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
