Student Voices: "Peace"

Each week, students have an opportunity to free write: we provide a topic, and students have seven minutes to write continuously on that topic or one of their choosing. We'll occasionally post a student's writing to give you a feeling for the student voices on Team Falcon. 

"Peace"

The equality of our nation is still pressured, even many years after the great speech of dreams. Our nation has changed, but the dream is not fulfilled to its potential. There are still many years to come to heal the scars of the past, but our nation is still young. May we gain wisdom as we grow older. Hope to soon have a country truly filled with liberty and justice for all. Hope that we have peace in this world to exceed our boundaries to ensure the promise of safety among all races and places.

May we all have peace in this world.

-- Liz, Grade 7, 1/17/17

Weekly Team Email - 1/13/17

Greetings Team Falcon Families:

Here’s a look at your child’s experience this past week on Team Falcon.

Humanities: We launched our instruction around primary and secondary sources. Students had several opportunities to closely examine primary sources to better understand the topic/time period of focus. Students will now apply those skills to examining primary sources from the Civil War era. We also used some historic maps and some secondary sources to understand what life was like in the antebellum United States. Speaking of ante- bellum, students practiced identifying and using prefixes, suffixes, and root words to both construct new vocabulary and deconstruct unfamiliar words to make meaning. Additionally, students had the chance to engage with one another around their recent independent reads. Hopefully this has given your child a host of new book titles to explore. Thank you for continuing to support his/her nightly and weekly reading expectations.  

Science: Students have continued with their Science and Engineering Fair (SEF) projects this week with a goal of gathering all their data by next Friday, 1/20. On a case by case basis some students will need to be collecting data beyond that deadline and some students have already spoken with me about this. Students were given a preview of the next step of graphing and analyzing their data by looking at a graph, identifying key evidence from it, and reading a data analysis of the graph. Aside from the SEF, we are raising brook trout in the classroom from eggs to fry! Last week 100 eggs were delivered by Trout Unlimited and we are monitoring the water quality and egg development until we release them in mid-May. We will do some of this work in class and students can sign up to be in the Trout Club. Trout Club will meet some days after school to do additional testing and observations-- more information about Trout Club coming soon.

Grade 6

Math: Students are continuing their exploration of ratios.  Students have  been working on finding percent of a number; they have begun to explore problems like “20 % of 75 is what number?” This week students reviewed the process of  fraction addition and subtraction with mixed numbers. We will also be working on calculating discounts, sales prices and mark-ups.

You can encourage your child to use their ratio skills when shopping by asking them to calculate the unit rate if you are buying things in bulk and after next week you can also ask them to calculate discounts and sales cost.

Grade 7

Math:  Students have begun their unit on positive and negative numbers.  They are currently working on adding integers with like signs and unlike signs.  We are also reviewing fraction addition and subtraction with mixed numbers.

You can encourage your child to use these skills by engaging them in conversations around debt, profit, temperature, football, golf and anywhere else you might encounter positive and negative numbers.

Grade 8

Math:  Students have spent the week working on congruence and how you can use ideas of congruence to find missing angle measures when lines are parallel.  Students have also used what they  know about the measure of the sum of angles in straight lines/ straight angle

(180°) and triangles to find missing angle measures. We will soon begin to look at similarity and the Pythagorean Theorem.  Students will have a summative assessment on Wednesday.

Personalized Learning: We wrapped up our Transferable Skills presentations last Monday. Now that students have some introductory knowledge of the skills, we will launch our personalized learning projects.

Bright ideas:The visuals below are examples of how we are supporting students in regards to planning out their Science and Engineering Fair projects, along with everyday work in general.

Year in Rap(s)

I'm a couple of weeks behind, but before our December break, students were tasked with writing a rap that summarized the news events of the year. We had some great beats, impressive raps (even one that compared war damage to my receding hairline!), and many shouts out to Milton Middle School.

This picture summarizes the kind of joy we witnessed that day. Thanks to all of our rappers! And happy new year...

It's Conference Time!

**Paper copies of this form will be sent home on Wednesday**

Dear Families of Team Falcon,

How time flies! We're well into autumn, and it’s already time for our first round of Student Portfolio Conferences. Children benefit greatly from having meaningful conversations about their learning with important adults in their lives. To that end, we invite you to a Portfolio Conference where your child will present to you artifacts of his or her learning - work from each class that he or she has thoughtfully selected to demonstrate learning and growth. Any caring adult is welcome - parents, adult siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors. Conferences will take place in the Middle/Elementary School Library.

These conferences are important to your child, and represent many hours of hard work. The portfolio process helps students build life-long skills including: organization skills, self-evaluative skills, and communication skills. Most importantly, the portfolio process helps your child take more ownership of his or her learning and be more accountable for his or her academic progress. Thank you for the important role you play in this process!

Please visit http://bit.ly/teamfalconconferencesfall16 to indicate your preferred conference time, or return the form attached to this letter. Any caring adult is welcome - parents, adults siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors. If no adult is able to attend at one of the times offered, we will gladly make arrangements for you to conference with your child at another time. Conferences will take place in the Middle/Elementary School Library.

We look forward to seeing you!

The Teachers of Team Falcon: Jana Fabri-Sbardellati Megan Smith

Greer Krembs Gloria Crowe

James Moore Tami Koester

Catherine Thibault-Cote

Progress Reports and Permission Slips

Hello families of Team Falcon:

Monday afternoon, your student should have brought their progress reports home. We encourage you to review them with your students. There should be three progress reports: math, science, and humanities. 

Additionally, Team Falcon is attending a performance of Macbeth at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts on November 1. As part of the humanities unit, Myths, Legends, and Cultures, this is an exciting opportunity to see a live performance of a legend that continues to have great impact on cultures around the world. A permission slip was sent home with your student along with the progress reports. If you have any questions about this field trip, please contact James Moore (at jmoore@mymtsd-vt.org). 

Open House

We're looking forward to seeing you Thursday night between 5:30-7:00. We'll be in the Team Falcon classrooms doing four 10-minute rotations with a few minutes for passing time in between, starting at 5:30pm. We will also have printed materials available if you miss all or part of a presentation.

Please feel free to bring your child. The students can help walk you through some of the material we'll be covering.

Field Trip Reflection

Team Falcon teachers would like your thoughts and observations about the field trip today. Complete a reflection of the field trip on this Google Form.

Science Walking Field Trip to Lamoille River

Dear Team Falcon Students and Families,

Team Falcon students will be participating in a free, walking field trip next Thursday, 9/8/16 to the Lamoille River or Lake Arrowhead. Please complete the permission slip that comes home or that is linked here (Permission Slip Here) and have your student bring it to Ms. Krembs on Tuesday. The trip will be about 2 hours and students will continue with other classes on that day. On Thursday 9/8 students should be prepared to walk about 20 minutes, wear shoes and clothes that would allow them to wade into the water (no deeper than their knees) if they want to in order to collect data, and to be outside for 2 hours (small water bottle, snack if needed, sunscreen or hat, and layers or rain coat depending on the the weather). Please let me know if you have any questions!
Ms. Krembs

School Lunch Applications Update

Good afternoon from the Milton Town School District.

Please be aware the 2016-17 MTSD school lunch applications were sent out last week from the food service program. Please use these forms to replace any previous form you may have completed this summer.

We understand that a middle school summer mailing went out earlier this summer and it had the outdated 2015-16 school lunch applications attached.

Per new federal requirements, the food service program is required to have this 2016-17 form on file.

Please contact Kristen Abare at 893-5501 or email at kabare@mtsd-vt.org if there are any questions or if you are in need of the 2016-17 application before the first day of school.

Thank you kindly.

Enjoy the last few days of summer vacation!

Reading and Writing

Hello fellow Falcons,

It is already August! Can you believe it? Time flies (like a falcon!) when you're having fun, and we hope that you're having lots of fun.

As we are in the last month of summer, we felt it was a good time to remind you about our summer reading. While some of you may have already read the book you selected, others might have put it off until the last moment. Well, we're almost at the last moment! Make sure to read your book before the start of the school year. We are looking forward to discussing our team culture using these books as a starting point!

For those of you looking for a writing prompt, here you go:

1. You find a turtle by the side of the road. When you stop to pick it up, it looks up at you and says, "Thank goodness you're here. We don't have much time." What happens next?

2. You have been chosen by the state of Vermont to make an ad to boost tourism. What image do you select and why?

3. Write anything you'd like.

Remember: You are encouraged to just write and not stop for 7-10 minutes. This may result in some mistakes (eagle-eyed* readers from last prompt may have noticed that my writing changed verb tenses!), but that's all part of the process.

Enjoy your summers!

* Perhaps I should say "falcon-eyed"?