Hi all,
So it feels like spring - in so many ways. Weather is warm(er), there are glimpses of the sun, and students are dreaming of unstructured days. As we approach the last few weeks of school, it’s a good time to check in with your child about assignments, field trips and family plans for the last few days. There will be assessments in June:)
8th Grade Great Escape Field Trip Update -
Thank you for supporting this year’s trip to the Great Escape! All permission forms are in! More details of the trip will follow. Please direct any questions to lisa.windhausen@cesuvt.org.
8th Grade Boat Trip - June 12The day of Recognition Night (June 12), 8th graders have the opportunity to join their classmates and select staff for a cruise aboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen III. Students would be transported to the Burlington waterfront after the annual awards ceremony and back to school to take buses home. For more information, please see the permission form from the email.
Calendar:
May 27: No School - Memorial Day
June 3: Official Move-up Day - 8th Graders to MMU
June 5: Great Escape Field Trip for 8th Grade
June 11: 8th Grade Laptops are audited by no later than this day
June 12: Official! Recognition Night for 8th Grade; last “official” day of middle school for 8th grade
Boat Trip for 8th Graders - Permission form attached
June 11: Changed Date! 7th Grade Jourasionville economics simulation (more information to come)
All Laptops turned in and audited by this day!
June 14: NEW!7th Grade Fusion/Journey joint field trip to Waterbury Center State Park (9ish-1:15ish)
June 17: Mostly Official Last day of school for grades 5-7
Curriculum Updates
LA
*** All students should be reading 30 minutes each day outside of class (either at home or in study halls). ***
7 Students have been working in class on their pre assessment for our last reading unit (Tapping the Power of Nonfiction). The unit will focus on identifying central ideas as well as tracking/analyzing them across a text.
8 This week, students have been working on a graphic organizer to plan their investigative journalism process piece. Completed graphic organizers are due today, 5/17. Next week students create and submit their final draft (due on Friday 5/24) using the graphic organizer as a guide.
Math
7: This week we started our last unit of the year, What Do You Expect, by exploring different probability activities and finding the experimental probability involved in each of the activities. We finished the week by introducing theoretical probability and comparing it to experimental probabilty. Next week, we will continue our work with theoretical probability by introducing compound events.
8: We wrapped up our current unit on transformation geometry, Butterflies, Pinwheels, and Wallpaper, this week with review and a unit test. Next week, we will begin our last unit of the year that will be a mixture of algebraic expression, solving equations, systems of equations, and quadratics depending on students’ readiness levels.
Science
7: Our final unit on Ecology began with a study of relationships among different species - predator-prey, competition, mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism. Students are now creating models of food webs and energy pyramids to track the flow of energy and cycling of matter within ecosystems.
8: Students will end the year with a mini-unit on Force, Motion & Energy. This week, they explored mathematical relationships between mass, energy, speed, and distance traveled using ramps and rolling cars, as well as a computer simulation. Next week, they’ll make the connection that as the distance between objects changes, potential energy changes.
SS
7 - Students are in the initial stages of the last unit, which is current event based and called Past, Present and Future. They have created population pyramids for different countries and linked historical events to changes in the population, used the population percentages to identify whether a country is Youthful, Ageing or Gaed, and experiencing Rapid, Slow or Zero/Negative growth. Finally, students have looked at the causes of instability within a country.
8 - The focus has been on the current debate about how the Civil War should be memorialized or remembered, with a focus on Confederate monuments and Robert E. Lee’s legacy. Students have also decided what causes of the Civil War they want to research and develop a project for to demonstrate proficiency for the unit.
Almost 80 degrees by Monday… is it really here to stay? Have a great weekend!
The Fusion Team
