Many thanks to all of the parents and students that donated gift cards to Voyager over the holidays. We have ordered over 20 books to add to our classroom bookshelves and we still have room for some more orders. A great variety of genres and reading levels were purchased and will be available to borrow from Mr. Merrill’s room.
Voyager Flynn Field Trip
On Friday, January 25th, the Voyager students will be going to the Flynn Theater to see Flamenco Vovo. We will be leaving at 10:15 and returning by 12:45. There is no charge for this field trip - Thanks to Williston Wins!
Voyager Dance!!
Voyager Dance is Friday, February 1st, 6:30 - 8:30 at WCS
We need parent volunteers to chaperone and help with concession sales. We also need donations of snacks to sell and drinks. All concession profits go to our house fund, we have to split the entrance feel with other houses. Also needed are gifts for raffle.
If any parents are interested in helping to come early and contribute to decorations, please let me know. Our theme is 'Voyager Loves Pets' -- to kick off our month of fundraising with Pet Food Warehouse. Valentines theme, red tablecloths, hearts, etc.....
Here is link to wiki:
http://voyagerfap.wikispaces.com/home
Thanks!
FAPAC January Meeting Highlights
To: Voyager Parents
From: Ann Schmidt, Lori Mele, Sue Scheer, FAPAC Representatives
The FAP Advisory Council held an evening session of its monthly meeting on January 10th. The focus of the meeting was the House Placement Process. A number of parents attended this meeting and lots of great feedback was collected. Check out all this feedback and other information on the House Placement Process in the full minutes in a PDF format by clicking HERE. Below are a few other meeting highlights:
School Board and School Budget: School Board is holding a meeting on January 24th at 6 pm to vote on the school budget. Also, there is an Open Seat on the School Board.
Variety Show: This great event with performances from school staff, students and community members will be held on March 22nd at WCS. Check the School Bell for more information.
Big Basket Raffle: Committee currently being formed to plan this important spring school fundraiser. Event will be on April 13th. Need volunteers to help with all aspects of this event. If you are interested and have some time to help, please e-mail Liz Neeld at lneeld711@gmail.com.
Family Formal: Hosted by CVU, this event is on January 26th and is a lot of fun, especially for K-4 families and is a Make a Wish fundraiser. Information on this event can be found in the School Bell.
Next FAPAC meeting is on Thursday, February 14th at 8:15 am. All are welcome!!!
Please contact me at apechaver@yahoo.com if you have feedback or questions on FAP. Thanks.
Ms. Q’s Corner
Math 7
This week we completed our “Moving Straight Ahead” Assessment on Monday. Please review the test with your child; they have the opportunity to correct it for a better score! Our new investigation,“Comparing and Scaling” delves into proportional reasoning. We looked at advertisements where ratios and percentages were used, and investigated the color gradient using different ratios of pigment to water. Students also had their winter multiplication and division fluency test.
Math 8
We continued our exploration of inequalities in our “Shapes of Algebra” book. We looked at several problems where we needed to limit the amount of CO2 discharged in the air from two different cars. It’s amazing how much CO2 our cars give off! Students took a brief exit task on cars and motorcycles on Thursday. Using substitution and combination students solved systems of equations. Students also had their winter multiplication and division fluency test.
Science 7th/8th
Light continues...This week students explored the visible light spectra using a diffraction grating. They compared and contrasted different light sources and learned about the variety of wavelengths that each light source is emitting. We observed that some lights give off a complete rainbow of colors and others did not. It was quite Illuminating!
Information on the Williston Science Fair was passed out and reviewed. You child will be coming to you to let you know whether they plan on working with a partner or solo. If a partner is requested you will need to sign off on a permission form. The science fair is on Thursday, March 28th and our expectation is that all 7th and 8th grade students attend. Over the next few months, we will be working on pulling together research, investigable questions and an experiment plan. This is primarily an independent project done out of school. This year the Voyager House play intersects with our science fair, so we need to plan ahead. Please check out Jupiter Grades for information regarding deadlines and materials. Voyager students have traditionally placed well in this school wide event. Go SCIENTISTS!!
8th Grade Challenge Update:
All 8th graders will be presenting their mid-year progress on Thursday or Friday February 21st or 22nd. Each student will fill out four PowerPoint slides that focus on the following information:
1) Introduction of the topic and focus questions
2) What they have accomplished so far
3) What needs to be finished before the final presentation
4) How this project will impact on a larger group of people ie. community connection
Mr. Merrill’s Wrap Up
⅚ Language Arts
This week students wrapped up their friendly letter to their future selves, hand writing the final draft after self/peer edits and revision time. The letters will be mailed in January, 2014. All letters were photocopied, and will be scored using a rubric. These copies and scored rubrics will be placed in the portfolio.
We kicked off a poetry lesson later in the week. We will be writing poetry throughout the year, introducing various forms and devices as we go. Students were encourage to be on the “lookout” for a poem that is meaningful to them. We wrote acrostic poems at the end of the lesson in our composition books.
Students are currently reading “historical fiction” books in their literature group. All students should be using a graphic organizer handout to record evidence that will be used for the final LEAF paragraph. The theme for this round is - “What does it feel like to walk in someone else’s shoes?”
⅚ Social Studies
We finished our pro se court that was based on the Supreme Court case of Chicago v. Morales.
Students played the role of either a judge, attorney for Chicago, or an attorney for Morales. Judges based their decisions on the the opening statements and arguments presented by each attorney. All students now should have 3 column notes on each of the branches of government and a flow chart of checks and balances on each branch. We will have a quiz on the three branches on Wednesday next week.
News from Ms. O
Math 5
Our world is filled with Geometry! This week, students worked specifically with angles, understanding what they are and determining the kinds of angles there are. We will work on measurement of angles next week as well as looking at the attributes of angles in polygons. We read Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland today to make connections to circles, a 360 degree angle!
Math 6
We are wrapping up our work with integer operations and have made real life connections with money, temperature, and coordinate grids. We have an assessment Wednesday on the first and second investigation in Accentuate the Negative and will finish the week with some algebra, relating positive and negative numbers to balancing equations. I feel as though making explicit the relationship between integer operations and finding the value of the unknown (variable) is an important bridge to build right now. Our next math stop...Geometry!
⅚ Science
Students engaged in their first engineering task last week, designing and building a marshmallow catapult. We spent this week analyzing the task by learning more about technology and the engineering design process. Students learned that not all technology is electronic! Who knew a knot could be considered technology! See some photos from the marshmallow launch at the end of the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment