TA’s Notes:
Advisory: Thanks to all advisory members who donated food for the Thanksgiving Baskets Voyager is donating to the food shelf in Williston. It is thoughtful of you to consider those in our community who can use a little assistance. We will take a picture of the baskets before delivery on Tuesday!
Voyager Community- We on Voyager work hard to make everyday a fun, invigorating, and educational experience. Sometimes we have amazing units happening in our classrooms that would be even more enhanced by providing out of the classroom experiences. We’re talking about field trips. But….field trips take support and funds. We would love to continue to provide rich, hands-on experiences for students. We need your support! Every year, the Williston Annual fund requests a one-time amount of money from families to support these causes. This year, less than 20% of Voyager families submitted to this fund. We urge you to send in your contribution to help support our efforts.
Washington DC Trip Update: We are excited to have contracts in for 8th graders attending the DC trip. Ms. O will be meeting with students after the break to discuss contracts, work completion expectations, and a basic itinerary for the trip. We have a Capitol tour and Holocaust Museum plan in motion, but are awaiting scheduling these experiences due to booking policies at both locations. We should have both of these opportunities scheduled by January 15. More info to follow...got to get my head around it! Ms. O
Ms. Sherman:
The after school organizational club has come to an end. Thanks to all the great kids who stayed after to work on these skills.
The next session starts in December, after the Thanksgiving break. The next session’s topic will be about tough reading. Students are sometimes presented with reading material that is difficult for them to read. These sessions will look at strategies to use when the reading is hard. It’s a great way for kids to get more confidence even when faced with text that is “above” their level. If your child struggles with reading informational text, this would be a great opportunity for them to gain some new skills. Below is the schedule for Reading club:
Wednesday, December 3→ 3-4:00
Wednesday, December 17→ 3-4:00
Wednesday, January 7→ 3-4:00
Wednesday, January 14→ 3-4:00
The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):
This week for the wrap up of our Reading Cafe, students updated their Reading Response Notebooks for the end of the trimester. Notebooks should show evidence of ongoing reading, reflections, responses, and new vocabulary. For current events, we have been spending time practicing with news sources to find local, national, and international news. Students have also been working with large maps in the classroom, and charting where important news stories are taking place, which we will continue throughout the year. We have been talking about events in the Middle East, U.S. and local elections, and the G20 summit. Students are encouraged to continue to watch the news and read the paper over break, to share with the class when we return.
On Tuesday, we continued our work on a mock trial using the Pro Se Court format. Each student prepared for their role (judge, attorney for the city of Chicago, or attorney for Jesus Morales), with a group of students with the same role. They then judged or argued the case on their own. Judges made a decision at the end of the hearing. We discussed the results of the actual case, and that the Supreme Court’s ruling was a close 6-3 decision in favor of Morales.
On Wednesday, we had a visit from the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Jeff Kinney. He spoke about his journey as a writer/illustrator and the process he uses to create each book. It was a really cool event!
On Thursday, we took a look at the system of checks and balances for our government. Students completed a diagram and prepared for a quiz on Friday. We also had a chance at the end of the day to play an icivics game - Supreme Decision. This is a great online game that brings the student into the decision making process on a Supreme Court case. Try it at home and see how you do!
The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):
Math 5-Students worked hard this week to bridge the divide between finding fractions of a number and using that understanding to add and subtract fractions with different denominators. Students used double number lines, number lines which have two scales on them - a fraction of the whole scale and the number that indicates one whole. So in a problem like this one...A man sets out for a week long hike that is 100 km long and walks ¼ of the way the first day and ⅕ of the way the second day. How much of the trail has he hiked? students can use ¼ + ⅕ ( unlike denominators) as the problem to solve, but do so using their understanding of ¼ of 100, which is 25/100 miles and ⅕ of the trail which is 20/100 miles (a common denominator) and now add for 45/100 which is the same as ¼ + ⅕ = 9/20. Perhaps it is too hard to share this idea, so please ask your kiddo to show you a double number line. Students practiced using a triple beam balance for finding the mass of objects. They did a great job. What a focused class period this was!
PLEASE DO MOBY MAX OVER BREAK!
Math 6-This week, students worked on understanding decimals. We reviewed the Base Ten place value names, practiced saying decimals, placing decimals on number lines, comparing decimals and even determining decimals between decimals. I’m always reminded of how important preliminary discussions are around this topic; place value is a really important foundation in math, and I often underestimate the gaps students have in this area. This investigation also introduces negative numbers and discusses absolute value. I have found the introduction of absolute value to be an essential one in helping students understand the negative side of the number line.
PLEASE DO MOBY MAX OVER BREAK!
Science ⅚: This week students began an important discussion about matter and gravity. We finalized ideas about matter, since gravity acts on all matter, so that we had a working definition of it. We also began an inquiry task where students dropped objects to determine which object would hit the ground first. Day One was an open inquiry to choose objects and drop them, while Day Two was a more focused inquiry on determining whether mass affects which object will hit the ground first. Students are all dropping spherical objects and the time lapse option on ipads in order to ensure accurate data collection. As part of this inquiry opportunity, students are using triple beam balances to find the masses of objects. This will bring us to some important claims about gravity as a force on Earth.
STUDENTS WILL BE RECEIVING A FEW HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS THIS NEXT UNIT, INCLUDING A MOON JOURNAL. HELP THEM BY OBSERVING THE MOON AT ALL TIMES OF THE DAY!
The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):
This week in Humanities we have been working hard on our argument papers and starting our studies on early 20th Century history with the big immigration boom!
During our morning time together students worked on bringing our Trimester 1 unit to a close, by creating a new American flag and defining themselves as Americans. The new American flags were a great way for students to illustrate their reflections on the unit, and put to paper symbols, colors, and pictures that (to them) represent who we are as a country. The definitions were also a really great way for students to reflect on what they’ve learned, but to now take their gained knowledge and connect it back to themselves. Another creative element that students participated in was having their American Portraits taken. These portraits will be printed and showcased in an exhibit titled, “The Faces of America” in our upcoming American History Museum! More to come on the museum later! As the week continued on 7th and 8th graders had their rough drafts edited for their 5-paragraph argument essays on youth immigration. As the week came to a close students watched a documentary introducing them to the experiences of immigration in the early 20th Century, Ellis Island, and the Ellis Island Museum.
Our afternoon time together was spent simulating our way through defining terms for our next mini unit of study: early 20th Century immigration. Students were asked to look at 3 words and define them: refugee, immigrant, and emigrant. Students were told that all 3 words have similarities, but they are different from each other. Our focus for this week was to understand the differences, and make connections to find the similarities, between a refugee and an immigrant. We had a lot of fun with these simulations and the 7/8 community was really respectful, inclusive, and creative when dealing with the challenges they faced! These simulations were a great way for students to really see the similarities and differences between a refugee and an immigrant, and they were also a great stepping stone into our studies that will start after the break. Simulations are also a great way to do some hands-on learning in and out of the classroom!
Thank you for a great 1st Trimester! It has been filled with creative thought, critical thinking, and thoughtful reflection. I hope everyone has a healthy and happy Thanksgiving!
The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):
CMP8
This week we looked more closely at that the meaning of square roots and cubed roots, better known as radicals. We began a new unit called “Looking for Pythagoras” which had us creating squares on a diagonal and finding the side lengths based on the area of the square. Students learned the derivation of the square root and cube root by creating models. We became more adept at estimating where a square root of a number would lie on a number line, by using the perfect square numbers that we know such as 4,9,16 which are 2, 3 and 4. When we come back from Thanksgiving Break, we will learn how the Pythagorean Theorem was derived.
On a special note, all CMP 8 students have an algebra placement credit intent letter that must be read, signed and returned when we get back. Thank you for your attention to this detail.
CMP7
What makes geometric figures similar? We began our “Stretching and Shrinking” unit with finding the similarities and differences of figures that are scaled down or blown up. Students practiced their graphing skill as we created the “Mug Wump” characters, their fanny packs and hats! Students also created simple characters and coordinate pair instructions for their classmates. These skills link to translating figures using a rule and will be seen in the future when we stretch, shrink and move non-linear functions.
Science 7th/8th
Gravity! This week we continued our exploration of this force to pin down a better understanding of what it is and how it relates to the mass of an object. We viewed a video called the “Lords of Gravity” which had amazing footage of planets, rings, and evidence of gravitation force in space. There was a lot of enthusiasm for space exploration so we spent an afternoon looking into NASA and other space agencies to see what probes are out there, what their mission is, and what they have found out. Students also began to brainstorm possible project ideas with the solar system and space in mind. These projects will begin after break.
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