Voyager Summer Learning Expectations and Opportunities

Voyager House

Summer Learning Expectations and Opportunities

To all Voyager families, We wish you all a happy, safe, and fun-filled summer!  Thanks for all you have done to make our year so successful!  Here are some expectations and opportunities for the summer.

6-8 Voyager Humanities Students:

WCS Voyager Kidblog Assignments

This summer the Voyager Kidblog will be open to the current Voyager student and teacher community.  Students will be able to post and comment on each other’s blogs throughout the summer.  Through this writing community, students will have a forum to share thoughts, ideas, exciting news and summer happenings.  Students can also post pictures to share new experiences and summer fun.  All posts and comments are approved by Voyager teachers before they are published to Kidblog.

We expect students to write three posts this summer, these posts will serve as the basis for the first writing assignment of the new school year.  We look forward to building and contributing to this exciting Voyager writing site throughout the summer.

Directions:

• Go to www.kidblog.org
• Login using Mr. Merrill’s email address – amerrill@cssu.org
• Click on WCS Voyager http://kidblog.org/WCSVoyager/
• Click on Login – select your name and use the password – voyager (unless the password was changed by the student)

• Click on My Blog
• Click on New Post to add a new piece of writing to your blog.  Be sure to include a title.

• Click on All Blogs to read other posts and add comments.
• Comments should include a compliment, personal connection, and a question.
• All assignments are posted on Mr. Merrill’s blog.

3 Kidblog Entries

1.  Write a book review.

This summer you will be reading 5 books.  Write a book review about your favorite book.

Be sure to read other posted book reviews and write at least three comments.  Looking for book review writing tips?  Go to http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/bookrev/index.htm

2. Write about a current event.  

Continue to watch and read the news this summer.  Discuss current events with your family and friends.  Write a summary of a current event (who, what, when, where, why) or write an opinion/argument piece.  Be sure to read other posts and write at least three comments.

3.  Keep us posted on your summer. Write about your summer plans or favorite summer activity. Post pictures and read other posts and write at least three comments.

Note - Comments should include a compliment, personal connection, and a question.

Summer trips…

Don’t forget to take advantage of all our great local museums and learning centers.

Suggestions – Shelburne Museum, ECHO, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Ethan Allen Homestead, Rokeby Museum, Vermont Historical Society and Statehouse

Below you will find some BASIC helpful hints for the Summer to continue your learning outside of our classroom! Yay!

Read! It doesn’t matter if you’re reading blogs,newspapers, magazines, or chapter books. Reading is important and helps you in more ways than one. Keep track of the books you read,

and challenge yourself.  Goal - 5 books!

• Students had a wonderful book share and made pesonal summer reading lists. Lists went home with reports. Make a trip to the library to pick up books from the list.  

• Don’t forget about the DCF list! https://sites.google.com/a/cesuvt.org/dcf-award/

• All students up to 8th grade may take out up to 5 books from the WCS Library before the end of the school year.  These books are to be returned on the first day of school.  Please encourage your student to take advantage of this opportunity.   The WCS Library will be open on Tuesdays this summer from 9:30-12:30!  We are planning a story time at 10:30 for primarily incoming third graders as well as fourth and fifth graders.

• See the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library website - http://www.williston.lib.vt.us/ to check out many great reading opportunities.

Write! Keep a journal, diary, tumblr, or blog over the summer. We now have a Voyager Kidblog account! You are expected to have at least 3 blog entries for the start of the Fall, and don’t forget to take pictures to post with your entries. These entries will be of HUGE help for your first writing piece of the year!

And Don’t forget: have fun, relax, play, sing, dance, and wear SPF

Happy Summer :)

-Ms.Wesnak and Mr. Merrill

6th Grade Mathematics

25 Great Math Apps...

http://www.teachthought.com/apps-2/25-math-apps-parents-can-give-to-their-kids-from-edshelf/

Incoming 6th Graders - Patterns in Nature Project

From rainbows, river meanders, and shadows to spider webs, honeycombs, and the markings on an animal’s coat, the visible world is full of shapes and patterns that can be described mathematically.  Through this project, you will develop a deeper appreciation for the patterns that exist in natural phenomena.  Cloud formations, leaf patterns, and even puddles and mud cracks may take on a whole new meaning, as you view these natural phenomena and others, through the lens of a camera.

For the summer, fall and early winter, I am asking you to become an observer of the natural world.  Look for geometric shapes, search for repeating patterns, and suddenly you’ll find that your view of nature has undergone a subtle shift.  It will be like wearing math glasses…numerical patterns, geometry, and proportional reasoning will be everywhere!

Here is your task…

• This Summer... Take photos of patterns you see in nature.  Any picture that is pleasing to the eye, has a math pattern in it!  Although the human world is filled with patterns (many of which are designs of nature!), I will ask that you focus your data collection on natural things.  I am intentionally asking you fo focus on summer photos and then in the fall and winter capture those patterns, as you might find that the winter world will reveal some patterns that you might not have recognized or seen in the summer of autumn world.  You MUST take note of the date and location of your photos.

• This Summer...You will view your collection searching for the photos that present the best opportunity to talk about math and you will post them to your very own blog.  Video may also be uploaded, but be sure that the video captures either the pattern or the cause of the patterning you have found.  

• Starting in September...you will research and write!  Your blog posts will need to discuss the mathematics in nature, mathematics that you intuitively understand, but also writing that includes research you have found about your subject.  For example, you might take pictures of tree branching, and then use the internet or book to discover more about tree branch patterns.  Your blog will need to include date and location of pictures and cite any sources you have used to speak about your new understanding of these patterns. One blog posting a week minimum until the end of the first trimester.

• Starting in September... you will be responsible for thoughtfully discussing and commenting on one other person’s blog post each week.  You will only be assessed on one blog post per week.

Project Due Dates:  Fridays weekly through December 2014

Voyager Kidblog - Directions

• Go to www.kidblog.org
• Login using Mr. Merrill’s email address – amerrill@cssu.org
• Click on WCS Voyager http://kidblog.org/WCSVoyager/
• Click on Login – select your name and use the password – voyager (unless the password was changed by the student)
• Click on Ms. O’Brien’s page.  Re-read the project description and get ideas from there.  
• Post at least 8 photos of math patterns.  Try to capture different kinds of patterns. You don’t need 8 photos of symmetry!

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Patterns and Math in Nature – Photographic subjects

This list was not designed to be all of the possible ideas, but potentially generate some creativity and excitement about all of the possibilities for your mathematics and patterning project.  This is not an exhaustive list.  Please feel free to let Ms. O know if you have an idea that is not on here and give it a go!  Please feel free to develop themes that might make things more interesting for you!

• Leaves (ie, dried dandelions, sunflowers, asters)
• Flowers
• Vegetables and fruits
• Seeds, pinecones and seed heads
• Flying patterns of birds
• Bird calls and other sounds with patterns
• Branch design (roots, leaves, rivers or tree branches)
• Patterns in sand or mud made by water or wind
• Fur and skin patterns
• Rocks, soil structures
• Moving water or raindrops
• Leaves blowing in circles
• Patterns of growth (ie. Cattails or maple trees in bunches)
• Bubble patterns
• Animal tracks
• Things with lines of symmetry (ie. Human face, sumac branch)
• Shells and other sea creatures
• Sunrays and clouds
• Time patterns (daylight hours)
• Stars and moon
• Ferns
• Cactus
• Mushrooms
• Butterflies and other insect
• Reflections
• Aerial views
• Tree bark
• Rainbows
• Snowflakes and ice
• Spiderwebs
• Lichen
• Fish
• Animals
• Pets
• Berries on trees
• Stems (celery, tree trunks)
• Fingerprints
• Human body
• Crystals, gems
• Honeycomb/beehives

• Symmetry
• Proportion
• Ratio
• Large and small numbers
• Geometric shapes and designs
• Fractals
• Phi
• Fibonacci
• Similarity
• Measurement
• Numerical sequences/ repeating and growing patterns
• Probability
• Physics of motion

7th Grade Math

A Summer Math Review has been sent home. If students get stuck on any math concepts they can go to the Khan Academy website. (www.khanacademy.org)   Spending some time reviewing basic math skills and exploring pre-algebra topics would be a great way to get prepared for our math class next year.  This summer packet will count as a quiz score and will be passed in on the first week of school.  

8th Grade Math

A Summer Review has been sent home.  This packet will review important pre-algebra topics to get you prepared for our CMP8 class in September.   I would also encourage you to review math concepts using the Khan Academy website.  (www.khanacademy.org)  This summer packet will count as a quiz score and will be passed in on the first week of school.  

7th/8th Grade Science

This next year WCS will host another engineering task competition.  The summer is a great time to start thinking about engineering topics by building bridges, cars, parachutes and any other contraption that can solve a problem.  For example, creating a car that will start in one location and stop in a specific spot using the energy from a mousetrap.  Designing, building, testing, recording data and redesigning is what engineering is all about.  Have fun on rainy day by visiting this website and trying one of these activities from the 4-H:: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fourh/old/greenlight/afterschool/

Two Week Update June 6

Updates

The marking period is coming to a close.  Reportcards go out on Tuesday, so we are no longer accepting late work.  We may be working on Jupiter Grades over the weekend, which may limit your ability to see any grades/assignments that are undone.  Just so you know…

Abnaki was fantastic.  We will post the link to a student video next week!  Thanks to all parent chaperones and to faculty who spent overnights and long days with students moving to and from school.  We hope you heard good things at home.

The Week in Ms.Wesnak’s Room

7/8 Humanities: This week started off with a Book Review Workshop with the 5/6 side of Voyager House! It was great to see small groups of students discussing their favorite books from the year and recommending books to each other. Many students left the workshop with a Summer Reading List. I also provided a link to the “Favorites” and “Must Read” lists that we made during the workshop on my website. The rest of our morning time together this week consisted of working on our Myth/Legend project. Students have been working diligently on these stories and they are coming along so well! Students are also being asked to create a one page illustration to go with their story. I’m also excited to share that I have been given the opportunity to use a classroom set of Chromebooks till the end of the year, so our 7/8 students have been given the opportunity to use Chromebooks in our classroom. It has been really great to have a Chromebook for every student in class to use when needed. They are quick to start and students sign in with their school email address, which automatically brings them to their Google Drive! This has been a huge bonus for our Myth/Legend project and our “Amazing Race” styled class challenge!

Speaking of the challenge, this has been what our afternoons have consisted of for the week. Students were introduced to this in-class project/challenge last week. The challenge is called, “Travel the World to Better the World”, and it is being completed with a competitive aspect with inspiration from the show “The Amazing Race”. Each class period students are given a clue to take them somewhere in the world, but wherever they land they have to do some kind of good deed or provide a service! Some examples of where students have travelled are a country to: help in saving an endangered species, protecting an endangered place, or even volunteering in a country that was recently hit by a natural disaster. Through this in-class project/challenge students are learning about global geography, travel, current events, and are going to some places they never even knew existed! Some students are even learning about how expensive it is to travel around the world, and what kind of planning it takes to actually get from one place to another. Our knowledge of the world is certainly growing! For every place teams travel to they have to track their travels on a map using Google Maps Engine and they have to write a postcard! Through their postcard writing students reflect on what they did in the country they travelled to and learn about the language, currency, capital, and physical features of that country. This has been a really fun project, and students have been extremely focused and determined to make it to the finish!

Mr. Merrill’s ⅚ Humanities Wrap Up

We started the week off with our Book Review Workshop with the 7th and 8th grade students. Students shared and reviewed favorite books and compiled a personal summer reading list.  Copies of the lists will be sent home with reports. Students will have an opportunity to visit the library to take out books over the summer.  We will also have a book talk led by D.A. Library staff before the end of the school year.  

Narrative writing workshops focused on events and ending.  Event writing strategies help build suspense using dialogue or detailed sentences.  The ending of the narrative should show how the problem was solved, can bring the story “full circle”, and wrap up with a theme connection or message. Students brainstormed and completed a revision activity, then started to type their narrative on a google doc.  Completed narratives are due Thursday, June 5.

Ms. Quatt Update

CMP8

Review continues this week as we prepare for the algebra final.  We are also looking for test taking strategies that allow students to filter out the chaff to find the kernel of the problem.  We will have some drop in math time during our time at Camp Abnaki.  Students should continue to work through material on their own.

CMP7

Students completed the Filling and Wrapping Unit Test. We are finishing our year with a projectile engineering task.  Students are trying to route out a horde of Mongols from the castle stronghold.  Teams will be designing, building and  testing their projectile devices, gathering and graphing their data and redesigning their device for accuracy.  

Science 7th/8th

We completed the Climate Change Unit test and began to look at designs for sustainable energy efficient and climate friendly housing.  Students created drawings and explanations for their housing creations.  When we return from Camp Abnaki, we will have a final engineering task as a culminating event to both their humanities and science investigations.

The Week in Ms. O’s

Math 5:  Students have been finishing up end of year assessments and reviewing the skills studied this year through Jeopardy!  It has been fun and has allowed me to provide some extra instruction along the way.

Important note:  Students will be required to take pictures throughout the summer on patterns they see in nature.  Summer is a good time to take photos and most everyone has a phone that can photograph these days.  I will send home the assignment next week and post on next week’s Voice!

Math 6:  We completed Variables and Patterns and are now doing a rotation review activity, cycling through all of the necessary computation skills necessary for math here on out.  Students did a great job today.  This activity will allow for some extra instruction over the next few days, so I am pleased with how focused the students were during this time.

⅚ Science:  Students have a take home practice test this weekend!  Please help them complete it!