Week of May 18th - 22nd

TA’s Notes:

Reminder that all snacks brought in for sharing need to be nut-free!

No school Memorial Day, May 25th!

Have fun 8th graders going to Washington, DC!!

After school with Ms. Sherman:

Just a reminder that our Homework Club will only be meeting a few more times. The last day will be on May 29th. There will not be any Homework Club in June. Also, the ⅚ math help sessions are over.

The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):

We spent most of the week preparing for our trip to Mt. Independence and Ft. Ticonderoga. We used an artifact kit from the Vermont Historical Society to dig into primary documents, maps, books, replicas, and real artifacts from the sites to discover a huge amount of history about these places. In our final activity of the week, students used these sources to create their own lesson to teach to classmates.

For our literature groups, students are reading or are part of a read aloud group. The final writing assignment will be to write a book review and and rate the book on a 5 star scale. Our Reading Cafe and Scholastic lesson this week focused on how we make connections when we read. We can connect text to self, other text, the world, and to video. Students practiced using these forms of connection in both lessons.

Finally, a very heartfelt thank you for all of the wonderful notes, treats, and gifts for Teacher Appreciation week. It all helped make a very busy time of year much, much better. Thanks again!

The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):

A special thanks to all families who appreciated me last week!  So kind!

Pictures from this week at bottom...

The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):

This week has FLOWN by! Our 7th/8th grade learning community has been moving and shaking through this week at a high speed! With our Business Convention Unit in its final stretch and the Solar Oven Projects happening with Ms.Q, there has been a lot of action, energy, hands-on learning, and creative thinking happening over here!

During our morning time together students had some time to respond to a few creative writing prompts, and we also took some class time to work on their print advertisement and their FINAL writing piece. The print ads came out great! Students used PhotoShop or Google Draw to create some artistic, persuasive, and clever ad campaigns for their business. Students were asked to write a sales pitch for their product to actually perform at the Business Convention! Students have really taken this last writing piece to the next level, by utilizing all of the persuasive techniques we have studied and by also tossing in a reasonable amount of figurative language. I’ve read through a few of them in their drafting stages, and they were great! Students really focused on their hook or opening statement to draw their target audience in, and used great humor in their writing in hopes to keep their audience listening and intrigued. These sales pitches will be performed at their Business Booth at the Business Convention as students are hoping that these pitches will help in gaining investors! Be sure to mark your calendar for June 4th or 5th from 1:30-2:30 to attend our 2nd Voyager Business Convention! It will take place in Wesnak and Quatt cores and upon arrival you will be given directions and your “Wezzbucks” to invest in the companies of your choice featured at the convention. Students will have all of their work from the trimester on display at their booth, so it is certainly a great event to attend and wonderful end to a fantastic school year!

During our afternoon classes, students took a small break from their Business Convention to learn about economic systems and stocks! Students gained a great deal of knowledge as we worked our way through learning about the global economy, exports, imports, and fair trade. We then moved onto looking at the 4 different economic systems and had great discussions while students also took notes. Students will be asked to reference some of this knowledge and any new vocabulary in their FINAL writing piece, which is on the importance and story behind the wholesale and retail price of an item. As we worked our way through understanding the economic systems, we then moved onto a short documentary by Ray Dalio that focused on the United States Economic “Machine”. In this video, through animation, Dalio does a great job of explaining how the economy works through simple terms, theory, and illustrations. The great part about it was students were able to look at the different markets that are a part of the “machine”, learn about stocks and financial assets, credit, debt, transactions, and how spending makes the “machine” work! Students also learned the role of the government, the people, and businesses in the economic “machine”. After viewing the first part of this documentary, we built a great bridge to bring us to our studies on stocks, shares, and the Stock Market! We watched a couple BrainPOP videos, tested our knowledge with an interactive quiz, and put our gained knowledge to work by answering some questions in class and doing some vocabulary work. Students also did a short stock market study by following a business of their choice and reporting out on KidBlog! It’s been a great week, and our 8th graders are buzzing about the D.C. trip! Wishing everyone a great long weekend, and safe travels for those going to D.C.!!

The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):

CMP8

We have successfully come to the end of “It’s in the System”, our final book for CMP8.  In this investigation we solved and graphed systems of equalities and inequalities. We learned how to find intersection points or solutions to these systems through substitution and combination/elimination.   Students discussed the landmarks and shaded areas of these systems in context to the problem.  Finally students began the unit test.  The 8th graders received their CSSU Final Review packet and should begin working through this lengthy document.  What a fun DC bus ride project!  We will begin the review in earnest when they return from their trip.  The final exam is at 10 a.m. on June 10th.

CMP7

We utilized all sorts of manipulatives this week to create nets and to find surface area and volume of three dimensional figures.  Students built containers with similar volume but different dimensions, sliced through square prisms to investigate what figures are formed with one cut and clarified the relationship between scale factor, surface area and volume.  We ended the week with a partner quiz.

Science

The weather was not cooperating with us this week as we built, tested and redesigned our solar ovens.  There were many designs, with a variety of success.  We had the Toll House Cookie  bake off today under a brisk wind and partially sunny skies. Certainly not the best conditions, but some of the stoves reached over 200 degrees Fahrenheit.  It did a great job at killing the microbes on our cookie dough and melting the chocolate.  We may have a rematch when the 8th graders get back.  The Solar Oven write-up was due today.

The Week in Ms. O's
Math 5:  Finally go to the end of the fraction unit!  Geometry is in full swing!

Math 6: Completed our algebra unit and are on to data and statistics!

5/6 Science: What is energy and how do you know when something has it?  We spent our week exploring roller coasters and domino runs.  We had two incredible scientist meetings...I should really plan them so you can come in and listen to your little scientists working out their thinking and considering and arguing the thinking of others!  Amazing!