Fusion Communication: December 1

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

Fusion Communication: November 10

Hi all,

Frigid weather is here! Please make sure your child comes prepared to be outside at recess - and for all other news on Team Fusion keep on reading.

School Dance Total - Wow!

Team raised $800 from the dance - wow! Thank you for the food and beverage donations.  We continue to sell them on a snack cart that makes the rounds of the upstairs on Friday afternoons.

Movember and Food Shelf

BRMS is starting the Movember campaign.  Several staff members have joined the effort, developing personas to raise awareness around mental and physical health during the winter months. As part of this awareness campaign, students are asked to contribute a non-perishable food item; BRMS helped restock the Jericho/Underhill food shelf last year after their “Thanksgiving” food stock was handed out.

On Team Fusion, Ms. Barnier, Mr. Keblin and Mr. Pless are all participating in the Movember campaign - students “vote” for their favorite Movember persona by placing food items in boxes beside the front office bearing the name and likeness of the staff member.

Connections

8th graders not involved with the band/chorus programs have been using the last hour on Friday afternoons to “connect” with their community through community service projects.  To date, students have done a lot of great work but one project came to fruition today.  It was inspired by the artist Mary Lacy’s style and is located in Ms. Windhausen’s room:

All Laptops are at school over the weekend

No school issued laptops should be at home over the weekend.  In the event a laptop does make its way home, please store it in a safe place for the weekend.

Calendar

December 1 - 7th grade field trip to Vermont International Festival ($5 fee - looking for a few chaperones) - permission form is attached

December 13 - Two Hour Delay

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.

Curriculum Updates…. Science and Math will be back next week.

LA

7 - *** Reading Journals are due today! *** Students were reminded each day this week to add to their writing about reading in journals and to place special emphasis on this week’s assignment as it is the last graded reading journal before report cards.

***Important Upcoming Dates***

Process Piece Due: Tuesday, November 14th -- we have been working on these for a few weeks in class.

On Demand Assessment: Thursday, November 16th -- this writing piece will be compared to the pre assessment taken at the start of the unit to determine student growth in writing over the course of the trimester

To prepare for the writing assessment, students will be given time to research and plan in class on Wednesday, November 15th. They are welcome to plan and research outside of class as well, but ALL writing MUST be done here on the assessment day.

8 - *** No reading journal due this week for 8th grade. *** Students needed time to plan for their on demand writing assessment, which they completed in class today. Next week we will return to working with our class read aloud novel, Chains.

SS

7 - Students have begun the district assessment for the culture unit - they are creating slideshows, websites or Thinglinks! related to their view of their culture.  Please check in with your child about the progress. The assessment is due at the end of next week.

8 - Queen’s Candy Activity was a huge hit! Ask your child about their role and what they learned about the Stamp Act. Otherwise, the students are continuing the formal assessment for the American Revolution unit.  They will be using structured notes they take from online reading to support Thinglinks! about major events leading to the American revolution.  The Instagram and Facebook discussion experiences are off the ground and functioning. Mr. Pless encourages families to check in (or even follow) the Instagram accounts if your child has one.

The Fusion Team

Fusion Communication: November 3

Hi all,

What a crazy week - let’s NOT do that again! Hoping everyone is close to power being restored and recovering from the frenzy of Halloween; the bright side of the power outage was it cancelled out the effects of Halloween at school:)

School Dance

Thank you to all families that contributed to the dance concession stand - we had plenty of food.  A final tally will be reported once the money is deposited.

Movember and Food Shelf

BRMS is starting the Movember campaign.  Several staff members have joined the effort, developing personas to raise awareness around mental and physical health during the winter months. As part of this awareness campaign, students are asked to contribute a non-perishable food item; BRMS helped restock the Jericho/Underhill food shelf last year after their “Thanksgiving” food stock was handed out.

On Team Fusion, Ms. Barnier, Mr. Keblin and Mr. Pless are all participating in the Movember campaign - students “vote” for their favorite Movember persona by placing food items in boxes beside the front office bearing the name and likeness of the staff member.

All Laptops are at school over the weekend

No school issued laptops should be at home over the weekend.  In the event a laptop does make its way home, please store it in a safe place for the weekend.

Calendar

November 8 - Two Hour Delay

December 1 - 7th grade field trip to Vermont International Festival ($5 fee - looking for a few chaperones)

December 13 - Two Hour Delay

December Break - December 25-29, January 1

Reading

Books should be brought to all study halls and LA class each day.

Curriculum Updates….

LA

*** Students were excused from completing Reading Journals this week. ***

7 - Students continue to learn about text structures and build up a series of starter paragraphs for their information writing pieces. Next week we will start combining all of this work into a more formal draft.

8 - Investigative Journalism writing pieces were due this week. We began reading Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. We will be focusing on use of figurative language, historical connections and the relationship between the main character Isabel and her younger sister Ruth. We will dig into some note taking strategies next week.

Science

7 -  Our petri dishes and bread baggies had extra time over the long “weekend”.  Students had plenty to look at on Wednesday!  All bacteria and fungi growth samples are now properly disposed of!  Ask your child which surfaces in the classroom showed the most bacterial growth!  We continue to study cell organelles, and will hold another check-up quiz on Friday.  Our final assessment for the cells and energy unit is right before the Thanksgiving break.  Our final topics will be photosynthesis and cellular respiration.

8 - ,Using plastic tubing, binder clips, and bubble wrap, students explored the compression and expansion of air (a mixture of gases)  by creating and exploring with closed systems.  They established that air is matter, having both mass and volume. Students are beginning to visualize that gases are made of microscopic particles, and to experience the behavior of gas particles. We will have 2 more short check-up quizzes before the Thanksgiving break.

SS

7 - Students have begun the district assessment for the culture unit - they are creating slideshows, websites or Thinglinks! related to their view of their culture.  Please check in with your child about the progress; they should be interviewing you next week and requesting help with picture taking.

8 - The students are starting the formal assessment for the American Revolution unit.  They will be using structured notes they take from online reading to support Thinglinks! about major events leading to the American revolution.  The Instagram and Facebook discussion experiences are off the ground and functioning. Mr. Pless encourages families to check in (or even follow) the Instagram accounts if your child has one.

Math

Wow, what a week.  It has been up and down with the storm, Halloween, the drama production, no power, and on top of that, I am home today with my son who is sick. I hope everyone has made it to Friday intack.

While things were a little disjointed this week in class, the 8th grade studied correlation, outliers, standard deviation this week. We will wrap up the investigation portion of the unit next week by exploring bivariate data. We will finish the unit with an end of unit assessment the following week.

In 7th grade we continued to build our foundational knowledge for our new unit, Filling & Wrapping. We finished this week looking at how volume and surface area change when we scale up the dimensions of a rectangular prism. Also, we have moved to weekly homework assignments for the 7th grade. We did not have one this week due to the short week, but students recieved next weeks today in case they want to get a jump on it over the weekend.

Hoping for a very quiet weekend - to recharge (Sorry - low hanging fruit there). Seriously, hoping everyone returns to normalcy in the next few days.

The Fusion Team

Fusion Communication: October 27

Hi all,

‘Tis the season - Halloween, end of fall sports, dusting of snow on the mountain. There is ENERGY on the team - and it’s being channeled to some great learning.  See below for more detail.

School Dance - Friday, October 27

Thank you to all families that contributed to the dance concession stand - it makes a huge difference to have food, and the funds provide for quality field trips and scholarships to events.

Guidelines and Expectations for Dance - if curious, check out the link. Reviewed with students Thursday and Friday during Social Studies.

• Dances are from 7-9pm
• BRMS dances are only for students enrolled in the school. Any guests must be approved by Mr. Hamilton and Mrs. Archambault
• There is a $5 admission fee
• Food items are for purchase only - usually .25 to $1 per item

 

Halloween Guidelines

It’s not that Team Fusion has an issue with the event - but all the kinetic energy that goes with it.  Please help out the team by doing the following:

• Please limit the costumes that arrive at school - a low-key hat, cat ears, some simple face painting is enough on October 31 (no masks AT ALL!)
• No swords, weapons, wands, broomsticks, etc. - if it can be used to “whack” someone, it will
• Please limit candy coming to school on November 1-2 as it’s no fun to police students on sugar highs (or the inevitable crash)

All Laptops are at school over the weekend

No school issued laptops should be at home over the weekend.  In the event a laptop does make its way home, please store it in a safe place for the weekend.

Calendar

November 8 - Two Hour Delay

December 1 - 7th grade field trip to Vermont International Festival ($5 fee - looking for a few chaperones)

December 13 - Two Hour Delay

December Break - December 25-29, January 1

Reading

Books should be brought to all study halls and LA class each day.

Curriculum Updates….

LA

*** Reading Journals are due today! ***

7 - This week we looked at two text structures: narrative, and problem/solution. Students began writing starter paragraphs to be incorporated into their information pieces later on - these will be graded on schoology for completion only. Students will have an opportunity to revise them later when they begin to incorporate this work into their essays. There is a place on schoology to submit work done in class on both text structures we have gone over (narrative and problem/solution). At this point, students’ research notes should also be completed -- this is something they should work on at home if more time is needed. We have spent three class days on this task (one day for each source required).

8 - Investigative Journalism FINAL DRAFTS are due on Monday. Students have had ample time to revise these pieces in class this week. There are tools on Schoology for those who choose to spend some time continuing to work on these over the weekend (editing checklist, citations guide -- in writer’s toolkit). Next week we are beginning a class novel, Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. It is historical fiction and connects to what students are studying in Social Studies. The on demand assessment for writing will likely be during the week of November 6th.

Science

7 -  Bacteria was the spotlight organism of the week!  Students swabbed a variety of surfaces in the classroom, and are now watching the amazing growth of bacteria from each location on petri dishes!  They should be looking, and smelling, great by Monday!  Students compared bacterial cell structures to plant, animal, and protist structures.  They also reviewed plant and animal organelles using several online practice tools;  many students are needing additional practice with these terms.  Please check in with your child and in Schoology to see if they need to be practicing more at home!

8 - After confirming the identify of the mystery mixture, as citric acid & baking soda, students were introduced to the organization and development of the periodic table of elements.  They looked for elements in common household products’ ingredient lists, and are becoming familiar with some of the chemical and physical properties of elements and substances.  On Friday, students completed the first of several quizzes in this lengthy unit on properties of matter and chemistry.  Next week, we begin to look at properties of gases.  

SS

7 - Students have embarked on a project called “My Vermont”, which will also serve as the district assessment for the Culture Unit.  The project takes three weeks to complete and involve students interviewing family and community members, creating surveys and taking photos. Families should already have seen planning assignments this week - if not, contact Mr. Pless.  In the coming weeks, students will be creating the materials needed for the assessment, which may ithe students asking families to get involved with: a drive or two to locations students have selected to photograph, contacting relatives for interviews.  Please contact Mr. Pless with any questions or concerns at any time during this project.

8 - Students started the district assessment which is a series of assessments regarding events and ideas leading to the American Revolution. Some students have created Instagram accounts based on their Profile 1763 characters.  The other students are creating fake “Facebook” Google slideshows based on their Profile 1763 characters. Mr. Pless encourages families to check in (or even follow) the Instagram accounts; his own account: geowash_vt

Math

7: We started our new unit, Filling and Wrapping this week, reviewing strategies for calculating surface area and volume for rectangular prisms as well as coming up with strategies for reducing surface area of a fixed volume by adjusting the dimension of that figure. Next week we will looking at what happens to a the volume and surface area of a rectangular prism when we scale up the dimensions.

8: This week we finished up our exploration of inverse variation and started exploring scatter plots, correlation, and their relationship with lines of best fit.  Next week we will explore dava variation with Mean Deviation and Standard Deviation.  We will also analyze bivariate data tables.

Stella weekend ahead - hope everyone enjoys the downtime.

The Fusion Team

Fusion Communication: October 19

Hi all,

Whew - we made it! First break of the year - the students definitely need it.  Lots going on with Team Fusion after the break - see below for all the happenings.

School Dance - Friday, October 27

The first 7/8 dance of the year is being sponsored by Team Fusion - and it is the only fundraiser the team has for the year! Families are asked to contribute items that can be sold at the dance.  Some examples below:

• Box of fruit snacks
• Individual bags of popcorn
• 10-12 servings (please respect the limit) of one of the following:
• Baked goods
• Cookies
• Brownies
• Rice krispie treats
• Bottled water, juices, seltzers (please, no large bottles - individual serving sizes)

The “No Thank You” list:

• Candy
• Soft drinks
• Anything with nuts

For 7th Grade families:

• Dances are from 7-9pm
• BRMS dances are only for students enrolled in the school. Any guests must be approved by Mr. Hamilton and Mrs. Archambault
• There is a $5 admission fee
• Food items are for purchase only - usually .25 to $1 per item

Parent Conferences

The team appreciates all the families that signed up for these conferences - always a pleasure to see you.

 

All Laptops are at school over the break

No school issued laptops should be at home over the break.  In the event a laptop does make its way home, please bring it back to the team on Thursday morning - we will be at school for the morning. Emails will be sent home to families whose students did not leave their laptops in the carts on Wednesday afternoon.

Calendar

October 20 - No School/School Recess

October 27 (change!) - Fusion Sponsored School Dance (donation of food/drink item from each family for no more than 10 people - basically, no more than 10 servings:) See the write-up above for more information.

November 8 - Two Hour Delay

December 1 - 7th grade field trip to Vermont International Festival ($5 fee - looking for a few chaperones)

December 13 - Two Hour Delay

December Break - December 25-29, January 1

Reading

Books should be brought to all study halls and LA class each day.

Curriculum Updates….

LA

*** Reading Journals are due today! ***

7 - Students browsed topics and began research for their first writing piece this week. This information writing unit focuses on the various text structures authors use to inform their readers. Students will receive mini lessons on seven text structures. They will then select three to use in their essays which we will draft and revise over time in class. Graphic organizers were provided in class to support students with research and drafting.

8 - Students began drafting their investigative journalism pieces this week. This genre of writing combines observation, research and interviews to inform and sway a reader. We will revise this writing next week in class. Graphic organizers were provided in class to support students with research and drafting.

Science

7 -  Following several investigations using microscopes to examine a variety of cells and microorganisms, students reviewed main ideas and skills in preparation for a check-up quiz on Wednesday.  This will give me information on how ready they are to move forward after the short break.  If ready, we’ll move on to study bacteria and fungi!

8 - Students wrapped up the universe unit last week, and are now investigating a mystery mixture!  Their job is to use observation skills to correctly identify the 2 substances in the mystery mixture, while practicing their ability to describe characteristic properties of 9 substances that look very similar.  This is the first investigation in the Properties of Matter unit, which will carry us into winter.

SS

7 - Students spent time processing the information collected during the field trip, making Thinglink! Interactive pictures and typing up the interview responses.  See examples in the link below:

https://goo.gl/exLvoT

After the break, students will embark on project called “My Vermont”, which will also serve as the district assessment for the Culture Unit.  The project will take three weeks to complete and involve students interviewing family and community members, creating surveys and taking photos.

8 - Students finished their Profile 1763 projects end of the last week.  Students spent time this week exploring the NFL anthem protests through the lens of free speech and boundaries of that right.

After the break, students will start the district assessment which is a series of assessments regarding events and ideas leading to the American Revolution. As part of the lessons supporting the assessments, students will have the option to create Instagram accounts based on their Profile 1763 characters - this option will only be available if your child has parental permission and access to a mobile device.  Please contact Mr. Pless if you have questions or concerns about your child using the social media platform.

Math

7: We wrapped up the Shapes and Designs unit on Wednesday with a unit assessment. Our next unit will be Filling and Wrapping. This unit explores surface area and volume of prisms and cylinders.

8: This week we continued to explore different examples of inverse variation functions as well as how these are different from linear relationships. Next week, we will wrap up our investigation into inverse variation and begin to review and, for those students who are ready, extend the concepts for the first half of the unit. We will be shooting to have a mid-unit assessment for this content by the end of the week.

The Fusion Team