Week of May 17

FAPAC May Meeting Highlights Information

REMINDER:  If you've signed up to bring a Desert in for Teacher Appreciation, please drop off in lobby on Friday morning!!!  Thank you!!!!

The FAP Advisory Council held its final monthly meeting of this school year on May 9th.  Check the full minutes and our approved 2013-2014 FAPAC budget in a PDF format by clicking HERE.  Below are a few meeting highlights:

• School Budget Approved on May 7th
• Last Day of School Changed to June 18th, which will be a half-day
• Placement Letters should be mailed by early June.  Parent information nights for transitioning students are scheduled as follows:  4th to 5th grade parents on May 22nd from 6:30 to 8 pm in the WCS Auditorium; and 2nd to 3rd grade parents on June 4th at 6:30 pm in the WCS Auditorium.
• 1 to 1 Initiative--there is an interesting video recently shown at a Rotary Club meeting about 1 to 1 programs.  Please check it out on the school website's school information area under 1 to 1 information or at this link HERE.
• On June 1st, the Williston Run for Education  will take place (a Fun Run for kids as well as a timed 5K).  Flyers have been in the School Bell, sent home in folders or via email.  Register on-line by going to www.willistonruns.org.   For more event information, contact Sue Scheer at sue@willistonruns.org.  Volunteers are also needed to run this event so if you can help, please go to this LINK.
• There is a Williston Day at the Lake Monsters being planned for July 7th!  Ticket information has been sent home either in folders or by email; has been in the School Bell; and is available at upcoming school events.  Tickets can be turned in for other dates if you are unavailable on July 7th.  Time is running out.  Sales end on May 24th.

NYC Update:

Chaperone Meeting (Voyager Kiva) on Tuesday, May 21st at 6:30!!

Math 7

Which hand has a faster reaction rate and which genders’  reactions are faster in an online reaction rate test.  We gathered a large amount of personal data, created value ordered bar graphs, explored the measures of center(mean, mode and median) and created line plots of the classwide data on reaction rate.  Clearly, we had some unexpected variables such as the post play lethargy.  Interestingly enough, student data showed that the variability of reaction rate between male and female was quite narrow.  Surprisingly some students found that they were much faster with their non-dominant hand then their dominant hand.  We ended the week with creating box and whisker plots.

Math 8

Math was impacted by  the 8th grade science NECAP testing. This week we continued to explore finding the side length of squares from the area and finding the area of a square from the side lengths using squares on the diagonal.  Students were given an entrance task and check-up this week on their use of square roots. We finished off the week with Pythagorean Jeopardy game.

Science 7th/8th  

Our focus this week was on writing a clear and precise conclusion statement for a scientific inquiry.  Our testable question was: "Which solvent (water, hydrogen peroxide and alcohol)  will dissolve the solute (salt) best?' Students performed the experiment and recorded the time it took for the solute to dissolve.  From their results we used a modified LEAF format to write a conclusion.   

We watched a TED Ed talk by Jill Tater  from S.E.T.I. ( Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). We learned about the Drake Equation and how scientists are looking at different constraints such as number of stars, planetary systems around stars, those that are within the “Goldilocks Zone” and other factors  to calculate the probability of life in our galaxy.  We had a rousing discussion about our beliefs that there is other life and where our beliefs originate.    We explored the message that Voyager 1 and 2 has sent to the outer reach of space and read an article on our quest to find signals from space.    

Next week students have a combined science and social studies period to engineer a prototype of their product.  Students will be asked to bring recycled material, odds and ends from home to help supplement materials at school.

The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room

7/8 Language Arts: This week in language arts we started to wrap-up our Independent Reading Monday’s. Most students really enjoyed having time in school to read a book of their choice. Some students even found that through independent reading Mondays they were able to develop (wait for it) a LOVE for reading. Once students were able to find a genre or author they enjoyed, they were able to develop a love for the activity of reading. As the week continued our schedule had a few shifts due to 8th grade Science NECAPS. The 7th graders were given time to do some journal writing, and we also had a FANTASTIC 8th Grade Challenge brainstorm sessions. All of the students found this very helpful, and over the 2 days most students said they had an idea of what their 8th Grade Challenge is going to be. We also took time this week to work on our Business Convention projects. We focused on the Sales Pitch this week, and talked about how to hook an audience and what a sales pitch should look like. To end the week 8th Graders started their 8th Grade Read Aloud which will be of the book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom. As we read the book students will be taking part in some entrance tasks/mini quizzes, and they will also be asked to participate in short or long discussions to analyze the text, word choice, and author’s voice. 7th graders began their short grammar challenge which we will continue at the start of next week!

7/8 Social Studies: This week our classes started off with our usual current event run-down on Monday which ended up sparking a great classwide debate trying to answer the question: What is more important, the economy or the environment? This debate started after we read an article about what fracking is and the pros and cons to fracking. On Tuesday while the 8th graders were taking their Science Necaps the 7th graders continued with this topic by developing and participating in a lengthy and heated full debate. As our week continued we worked on and discussed the writing piece that was due today for the Business Convention project, which was about labor regulations. Students were given an outline with expectations, and were also provided time in class to work on this. We also looked at specific websites and talked through much of the heavy language that is included in labor regulations around the globe. The project is moving forward well, and we are all looking forward to next week when we team up with science to begin building prototypes and/or working on our official product drawings!

News from Ms. O

Math 5:  Students spent the week investigating the base ten place value system and how it helps us understand fractions and decimals.  We have transitioned from fractions to decimals in this logical way so that we can understand how to rename fractions as decimals, especially when the denominator is not a factor of 10, 100, 1000, etc.  Students are moving into addition and subtraction of decimals next week.

Math 6:  Students are wrapping up Bits II by confirming their skills in fraction operations.  Students will be working on a decimal skills unit next week to learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide decimals. The positive thing about this next unit is that we are back to practicing our computational fluency.

⅚ Science:  Students took the final Beyond Earth assessment this week and will begin an ecology unit to finish the rest of the year.  We will dissect an owl pellet Monday, a task that students have done before, but one that will be critical to understand given the food chain GE’s for 5th and 6th grade.

Mr. Merrill’s Wrap Up

Next week marks the final week of literature groups for our school year.  Students have been reading fantasy books and will be writing a final LEAF paper that will be due on Wednesday.  The focus question for the paper is “How does the real world parallel the fantasy world in your book?”

5th graders continued their in class read aloud of Number the Stars, discussing and journaling about bravery and the dilemmas that occurred when people had to lie in order to protect the lives of others in WWII.  In Tuck Everlasting, 6th grade students have been discussing and journaling about the desire to live forever and whether or not this would be a good thing.  

In Social Studies, we continued to work on our economic word maps.  Once students completed the maps, students used their expertise during a concentric circle activity, to teach others the meaning and concepts that are associated with the word.   Students then created a skit to showcase these economic terms.  Next week in Language Arts, students will be studying media literacy, and in Social Studies, we will begin our final economics project.