April 6, 2015

8th Grade Challenge Work

Eighth graders going to Washington DC should have secured an interview related to their topic by this point.  These are some of the most powerful moments of the field trip, when students meet with an expert in field, ask informed questions, and return to Vermont with new information to share.  Eighth Grade Challenge projects also lead us to many of the less-known spots around the city, such as art schools and hospitals.  We will be checking the DC schedule to make that 8th graders have included these interview times.  If your son or daughter is having trouble arranging the interview, please contact his or her core teacher.  Thank you!

Eighth graders not attending the field trip will also be making new additions to their projects and should be completing or already completed their community connections.  All projects will culminate with a presentation to a community panel in June.

Mystery Hangout

5th and 6th grade students in Mr. Hunt's Social Studies class participated in a mystery hangout last week. This is an activity where students use Google hangout with another class in the US and play a questioning game (similar to 20 questions) to try and guess the other class's location. Our class determined that the mystery class was from McCelvy Middle School in Bedford, NH. The students did an amazing job using their geography skills and working together to locate the other school.

Minute to Win-It!

WCS students had a "Cell-abration" for filling the Brain with Smartcells on Thursday.  The theme was "Minute to Win-It."  They competed against fellow Swifties in a series of one minute challenges.  Champions went on to represent the school in a Championship series Friday.  Congratulations to following school-wide champs from Swift House!!

• 5-8 Noodling Around: Shelby Hallock
• 5-8 M & M Transfer:  Eric Couture
• 5-8 Junk in the Trunk:  Nick Fife

Knocking over cans with rubber bands

Moving rigatoni with spaghetti

Moving a cookie from eye to mouth, without hands

Forces and Motion

All Swift House students have been studying forces and motion, looking for evidence of Newton's Laws in the world around them, collecting data relating to friction and inertia, and working hard to explain these concepts in their own words.

While collecting evidence, we frequently find it helpful to replay the experiment in slow motion.  Fortunately many students have this technology in their back pockets and created the following videos for us:

Video 1: Baker removes an embroidery hoop with three blocks balanced on top.  The blocks remain at rest without the hoop until an unbalanced force (gravity) acts upon them.

Video 2: Bryce drops a ball on the "X" will running.  Notice he has to release the ball early for it to land on the "X" since an object in motion remains in motion, until acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Video 3: Elliott removes a penny from the bottom of stack without disrupting any other pennies, once again demonstrating Newton's First Law: An object at rest...

A special thanks to Nick for taking these videos and sending them my way!