Week of November 18

Friday Fun Day!!!!

Students today enjoyed a change of pace with a variety of fun activities, many of which were lead by our fabulous 8th graders. The day started out with academics. When students transitioned back to Voyager house they enjoyed stations, some with brain teasers like the puzzle room, trivia and tennis ball challenge, where teamwork enabled students to dump a milk carton worth of balls into buckets. Students also enjoyed the panache of Paris by entering into the transformed project room. They enjoyed hot chocolate served by waiters and waitresses, enjoyed some coloring time, and were all soothed by the soft lighting. Physically, students were challenged by trick shots on the basketball court and relay turkey challenges. In the afternoon, the students found even more fun with the rooms set up with two different movies, a craft room with Thanksgiving themed fun, a work room for students to catch up, and our new, yearly tradition on Voyager house: The Thankful Wall. The Thankful wall was a family tradition of the Sherman household and will hopefully be a reoccuring tradition on house. Ask your son or daughter what they were thankful for today… A big thank you to all the students and staff who helped put on today. It was great fun.    

Voyager Family Night and Talent Show at WCS - Tuesday, December 10th, 6:30 - 8:30 pm!

Voyager Family Night and Talent show at WCS is a wonderful gathering where students and families of Voyager get together to share snacks and conversation in the cafeteria, then move to the auditorium to share some fun open-mike performances.  Students can sign up for a performance spot with Ms. Quatt if they are interested. In the past, performances have included small-group singing/dance, poetry recital, playing a song on the piano, reading a short story, demonstrating magic tricks or a guitar performance.  It is a fun family night and great way to meet all the awesome kids and families who are part of the Voyager community.

There is a suggested $10 donation at the door -- at the end of the evening we will hold a door raffle of prizes that include movie tickets, pizza gift cards and other fun family gifts.  This is a major fundraising opportunity for the house, so if you are feeling generous, please make any-sized donation you'd like!  The money will go directly towards the end-of-year field trip fund for all students.  This fund will greatly reduce the amount asked of parents to pay for the field trip.

We do ask that families bring a small snack to share, based on the core class your child is in.  This year, Mr. Merrill and Ms. O'Brien's class are asked to bring 'savory snacks' which should be hand-held.  We do not have access to the kitchen, so everything must be 'ready' and 'easy to eat.'  We will have plates and napkins, but no knives or forks.  Ms. Wesnak and Ms. Quatt's class are asked to bring 'sweet snacks' or hand-held deserts.

Here is a link to the Voyager wiki where you can sign up!

 http://voyagerfap.wikispaces.com/

We look forward to seeing you there!!!!

Voyager FAP

Mr. Merrill’s ⅚ Humanities Wrap Up

This week students were introduced to the concept of Manifest Destiny.  Using the painting “American Progress”, students created a list of factors that made up the westward movement and then wrote a definition for manifest destiny.  We then looked at a list of different events of the 19th century that contributed to westward movement and started to identify the motivations, problems, and results of the period.  We wrapped up the week with a JIGSAW activity.  In groups, students researched and became experts on a person from the westward movement and then put together a short presentation to teach other students about that person.  Ask your student who they researched and what he or she learned.

Ms. Q's Corner

CMP8  

Students were challenged this week to consider integral and rational exponents in relation to exponential growth and decay.  We practiced with the rules governing  exponent use and the connection between radicals and fractional exponents.  We reviewed  major concepts of decay and growth and rounded out the week with the Growing, Growing, Growing Unit Test.  After Thanksgiving Break we will begin our unit on the Pythagorean Theorem.

CMP7

Students began constructing similar figures from coordinate  points on a coordinate grid.  We created the Wump family of cartoon characters and discovered what happens when you change the coefficient in  front of the x and y coordinate or add/ subtract numbers to the x and y coordinates.  We investigated scale factor and explored what happens to the side measurements of a geometric figure when you scale up or down and what change occurs to the area of the figure.  

Science 7/8

This week we investigated the ipad app "Educreations".  This presentation application allows students to import pictures, diagrams and drawings, along with the recorded explanation of their work.  We found some success and failure with this application, but all students were flexible in finding an application that would allow them to communicate their  earth science concepts.  These concepts included:  Formation of the earth, the rock cycle,  constructive and destructive forces, plate tectonics and more.  After break we will begin delving into geology with rock identification and lab experiments.

News from Ms. O

• Math 5 - This week students reviewed assessments and split off into two groups.  Some students received additional instruction on the concepts we worked on over the last few weeks and others did extension tasks and enrichment.  We had some zinger problem solving pieces that really pushed students.  We also began our investigation into Geometry by looking at the terms that are geometric in nature  and began to look at attributes of polygons.  We will continue this work through the next winter break.

• Math 6 - We took a sidebar from the ratio and fractions unit to discuss and practice multi-digit multiplication and long division.  Some students practiced taking numbers to the thousandth place value while others were just making sense of a remainder.  The standard algorithms are not tested, but they can be really valuable when working on deeper math concepts (so I say right?). Students seem to love mastering this and, well, mastery breeds confidence.  We’ll get back to Comparing Bits after the break.
• Science ⅚ - We ended our geology/earth systems unit with two days of study review and an assessment designed to measure a student’s ability to apply the concepts we learned.  You can see these results on Jupiter Grades.  We will dip into electricity and magnets after the Thanksgiving break, a series of opportunities that will lead to an engineering task challenge.

The Week in Ms.Wesnak’s Room

7/8 Humanities: This week we took some time to do a variety of journal writes ranging in perspective and topic. We also got into some great challenges using our subscription to Jr. Scholastic Magazine! We started off our week with our usual Independent Reading Mondays and Current Events in the afternoon. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday our morning class was filled with a variety of timed journal writes ranging in topics and time limits. A large variety of students shared their work this week, which really brought new voices to our classroom. Students also were asked to write a poem about what they are thankful for. I encouraged students to write something that could be shared with their family at Thanksgiving, so some of your kids may be bringing home a piece of writing to be shared! We also tried writing from a variety of different perspectives! This proved to be a bit of a challenge for some students, so we will continue our work with perspective writing in the 2nd trimester. In the afternoon students took on another global challenge using only 1 issue of Jr.Scholastic. They had to answer questions and clues that took them on a trip across the world testing their global geography! They also had to learn the capitals of many countries, and then apply all of this knowledge to decode a secret message! On Thursday we got into the most recent issue of Jr. Scholastic and put our new knowledge to the test in a very exciting game of Jeopardy. Students were allowed to take notes while they read, which proved to be quite important for their team during our Jeopardy game. Students really enjoyed this activity and the use of the interactive materials that Jr. Scholastic provides online, so we will continue with this in the 2nd trimester. Thank you for a WONDERFUL 1st trimester, and for going on this global adventure with the 7th and 8th grade community! Happy Thanksgiving :)