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!!!

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!

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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!