TA’s Notes:
Thanks to all of you for your contributions to the Voyager sponsored dance. We had a fantastic turnout and the decorations committee led by the three fifth grade families did a blockbuster job. We raised over $400 and that money will go straight into the Voyager House Student Account to help cover non-level III field trips and other educational initiatives, like a release date for the trout being raised by the 5th and 6th graders.
When we come back, we'll jump headlong into planning our Annual Recycle Sale - it's an indoor garage sale that's been a very successful fundraiser for the house.
The set up is on Friday night, March 20th from 5-8 pm and the sale will be from 9-2 pm on Saturday March 21st.
We'd welcome your help! Please start setting aside your lightly used treasures - toys, books, electronics, clothing, sporting goods and more. A volunteer signup sheet will also go out the first week of March.
Big Basket Raffle:
Now collecting items for the 15th Annual Big Basket Raffle and Silent Auction!
- Mr. Merrill’s Core- Chocolate Lover (truffles, candy, fudge, hot chocolate, m&m’s, fondue...)
- Ms. O’s Core- Live Right (weights, i-pod arm strap, water bottles, yoga mat, health magazines...)
- Ms. Q’s Core- Safety First (flashlight, jumper cables, smoke/carbon monoxide detectors, 1st aid)
- Ms. Wesnak’s Core- By the Campfire (cooler, folding chairs, s’mores items, campfire stories…)
The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):
We have had a very busy and fun week leading up to the break. Students completed filming their instructional survival videos and revised their final scripts. The videos will be evaluated when we return and the top 5 (based on student input) will be viewed by the entire class for our Voscar Awards.
Our Reading Cafe time was used to wrap up the “Rules” read aloud. Students wrote reflections in their writer’s notebooks based on the themes of friendship and compassion. Most students were able to post their reflections on our Kidblog site and we hope to start commenting on all posts when we return from the break.
Our lessons on the stock market this week focused on “what causes stock prices to change? and when to buy, sell, or hold a stock. Students are working in teams, researching stocks and coming to consensus on decisions to build their portfolios. Many teams will be communicating by email over the vacation to remain competitive in the game.
The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):
This week during our morning classes our main focus was on our World War II biographies. Students were provided with the expectations and possible outlines to follow for the writing piece. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all in-class work days. The class split in a few separate ways with some of the students continuing research in the library, some researching online with library web resources, and some students beginning the writing process. Students are working really hard on this, and they are all learning a lot! Students are not expected to work on this over break, as it is something we have planned class time for after the February vacation. By the end of this week all students should be finished with their research and starting the writing process! Strike up a conversation with your child about who they are studying; the range of people is fantastic!
During our afternoon classes, we finally, wrapped up our studies of World War II! What a fantastic journey this has been! Students have really gained great knowledge on the many events that took place during World War II. They have also become fantastic note-takers, finders of the main idea, and skimmers of the important facts within a large paragraph. This week we had full class instruction around Pearl Harbor, D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, Iwo Jima, The Manhattan Project, and the attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Students participated in guided instruction of note-taking, and we also did some read alouds. This week we watched a number of videos, listened to speeches and analyzed tone, read diary entries of D-Day soldiers, and even took a closer look at some famous World War II photographs, specifically the iconic image taken on Mt. Suribachi of the soldiers raising the American flag. I have been extremely impressed by the level of dedication our 7/8 community has put into this unit of study because it is dense, difficult, and a true example of a global war. To bring all of our hard work to a close students will be completing a perspective project when they return from February break. By the end of the week students decided, with the help of the Wesnak Wheel of Fate, which perspective they would be taking on for the project. This project will be discussed much more once we have returned from break, but what the students know now is that it’s a big project and includes an oral presentation! This will be the second time I’ve done this project, and it is quite a fun, exciting, and amazing process for students to take part in. I can’t wait to get started!
In other news...as many of you know, students on Voyager have the opportunity to work with and meet students from Blockhouse Bay Intermediate School in Auckland, New Zealand by taking part in afterschool Skype sessions. This is part of a global connections project I have been working on for about a year with the help of a nomination from the University of Vermont. This project is quickly expanding in its opportunities for our students, and has also given me the opportunity to do some professional development in New Zealand over the February Break and week after! I am very excited! Students at Blockhouse Bay have just returned from their Summer vacation, so we haven’t been able to Skype with them since December! In preparation for my trip, our students have written letters to Blockhouse Bay students, we have put together a “care package” filled with maple candy, stickers, VT pins (very big in New Zealand because of school uniforms), and a couple books by Vermont author, Katherine Paterson. Our Kidblog or Google classroom will finally be up and running upon my return from Auckland, which will open up so many more learning opportunities for our students. During my trip I will be working in the classroom we have been Skyping with, building a global connections curriculum, and creating projects that our students will be working on together. So far, we have only been able to do this via odd times on Skype due to the incredible time difference, so to be able to go abroad and work hand and hand with Jade Dobson (the cooperating teacher at Blockhouse Bay) is a true gift and honor. We have a lot of ideas, big and small, and can not wait to return to share the updates. This project has been a lot of work and is continuously progressing. I want to thank all of the students who have put in time after school to make it a success so far. I also want to thank the families of these students for giving them the chance to make a connection with a student in another country, for picking them up from school later than usual, and for the overall support of this project.
- Kia Ora and see you in March!! Ms. W
The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):
CMP8
Students began learning a new math language called function notation. We began the unit called “Function Junction” with defining new vocabulary such as input, output, domain, range and f(x). We have been investigating functions all year such as linear, exponential, inverse variation and quadratic functions, but now we can use symbolic language to represent these functions in a way that looks at inputs and outputs.
CMP7
We began the week with recording our walking rate for 10 meters. We took the average of our trials and extrapolated how long it would take to travel 1600 meters if we kept the same pace. Eventually we figured out how fast we walk in miles per hour. Students graphed their data, created equations and compared their data with their colleagues. We looked closely at landmarks that can be found in graphs, tables and equations.
Science 7th/8th
The Koke Chiller Challenge Winners were announced at kiva on Monday. Devices that won were able to chill the room temperature water to a frosty temperature quickly. We recognized the top four places from both blue and gold classes and then had “trophies” for the first three places. Block scheduling enabled both classes to have a long period to finish their Koke Chiller Write-ups and a long period to complete the Thermal Energy Unit Test. Friday was the kickoff for the school wide engineering task. Students were placed in groups and they selected their task from the bowl of fate. The tasks for the 7th/8th grade include a balloon car, robotic arm, watercraft and air cannon. Upper Houses will be competing on Friday, March 13th, so when we return from break we will be focusing our afternoon block on this task.
The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science)
Math 5: This week students worked on building deeper understanding of multi-digit multiplication. Students have become adept at drawing the area model of multiplication in order to find the product of two numbers and have extended this understanding to division. Although we have touched on this topic before, we are extending this understanding to include division of whole numbers, decimals, and ultimately fractions. In this unit, we will eventually touch on the traditional algorithm, but many already know it! This may be a quick unit!
In addition to the current unit, I have provided students with a Geometry packet in order to expose them to some foundational geometry concepts, which has also included a whole bunch of new vocabulary. This is a way to get students to work their way through some independent work, reading carefully and following examples, in order to cover topics that may not be covered before the May standardized testing time. Please know that we will be checking these packets and making sure that students feel comfortable with the new vocabulary and concepts.
Moby Max will pick up again after break. Feel free to continue over break to make up passed weeks missed. Our Technology Integration Specialist, Bonnie Birdsall, will meet with students to review technology expectations for online programs like Moby.
Math 6: Students have been building strategies for operations with decimals and are moving toward proficiency in the context of geometry. Addition and subtraction has integrated well with perimeter, while multiplication and division have integrated well with area. We are working hard to get students to the traditional algorithm for operations with decimals; a happy consequence of working with decimals in this way is that it allows more practice with whole number operations.
In addition to the current unit, I have provided students with a Geometry packet in order to expose them to some foundational geometry concepts, which has also included a whole bunch of new vocabulary. This is a way to get students to work their way through some independent work, reading carefully and following examples, in order to cover topics that may not be covered before the May standardized testing time. Please know that we will be checking these packets and making sure that students feel comfortable with the new vocabulary and concepts.
Moby Max will pick up again after break. Feel free to continue over break to make up passed weeks missed. Our Technology Integration Specialist, Bonnie Birdsall, will meet with students to review technology expectations for online programs like Moby.
Science ⅚: This week we spent our science time working with Kellie Weening, a former Voyager student, now Senior at CVU, in order to fulfill her grad challenge on water conservation and rainbarrels. It was a great week to paint, and this is what we did. Student groups designed themes for their barrels and then sketched and painted designs on the rainbarrels. We are considering hosting a silent auction, at the Recycle Sale, in order to help Kellie raise money for a local water conservation organization. Wanna purchase your daughter or son’s rainbarrel? We will let you know how this might be possible in the coming week!
The trout are feeding now! So fun! Pretty soon we will drop the breeder basket into the tank, and the fish will populate the whole tank!
No comments:
Post a Comment