October 25, 2018 Intermediate Hub Newsletter 

 Fire Safety: Thank you to the Barnard Volunteer Fire Department for coming on October 17th to teach the children about fire 

safety! Ask your child what they learned from the Firemen! 

 

       “Thank you for the backpacks and Smarties. We had a wonderful time learning about fire safety and the fire trucks.”  

Dates to Remember: ● October 31st - End of Marking Period ● November 12th - Veterans Day - NO SCHOOL 

 Check the BA Website HERE for additional Dates to Remember 

 

Quechee Gorge Field Trip: On October 12th PK Fours- through 6th grade were lucky enough to be able to spend the day at the Quechee Gorge State Park. Park Rangers guided the groups on a hike to the bottom of the Gorge. Along the way they taught us about the geology of the Gorge and how the Gorge came to be the way it is today.    The children had some wonderful things to say about our field trip:  “I never knew there was an invasive plant called Japanese Knotweed.”  “I had never seen the dam at the end.”  “I never knew that water made the gorge. The glacier eroded the rocks. The glacier was as tall as from the state park to Silver Lake and back!” 

 

“New plants and species were brought and left behind by the glacier. Quartz was carried in the glacier and left behind. Those rocks are called glacial erratics.”  “You can find quartz, schist, granite, Red Pine, and White Pine at the Quechee Gorge. If there are three needles it is a Red Pine tree, R-E-D. If it has five needles it is a White Pine tree, W-H-I-T-E. The Red Pine trees also have red splotches on their bark.”  

“The gorge grows wider due to erosion. It grows a dime wider each year. At the bottom of the gorge is the top of a mountain that eroded. Over years and years and years chunks of the mountain top eroded off and fell into the bottom of the gorge. This rock combined with pebbles and dirt over a long time and turned into schist. Schist is a metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rocks are made out of a lot of different rocks that have been compressed by heat and pressure.”   6th Grade at the National Park: “In microscopy, I saw a micro-invertebrate that vomited up another micro-invertebrate. A micro-invertebrate is a tiny microscopic creature that you cannot see with your own eye. It is a single cell organism.”  “In photography, we walked up to these little water holes that were connected by this river. There we saw frogs. We were trying to catch them to take pictures of them. At the stream station we caught primary consumers. My partner and I caught an aquatic earthworm, water bugs, a salamander, and dragonfly nymphs.”  “In microscopy, I saw a producer and consumer. The consumer consumed the producer. The consumer was a bosmina. The producer was a closterium. A producer is a plant that has photosynthesis. A consumer eats producers.”  “In microscopy, I saw a consumer called a paramecium eat another consumer that was worm like. When I looked at a butterfly wing, I saw multiple scales covering the wing. I also saw where some of the scales had disconnected from the wing.”  “In the forest ecosystems, we lifted up boards to look for salamanders. We found Red-Backed Salamanders. If you were lucky you would find a salamander and a spider. It was a game. There were 10 stations with north board and a south board at each station. We only found salamanders under the south boards.”  The class is writing a Claim, Evidence and Reasoning response to their observations of different ecosystems. They are also creating food webs to demonstrate the interdependency of the parts of the ecosystems as energy is transferred from one area to another area. The focus of the week is to observe how all parts of many ecosystems are connected at some level, and how changes in one ecosystem can affect organisms in a different ecosystem.    The fifth grade is doing a similar project, but their’s is on the wetland area of Silver Lake, where we spent an afternoon recording everything we saw. They will create a food web on the organisms they found there. They are also writing a Claim, Evidence Reasoning response to their findings in their Watershed unit.     

5th and 6th grades at The Hood Museum: The fifth and sixth grades had their first lesson at the Hood Museum on Friday October 5. The class was led on a tour around Dartmouth campus to observe and interpret three different sculptures. They were led by their inspirational teacher, Ms. Jaime Rosenthal, in a discussion about abstract art, the materials used, what colors came through, what the possible meaning or purpose could be, and many more thought provoking questions. Upon returning to the studio, the students were given a selection of materials from which to create their own abstract sculptures. Below, is a picture of some of their sculptures.             3rd and 4th Grade Geography and Science: The 3rd and 4th graders have been enjoying learning about the world and how we can read maps to learn more. They’ve had lessons on the hemisphere’s, lots of lessons and activities on landforms, and lessons and activities on latitude and longitude. They created landform picture books which are displayed in our hall. The last activity will be to create an imaginary country with landforms, various cities, and an ocean coastline.    Earlier in the quarter, the class had a wonderful unit on pollinators and inherited traits. We had many activities through a great program called, Mystery Science. We also spend some focused time at our own pollinator path observing the transfer of pollen by many bees and butterflies in the “field”. We also learned how farmers figured out how to grow giant pumpkins, which we witnessed first hand at Tunbridge Fair!  Art Happenings with Ms. Cathey: BA students in grades 1 - 5 are excited to be participating in GLASSTASTIC, sponsored by the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center. A celebration of imagination and ingenuity, GLASSTASTIC invites children to dream up and draw fabulous imaginary creatures, a selection of which will be turned into glass sculptures by artists from throughout New England. With parental permission, I’ll be submitting drawings to the museum in November. Permission slips will all be given out to parents by next week.  This year in Grades 3 - 6, each student has a sketchbook. In order to spend more time exercising their creativity, students spend a few minutes on an open-ended Drawing based on a different prompt every art day. These sketchbooks are becoming inspiration for future works of art. 

 Artwork for Glasstastic  by Paige Stone 

   Musical Happenings with Mrs. Groblicki: Our annual winter musical play will be presented on Tuesday, December 18 at 6:00 with a snow date of Thursday, December 20. We will be accompanied by live music on the fiddle, accordion, recorders, strum sticks and a variety of other instruments. The children are looking forward to the performance as their annual gift to the community and are excited about their individual roles. Each child in the school has a special role in the performance. The theme is the winter solstice.  The story begins in a classroom in Vermont where children are studying the solstice (grades 5 and 6). As part of their studies, they are learning about how ancient people celebrated the return of the sun and the customs that surrounded their celebrations. In the next scene, we see a family as they are getting ready for the solstice and the mother begins reading an ancient Irish tale about an old miserly guy named Teig who refused to share his house or goods as custom prescribed in this darkest time of the year.  A group of children seeking soulcakes (PreK) comes to his door, but he pretends not to hear them, so a group of “wee folk” (Kindergarten )take over his cabin. They each magically go off to a different country and Teig follows them, ending up in the court of the King of England where he learns the errors of his ways.  Grades 1 and 2 depict a Santa Lucia celebration in Sweden and bring the wren in and dance a dance in the King’s court. Grades and 4 encact a scene in Spain and present a mummers play and a morris dance at the king’s palace. There will also be a sword dance by the 5th and 6th grades, the wonderful 

poem, “The Shortest Day” written for Revels by Susan Cooper and traditional songs to bring you cheer at this darkest time of the year.   Also, we have found a date for our S.O.S. program for this year. It will be Friday, February 8. Mark it on your calendars!