2014 Robotics fair

Eli Rosenberg, the 7th and 8th grade science teacher for team SIRIUS, has started teaching a robotics club again. With a group of 6 fourth graders and 4 sixth graders, plus two "student mentors", Anja Samson (7th grade) and Daniel Jestes (8th grade) this team was complete. On November 16th at Norwich University they competed in a tournament. This team came out second in the values presentation, talking about their robots, and 9th in a board game competition where students maneuver their robots across a board, challenging other opponents.

1000 Paper Cranes

Some have heard the truly inspirational story of Sadako and her thousand paper cranes. If you haven't we greatly recommend you read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. Sadako was killed October 25, 1955, in Hiroshima, Japan, by a nuclear bomb. Growing up she made paper cranes and tried to make 1000. This was her way of dreaming of world peace, a goal she never reached. When Mr. Rosenberg was a child, everyone feared nuclear war. So, most children were inspired to make paper cranes. Mr. Rosenberg decided that his TA needed something to be passionate about, so he turned to the familiar paper cranes. Mr. Rosenberg says these cranes are beautiful, it's great to start the day by working with your hands, it awakens the brain, and its teaching kids to be competent which makes them confident. He hopes that others will start to work on cranes too and says that his TA students can teach others how to work on these truly creative and inspiring pieces of art.

Net Zero

         John Hollar, the Mayor of Montpelier, came in on the 27th to speak to kids about the Net Zero project. Net Zero is a project that will create a reusable source of energy, and eliminate fossil fuels in Montpelier. There are only a few types of energy that can be reused, such as solar power, wind power, hydro-power, and biofuels. There are three things that energy is mainly used for: heating, transportation, and electricity. The easiest to completely replace with reusable energy would be electricity. John Hollar would like to see Montpelier be the most energy efficient capital in the US.

Mysterious Mr Sirius

Mysterious Mr Sirius, owner of the unique new design company, science class, has called for two  products from each team of diligent architects. Each team of students is to collaborate in the making of  an Electromagnetic Fishing Pole and a Stylish and Effective Game Piece for Mr Sirius's recently created magnetism game. Every student will need a good understanding of magnetism, circuits, and design to make a satisfying product for Mysterious Mr Sirius, and a few short but thorough reports on the things we learned in the process. Luckily, we've taken  notes in our Science journals to help us complete the tasks! Good luck to all builders!

Star, Our New Team Mascot

Team SIRIUS has a new mascot. Star is a black and white dog. Each month she is given to a different student who shows spirit and imagination towards the team. Star will then live in the TA of the chosen student.This month the chosen student for team SIRIUS was Grace. This month Star will live in Mrs. Scott's room, because Grace is in her TA.  Next month she will pass Star to the next student of the month in Team SIRIUS, and will probably help in deciding who the next honored student will be.

Political Parties

   Over the last several weeks in Social Studies we have been learning about Political parties. We so far learned that the first political party was the Federalist Party, closely followed by the Anti-Federalists. We've also learned about the qualities and beliefs of  Republicans and Democrats. We will continue learning about their qualities, opinions, beliefs etc. this week in class.

Sugar Consumption

The 7th grade math classes have been working on a sugar consumption unit. We have been learning about what too much sugar can do to you. Throughout the unit we learned how to read labels, find out all the different forms of sugar, and how to spot them. At the end of the unit Mr. Scott gave us the weekend to make an info-graphic about everything we learned. You got to chose any type of beverage or food to make a poster on. Through the unit Ms. Zurowski and Ms. Murphy came to speak about sugar consumption. This unit was a lot of fun.

Energy Card Game

In science class, the 7th and 8th graders are playing a card game to think more about how energy gets to their home. In this game we need to heat our water, have lights and electricity, get to where we need to go (transportation), heating our home, and cooking. The point of the game is to put cards in a certain order from the "source" to one of the cards actions we need in our home. It was a little confusing at first, but in the end, we learned a lot, and it is a lot of fun.

Dog Star Drama

              The Dog Star Drama club had their first play on Monday, November 10. Their first play was about the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. They read the poem but then they took the time to re-write the entire poem, still keeping all the important information, but adding some humor. They acted out the whole play using very few props, and the background was only a drawing on the white board. Although they keep things simple, it worked. Dog Star Drama did a very good job on the play they put on.

Math Class Pumpkin Carving

 At the end of October, for a fun activity, the 7th grade math class began sketching out spooky jack-o-lantern pictures. We then found the coordinate points of our drawings on four quadrant graphs and wrote the coordinates down. We glued our pictures, colored, and the coordinate points onto large pieces of construction paper of various colors. On Tuesday, October 28th, we brougham  in pumpkins and carved out our drawings on to the pumpkins. We all took them home on the following Friday and they lit up on steps at night.