TA’s Notes:

***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***

***All 8th Grade Trip Behavior and Academic Expectation Forms NEED to be in by Monday, November 9th!***

Voyager’s Book & Media Sale Today!

We still need as much help as we can get with set-up tonight and selling tomorrow!  

Tonight from 6-8pm is set-up in the Sterling hallway

Saturday we need helpers from 12:30 - 2:30 and from 2:30 - 4:30!

Thanks to everyone who has volunteered- let’s make this a crazy successful fund raiser!

The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):

    Students should be very close to finishing their mystery/suspense books. We had more fun taking turns reading in character this week. Students had some great interpretations for their parts.  We have been busy collecting evidence about the setting and the characters to write a LEAF on what makes “scary” scary. We will be starting that next week.

    We have been exploring many strategies and techniques for personal narrative writing over last two weeks. This week we explored writing from a clear point of view and using details that ring true. Students spent some time doing some storytelling, telling so the listeners could experience the story with them. I have been really impressed with the writing effort in class.

    Our 5 Themes of Geography Google Slides State Project concluded today with a fun share time. Students had to explore 4 slide shows (4 states from 4 different regions) and use the slide shows to complete an exit survey of each state. The projects can be accessed via your students google account (google slides or classroom).

    FAP Book Fair - We will be going to the FAP Book Fair on Wednesday morning, if your student would like to purchase a book, this is the day to bring money.

The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):

Math 5

• This week students reinforced understanding of common denominator and how to use these strategies when adding and subtracting.
• Our work in science has insisted that we learn and understand more about line graphing.  We had several lessons on the elements of good graphs and will continue to work on this until we are pros!  

Math 6

• The introduction to ratios and how they are related to fractions is a good step in the Algebra direction.  We have had practice activities just making ratios, but also have worked on fractions of the whole problems where students are commenting on the fundraising goals of an imaginary group of students. This work has resulted in making ratio/comparison statements about the fundraising goals.

Science ⅚

• This week we took advantage of the weather and spent all science periods outside.  In order to understand the concept of speed, we had several runners and walkers run/walk a race course; we collected data; we graphed the data; we then made sense of that data.  This week was very math heavy and revealed the need for more time working with data sets.  Statistical analysis is a lot of work!  See photos below for some insight into our learning!

The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):

Our morning classes this week have been dedicated to our 5 paragraph informational essays. Students spent about a week researching and taking notes on topics of study for their Global Village country. After our research, we took the next step in the writing process which was to build an outline. Students were given multiple options for their outlines and suggestions for how to organize all of their notes and research to build a 5 paragraph essay that they would feel successful about. Once students completed their outlines, reviewed any suggestions or feedback, they were given the green light to move ahead to begin writing their essay. Students have been spending each morning this week with their essay, and by also putting in time at home or during core, they should all be at the point to participate in a peer edit. After having reviewed some helpful hints for informational writing over the course of the week and providing students with time to self-edit their work, all students participated in a peer edit on Friday morning. Once they have applied any necessary changes and completed a final proofread students can turn in their essays in Google Classroom. The final due date is Tuesday, November 10th. For this writing piece we have been using bits and pieces of the Lucy Calkins information writing unit, so the rubric may look a little longer than previous units, but that is only because the Lucy Calkins’ rubrics go into great detail! Lucy Calkins writing units, rubrics, and check lists are being used throughout Williston Central School in all grade levels, and it is also the rubric that is used for our On-Demand writing assessments in the Spring and Fall.

8th graders have been assigned their final reading response for their literature group on “The Day of the Pelican”, and the 7th graders are completing their final reading assignment. The 7th graders will be assigned their final reading response next week, and students will also be participating in a final discussion.

Our afternoon classes have been covered in cardboard creations, paint, duct tape, glue, and costumes! We are officially in the “All Hands On Deck” mode for the Global Village as we are only one week away! Students have been working hard and really pushing their creativity by taking risks and thinking outside the (cardboard) box. We need to send a special thanks out to all of the parent volunteers that we’ve had in our classroom over the past few days. With their help we were able to set up stations and rotations for students to go to the WCS costume room and also spend time painting large pieces of cardboard and murals for their displays. We have a variety of building and landscapes in the making such as mountains from Norway and Iceland, Big Ben from the United Kingdom, and even a Parisian Cafe! We hope that you will all be able to join us next Thursday from 1:30-2:30 for Voyager’s 2nd Global Village!

The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):

CMP7

What rules can help you add and subtract positive and negative numbers?  What rules can help you with multiplying and dividing positive and negative numbers?  These questions preoccupied our lessons this week.  We also worked on our understanding of inequalities.  Such as

2x + 5 25.  Students solved these inequalities as equalities and worked to graph them on a number line.  These problems were challenging for students and put many into disequilibrium, which is all part of building our math thinking.  **A  special note about homework. Students should stop working on math after 30 minutes, even if they have not completed the assignments.  Thanks!

CMP8

Decay factors and decay rates; students did a lot of work around tables, graphs and equations that showed these functions.  They included things like area of a ballot, flea medication and cooling tea.  We saw that the exponential decay equation is similar to the exponential growth function, however, the decay rate is always less than 1.  Y = 200 (.80x) is an example of where the starting amount of 200 decreases by 20% each year, however, you have to multiply each year by .8.  Finally, we had some jasmine tea and watched the decrease of temperature over time using our new GoTemp temperature probes and the Graphical Analysis app.  

Science 7th/8th

This week students were working diligently on researching a genetic abnormality or disorder.  Their goal was to create a brochure that was accessible to a general audience and that explained the symptoms, genetic causes and treatment of the disease.  They also learned about which chromosome, gene was responsible for the disorder and how it was passed on.   Students shared their information on these diseases with each other. Next week we will be giving up science for the Global Village Project.  Each country will have some specific health questions that they will research as a science component of their project.