NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER A monthly newsletter brought to you by Hunt Middle School VOL. 1, ISSUE 1

NOVEMBER 2014

Top stories in this newsletter

148198097

Annual Community Dinner Page 2

8th Grade Essay Contest Page 2

Music News Page 4

Teams News Starting on Page 5

NEWS FROM OUR PRINCIPAL Dear HMS Families, Gree ngs, I hope all is well with you and your family. Things are in full swing here at The Lyman C. Hunt Middle School as term one is coming to a close. The end of the first term is always a great me to evaluate how things are going with our students’ academic programs and what, if any, addi onal supports or a en on some students may need. While many of our students are achieving at a high level academically, others may not be doing so well. If this is the case, the good news is that it is s ll early enough in the school year to get things back on the right track. Please feel free to reach out to your child’s teachers if this is necessary. As a faculty we at HMS are commi ed to helping each student get the most out of their me with us. Addi onally our Homework Club is a great op on that meets at school each day before and a er school (with the excep on of a er school on Friday. Please encourage your HMS student to take advantage of this free resource. I’d like to remind you that our school day begins at 7:55 A.M. Students who arrive at school a er that me are marked tardy. Please help us to ins ll the good habit of meliness in our students by ensuring that they arrive at school in me for the beginning of the school day. The Hunt Middle School community sends out a big thank you to HMS Parent and PTO member Mr. Marty Walsh and the folks from Green Mountain Coffee. Mr. Walsh took advantage of a community service program sponsored by Green Mountain Coffee to spend a weekend pain ng all of the student lockers in our school. Our lockers had not been painted since they were installed around 1960 and desperately needed a paint job. Marty and a group of his colleagues took care of this and now all of our Hunt lockers look spectacular! Thank you Marty and Green Mountain Coffee, and thank you to the HMS PTO who bought the paint, we are all thrilled with our freshly painted lockers! As you may have heard, we had a significant leak in our gymnasium on a recent rainy Saturday. Thankfully, the quick ac on of BSD employee Carl LaBonte saved us from major problems as he discovered the leak as it was happening during one of his building checks. Carl knew that we had roof work in progress, so he decided to do an extensive building check during the rain storm and he discovered the leak before the water caused extensive damage to the floor. While the floor work has caused us to postpone several events, we are very happy that we will have the gym back in service on Monday, November 3. Thank you very much Mr. Carl LaBonte, you are a true Hunt Hero! One other thing I’d like to inform you of is that we have openings for parents to serve on our HMS Parent Teacher Organiza on. The PTO meets one Thursday per month for one hour and our next mee ng will be held on Thursday, November 20 at 6:30 P.M. in the Hunt Middle School Library. Par cipa on in PTO is a great way for you to have input on programma c offerings and school ini a ves here at HMS as well as a great way to learn about the posi ve things happening at school on an ongoing basis. I look forward to seeing you around school in the near future. Sincerely, Leonard H. Phelan, Principal

LITERACY CORNER The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel by Deborah Hopkinson Genre: Historical Fiction

In August, 1854, Eel, an orphan living in London, must avoid being captured by mean Fisheye Bill Tyler, must earn at least four shillings a week to pay the keeper of his secret, and must help Dr. John Snow solve the mystery of why so many people on or near Broad Street are dying from cholera.

Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luhMnLz1d8k

ANNUAL HUNT COMMUNITY HARVEST DINNER

The Lyman C. Hunt Middle School will be hosting our annual Hunt Middle School Community Harvest Dinner on Thursday, November 13, 2014 from 5:30 until 7:00 P.M. This popular event featuring great, fresh local food, as well as produce from our very own school garden, The Healthy City Youth Farm, is an annual favorite. Burlington community members are cordially invited to join us for a free celebration of local food, community, great student projects and music. Volunteers are needed and very much appreciated. Please contact the Lyman C. Hunt Middle School at (802) 8648469 with questions regarding the Hunt Middle School Community Harvest Dinner.

SHREK THE MUSICAL!!! SPECIAL CHILDRENS SATURDAY MATINEE on Saturday, November 22nd

Ogres! The 3 Bears! Dancing Rats! The Dragon! Lord Farquaard! Princess Fiona! All will come alive right here in Burlington on November 20, 21 & 22nd. With a cast of over 60 BHS students singing and dancing on stage, the whole family will enjoy the 26th annual BHS Musical. There is a special Children’s Matinee on Saturday, November 22nd at 1:00 pm and audience members can meet the cast in costume following the performance! Tickets for general seating are on sale prior to the show. Prices are $8.00 for students and $12.00 for adults. Please contact Lynn Bessette at [email protected] or Jessica Lane at [email protected] or any cast member to purchase tickets prior to November 19th. Tickets can also be purchased at the door prior to each performance. Shrek the Musical, BHS Auditorium. Thursday Nov. 20th, Opening Night curtain at 7:00 p.m. Friday Nov. 21st, curtain at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, Nov 22nd, SPECIAL CHILDREN’S MATINEE, curtain at 1:00 p.m. Saturday, Nov 22nd, FINAL PERFORMANCE, curtain at 7:00 p.m.

V.K.A.T What Is VKAT? VKAT stands for Vermont Kids Against Tobacco, and is a leadership group open to all Hunt students. VKAT is a state-wide program funded by the Vermont Department of Health. Not only does VKAT work to reduce youth smoking rates and exposure to secondhand smoke, the Hunt VKAT group works on activities to improve school climate and provide drug/alcohol information. VKAT meetings are every Wednesday after school at 2:15. All Hunt students are welcome to join VKAT throughout the year. Examples of VKAT activities are: Red Ribbon Week, Spirit Week, International Week, Student/Teacher Basketball game and Wellness week.. Questions? Please contact Peggy Weaver, Student Assistance Counselor at [email protected] or 865-5378.

LINCOLN ESSAY CONTEST FOR EIGHTH GRADERS

First Place: $1,000 Second Place: $750 Third Place: $500 Plus up to ten Honorable Mentions: $200

For the past eight years, Hildene has sponsored the Lincoln Essay Competition informed by Hildene’s mission: Values into Action. The competition is open to all eighth graders in the state of Vermont, whether they enter as part of a class assignment or on their own. We hope this year’s topic will inspire great discussions and thoughtful responses. Essays will be judged on the student’s understanding of the subject, as well as her or his ability to convey that understanding through good writing. Essay Topic: Choose an important, often divisive, issue about which you have a strong opinion. Put yourself in the shoes of someone on the other side of the issue. Identify at least three reasons this individual would give to support her/his position. Describe how this exercise has – or has not – affected how you will think about and discuss divisive issues. Additional information and application form: http://www.hildene.org/Letterhead%20Whole.pdf

7TH AND 8TH GRADE SPANISH

Level 1: These students are working with essential expressions and essential questions such as: Cómo te llamas? Cómo estás? De dónde eres?, greetings (buenos días, buenas tardes), and expressions of courtesy that they will use throughout the school year.

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They are learning numbers and they are able to do some math in Spanish (diez por diez son cien).

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They are also beginning to communicate in Spanish, and they can write short paragraphs.

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They can describe people, their pets, and things they own. They can express their likes and dislikes and their hobbies. They often write dialogues and read them aloud to the class. At the moment they are writing autobiographies. Conjugating verbs is an important part of of our classes. So far they have worked with the following verbs: Ser (to be), Estar (to be), Tener (to have), and Gustar (to like.)

The video, "Famous Hispanic People" introduced these students to the achievements and contributions to the world of this part of the population. Level 2: These students have reviewed useful Spanish expressions such as: Qué hay de nuevo? and No hay de que. They have worked with nouns, articles, numbers, the verb Ser (to be), telling time, the classroom and school life, subjects, the present tense of -AR verbs (preparar, explicar, terminar) and forming questions. The students get a chance to hear other people speaking Spanish by watching the Video Program of our textbook "Descubre." The Panorama Cultural Program allows them to see a video clip of the country featured in the lesson.

7th and 8th Grade French Classes

Bonjour! In 7th grade French classes, students have just completed their first conversation with a partner. All students are now able to express personal information in French, including where they live, where they are from, their phone number, date of birth, etc. They are able to identify the gender of nouns based on definite and indefinite articles, and use French phonology to begin reading in French. We are beginning to learn weather expressions and how to tell time in French according to the 24-hour clock. 7th grade French students have their first official vocabulary list, classroom object. Handouts in French class are color-coordinated: pink for vocabulary, blue for grammar and green for verbs. You can help your child study by asking the French word for objects commonly found in a classroom (and, for that matter, at home) such as a computer, a desk, a pencil, pen, paper or book. All students have developed good accents, but while some students seem able to use their accents effortlessly, others have to be reminded to “turn on” their French accents when speaking in French. This is important to remember if you are helping your child practice French; establishing a good accent now is essential to becoming a fluent. In 8th grade French classes we begin each class with a “Devinette du Jour” (Riddle of the day.) For the first quarter, the Devinettes have been saying such as “Birds of a feather flock together.” or “A man is known by the company he keeps.” These are cultural and linguistic artifacts which often reveal cultural values as well as idiomatic expressions. Students collaborate to come up with the literal translation first and then the fluent translation, by asking themselves “How would we say that in English?” This reinforces the important concept that in order to increase their speaking proficiency, they need to ask themselves, “How could I say this in French?” rather than trying to translate directly from English. For the second and third quarters, the Devinette du Jour will be a clue about a famous francophone (French-speaking) person. Monday through Thursday, students will guess the meaning of the clues, each about the same person. On Friday, students will attempt to guess, by secret ballot, the identity of the famous francophone. On Monday, the identity will be revealed and we will have a new clue about a new person. At the end of the third quarter, students will assume the identity of the person of their choice for our Famous Francophone Unit.

Notes From The Music Department 6th Grade General Music The 1st rotation of the 6th graders has been making progress learning to read music and play guitar. We will be starting the 2nd rotation of 6th graders at the printing of this missal. One of the main focuses of this general music course is composition. The students are taught to create their own melodies, enter the melody into notation with the Sibelius computer program and then play them on the guitar. 7/8th Grade Music The focuses of the 7/8th grade classes are to continue to develop music reading skills, while exploring music history. The students are currently performing the following chords chords: C, F, G7, D7 and G. We have also learned several strum patterns. In music history, the students have finished the chapter on music of the Renaissance Era. We will proceed with the music of the Baroque. Chorus The choruses have been singing well. We have begun practicing in unison to develop a good choral sound. From unison, we have broadened into two and three vocal parts using partner songs. We will be performing our “History” concert as our next themed concert. Band Most beginners are off to a great start! Our current individual playing quiz is the three note piece “Cuckoo.” After that is played, we’ll be expanding to five-note pieces. Parents should hopefully be starting to recognize traditional melodies out of our Tradition of Excellence book as they are being practiced at home, and the number of pieces (and new notes!) should be growing daily. Expectations are the same for all bands: regular practicing at home, with signed practice charts due every Friday. As always, feel free to call Mr. Olzenak if you have any questions about the Hunt Band Program. Orchestra Positive spirit and effort among orchestra students has made for a productive and fun first quarter! It is an exciting time of year, as 7th and 8th graders are in full swing preparing their first concert program, and 6th graders eagerly tackle each new concept and piece. Our winter concert is not far off. Stay tuned (we try to every day!). Seventh and eighth graders are eligible to try out for the District III Music Festival. Tryout information is here: https://sites.google.com/a/bsdvt.org/mr-hakim-s-orchestra-classes/ home/7th-8th-grade-orchestra Guitar Ensemble The guitarists have had a great start to the year! We are preparing for two upcoming performances: the Winter Choral Concert (December 3) and the BHS Guitar and Piano Night (December 15). The program for those concerts includes La Bergamasca, We Will Rock You, and Ukranian Bell Carol. Along with these selections, students are working on several chords and the chromatic scale. District III Festival Hunt will again be sending chorus, band, and orchestra players to this year’s District Music Festival. Chorus and orchestra players will be auditioning for their directors. Band students will be auditioning on Saturday, November 1, from 9am-12 noon, at AD Lawton School in Essex Junction. Results to be posted soon! Concert Dates (All concerts begin at 7:00 P.M in the Hunt Auditorium)

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Winter Choral Concert - December 3, 2014

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Winter Orchestra Concert – December 10, 2014

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Winter Band Concert - December 17, 2014

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District Music Festival – January 30 and 31, 2015 Snow Dates--February 13-14, 2015

TEAM OASIS LANGUAGE ARTS By the time this is published, Mr. Sean Hirten will have begun taking over the duties of a fulltime teacher as he heads into the solo phase of his student teaching experience. This means I will be in the classroom as a co-teacher at first and then, for the three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, out of the classroom altogether. I will still be available to students, but Mr. Hirten will be their regular classroom teacher during this time. We will continue to build vocabularies and to work on independent reading goals, while at the same time striving to be concise and intentional in our writing. I leave space below for Mr. Hirten to elaborate… SOCIAL STUDIES Oasis Historians have finished their unit on Native Americans with a final project on plants to include a placemat that we will feature at the Hunt Harvest Dinner on November 13th. This is a free community gathering for all Hunt families and we are proud to showcase our work at this event! Our next unit will be a school wide endeavor through the study of colonialism. All Hunt social studies teachers have been working on this curriculum for several weeks, and we look forward to bringing our collaborative work to each student. MATH Seventh grade math students have begun a unit on negative numbers. For this unit we will use the EngageNY curriculum. It has been aligned with the common core and goes more in depth with rational numbers than our current textbooks do. Students will be learning how to do all operations with negative numbers, including decimals and fractions. Eighth grade math will start an Algebra unit. We will be using algebra blocks to combine like terms, simplify expressions and use the distributive property. Algebra students will be learning about the graphs of linear equations. This includes: slope, y-intercept and the different methods for making a linear graph. All math classes have logged into Khan Academy and Manga High using their chromebooks. They can also log into their account at home. It is a great place to go to practice math skills! SCIENCE In Oasis Science: Our team did a wonderful job on their recent science projects! They worked hard as they analyzed the various factors that contribute to the overall water quality at Ethan Allen Homestead. I was also very impressed with the responses I got when asking each of my science classes what they felt were the things that went well and the areas of improvement for the project from start to finish. Students were very thoughtful about aspects of the field trip, their work on the posters and the sharing of their work in our poster walk. They gave some great suggestions for how we might change some things in the future and also shared what they enjoyed about the project. Currently we are finishing up our unit on Ecosystems and Biodiversity.

NOVA TEAM It’s hard to believe that first quarter is almost over and that we are actually approaching Thanksgiving break! Despite all of the colds going around, Nova students and teachers continue to work energetically and productively. Here’s what we’ve been doing. *Science: Our study of Ecology continues. We are juggling bookwork, vocabulary building, labs, outside excursions, research, and problem-solving in order to fully understand this familiar but complex topic. Our trip to North Beach was tons of fun and also a great learning experience. Our Ethan Allen Park trip had to be postponed due to weather, but as we speak, we are crossing our fingers that by the time you read this, our rain date will have worked out. Many thanks to all of the generous parents who helped make the trips possible. Besides outside work at school and abroad on the deciduous forest, students have begun looking closely at various other biomes. All Novas during the month of November will continue examining biomes not found in Vermont. They will share some of their learnings through projects small and large as the unit winds to a close at the end of December. *Social Studies: Each class continues to explore Social Studies concepts in general as we look at our first region of study this year: Canada. Besides background lessons and map work, students are just about to begin a “travel” activity where they pretend to visit each Canadian region. Besides learning a great deal of content, Novas will develop important life skills, such as using road maps and online directions sites through this engaging activity. Additionally, they will develop their ability to collaborate on Google presentations and will really learn their way around this powerful online tool. *Language Arts: All classes are having great discussions related to the in-class book we're reading, The Revealers, by Doug Wilhelm. This story, about bullying in a fictional middle school, is a catalyst for thought and conversation about many topics of importance to our kids, such as social groups, respect for diversity, stereotyping, the role of the bystander, differences between boys and girls, and other intriguing themes. Students also play roles, reading aloud from the book to make the story come to life, and have been doing solid writing related to the story. We are all taking our time with this book and will continue reading it this month. Besides The Revealers, we have enjoyed some meaningful integrated writing opportunities this month. As soon as the gym floor is finished, you will see our flowcharts showing the Hunt local food to table process as well as the more typical food process, at the annual Harvest dinner. Along with these flowcharts, many students will display paragraphs arguing some aspect of one process or the other. Similar writing opportunities will happen in relation to Ecology rprojects and our Canada travels. *Math: We have been working hard on a very challenging Common Core ratio unit, and have been pleased with the way Nova students are progressing on this topic. Soon, we will begin some work on factors, multiples, and fraction operations, particularly emphasizing fraction division. Simultaneously, we have been doing some focused work during a twice a week intervention mod. During this mod, kids work in smaller groups based on specific math needs. We expect to continue these groups throughout the year. *Team News: We are pleased and excited to announce that our tech committee is up and running, with Ms Chayer meeting with these motivated students every Tuesday at lunchtime. We teachers have been impressed and excited by the commitment and expertise of this group of students. Already, they have figured out how to use a new feature called Google Keep, and have taught this feature to their respective classes. We know that this group of students will be a terrific resource all year long. They are Chuk, Seth R, Jackson, Jack Tul, Eamon, Sylvan, Eric, Nation, Davion, Rejos, MacKenzie, Kim, and Justin. Also, we are proud to announce November’s students of the month, Mariposa and Daniel. It was great seeing many of you recently at parent conferences! Please don’t wait for an official conference day to set up a time to see us. We want to keep in touch!

TEAM PHOENIX Students attended the 2014 Tech Jam. A huge thank you to the Hunt PTO for helping with the cost of that trip. We couldn't have gone without their generosity! Please think about getting involved with the Hunt PTO...they make amazing things possible for our students. Please check out the Phoenix blog for pictures of team projects and activities: http:// phoenixhms.blogspot.com/ Thank you to all the parents who chaperone our trips and dances....we have a dance coming up in November and would love to see our Phoenix parents there! Computer Science Education Week is coming up. If you are a Phoenix parent with coding skills and would like to teach coding as a guest speaker, please contact me:[email protected] Mathematics All Phoenix students created polyhedra projects for the Harvest Dinner. Science Phoenix scientists just finished their macroinvertebrate projects. They shared their findings with other students, teachers and scientists from Saint Michael's College. Students are currently learning about ecosystems and how biodiversity affects the health of an ecosystem. Students are learning how biodiversity affects an ecosystems recovery from environmental and human changes. Finally, they are reading an article on Hurricane Irene and the effect it had on an invasive species in Vermont. Language Arts In Language Arts in November, students will work on analyzing several short stories. Included in this list are stories by amazing authors Avi, Sandra Cisneros, Martha Brooks, Gary Soto and Walter Dean Myers. Students will learn to write structured, academic paragraphs that can effectively answer complicated questions about these short stories.We will also learn or review the elements of literature. Social Studies  Students have learned about the first English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.

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Students are writing a five paragraph essay comparing and contrasting the European settlers at Jamestown with the Powhatan Native Americans. Students will learn about the Pilgrims’ settlement, at Plymouth, in the new Massachusetts Bay Colony. Students will learn about the importance of religious freedom as it relates to the immigration of Puritans to Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Salem Witchcraft trials Students will start learning the names and capitals of the thirteen English Colonies in North America, and what these colonies were like politically, economically, socially and their use of indentured servants and African slaves.

TEAM SYNERGY Hello from the Synergy Team! We’re eager to share some highlights of the month: LANGUAGE ARTS: Both Synergy Team classes are reading their first whole-class book of the year, The Revealers, by Doug Wilhelm. The story centers around three middle school students who are each victims of bullying. Once they become friends, they find an innovative way to address the pervasive bullying that is happening at their school. In addition to bullying, this book addresses themes of friendship, teamwork, belonging and identity. Sixth graders are using online reading response journals they created using Google sites. SOCIAL STUDIES: Our sixth grade social studies curriculum involves the study of Latin American culture. Since the most important holiday in Mexico, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), occurs October 31st and November 1st and 2nd, our Synergy Team student teacher, Miss Ari Adelstein, is leading a series of lessons and activities about the history, meaning, and practices of this holiday. Students will be researching, writing poetry, and creating small projects over the course of several days. MATH: Synergy Team mathematicians continue to work with multiple models for solving ratio and rate problems. Be sure to ask your student about tape diagrams, double number lines, ratio charts, and graphing ordered pairs on a coordinate plane. Embedded in the math work they do every day are many important math skills: multiplication and division, creating equivalent ratios, identifying and applying a “rule” or formula that describes a given ratio relationship, working with various units of measure, and more. SCIENCE: Students recently took part in an all-team workshop focusing on watersheds and point- and non-point pollution. Miss Adelstein, Mrs. Hevey, and Mrs. Orlando each led a different workshop and students rotated through each one over the course of three days. We borrowed a very cool 3-D watershed model from the ECHO center called an Enviroscape, which featured a construction site, neighborhood, farm, factory, and, of course, rivers flowing into a common body of water. Using food products like vegetable oil, cocoa powder, oregano leaves, chocolate sprinkles, etc as fake “pollutants,” students observed how pollutants such as phosphorous or factory waste enter a watershed. To launch our year-long salmon and stewardship unit, we are hoping to schedule our first field trip to the Grand Isle Fish Hatchery in November - stay tuned!

Student Council Voting

Tech Ed Project

Orchestra Practice

Girls Soccer

Boys Soccer

Cross County

Field Hockey