Voyager House Breakfast Celebration on February 22, 2013
We will
be making an egg dish and a gluten free option for all the kids. We ask
that parents contribute the following items for 6-8 kids. If we have
extra cups we will use them for another event. Thanks for giving us a
chance to celebrate before break! Sign up beneath your child's grade level to donate an item.
We would love some parent volunteers to help manage food! Wanna join?
See the house wiki:
http://wcsvoyagerhouse.pbworks.com/w/page/57265244/FrontPage
FAP Update
Two great fundraising results to report! The February Dance earned $942 and The Pet Food Warehouse Event earned $700 + (we don't have the final numbers yet because the 'coupon' portion is still underway!) A huge thank you to all parents and students who provided a ton of baked goods to sell. Most importantly, thanks for all the great energy put forth to drop off baked goods, work the table, shop for pet food and help 'spread the word.' Voyager teamwork has raised $3,400+ dollars to date. We still have a ways to go, but we are in great shape! Mark your calendar for Saturday, April 6th, our Recycle Sale. If you start Spring cleaning early, make sure you save your 'gently used' toys, clothes, housewares, etc. for the sale! Thank you!!!!
FAP reps Sue Scheer and Ann Schmidt
The Week in Ms.Wesnak’s Room
7/8 Language Arts: The past two weeks in Language Arts have been filled to the brim! Using biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs as our guide we plunged into the deep waters of grammar! Our focus this time was to look conjunction and semicolon use. Students were asked questions such as, when do you use conjunctions and what are they used for? Do you have a choice in your punctuation use when creating and building compound sentences? To answer these questions we did some quick in-class work, read sections of text from “The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank”, and we also completed a review and quiz before the week came to an end. Once we finished up with conjunctions and semilicons we moved into our work on personal narratives and students began building timelines of their lives. Each student was asked to build a timeline of their life and then chose ONE moment from their timeline to use as the topic for their upcoming personal narrative. Students will be working on getting to the depths of their moment to make it explode and come to life. Using our 5 senses and our knowledge around the elements of a story, students will begin writing their personal narratives next week. We will also begin learning about how to weave the different types of figurative language into our stories to really create a creative and enticing story. Talk to your child about their chosen moment. You may be able to help them bring it to life!
7/8 Social Studies: We are wrapping up our work on World War 2 and our grand finale is going to be quite exciting. Each student will be taking their class back to the times of World War 2 through presentations of their point of view/perspective projects. These points of view span the globe! Seeing as this truly was a global war we have perspectives from Northern Africa, to Reporters at the London Blitz, to American Women of the WW2 era. So far the presentations are sounding like they will take many forms including: skits, read-alouds, videos, photo presentations, and scrapbook show-and-tells. I cannot wait to see all of their hard work come to life next Monday and Tuesday. To prepare for this project we did a lot of practice with taking notes and we used an amazing interactive map as our informational guide. Each student has been asked to complete a written element and a presentation element. They have been working very hard this week and using their notes from class to work in a lot of great information/facts on World War 2 along with some strong vocabulary. Talk to your child about their project, what they’ve been working on, and how they’re feeling about the upcoming presentations!
Mr. Merrill’s Wrap Up
⅚ Language Arts
This week we really started to get into exploring narrative writing! We started a read aloud of the book “Chains” by Laurie Halse Anderson and looked at how she describes the characters, setting, and conflict to help the reader paint a clear picture in their mind. After seeing how Anderson used descriptive words and adjectives, students worked on coming up with their own adjectives that were not “tired” to describe other characters and settings in short films that we watched. We discussed how conflict is important to a story and how often times it involves the main character making a really tough choice. We watched a short clip from "The Hunger Games" and students pulled out the conflict that the main character was going through and what her two decisions were. We also started to talk about what conflicts you might face if you were a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Students are preparing to start writing their own narratives next week.
⅚ Social Studies
This week in social studies, students explored the events leading up to the American Revolution, and continued to hone skills in deciphering and analyzing historical documents. We started the week by discussing what students already know about the causes of the revolution and what led colonists to revolt against the British. Many students were familiar with The Boston Tea Party, so we spent some time as a class reading about the details of this act of protest, including specific causes and effects. At the end of the week, we put the Boston Tea Party in context by watching a video outlining the causes of the American Revolution from the French and Indian War through the Battle of Lexington. Students then used primary sources to get a better understanding of differing points of view about the Stamp Act, discussing whether colonists were justified in their reaction to British taxes.
Ms. Q's Corner
Math 7
What would you do, if you ate a piece of chocolate and shrunk to 12 inches in height? This was one of many proportional investigations we conducted over the last week. We looked at various ways to find an unknown value "X" when placed in a proportion: 3/12 = x/60. Using mirrors, tape measures and sticky notes we attempted to use the angle of reflection and incidence to figure out the height of a point on the wall. This method of indirect measurement was quite a challenge....nothing that chocolate wouldn't help. Speaking of chocolate, we conducted an M and M biological sampling to see if we could ascertain the number of green species in the population. Using ratios and proportions we came very close to the actual number. It was fun and tasty business. Our "Comparing and Scaling" unit was completed with a unit assessment and we plunged into the next unit on proportional reasoning called: "Stretching and Shrinking".
Math 8
What is exponential growth? What does it look like in a table, graph or equation? What real world situations offer a glimpse of exponential growth? Students compared the exponential equation from the mythical "rupa" problems to consider an equation for the rampant growth of the water hyacinth. The water hyacinth is a fast growing invasive water plant that chokes waterways. We watched a brief video about a Ugandan organization that has created a cottage industry which utilizes dried water hyacinths to make woven rugs, chairs and tables. We explored bacterial growth and began a mold experiment.
This week 8th graders took the NAEP test in either math or English, and a number of students took the algebra midterm.
Science 7th/8th
Students received the results from their Thermal Energy and Light quiz. Students are welcome to correct them to improve their grade. With the completion of light and thermal energy, we “moved on” to motion and forces. We experimented with ramps, cars and washers to answer three questions:
1)Is there a relationship between mass and the distance a car travels?
2)Is there a relationship between the height of a ramp and the distance a car travels?
3)Is there a relationship between a car's mass and its ability to move a stationary object?
Students were asked to make claims based on quantitative evidence. Students shared their results and we discussed anomalies in our data collection. We finished the week with cartoon depictions of Newton’s Laws and a number of physics terms.
The experiment plan for the science fair is due on Monday, February 18th. Our hope is that students will conduct their experiments during break or during the first week in March. Students have been given a template for collecting background information on their topic. and a trifold will need to be purchased or students may recycle one from our project room.
News from Ms. O
Math 5
We are wrapping up our geometry unit which has included quite a bit of learning! Angles, 2-D polygons and 3-D solids, area, perimeter, and volume of all sorts of shapes and solids, properties of triangles and quadrilaterals, oh my! We will finish our dip into geometry next week by building a geodesic dome out of newspaper. Please send in your pile of newspaper! We could use as much as possible.
If you could get your child a couple of extra pencils to get them through the school year, he/she would appreciate it. We are low on supplies.
Math 6
We finished up an exciting unit on ratios this week and will be heading forward into the land of geometry. I will be asking that students do some self learning during this unit, as we will not be covering extensively the properties of polygons. Students are still responsible for them though, and I will provide some resources so that students can essentially memorize eg. what makes a right trapezoid. These resources will allow students to practice and assess on this material, which is a review of last year’s work, but are still part of the 6th grade math standards. We are hoping to be learning about circles by mid-March and coincide some events with March 14, annual Pi day. I believe that PIE will be in order. We will eat pie and memorize as many digits of Pi as possible for a prize! Start practicing now. You can start by printing the first one million digits after the decimal. Ha! There are some amazing records for this!
We launched our geometry unit this week and will celebrate the beauty of geometry next week by building a geodesic dome out of newspaper. Please send in your pile of newspaper! We could use as much as possible.
Science 5/6
Last week...Students left the mechanical energy of catapults and rollercoasters and moved on to a type of thermal energy, called light! Students explored a light circus, where they learned about how light behaves and made claims about light based on evidence. We read about Omar, an Egyptian boy, whose ideas about lighting a stage during a blackout, arose from a conversation with a person studying Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. And were based on what he knew about the transfer of light.
This week...we investigated how materials and light interact, learning about absorption, reflection, and transmission of light energy. The next engineering task will be to build a lighting system for a tomb in order to view all hieroglyphics well, when electricity is not available! Seems hard to explain in this format! Ask you kiddo about the task next week!
Start collecting your toys, game pieces, junk and anything else you can think of! Students will be creating a Rube Goldberg mechanism during the week of break and the first week of March. In order to do this, please help your child by considering the things in the house that he/she might be able to use for this purpose. Something as simple as a set of dominoes, metal washers, a pendulum, or a ramp can all be used in a Rube Goldberg mechanism to illustrate the transfer or transformation of energy. I am letting you know in advance, even though students have not been introduced to the project at all yet, so that you can consider transferring your junk to a think of energetic beauty! More to come!
http://wcsvoyagerhouse.pbworks.com/w/page/57265244/FrontPage
FAP Update
Two great fundraising results to report! The February Dance earned $942 and The Pet Food Warehouse Event earned $700 + (we don't have the final numbers yet because the 'coupon' portion is still underway!) A huge thank you to all parents and students who provided a ton of baked goods to sell. Most importantly, thanks for all the great energy put forth to drop off baked goods, work the table, shop for pet food and help 'spread the word.' Voyager teamwork has raised $3,400+ dollars to date. We still have a ways to go, but we are in great shape! Mark your calendar for Saturday, April 6th, our Recycle Sale. If you start Spring cleaning early, make sure you save your 'gently used' toys, clothes, housewares, etc. for the sale! Thank you!!!!
FAP reps Sue Scheer and Ann Schmidt
The Week in Ms.Wesnak’s Room
7/8 Language Arts: The past two weeks in Language Arts have been filled to the brim! Using biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs as our guide we plunged into the deep waters of grammar! Our focus this time was to look conjunction and semicolon use. Students were asked questions such as, when do you use conjunctions and what are they used for? Do you have a choice in your punctuation use when creating and building compound sentences? To answer these questions we did some quick in-class work, read sections of text from “The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank”, and we also completed a review and quiz before the week came to an end. Once we finished up with conjunctions and semilicons we moved into our work on personal narratives and students began building timelines of their lives. Each student was asked to build a timeline of their life and then chose ONE moment from their timeline to use as the topic for their upcoming personal narrative. Students will be working on getting to the depths of their moment to make it explode and come to life. Using our 5 senses and our knowledge around the elements of a story, students will begin writing their personal narratives next week. We will also begin learning about how to weave the different types of figurative language into our stories to really create a creative and enticing story. Talk to your child about their chosen moment. You may be able to help them bring it to life!
7/8 Social Studies: We are wrapping up our work on World War 2 and our grand finale is going to be quite exciting. Each student will be taking their class back to the times of World War 2 through presentations of their point of view/perspective projects. These points of view span the globe! Seeing as this truly was a global war we have perspectives from Northern Africa, to Reporters at the London Blitz, to American Women of the WW2 era. So far the presentations are sounding like they will take many forms including: skits, read-alouds, videos, photo presentations, and scrapbook show-and-tells. I cannot wait to see all of their hard work come to life next Monday and Tuesday. To prepare for this project we did a lot of practice with taking notes and we used an amazing interactive map as our informational guide. Each student has been asked to complete a written element and a presentation element. They have been working very hard this week and using their notes from class to work in a lot of great information/facts on World War 2 along with some strong vocabulary. Talk to your child about their project, what they’ve been working on, and how they’re feeling about the upcoming presentations!
Mr. Merrill’s Wrap Up
⅚ Language Arts
This week we really started to get into exploring narrative writing! We started a read aloud of the book “Chains” by Laurie Halse Anderson and looked at how she describes the characters, setting, and conflict to help the reader paint a clear picture in their mind. After seeing how Anderson used descriptive words and adjectives, students worked on coming up with their own adjectives that were not “tired” to describe other characters and settings in short films that we watched. We discussed how conflict is important to a story and how often times it involves the main character making a really tough choice. We watched a short clip from "The Hunger Games" and students pulled out the conflict that the main character was going through and what her two decisions were. We also started to talk about what conflicts you might face if you were a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Students are preparing to start writing their own narratives next week.
⅚ Social Studies
This week in social studies, students explored the events leading up to the American Revolution, and continued to hone skills in deciphering and analyzing historical documents. We started the week by discussing what students already know about the causes of the revolution and what led colonists to revolt against the British. Many students were familiar with The Boston Tea Party, so we spent some time as a class reading about the details of this act of protest, including specific causes and effects. At the end of the week, we put the Boston Tea Party in context by watching a video outlining the causes of the American Revolution from the French and Indian War through the Battle of Lexington. Students then used primary sources to get a better understanding of differing points of view about the Stamp Act, discussing whether colonists were justified in their reaction to British taxes.
Ms. Q's Corner
Math 7
What would you do, if you ate a piece of chocolate and shrunk to 12 inches in height? This was one of many proportional investigations we conducted over the last week. We looked at various ways to find an unknown value "X" when placed in a proportion: 3/12 = x/60. Using mirrors, tape measures and sticky notes we attempted to use the angle of reflection and incidence to figure out the height of a point on the wall. This method of indirect measurement was quite a challenge....nothing that chocolate wouldn't help. Speaking of chocolate, we conducted an M and M biological sampling to see if we could ascertain the number of green species in the population. Using ratios and proportions we came very close to the actual number. It was fun and tasty business. Our "Comparing and Scaling" unit was completed with a unit assessment and we plunged into the next unit on proportional reasoning called: "Stretching and Shrinking".
Math 8
What is exponential growth? What does it look like in a table, graph or equation? What real world situations offer a glimpse of exponential growth? Students compared the exponential equation from the mythical "rupa" problems to consider an equation for the rampant growth of the water hyacinth. The water hyacinth is a fast growing invasive water plant that chokes waterways. We watched a brief video about a Ugandan organization that has created a cottage industry which utilizes dried water hyacinths to make woven rugs, chairs and tables. We explored bacterial growth and began a mold experiment.
This week 8th graders took the NAEP test in either math or English, and a number of students took the algebra midterm.
Science 7th/8th
Students received the results from their Thermal Energy and Light quiz. Students are welcome to correct them to improve their grade. With the completion of light and thermal energy, we “moved on” to motion and forces. We experimented with ramps, cars and washers to answer three questions:
1)Is there a relationship between mass and the distance a car travels?
2)Is there a relationship between the height of a ramp and the distance a car travels?
3)Is there a relationship between a car's mass and its ability to move a stationary object?
Students were asked to make claims based on quantitative evidence. Students shared their results and we discussed anomalies in our data collection. We finished the week with cartoon depictions of Newton’s Laws and a number of physics terms.
The experiment plan for the science fair is due on Monday, February 18th. Our hope is that students will conduct their experiments during break or during the first week in March. Students have been given a template for collecting background information on their topic. and a trifold will need to be purchased or students may recycle one from our project room.
News from Ms. O
Math 5
We are wrapping up our geometry unit which has included quite a bit of learning! Angles, 2-D polygons and 3-D solids, area, perimeter, and volume of all sorts of shapes and solids, properties of triangles and quadrilaterals, oh my! We will finish our dip into geometry next week by building a geodesic dome out of newspaper. Please send in your pile of newspaper! We could use as much as possible.
If you could get your child a couple of extra pencils to get them through the school year, he/she would appreciate it. We are low on supplies.
Math 6
We finished up an exciting unit on ratios this week and will be heading forward into the land of geometry. I will be asking that students do some self learning during this unit, as we will not be covering extensively the properties of polygons. Students are still responsible for them though, and I will provide some resources so that students can essentially memorize eg. what makes a right trapezoid. These resources will allow students to practice and assess on this material, which is a review of last year’s work, but are still part of the 6th grade math standards. We are hoping to be learning about circles by mid-March and coincide some events with March 14, annual Pi day. I believe that PIE will be in order. We will eat pie and memorize as many digits of Pi as possible for a prize! Start practicing now. You can start by printing the first one million digits after the decimal. Ha! There are some amazing records for this!
We launched our geometry unit this week and will celebrate the beauty of geometry next week by building a geodesic dome out of newspaper. Please send in your pile of newspaper! We could use as much as possible.
Science 5/6
Last week...Students left the mechanical energy of catapults and rollercoasters and moved on to a type of thermal energy, called light! Students explored a light circus, where they learned about how light behaves and made claims about light based on evidence. We read about Omar, an Egyptian boy, whose ideas about lighting a stage during a blackout, arose from a conversation with a person studying Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. And were based on what he knew about the transfer of light.
This week...we investigated how materials and light interact, learning about absorption, reflection, and transmission of light energy. The next engineering task will be to build a lighting system for a tomb in order to view all hieroglyphics well, when electricity is not available! Seems hard to explain in this format! Ask you kiddo about the task next week!
Start collecting your toys, game pieces, junk and anything else you can think of! Students will be creating a Rube Goldberg mechanism during the week of break and the first week of March. In order to do this, please help your child by considering the things in the house that he/she might be able to use for this purpose. Something as simple as a set of dominoes, metal washers, a pendulum, or a ramp can all be used in a Rube Goldberg mechanism to illustrate the transfer or transformation of energy. I am letting you know in advance, even though students have not been introduced to the project at all yet, so that you can consider transferring your junk to a think of energetic beauty! More to come!
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