Happy Break! Yeah Break! Got Pencils? Could you get some for your kiddo over break? We are fresh out and it is like Survivor here! Ms. O
**Reminder for Pie pick-up at Adam’s Market today until 5pm!! Thank you for supporting Voyager House!**
CMP8
We continued our investigation of solving systems of linear equations with a candy mystery. Each student was given a bag of 60 candies made up of an unspecified number of m&m’s and jelly beans. They were able to discern the mass of the total candies and found the average mass of a m & m and a jelly bean. Students created two equations m + j = 60 and .9m + 1.3j = mass of the bag. By having both equations they were able to find the solution set or # of m & m’s and jelly beans symbolically and by graphing. After our math work we looked in the bag to see how close we came to the actual number. It was sweet surprise!
CMP7
We began the week with review and a jeopardy game on linear equations. Students completed the “Moving Straight Ahead” Unit Test and we are now entering into “Filling and Wrapping” a unit where we investigate area and volume of three dimensional objects. This week we explored what dimensions you need in order to find surface area or volume and we discovered how Pi was originated.
Science 7th/8th- This week was a bit abridged due to our amazing Songkran Festival and the extensive fire drill. We completed the CSSU common assessment and began our discussion about climate change.
The Week in Ms. O’s
Math 5
Fifth graders have been working on an understanding of decimals, deepening understanding of place value and why fractions and decimals are just different ways to say the same number. We are working on order decimals and finding decimals between decimals. It has been really productive work and I feel like students are really building a deep understanding of our Base Ten system.
Math 6
We began Variables and Patterns this week. Our work has centered around the idea of patterns in tables and patterns in graphs. Students have come up with some great conjectures for tables and graphs, specifically that points on a graph always match the data points in the table; the story is the same for a graph, even if the interval scale changes; steeper the line in a graph, the greater the change. Really sophisticated observations for three days in. We had our last studio of the year and it was fantastic. WCS teachers were so impressed with the habits of these 6th graders – they persevere, they model, they talk to each other, they are critical thinkers. Good for them.
Science 5/6
We successfully engineering a natural materials filter to simulate the basic filtering system on Earth’s surface. Students independently tested natural materials, like sand, moss, leaves, sand, etc. to identify their filtering quality. From there, students collaboratively built bottle filters, a three inch layer of natural materials to see just how effective these materials can be when stacked together. This allowed us to generalize the value of our Earth’s surface for groundwater health. From there, we are moving into landfills and the MRF. The Materials Recovery Facility or MRF is here in Williston. I am hoping to have someone come to class to talk about this awesome place after break. As we continue work learning about the basics of waste disposal, we will focus our energy on the packaging related to bottled water.
Homework Over the Break: You may have some refrigerator pickers over the break. All students in 5/6 have an assignment to categorize the material packaging in the refrigerator over break. I heard a million excuses – I’m not at home, I have no fridge, I’m in Florida the whole time…I’d love it if you could make this happen, even if it’s Grandma’s fridge. It is important data for our class work on bottled water.
Mr. Merrill’s ⅚ Humanities Wrap Up
Wow, what a wet and fun week! After wrapping up our spring on demand writing assessments on Monday morning (the students put in a great effort!), we celebrated the Thai Songkran Festival (New Year Water Celebration) lead by Apple, our Thai scholar. Apple gave a presentation, then students partipated in two of the traditions - showing respect and giving thanks (or asking for forgiveness) by kneeling before a teacher and sprinkling flower water over the hands, and having fun outdoors by spraying friends with water (a sign of renewal, cleansing, and new beginnings).
We then dove deeper into our study of water issues. Students completed their research using our wiki of fantastic sources, taking notes using the Cornell method. We also watched a CBS news story on bottle water bans on college campuses. Students were excited to act and we started to brainstorm things that we might do here at WCS to limit or ban bottle water.. We had a great brainstorm - look for some action on this in May.
We then had former Voyager student Kellie Weening present her CVU senior challenge work on global water issues to our students. She plans to work with the students in the fall on a rain barrel project.
Finally, we had a UVM debate team member - Alex Bulick, lead our students through the format that they use in competition. Alex discussed strategy and debating techniques with the students, then we had our own debate using the format and techniques discussed. Questions debated were the same argument questions students are writing about - Is bottle water really better? and Should bottled water be banned at WCS?
The Week in Ms. Wesnak's Room
7/8 Humanities: This has been a very full and very fun week in Humanities! For our final week before vacation our morning time together was really focused on finishing up our work on the argumentative essay: GPS vs. Paper Map. Students had their rough drafts due for peer editing on Tuesday and their final drafts were due on Friday. Our morning classes on Wednesday and Thursday were focused on creating storyboards for our first project with the Blockhouse Bay Intermediate School in New Zealand. Our first assignment is to create ¨Day in the Life" videos to exchange via our school YouTube channels. Students will be creating videos that showcase what the average day is like for a Voyager student. These video projects already have been very fun to work on, and we are all very excited to see the videos made from students at Blockhouse Bay Intermediate! In our afternoon classes we focused on our Road Trip U.S.A. project. As the week went on students really started to get into this project by mapping out their routes, deciding on exciting and fun places to stop along the way, and beginning to build their interactive maps through Google Maps Engine. We were lucky enough to have Ms.Birdsall join our class this week to introduce us to Google Maps Engine and get all of our students started on creating their interactive road trip map. If you haven't seen or used Google Maps Engine before, I highly suggest it! It is not only fun and pretty easy to use, but you can really go into great detail when planning any trip. Using this site has certainly sparked the travel bug in our 7/8 students. Over break students are encouraged to do some work on their maps and/or continue working on writing their short profiles of the 6 stops they are going to make along their road trip across the country! It has been a packed week, but certainly a fun one! Hope everyone has a wonderful April vacation!
**8th Grade Challenge Update from Ms.W**
Attention all parents of 8th Graders: All students have a scheduled time to present their 8th Grade Challenge Projects. They are either presenting on the Monday or Tuesday after break. Each student has a scheduled time to present, and you are of course invited to join our Kiva to view their presentation! If you are interested in knowing your child's presentation time please email me, and I would be happy to provide you with that information. The writing component and presentation is due at their scheduled time. We are all very excited to see the final outcome of their hard work!
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