Thursday, December 8, 2016

Sirius Student of the Month

Every month on Team Sirius we choose a student of the month. We choose them by finding the student who best displays the Sirius qualities, which are Spirit, Introspection, Responsibility, Imagination, Ubuntu ( I am because we are), and Service. The student is announced monthly at the "All Team Meeting" and then the dog mascot, "Star" will live in the winner's TA (Teacher Advisory) for the rest of the month.


Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Cell Models

In science class, students created cell models using Scratch for a few weeks.

Dog Star Drama

Every month at our all-team meeting, we put on a play. We call it "Dog Star Drama." This month students volunteered to put on a performance of  the Borrowers.


Thursday, December 1, 2016

SST's

Every Tuesday through Thursday we have SST (Students Support Time), there are many groups working on many different things. These groups can range from math games to free write, the groups are for whatever the teacher believes the student may need some help on. Each teacher has their own SST, then there are extension SST's, ike math games with Ronda, Math strategies with Mr.Hinds, YWP (Young Writers Project)with one of the Foreign Language teachers, or silent reading with Mrs.Chabot.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

 This is a picture at the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center of  the Working Group Theater group who performed Out of Bounds. Our school went on a field trip to see their performance that raised awareness for bullying, but most of all cyber bullying. All the performers had a to deal with bullying and they told their stories. It was a great performance and they related with the kids because they talked a lot about social media and how that related to bullying. And they did a thing called the mannequin that was a lot of fun.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

What's happening in Sirius

Recently in team sirius science we have been learning about cells. We learned about what's in cells, what things are made of cells, and we've looked at cells through microscopes. We have made many diagrams of plant cells and animal cells. We labeled and drew details and wrote the steps of what cells do.  I really enjoyed looking through the microscope. We got to look at many pre made slides such as, bone tissue, liver, antennas, and so much more. We also got to make some of our own slides like saliva, some plant and onion skin, and pond water. We used blue staining dye to enhance our view of the slides. Although the dye kills the cells so you cannot see them moving if you dye it. It is also cool that if you stick a camera lens or phone lens slightly in the microscope you can take pictures of it. There are some pictures down below. Everything living is made of cells.




In Humanities we played a game called race to the white house. It's similar to monoply. You get money and go around the board. Here are some pictures. 

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Parent-Teacher conferences

This Thursday and Friday we have Parent-Teacher conferences. Please remember to come.

Monday, October 31, 2016

Learning About The Election Process

This week in Humanities we've started learning about the election process in relation to the upcoming election between Former Secretary Hillary Clinton and Mr. Donald Trump. So far, one of the things we've learned about the spectrum of political views, all the way from Radicalism on the far left side of the spectrum to Reactionism on the far right side of the spectrum. In Ms. Scott's class we've learned about the difference between popular votes and electoral votes. To help cement that idea we played a very fun game where we were political canidates trying to win the most popular and electoral votes. Now we have moved on to learning about the issues in the current election and some of the vocabulary.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Genetics Debate

     The genetics debate was an opportunity to explore other's opinions about how genetic testing and CRISPR should be used. Groups had many ideas about how the government's three branches (Executive, Legislative, Judicial) would enforce the law we created and how effective the law would be. Our teachers gave us a scenario that made us think to our law's limits. Overall, the genetics debate was a very admirable experience for students and teachers to think about our government and genetics testing.





Fall Writing Prompt

The Fall Writing prompt is a 'snapshot' of student writing in a write on demand situation where students are asked to write a 2-page essay to prompt. Our teachers made an effort to provide the same atmosphere for every student writing. Some people felt that the essay limits were too short, and some felt the essay limitations were too long. The Fall Writing prompt was about what the cons and pros of genetically manipulating a family's offspring.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

The 3 branches of Government and the Amendments

In humanities as part of our identity unit we are learning about the three branches of government and the bill of rights.  This is part of our understanding for our rights and responsibilities.  This week in class we participated in a simulation about how discrimination works. This simulation followed learning about the 3 branches of government, which you can find down below.

Three branches of government: School House Rocks

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

No School!

Dear SIRIUS students and staff,

There will be no school on Friday, October 8th and Monday October 11th (2016)

Enjoy your four day weekend!

Science: Grebnesors

October 5th, 2016
For the unit this month in science, we have been learning about genes and how they are passed on from generation to generation. The picture below is a grebnesor, a paperclip unraveled with five marshmallows stuck on, with toothpick legs and feet, and a candy corn nose. How we incorporated genes with grebnesors is some of the different genes were five or four marshmallows, red or yellow horns, and a candy corn or jelly bean or Hershey's kiss nose. You had different color chips and traded with people to get your new and different grebnesor and tracked the genes that stayed in the family, and the ones that didn't. We are learning a lot about traits and how cells make us into us.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Identity and The Outsiders

   In the past few weeks we have been reading the Outsiders for our Identity unit. The book ties in with the theme of the unit, "How do  we shape and form identity?". The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton  is about two groups of people, the socs and the greasers, fighting. Their identities affect how they act, who they hangout with and how they feel. In 7th and 8th grade we are learning a lot about ourselves, and  reading/discussing The Outsiders.




Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Math With Dr. Sharma

On September 21, 2016 Professor Dr. Sharma came to Main Street Middle School to visit the seventh grades math classes as a guest teacher. He taught us how to count down by 2 and 2/7.  We also got to play a little bit with some blocks. We learned about similar dimensions as well. We hope that he will be visiting several times this year.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

PLP Reboot

      We have been rebooting our PLP's to set them up for our next school year.  We have spent 3 or 4 days updating and changing our PLP's.  Mr.Maguire and Mr.Rosenberg have helped and guided us through this process.  We have done everything from deleting tabs, to setting up our own blogs and putting links in our PLP's.  We also have had fun decorating our PLP's and we still aren't done.  Here is a picture of some kids rebooting the PLP's.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Welcome SIRIUS students and families to the Team SIRIUS Happenings blog!

Throughout the course of the 2016-17 school year, students voluntarily will be writing short entries about team activities and areas of study for the blog along with posting pictures. Stay tuned for more 'happenings' to come.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

SIRIUS spirit

At our last all team meeting students were asked to create a tabloeau " a tabloeau is a term used in theater that means a group of indevidules that are motionless in a visual picture." that represnted SIRIUS spirit. We split in to three different groups. Each group would have a couple of mintutes to get into a creative pose. Here is what we came up with. 



Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Dog Star student of the month

Anja Samson is the SIRIUS student of the month. A student each trimester receives the dog for having each of these qualities. Spirit, Imagination, Responsibility, Introspection, Ubuntu, and Service. Anja was recognized in front of all of team SIRIUS. Star dog will be in care of Anja until our next ATM.
Congratulations Anja!




Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Endangered

Endangered is a book by Eliot Schrefer. This is one the books we are reading in Humanities. This book is set in the Democratic Republic of The Congo. A teenage girl, named Sophie, buy's an infant banobo on the way to her mom's work. Throughout the book, she builds a bond with her banobo, Otto. But later on the sanctuary gets attacked and Sophie and Otto must leave and survive in the forest. 

Multiplying polynomials in Algebra

In 8th grade algebra we are learning how to multiply polynomials and trinomials. The process is broken up into three different processes: Disributive property, the Matrix method, and the F.O.I.L. method. Distributive property is when you distribute two values and multiply them by the second polynomial((4x+3)(2x-3)= 4x(2x-3)+3(2x-3)). The Matrix method is when you put each polynomial on the outside of a 2 by 2 square and multiply them together. Finally the F.O.I.L. method is when you multiply the first numbers, the outer numbers, the inner numbers and the last numbers. That is what we are lerning in 8th grade Algebra.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

African Day

On Tuesday March 29th team Sirius had an African celebratory day! This fun day was filled with African dance, skype calling with one of the students uncle who had gone to Africa many times, watching a video about disabled citizens of Africa and, playing a game involving food! At the end of the day we performed what we learned in the African dance class in front of the whole team. It was a good break from everyday school life and I believe every one had a good time, I know I did!

Spirt Week

Next week is MSMS's annual spirt week. Each day is dedicated to some way to dress, to show unity and spirt throughout the school. Monday is monochrome or stripes vs. plaid. Tuesday is TA uniform day. Wednesday is superhero or PJ day. Thursday is professional day, or dress a profession day. Friday is wacky hat day. Everyone is encouraged to dress up, but it is not mandatory. Team Sirius is going to be going big to show are gaterness!!!

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Our New Dog Star Owner!

Congrats to Havvah Keller who has received our dog, Star, to take care of for the next month. Someone who gets the Dog Star award works hard in and out of school. They have spirit, introspection, responsibility, Ubuntu, ( I am because we are), imagination, and service. Havvah is an eighth grader, she is hardworking, kind and just a good person to be around. Star now resides in her dog house in Mr. Rosenberg's room and we are all very proud of Havvah. CONGRATULATIONS!

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Africa Unit

         Recently in humanities we have been learning about Africa, and the various customs and traditions there.  This book, "The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind" takes place in Malawi, and it gives a window into the life of everyone in that part of the world.  William, the subject of the book, spends several months trying to get the proper parts together to build a windmill after being forced to drop out of school for the lack of fees.  His family had just barely survived a terrible famine, and his vision was that a windmill could provide power, pump water, and spare them from repeating a terrible event.  He built a smaller model to test his concept, which worked perfectly and inspired to build a full scale version, which would provide electricity for his home.






Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Dog Star Drama Performance

Every month our Dog Star Drama group puts on a performance for the rest of team SIRIUS during our all-team meetings. Dog Star Drama is a group of students from team SIRIUS that put on a short  skit usually about something that we are working on in class like geography. This month they have decided to pick a more silly topic; frogs. Their skit is called "How the frog went to heaven"  it is about a frog helping a man named Kiamana marry a sky maiden. We are really looking forward to seeing it all come together. Here are the students not in the beginning phases of the process.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Student of the month!

During our last all team meeting last week our team dog, Star was awarded to a new person. This months receiver of the dog was Lucian. The dog is awarded to a student on team Sirius who shows all the Sirius qualities, spirit, imagination, responsibility, introspection, ubuntu, and service. 

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

A Global Warming Reality Game

In science we played a game to demonstrate global warming. In the game everyone was part of a country. On each country's turn they had to roll dice to see how much income they would make. Then, they would pick a global crisis card and have to pay with plastic chips that represent money. The global crisis cards included sea level rise, species extinction, war on other countries, and more. This game represents the  reality of how global warming will affect the future generations.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The Dog Star Skit

The Dog Star Skit is happening. We have been practicing and practicing. The skit is about a very greedy miser (Sushil) that wont share his sweet rice dumplings with anyone, not even his family. Sushil gets taught a lesson by a god (Sakka) that pretends to be him.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Marionette Making in Art Class

Art with Rhonda is a favorite class for the majority of MSMS! I mean, who doesn't love the carefree, funny, creative Rhonda who leads this class? Each year in Art class there is a list of projects to complete that year. For 7th graders, making a marionette puppet is on that list. There is a step-by-step process that you must complete to have your puppet be a success! Here are a couple of the basic steps:
1) Sketch a life-size drawing of your puppet, with color!
2) Use clay to create the feet, hands, and head
3) Use foam to create the body of the puppet
4) Attatch the feet, hands, heady, and body together
5) String your puppet together

This is the packet of directions:
These are some puppets made from previous students:

Green Up Vermont Poster in Art Class

Each year in art Class you make a poster for Green Up Vermont. But this is no ordinary art project, You compete with other students across Vermont at a chance for 200 dollars. Most students find this project fun and creative. There are a lot of different things you can do for this project. Rhonda loves it and hopes that MSMS will win a prize!

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Gareth Hinds Graphic Novel Writer

Last Wednesday, Gareth Hinds payed the 7th and 8th graders of Team Sirius and Team Summit a visit. He talked to us about his life as a comic book artist, and his adventures along the way. He showed us the process that goes into making his graphic novels, and how long it takes. It starts with him making a detailed plan of what he is going to do which gives his publisher an idea of when it will be finished. Then, he goes on to design the layout and fit the dialogue to the pages. Mr. Hinds also talked to us about how his experiences in being a video game designer. He believes that everyone should make their own path and that just because he chose his path doesn't mean that everyone should do it that way. He does believe though, that we should chose a job because we enjoy doing it, not because it pays a lot.


Tuesday, January 12, 2016

SST Groups

SST groups are student support time that we do every week from Tuesday to Thursday. They can be a chance to get caught up on missing work or if you're all caught up you might be playing games or blogging. There is always something going on! Below are some pictures of the silent reading SST and a make up SST. 



Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Greek Festival

We had our Greek Festival on the 23rd of December. There was food, games, some skits and a fashion show! We had a Percy Jackson trivia game, our very own Minatour Maze and a few gods even came down to join us. Hades, Poseidon and Zeus himself came all the way from their palaces to judge our fashion show! Aphrodite and Ares came as a couple to compete in class, while Athena and Artimis were the height of Olympus fashion. Everyone's costumes were awesome!!! 

Recycled Cardboard Creations

Why would you throw away cardboard when you can make something cool out of it? For example, in Rhonda's art class, we saved cardboard to make wonderful new creations. Our task was to choose something to make that would be a challenge, and try as best as we could to build it. Some things kids made were a moose head, a cat, a walrus, a house, and much more. When you give yourself a challenge and don't give up, the things you can make are endless!