The Voyager Team Presents:
A VOICE DOUBLE FEATURE EXTRAVAGANZA
Featuring wrap-ups from the weeks of February 10th and February 17th
Enjoy!
VOYAGER THEATRE PRODUCTION: Performance Date: March 6th at 6:30
Important information about schedule changes and academics during the play production weeks:
On February 10th, 2014 Voyager started a three-week unit (February 10th -March 7th) of experience and study in producing our own play Lock-it and Key: Sometimes When You Snooze, You Win. Our daily schedule has changed to accommodate rehearsals and technical work. The casts and crews were finalized February 10th. All students have a role or job for the play. There is one large cast that will perform. Parents are invited to help out in various ways before and during the production. Look for a Needs List coming from the technical crew for what props, costuming, and help during the day are needed. This list will be posted on the Voice.
In terms of academics, all students will continue their independent reading during the times when they are not directly involved in the play (waiting for their scene, waiting for paint to dry, etc.) or during afternoon core time. We will still be holding math and science classes during the production weeks, and all students will have journal writing to complete on a weekly basis. All Voyager students will be responsible for completing a final reflection at the end of the unit, along with a final project. The list of journal writing expectations/prompts and final project choices and expectations are provided on the play rubric.
Eighth graders will not have any special or dictated work periods for their 8th Grade Challenge projects and will need to continue that assignment independently at home. All students have an 8th Grade Challenge folder at school that will have a copy of the final presentation checklist, as well as the final presentation rubric. With a lighter homework load now is a great time for eighth graders to put in some hours in order to start wrapping up their work.
Our play unit this year happens to be during a VERY busy time. We begin on February 10th, February Break is coming up, Parent Conferences are on February 21, grades close on March 7th, and the Voyager Dance is also March 7th. The play unit is a very unique, creative, and special time in our curriculum where all of Voyager comes together as a 5-8 community. We’re in an “all hands on deck” mode to help make this a memorable and exciting experience for all. All students have work to complete during this time whether that is for the play directly, academic work for the play, or academic work for other classes.
Below is a guideline that we wrote for the students to understand how the theatre production will be run. We want you to have a copy so that you can support the process.
The house goal is to have all students participate in the play in some capacity. All roles must be filled. We understand that all roles in the theater unit are different, from lights and sound to cast to prop gathering, but every role is IMPORTANT and has MANY pieces to complete to be a success. Every student is busy during this time, and their role may change. Some students may start off with one project, but end up working on the set. Teachers will look out for the proper workings and success of the whole play and make decisions accordingly. It is a privilege to receive a lead role and appropriate behavior, attitude, and effort is required. If you do not get the role you want, you will be assigned to another role. This means you may be assigned to a role you did not sign up for. There is no switching once assignments are made, unless the faculty initiates and decides the change. Accept the role you receive and give it your best effort. We all have much learning to do. Together, with good effort, we will all have a blast doing this project.
Please also review the play rubric which will be used to evaluate your student’s effort, cooperation, and participation for the next three weeks.
Tickets: A letter will be going home about tickets on Tuesday, March 4, along with 4 tickets to the evening performance of the Voyager Play, Thursday, March 6 at 6:30 pm. Please read the letter and return any unwanted tickets. If you would like additional tickets beyond the 4 your family receives, contact Katie, Voyager TA, at kfieldsend@cssu.org.
News from Voyager FAP
Voyager Dance:
The Voyager-sponsored School Dance in Friday, March 7th! It is the week afterschool break, so we have to get it organized and parent commitments a bit early. So, if you could read below and visit the link to sign up that would be awesome!
Our theme this year is 'Mardi Gras'. The dance is a great opportunity for us to raise money for the house! While we split entrance fees with all upper houses, we get to keep all of the concession profits. That said, we are looking for a few parent volunteers to 'run' a small station for profit. If you have any ideas to share, please contact me! (run a face painting station, nail-painting, sell temporary tatoos????)
We will have lots of colorful beads and masks to sell and we'll need parent volunteers in 3 areas: bringing baked goods and drinks for concession, Chaperones (5th grade parents - this is a great opportunity for you to experience the dance and see how much fun your kids have!) and donation of prizes for raffle.
Here is the link to the Voyager FAP wiki which includes a space to sign up and more detail. All you have to do is hit 'edit' to sign up.
A fun night it will be!!!
Thank you!
Voyager Recycle Sale:
ALL Voyager Parents!
The Voyager Recycle Sale is Saturday, March 29th! This is our biggest, most fun event of the year! A giant indoor yard sale!!!! Please start to gather anything you'd like to unload...household items, old artwork/posters, furniture, rugs, sporting equipment, books, toys, gently used jeans, dresses, jackets (any clothes must be clean, properly folded and ready to 'sell') costume jewelry, tools, working electronics. What a great activity for the upcoming break! Spring cleaning!
All items can be dropped off at WCS on Friday, March 28th between 6:00 and 8:00 pm. The sale is Saturday, March 29th, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm. If you are new to Voyager (parents of 5th graders, or new students) please make an effort to join us, this is a wonderful, community- building event and everyone has a blast. We'll have a food concession, bake sale, on-site DJ playing music. It draws a huge shopping crowd and has become a Williston tradition. It is a great way to clean out and recycle your unwanted items and find new treasures!!!
The Voyager FAP wiki will be updated immediately following the Voyager-sponsored dance. After the dance, please check the wiki and volunteer for a shift. Shifts are only 2-hours, so a great opportunity to help out! We'll also be sharing a poster soon that you can post/print and share with your friends. More to come!!! If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at apechaver@yahoo.com
End of 2nd Trimester
The trimester ends on Friday, March 7th. Reports will be sent home on Friday, March 14th. Students are encouraged to review Jupiter Grades and complete any missing assignments.
This Week in Ms. O’s Class- 5th and 6th grade math moves on...6th graders doing some data and graphing work while 5th graders work on understanding of equivalent fractions. Once the play ends we will get back to regular routines...ahhhh.
⅚ Science: We had high hopes for a reenactment of Honey I Enlarged the Insects this week but it didn’t happen! We will get back to microscopes and enlarging bugs to human size after the break.
Mr. Merrill ⅚ Humanities Wrap Up
We kicked off the week with a great Reading Cafe, updating our Reading Response Notebooks with recently read books, and Me as a Reader reflections. Students completed a current events lesson in the afternoon. We then reviewed the vocabulary, stage diagram, journaling, and project expectations for the theater unit. Students will be working on these assignments during “down time” of play rehearsals. Students will have a supervised study room to use while not working on the play.
The Williston Observer Kid Edition will be coming out in March, students have a variety of prompts to use in writing a submission. A completed draft for the edition was due Friday. Students will revise their pieces next week and submit final drafts after the play.
Ms. Q's Corner
CMP7
How can you predict whether a relationship is linear from a table, graph or equation? What patterns of change do you see in a linear relationship and how can you tell whether the line is increasing or decreasing? Ms. Sherman and Ms. Wesnak have involved the class with lots of interactive activities like chalk talks and entrance tasks that have pushed the class understanding of linear functions.
This week CMP7 students began to compare and contrast rates of change in linear models. How can you predict when two people will come to the same point if they have different rates? How do different rates of change effect a graph, table or equation.
CMP8
Students from the Discrete math ventured into our CMP8 class to assist with our Frogs, Fleas and Painted Cube Unit Test Review. We practiced using a visual model for quadratic equations that have an “a” coefficient that is greater than one. We strategized a number of ways to find the maximum or minimum point of a parabola, its x-intercepts and a line of symmetry. Students took the FFPC Unit Test on Thursday and we are moving on to the next book called “Function Junction.
We began Function Junction this week with understanding the vocabulary around functions like: domain, range and f(x) notation. We are experiencing some disequilibrium while we shift our thinking to function notation. For example instead of saying y = 3x + 1 becomes f(x) = 3x + 1. F(1) would mean 3 (1) + 1 = 4, so F(1) = 4.
Science 7th/8th
This week we surveyed the class for dominant and recessive traits from free ear lobes, widow’s peaks, tongue rolling to eye color. We explored how traits are passed down from parent’s genes utilizing the Punnett square. This quick overview of genetics concludes our study of cellular biology. Students began working on their take home test during our theater unit. Our next big event will be the schoolwide engineering competition.
Engineering Competition Day- March 18th Save the Date!!!
This year in lieu of the school wide science fair, 7th /8th graders will be participating in an engineering competition between upper house teams. The engineering problems include a rubber band car, marshmallow slingshot, zipline and lunar lander. Each of these tasks will have specific constraints and students will work in teams of 3-4 to design, build, test, and redesign solutions to an engineering problem. Each team will be required to document their process, collect data from their testing, connect their task with scientific concepts, and submit a lab report. The competition will take place throughout the day in the auditorium on March 18th and will be streamed via the internet. Parents and students are welcome to view the competition in the auditorium throughout the day. We will be having judges from the community and awards will be given for the top performers. Please join us!
The Weeks in Ms.Wesnak’s Room
The news for 7/8 Humanities for the next couple weeks will be brought to you by our student Directors and Stage Managers for our house play unit! Enjoy the news!
-Ms.W
A few words from our student directors:
Hello parents! Olivia and Halina here! The play unit has finally begun! We have been anxiously awaiting this moment since mid July to share our work that has resulted in this year’s Voyager 2014 Play; “Lock-it and Key: Sometimes when you snooze, you win” We have had such a great time already with the work that will get the Voyager show up and running! We hope all of our team’s work and efforts shine in our final performances and most of all we hope you enjoy!
-Love, Halina and Olivia
Week 1 (last week)- On Monday the 10th, we kicked off our play unit by distributing scripts to all the students and staff. Of course, a good understanding of the play’s theme and the plot was the best way to start. We split up for the read-throughs, one group went to the auditorium with the cast and the other group stayed in the kiva with crew. Ms. Wesnak made sure that we were prepared to split up through the course of the unit to work through different tasks and requirements. The week continued while the cast made strides with understanding their characters and their personalities. Blocking started and lines are slowly but surely being memorized. Sorry there was no Voice last week! A “little” storm got in the way...
Week 2- This week, the directors and cast have really immersed ourselves into blocking and stage direction. We made big strides towards our goal and love how things are turning out. Whether it was lighting, costumes, set check up or sound, everyone has a part to “play” in this play. It’s not all work though! This process brings many laughs and smiles to our faces and we really enjoy sharing our creation with Voyager. We have encouraged our cast members to keep practicing lines and blocking….and if needed, call on friends to practice lines. Also, if your child has been informed that they need to bring in costume pieces, please remind them to do so by the Monday after break. Our cast and crew have worked so hard on everything and we are so proud and happy to be a part of this! Have a great break! Please remind your child to practice what they have learned. We look forward to seeing the play come together more and more in the weeks to come!
A few more words from our student stage managers Natalie and Davis:
Week 1: In our first week of the play unit, we started with a dry run through of the play. After that, we started visiting the auditorium and began blocking the movement of the play. Getting the ball rolling, we think, is one of the hardest parts. Sharing something, even sometimes just an idea, to over 100 students, is really hard. After the concept was understood it was easier for people to get into character and for stage crew to work on the transitions. Stage crew also started creating lists of props needed, costume ideas, and sketches/ideas for the set. Though we are just beginning this production, we know it will be hard to ever let go!
Week 2: On our second week of our production, we’ve realized how close we really are to the performance. Near to the end of the week, we’ve shown progress in many areas. Characters have memorized lines and most are off script. Stage crew has worked on collecting props and furniture for our performance. They’ve also been working hard on painting and constructing set pieces. Most spaces on house have been transformed into art studios! Students have also been working on ways to advertise for our show, so they’ve created posters and also an iMovie Trailer. Now that we have lights, sound, and stage crew working directly with the cast in the auditorium, the play is really coming together! We are amazed at how far we have come in just the last four days. We believe that this is going to be one of the greatest plays Voyager has been able to perform! We are so excited for what’s to come!
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