John Brown: Hero or Criminal?

Here is a sampling of students' posters in response to the question "Was John Brown a hero or a criminal?"

Calendar Raffle Winners

Check here for a list of prize winners from our Calendar Raffle fundraiser. Good luck!

Science and Engineering Fair!

Here are some snapshots from last night's terrific Science and Engineering Fair. It was exciting to see such great attendance from the community - and such excellent, engaging presentations from our students. Thanks to all who made the trip, who supported your children's learning, and who learned a little something new.

Team Meeting Report - 2/10

Every week, Team Falcon has a team meeting to reflect on the week and celebrate each other's accomplishments. This week, we thought we'd send out a report from the meeting.

Ms. TC's advisory was in charge of running the meeting, opening with a slide congratulating students on surviving the Science and Engineering Fair. We greeted each other with the roller coaster greeting (which is more fun than it has any right to be).  We also observed that it is National Cream Cheese Brownie Day, House Warranty Day, and Umbrella Day. (Note: Some of those may be more exciting to celebrate than others).

We celebrated the variety of activities Falcons take part in: Milton Dance Team will be participating in an event in St. Albans, the Vermont Hockey Playoffs are this weekend, and Gymnastics' state competition is tonight.

Perhaps the most meaningful part of team meeting is the acknowledgments section, where students take the opportunity to acknowledge the work of others in front of the whole team.

• A majority of the acknowledgments were focused on the Science and Engineering Fair. Students recognized each other for their willingness to help, their persistence, and their creative topics. 
• The Stock Market activities in math were also the subject of acknowledgments. Students celebrated their teamwork and sharing of information.
• Students were also celebrated for their application of learning to other fields, their note taking, and their ability to work through injuries.

Every week, we acknowledge someone as our Habit Hero - someone who has been a leader in our Habits of Mind (Preparedness, Persistence, Precision, Citizenship, and Flexible Thinking). This week, we honored Emma Philbrook. She is a good citizen, who helps other students who need, and definitely shows persistence in her work habits. Congratulations, Emma!

See you all next week!

Science and Engineering Fair

The fourth annual Milton Middle School Science and Engineering Fair will take place this Thursday, February 9, 2017, from 5:30 to 7:30PM. All students in grades 6-8 will present a project with a focus on hands-on scientific investigation or engineering.  Our students will have researched, designed, tested, analyzed, and displayed a project that uses scientific and engineering methods to create knowledge or solve a problem.

We’ve had great turnout for this event in past years. Avoid parking stress and park at the high school. We will have a shuttle running between the high school and the middle school for the duration of the event. Remember, there is also a community dinner that evening from 4:30 to 7:00PM.

Your attendance will help make this experience a celebration for our students and for Milton Middle School. You can support your child by helping them arrive on time for their time slot and giving them the independence to interact with the judges and audience members on their own. We look forward to seeing you this Thursday!

Weekly Team Email - 2/3

Greetings Team Falcon Families:

Happy National Carrot Cake Day! With the Science and Engineering Fair less than a week away, we are full steam ahead. Here’s a look at your child’s experience last week on Team Falcon.

Science: This week students were introduced to the two final writing steps of their Science and Engineering Fair projects: the data analysis and conclusion sections. These sections communicate the results of the experiments and design tests, what the results mean, and why it matters. Students should have submitted their data analysis assignment via Google Classroom Step 12 by Friday, 2/3, and their conclusions via Step 13 on Google Classroom by the end of the weekend if it isn’t done already. When Step 13 is complete, students should be editing and revising Steps 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13 because these have components that will be presented on the final poster. If there is time to do some work on this at home that is strongly encouraged.

After editing is complete, students will take their final versions and prepare them in a document for printing and assembling on the poster. Students will get their posters in class on Monday  and can bring them home to work on assembly if they wish. Students have been working very hard! It is essential that they keep being persistent through this final week.

Your child should have brought home a letter with information about the fair and their time slot for presenting. You only need to return the bottom portion if you have a conflict that cannot be worked around. Please let me know if you didn’t receive the letter (gkrembs@mymtsd-vt.org).

Humanities: Students had a significant amount of instruction and time in humanities this week to complete the writing of the background information, data analyses, and conclusions for their science/engineering projects. We’ve used model texts to teach students the elements that need to be included in this type of informational writing. It’s been wonderful to see the students’ writing develop throughout the course of this project.

Additionally, students worked to understand some of the major events that led to the U.S. Civil War by creating a timeline of those events and analyzing their significance (this timeline was due on Thursday.) Next week, we will resume our work with the Civil War and will use the historical fiction novel Bull Run to more closely examine the many voices and perspectives of people whose lives were directly impacted by the Civil War. In preparation for Bull Run, we examined Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise,” as an example of applying close reading concepts to a different kind of text. We will also use primary and secondary sources related to the abolitionist, John Brown, to further examine how perspectives are shaped through text. This will lead us to an assessment in which the students will show us their ability to pull main ideas from both primary and secondary sources and examine bias within those sources to determine the author’s perspective.

Grade 6

Math: Students just wrapped up their ratio unit and took their assessments this week.  We will be starting a new unit on dividing fractions and all operations with decimals.  

We will also begin the Stock Market Game which is an opportunity for students to do a simulation of investing in stocks.  For more information on this game please see attached link.

Grade 7

Math:  Students are continuing to work on the signed number unit.  Students have been practicing addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers using horizontal and vertical number lines. Next week students will begin learning to multiply and divide signed numbers.

We will also begin the Stock Market Game which is an opportunity for students to do a simulation of investing in stocks.  For more information on this game please see attached link.

Grade 8

Math: Students continued their exploration of the Pythagorean Theorem.  Students practiced applying the Pythagorean Theorem to various types of problems.  We will begin an exploration of similarity next week.          

We will also begin the Stock Market Game which is an opportunity for students to do a simulation of investing in stocks.  For more information on this game please see attached link.                      

Personalized Learning: Students viewed some sample personalized learning projects to better understand their end goal. They then continued to research their topics of interest and refined their possible inquiry questions based on those topics. Stay tuned for more information on personalized learning early next week.

Bright ideas: Team Falcon uses the term “Whole Body Listening” to explicitly teach our students what listening looks and feels like.

Weekly Team Email - 1/27/17

Greetings Team Falcon Families:

Happy National Puzzle Day! We trust by now you’ve received your child’s progress reports for trimester two. If not, please be in touch with your child’s advisor. Here’s a look at your child’s experience last week on Team Falcon.

Humanities: We continued to examine and interpret several primary sources concerning the fate of slavery in the antebellum U.S. We spent a full class period unpacking Thomas Jefferson’s famous “Firebell in the Night” letter, regarding his feelings toward the Missouri Compromise and the fate of the Union. We paid particular attention to the skillful way he used metaphors to express himself. After a brief overview of the 5Ws of the Civil War (who, what, where, when, why), we backtracked and began the process of creating a timeline of some of the key events that happened on the road to the Civil War. The week culminated in a wonderful presentation Friday by noted Civil War historian, Howard Coffin, accompanied by Mr. Kaigle and Mr. Strong from the General Stannard House Committee, and Mr. Ballard from the Milton Historical Society. Team Falcon students were a warm audience for this lively presentation that helped bring the Civil War to life for us. We encourage you to ask your child about the key ideas that s/he took away from the presentation.

This coming week, we will continue looking at the Civil War in one part of humanities, while the other part will focus on the informational writing portion of the science fair. This is a great opportunity to show the cross-curricular connections of our material, and we look forward to supporting their work in this way!

Science: Last week students were working on representing data in tables and graphs so that they can analyze their data starting on Monday. Students reviewed an example graph and data analysis (due on Tuesday, 1/24), and completed a plan for their graph (Step 10). Next, students began using Google Sheets to build a data table that would graph the data like they planned. This was a Google Classroom assignment that was due on Friday, 1/27. Next week, students will write their data analysis and conclusions, and edit their other written pieces. This coming week is the last full week before the SEF. Once again, students are welcome to stay after on Wednesday and Thursday if they let me know ahead of time so I know they have arrangements to get home.

In other news, all of the remaining brook trout eggs have now hatched and are feeding off their yolk sacs and swimming around the bottom of the suspended basket. They are expected to begin feeding on solid food and swimming up in the water column after we return from winter break.

Grade 6

Math:. Students are continuing to work with percents. They practiced finding the whole number when given a percent of the number using tape diagrams, double number lines and equivalent ratios. Students solved problems like the following: Sally is buying an item on sale that is 25% off and she saved $15 what was the original cost?  Students also continued their practice of adding and subtracting mixed numbers.

Students will have a summative assessment on Thursday, February 2, that will focus on unit rates, ratios and percent of number. Students could practice these skills on Tenmarks or Khan Academy.

Grade 7

Math:  Students are continuing to work on the signed number unit.  Students have been practicing addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers using horizontal and vertical number lines. We are also continuing to review fraction addition and subtraction with mixed numbers.

Please continue to encourage your child to practice their signed number and fraction addition and subtraction skills at home using Khan Academy or Tenmarks.  

Grade 8

Math: Students began the week learning about the Pythagorean Theorem.  They worked on applying the theorem to find missing side lengths of right triangles. Students also reviewed adding and subtracting mixed numbers.  We will continue the exploration of the Pythagorean Theorem in the coming weeks as well as begin an exploration on similarity.          

Students can continue to explore these topics on Khan Academy or Tenmarks.                          

Personalized Learning: Students took some time to research their topics of interest and began posing some possible inquiry questions based on those topics.

Vermonters and the Civil War

Today, we had a visit from Howard Coffin, a noted Civil War historian. He talked to us about Abraham Lincoln, Vermont's role in the Civil War, and General Stannard's house in Milton. It was an exciting presentation that had all 80+ of our students engaged and interested.

Here are some pictures:

Mr. Coffin and an Abraham Lincoln style top hat.

Mr. E, being one of our tallest Falcons, shows off his Lincoln style.

Mr. Coffin's passionate style kept our students quite entertained.

T2 Progress Reports

Good afternoon, Team Falcon Parents!

Today, in our final class of the day, progress reports were handed to your children to bring home. If you have any questions after reviewing these, please feel free to contact us.

Have a great day. 

​Team Falcon.

Weekly Team Email - 1/20/17

Greetings Team Falcon Families:

We are more than halfway through trimester two, if you can believe it. We will be handing your child his/her progress reports on Tuesday afternoon to bring home. Please let us know if they don’t make their way home with your child. Here’s a look at your child’s experience this past week on Team Falcon.

Humanities: Continuing our work from last week, students spent a significant amount of time pulling key details out of both primary and secondary sources to better understand antebellum United States. We paid particular attention to the multiple perspectives of the delegates during the Constitutional Convention as they debated the future of slavery in our country. Students also had an opportunity to examine the role of spirituals, songs, and hymns as a means of communication among enslaved people in the 1700s-1800s. From the language arts lens, we continued our work with using root words, prefixes, and suffixes to determine the meaning of new words. On Monday, we will spend some time discussing today’s peaceful transfer of power to President Trump, using excerpts of the inauguration footage to guide our discussion. The rest of the week will see us discussing the abolition movement and the proslavery response and getting us to the beginning of the Civil War.

Science: Students were busy this week with testing designs, conducting experiments, and helping each other. This was the last chance students will have to collect data in class. On a case by case basis some students will need to be collecting data next week and some students have already spoken with me about this. Students should come to class next week with their data collected in order to analyze it through graphing and a written analysis. Students were given a preview of this next step by looking at an example graph from a past SEF, identifying key evidence from it, and reading a data analysis of the graph. This assignment is due on Tuesday, 1/24. Students have also been keeping a close eye on the brook trout and noted that some have hatched, although this is on the very early side. Some students learned the tests for measuring water chemistry and have been recording this data.

Grade 6

Math: Students spent the week working on fraction addition and subtraction, as well as a learning how to change fractions to decimals and decimals to percents.  Students practiced using the traditional method of long division in order to do these conversions.  This coming week we will focus on finding percent of number.

You can encourage your child to practice the traditional method of long division at home by giving them a few problems like  834 3 =  ____.  They have learned the mnemonic device of Does () McDonald’s (x) Sell (-) Cheese (✔) Burgers (↓) to remember the steps for long division.  Your child should be able to explain this process.  We will spend much more time on this in the next unit.

Grade 7

Math:  Students are continuing to work on the integer unit.  Students are learning to subtract positive and negative numbers using a number line. They have discovered that subtracting a negative number is like adding the opposite. They are reading number sentences like this 8 - (-5)= as “positive eight add the opposite of a negative five equals thirteen”. We are also continuing to review fraction addition and subtraction with mixed numbers.

Please continue to encourage your child to practice their fractions skills at home using Khan Academy.  If they log into Khan Academy using their school gmail account (mymtsd-vt.org) they are already enrolled in my class.

Grade 8

Math:  Students spent the first part of the week reviewing congruence and what they  know about the measure of the sum of angles in straight lines/ straight angle (180°) and triangles to find missing angle measures. Students started their summative assessment on Wednesday and completed it on Thursday.  This coming week we will explore the Pythagorean Theorem and similarity.   

Personalized Learning: Students were introduced to their personal learning projects. After some guided brainstorming, most have zeroed in on a topic of interest and took stock of what they already know about that topic and what they’d like to learn. Next, we’ll help craft an inquiry question based on their topic and then begin to guide the research.

Bright ideas: Team Falcon uses the term “Whole Body Listening” to explicitly teach our students what listening looks and feels like.