TA’s Notes:
Reminder for all- Voyager has a student with a peanut allergy, please keep this in mind when sending in snacks and treats to be shared with other students.
Washington DC Note: Please be sure that you have returned the March Grade Summary Report to Katie Fieldsend by Monday. This gives Ms. O’Brien a better sense of current grades for all 8th graders. She will be viewing these Monday and sending emails to families who have either not signed and returned them or are at risk academically. This coming week...we will be meeting with eighth graders to determine what a la carte items they would like to choose for open block days. I will present a number of options for these time periods and they will be self selecting their interests. Smithsonians and Spy Museums and gardens and on an on...If you have a place you love in DC., share it with your child. We can add it to our growing list!
SBAC Testing - PLEASE READ
- Some houses will be starting to test as of Monday 3/16! This means that students need to start either:
a.) not bringing their personal technology to school
b.) turning it off and putting it in their backpack upon arrival
c.) turning it off and handing it in to their core teacher upon arrival at school.
This is to limit the WiFi use while students are testing. This is an expectation that will be in place for the whole school until the testing is complete, which could be until mid-May.
- Voyager 7/8 Students will begin testing on April 1st (and that’s not an April Fools Joke :) ). Please make sure your child is: eating a healthy breakfast, getting a good amount of sleep, and coming to school prepared with headphones/earbuds for the test. If they do not have headphones/earbuds we will provide!
The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):
Hello Voyager parents! I am Ms. Percy, Voyager intern for the year. I will be teaching the 5th and 6th grade students for the next few weeks, as we learn about the American Revolution, and as the students begin writing their own historical narratives. While learning about the American Revolution, students will take an in depth look at the causes for the war, and do extensive research on significant individuals and events from the time period. Students will also be writing their own historical fiction narratives. They will create a character, plot out their story, and write it, being sure to include vocabulary, dialogue, and artwork into their story. I am very much looking forward to the next few weeks working with your students!
The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):
Math 5: We have finally transitioned to the traditional, standard algorithm for multiplication and are making connections between the area model we have been focusing on and this new and improved strategy. This is still in development, so if you help with homework, consider that for some, this is new! Many students know this strategy already, so we seem to be in good shape! So much of what we do in math these days seems like a mystery, but the connections your child makes are amazing and they do result in the most efficient strategies that we all know.
Moby Max is due by the end of Sunday. One hour is the minimum! The “week” is considered Monday morning-Sunday evening!
Math 6: Students made their way through a very quick decimal operations unit and have finished with an assessment. This is the last for the trimester, so you will see it on the 2nd marking period. We worked on Khan Academy as well, to build some additional skills on the computer, but also to sure up our skills with decimal multiplication and division. Starting next week, students will need to complete assigned lessons on Khan as part of their fluency work in math. We are letting go of Moby for now, to see if Khan can meet our needs and expose us to grade level skills. We will begin our first big Algebra unit on Monday and then move on to Data and Statistics to finish the year. Geometry will continue to find its way into our problem solving work, so expect some additional practice packets in this area.
Science ⅚: We wrapped up our two week engineering challenge with a schoolwide event on Thursday. Students competed in one of four categories. We placed 1st and 2nd in the Rubberband Car challenge and 1st in the Catapult Challenge. Regardless of placement in the finals, students learned an immense amount about the science behind their engineering designs, and about how to work closely with a group to solve an engineering problem. My hope is that we can include this work on the 2nd trimester reporting. Students should have their engineering notebooks at home for the weekend and should be completing their final reflection. Ski and Ride students will be given a one day extension, as they missed both a working period on Friday in class and likely have left their engineering notebooks at school. See photos below.
Thanks to Dan Fleming who spent 2 weeks in our classroom, working with students and officiating the challenge. He is our engineer in residence and has made a big impact on your child’s future as an engineer!
The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):
Kia Ora! I am back from New Zealand and finally adjusted back (I think) to the time difference. I hope everyone had a fantastic February Break!
This week during our morning classes we played a bit of catch-up after doing some independent reading. Students had a lot of questions about New Zealand, so we had a lot of fun talking about the different schools I visited, adventures had, and places visited. Students also enjoyed some New Zealand lollies (candies) that I brought back. Overall the reaction was: YUM! As the week continued on, we started our articles for the student takeover of the Williston Observer. Articles are due on Monday, and will be sent off to (hopefully) get published in an issue of the Observer that will come out in ! As the week came to a close we began our practice with the SBAC test. The majority of the student response to how the practice test went sounded a bit like this: “It was good.”, “It was easy and fine.”, “It was boring but fine.”, “It was tiring.”, “Good.”. We went over some test-taking techniques, reviewed how to use all of the tools, and went over the answers with the matching rubrics. On Friday while the schoolwide Engineering Task was going on the 8th graders worked on their 8th Grade Challenge final presentations, writing piece, and/or research. The 7th graders worked with me, and we began the 8th Grade Challenge process! It may seem early, but many students may want to get started over the summer. To get started we defined what an 8th Grade Challenge Project is, watched an inspiring video, and held an 8th Grade Challenge Think Tank! During this time students brainstormed ideas for topics and projects to match their topic ideas. Many students left the Think Tank with great ideas for their projects, so it was certainly successful!
During our afternoon classes students were given the project expectations for the WWII Point of View/Perspectives Project! The excitement around the project seems to be high, and the students are coming up with some really creative and clever ideas for their presentations. We also spent some of our afternoons in a double block for Science to prep for the Engineering Challenge!
The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):
CMP8
We are just about done with our Function Junction Unit. We investigated how to transform a function vertically, horizontally, and also how to flip, widen, and narrow our images. We looked closely at the standard, factored and vertex form of the quadratic equation and how the equation relates to landmarks in the graph. We rounded off the week with SBAC training. The 8th graders were certainly patient as we learned how to login and work within the WCS secure browser. Next week we will practice the SBAC math performance task.
CMP7
This week students investigated linear patterns in tables, graphs and equations. We looked at a form of linear equation called a direct variation and we debated the difference between continuous and discrete data and how they are graphed in a Cartesian coordinate plane. Students also investigated solutions sets and reviewed ways that you can formulated an equation from a table and a graph. We ended the week with SBAC practice on the WCS secure browser. Students were patient, focused and hard working as we all learned how to take this test. Next week we will practice the SBAC math performance task.
Science 7th/8th
Our Voyager engineers were feverishly testing, redesigning and retesting their devices for the WCS Engineering Challenge. Friday’s competition began at 8:15 with the Balloon Cars followed by the Robotic Arm Challenge at 9:45, the Watercraft challenge at 11:15 and we finished the day at 1:15 with the air cannon. Students struggled and persevered to complete these tasks. They took data, created tables, graphs, drawings and observations. Next week we will pull it all together when they complete their final reflection.
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