ENCORE TEAM

QUARTER 2 UPDATE - 2024-2025

Agriscience Science Technology Education

Mrs. Brutting

Mrs. Zielinski and Mr. DiMarco

 Students have been working in agriculture and studying the impacts agriculture has on society locally and nationally. In sixth grade, students have been working analyzing the impact of agriculture on local economies. Seventh graders have been studying small animal science and looking at genetics and how artificial selection of traits leads to differentiated dog breeds. Eighth graders have looked at small and large animal anatomy and care and have completed their ag career explorer! The agriculture supplemental students have been working with tree measurements and bird box creation in their natural resources lessons. Our FFA chapter is off to a great start with its first meeting completed last month! After a huge interest from students in all three grades, the buzz for the chapter is well underway! The officer team includes students from seventh and eighth grade, and the team is preparing for the Wamogo FFA’s holiday sale at Lakeview! We can’t wait to see how we can continue Learning to Do!

Art

Mr. Shemms

Mr. Shemms has taught our artists how to make some impressive pieces of art! The seventh graders have finished up their agamographs and are starting their 3-D shoe creation project stepping through prototyping and development. The students certainly will be stepping into some impressive projects as they round out their semester in January! Sixth graders have developed their portfolios and are working on finishing their zentangle portraits. Our eighth graders have started their Japanese notans, looking at negative space after finishing their upcycled magazine bowls. The work in creating sculptures from everyday materials has been a hit! I cannot wait to see more of what these young artists create as we go through not only the end of the semester but the rest of the school year!

Business and Personal Finance

Ms. Carroccio

Our Bobcats are becoming savings savvy! With sixth grade students examining what money really means and how to purchase groceries on a budget. They were given $150 to buy and create a menu for Thanksgiving dinner! The students are learning how to be responsible with their finances and be aware of monetary value. Seventh grade digital applications students have taken their financial consideration to the computer realm by learning how to use Google Sheets (Excel) and create commercials directly marketing their business. Money matters in eighth grade had students examining credit cards, savings, and investing with how the financial arenas differ and how to best improve your finances. Entrepreneurs learned that there is often a civic and community responsibility involved with being a successful business person. These  8th graders helped  beautify  the school with creative bulletin boards. They also  showed gratitude to the Board of Education by presenting a custom card and baked goods (made by the Baking Club), thus fostering a spirit of appreciation and collaboration. Way to go, Bobcats!

Computer Science

Mrs. Tobin

Happy CS ED Week! CS Ed Week is a national initiative to raise awareness of the importance of CS education in schools. PHMS Computer Science celebrated by having a curated Hour of Code choice board assembled from various sources and Mrs. Tobin brought in three guest speakers to speak to the 7th and 8th graders, 6th graders, and the robotics club.  We learned about pixel art, CS journeys, and how the user interface in the Oculus is generated.

Students in Mrs. Tobin’ s classes have been working on app development in her AI and Creative CS class. They have finished their deep dive into how neural networks are made and are exploring the creative side of it now! Sixth graders in Lego Robotics and CS Fundamentals are working on their cities after their introductory coding unit in both Scratch and OctoStudio - I cannot wait to see how they develop an economically and ecologically responsible city! Eighth graders in CS Fundamentals in Python have finished up their lists unit (leaving only 2D lists and graphics!) and will explore cybersecurity before break. With each class getting time to work with robotics, cybersecurity, digital citizenship, creative CS, and coding, it has been an exciting first few months of this CS program!

Music

Mrs. Bills and Mr. Kidd

Our choral and instrumental music ensembles are gearing up for our winter concert on Thursday, December 12th.  Students have been learning about Music of the Decades in grade 6 as they examine the 1950s and 1960s looking at trends, fashion, and the trends in pop music of the time. GarageBand Mastery has students in grades 7 and 8 working on album planning, while Music of the Movies goes through different genres highlighting what themes are found in the films to set tone and expand on themes nuanced in the text of the film. Music of the world has been taking a continent-by-continent approach to study cultural and regional music and have traveled to Europe. Your Bobcat is well accompanied as they move through this quarter!

Personal Wellness and Physical Education

Mrs. Wescott and Mr. Niek

Students in PE have been working on basketball after finishing their volleyball unit and standardized physical fitness assessments. With the PACER test behind them, students enjoy learning about and playing cooperative sports. They start each class with warm-up stations that engage the major muscle groups and get ready for what the day brings! Be sure to ask your Bobcat how they are doing in PE!

In wellness, sixth graders had a CPR lesson and learned how to save a life! They got experience with an AED and then created a survival bag to help in emergency situations. Seventh grade students have been looking at chromosomes and DNA and have completed work on what chromosomes and genes different organisms have and how that changes expression and development. Our eighth grade Bobcats have been studying the impacts of substances on not only cognition but also the entire physical body and have examined how this impacts health.

Spanish

Sra. Fecteau and Sra. Santiago

Students in our quarter rotation of sixth grade Spanish have continued with their geography lessons and have learned to find not only 21 Spanish-speaking countries on the world map, but also the capitals of each country.  They have just finished their study of the culture and geography of Guatemala.  Next country up…Chile!  In addition, in class every day the students talk about how they are feeling, the date, the weather, and the season in Spanish.

In seventh grade Spanish, students have been using their new language skills to describe themselves and others, and to ask and give their ages, as well as other people’s ages.  They are learning to make their Spanish nouns agree in gender and number with the adjectives, which is a new concept to many students.  They have been speaking a lot of Spanish in class with their partners to talk about things they like and don’t like, and why.  Next up:  we dive into culture with a WebQuest all about Colombia!

Eighth grade students have been using the verbs gustar and querer along with adverbs of frequency to talk about what they like to do, what they want to do and how frequently they do those things. They are demonstrating their knowledge of this material by making calendars and writing sentences depicting how often they do things. I cannot wait to see how our Bobcats continue learning as we go through the year!

Library Media Center

Mrs. Rosa

The Plumb Hill Middle School library media center is buzzing! With almost 1100 books circulated from the library, continued OWL Makerspace Fridays, the year is flying by! Students can enter the library and find the most current selections of middle grade books and have been engaged in borrowing, reading, and returning books. With clubs in full swing for quarter two, the library is home to our sewing club and encourages students to learn this skill and develop fine motor and practical skills. Be sure to read along with us as we go through this year!