December 15, 2012

Polar Express

Our Swift House students made excellent elves last weekend.  Students greeted passengers of the Polar Express as the arrived at the "North Pole,"  calling to them by name and providing elfish hugs!  Swift House retired-teacher Gary Howard made an amazing Santa Claus once again.  The Polar Express raisesd $91,000 for the Vermont Children's Trust Foundation last year.  We look forward to supporting this great cause again next year!  For many more photos visit our photo site using the link to the right.  The password is flyforever.

E-Mail Change

In case you didn't see the notice in the School Bell, WCS student e-mail addresses are changing this weekend from firstnamelastname@cssu.us to firstnamelastname@cssu.org.  We have announced the password to these new accounts at school.

The benefit is that students will have the same e-mail address at both WCS and CVU.  The change will also ease communication between teachers and students.  We have been coaching students in how to "share" their GoogleDocs from account to their other.  Students will still have access to the GoogleDocs on their old accounts through the rest of the year if they have missed any documents.  We are encouraging all students to create their work in GoogleDocs and use their school accounts instead of any personal accounts they may have created.

Rube Goldberg Machines

Swifities are busy assembling their Rube Goldberg machines either at school or home.  Their goal is to create ten steps that ultimately pop a balloon.  We will be posting videos of these machines at the end of the week.   Groups are also required to write a description of their machines using essential physics vocabulary such as force, mass, gravity, inertia, Newton's Laws, acceleration, friction, unbalanced force, balanced force and more.  We look forward to seeing these projects in action.

Independent Projects/8th Grade Challenge

When we return from vacation we will begin our winter Independent Project unit during the social studies/science block.  This unit gets to the core of our Swift House values, providing an opportunity for students to research and present topics of their choosing, related to our fall life studies courses.  We provide students a structured list of due dates, including steps such as writing focus questions, creating an outline and bibliography, taking notes on notecards, planning a visual, etc. Major content areas to connect to include:

• Colonial America
• Revolutionary War
• United States Government
• Elections
• The Constitution
• Natural Resources
• Ecology
• Evolution
• Classification
• Forces and Motion

Sample topics could include comparing the United States government to that of another country or researching how forces allow airplanes to fly.  These types of extensions allow students to explore specific areas of their own interest.  This project will culminate with an Open House on at 6:30 pm on January 31st. 

During this time 8th graders will work on the first installment of their written and visual products for their 8th grade challenge.  We will push 8th graders to include quotes from their mentors and to use parenthetical references.

Fun-Night

Thank you to all students are parents who helped organize the most recent Fun Night.  You successfully raised $1675 and are halfway to the goal of raising $10,000 for Washington DC!