specifically. Fusion 7 families - please check your inboxes for that message and contact Kevin Hamilton if you have questions.

8th Grade Career Unit UpdateStudents have begun an assignment called Roadtrip Nation, where they compare careers they research on a website called Naviance they can access through their school account. March 25 is the due date for career shadows to be complete. Please check with your child about their plans - Fusion has leads but some kind of general idea from your child is necessary to line up a job shadow.

Spring Conference Sign-upsConference times are full! If you are interested in speaking with the team about your child’s progress, please contact Mr. Pless.

8th Grade End-of-Year Field TripsWe are in the early stages of planning the 8th grade end-of-year field trip to the Great Escape in Lake George, NY! We have reserved coach buses and the Great Escape Park for Wednesday, June 5th. Because the class size is larger than previous years, we will need to take 3 buses, which raises the per person cost for this trip to approximately $85. Both teams, Vivace and Fusion, are actively fundraising and hope to bring the per student fee down. We will offer scholarships to ensure everyone has the opportunity to attend. Please know there is also another celebratory field trip tradition of taking a mid-day cruise on Lake Champlain aboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen from Burlington; last year’s fee for this trip was $21. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about these trips! lisa.windhausen@cesuvt.org

All laptops should remain at school over the weekend.
Calendar:
Next few days: Report Card arrival is imminent!March 25: 8th grade Job Shadowing should be completed
March 29: 7/8 Dance - Fusion Field Trip Fundraiser! We will be asking families to donate food items to sell
April 10: Delayed Start
April 14: Tentative 8th Grade Career Presentations
April 16: 8th grade Career Fair - 5:30-6:30pm
April 20-28: Spring Break (no school)
May 8: Last Delayed Start
June 3: Tentative Move-up Day - 8th Graders to MMU
June 5: Tentative Great Escape Field Trip for 8th Grade

Curriculum Updates
LA
7 To prepare for our argument writing unit (research based essays), we will be doing debates in class for a few days. Students will practice gathering information, making a claim, gathering evidence and addressing counterclaims. Students should still be reading 30 minutes each day outside of class using a book of their choice.

8 Students began reading their narrative nonfiction books yesterday. These books should stay in the classroom so that they are available for our mini lesson work. Students can use choice books for their nightly 30 minutes. Today in class we talked about (and explored) how themes, central ideas and social issues could be presented in the first few pages of their books.

Math
7: We are well into our unit, Filling and Wrapping. This unit focuses on surface area and volume of prisms and cylinders. We have done some initial explorations involving surface area and volume and what happens to the surface area and volume when we scale up a prism. On Pi Day we explored the relationship between circumference, radius, and pi using different circular objects. This was to help towards building foundational knowledge for finding surface area and volume for a cylinder.

8: This week we focused on exponential functions with non whole number growth factors. We also introduced the concept of exponential decay where students completed a simulated experiment where they found the half-life of a radioactive isotope. On Pi Day we did some fun puzzles solving for area of a combination of circles and squares.

Science
7: The family trees are coming in; thank you for supporting your child’s efforts with this project! Some students may be working on this project over the weekend. Hopefully, they will all arrive early next week, so we can begin sharing and celebrating their work! In class, we are creating models of inheritance and are beginning to make the connections between cell structures, traits, reproduction, and patterns of inheritance.

8: We are currently transitioning from describing the structure and behavior of matter to understanding how substances interact during chemical reactions. Students completed a mini-research project on one element and produced an informational brochure, as well as a 3-D model of one atom of their element. These models are now decorating the classroom ceiling! Thank you for supporting your child’s effort with this project!

SS
7 - As the economics unit starts to unfold, students are exploring some of the foundational concepts such as needs, wants and resources. We spent the first part of the week reading a story written in 1971 called 2011: Living in the Future. Students spent time looking at the Jeffrey Hoyle’s vision of our time (his future), comparing what he thought would be our wants and needs. The second part of the week featured the game Electrocity, developed by the electric company of New Zealand, which challenges students to manage resources to grow businesses and keep “citizens” happy.

8 - Students spent time breaking down the language in their Bill Project, which is the major current assessment for the year. They wrote emails to “experts” and bill sponsors and are anxiously awaiting replies. In addition, students started to explore the fabulous NPR website called Planet Money Makes a T-Shirt, which details how a humble t-shirt is created, from the fields of Mississippi to Indonesia to the factories of Bangladesh.

Hope everyone has a restful weekend and is ready for the next 5 weeks.

The Fusion Team

Fusion Communication: March 8

Hi all,
We have returned - bet your children are tired. These short weeks lead to a lot of “compressed” social engagement. Report cards are being finalized and there are few assignments at the beginning of the trimester so it’s a good time to take stock of what comes next (the handy calendar could be of help).

8th Grade Career Unit Update
Students are lining up job shadows. Have a conversation with your 8th grader this weekend about what career/job they may be interested in for the unit. Please remember - the intention of the career is not to “pick” a path but to have students explore what a life could be like for an adult “them”. There are many materials located in a Schoology folder labeled Career/PLP that was shared with your child. Family letter is here.

Spring Conference Sign-upsWe are providing the link below to sign up for spring conferences. Due to the shorter allotted time-frame for spring conferences, offering times to to meet with all Fusion families within the conference window is not possible. We have often focused this time of the year on meeting with 8th grade families to support the transition to high school, however we want to make sure that we make time for all the families both 8th and 7th that feel the need to meet. When deciding whether to sign up for a conference, please keep in mind whether you have met with us recently or have a meeting scheduled with us in the near future in order to be fair to other families. Also, if you do not feel the need for a conference, but would like an email update about your student please feel free to email us and we would be happy to accommodate this. The link to sign-up for a conference is below:

Spring 2019 Fusion Conference Link

8th Grade End-of-Year Field Trips
We are in the early stages of planning the 8th grade end-of-year field trip to the Great Escape in Lake George, NY! We have reserved coach buses and the Great Escape Park for Wednesday, June 5th. Because the class size is larger than previous years, we will need to take 3 buses, which raises the per person cost for this trip to approximately $85. Both teams, Vivace and Fusion, are actively fundraising and hope to bring the per student fee down. We will offer scholarships to ensure everyone has the opportunity to attend. Please know there is also another celebratory field trip tradition of taking a mid-day cruise on Lake Champlain aboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen from Burlington; last year’s fee for this trip was $21. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about these trips! lisa.windhausen@cesuvt.org


All laptops should remain at school over the weekend.

Calendar:
Week of March 11: Report Cards sent home
March 25: 8th grade Job Shadowing should be completed
March 29: 7/8 Dance - Fusion Field Trip Fundraiser! We will be asking families to donate food items                                        to sell
April 10: Delayed Start
April 14: Tentative 8th Grade Career Presentations
April 16: 8th grade Career Fair - 5:30-6:30pm
April 20-28: Spring Break (no school)
May 8: Last Delayed Start
June 3: Tentative Move-up Day - 8th Graders to MMU
June 5: Tentative Great Escape Field Trip for 8th Grade

Curriculum Updates will return March 15
Looks like the last really cold weekend. Fast forward those clocks and we’ll see everyone bright and early Monday.

The Fusion Team