Week of February 16

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!  

Week of February 9th - 13th

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

We started the week with our read aloud of “Rules”and the students are very engaged with the book. We should be able to finish the book during our Reading Cafe on Monday, and will spend some time reflecting on the themes of  friendship, compassion, and understanding differences. We are hoping to find some time to blog about these themes before the break.

Students also wrapped up their scripts and filmed their survival instructional videos this week. We have a wide variety of topics and the students had a lot of fun putting these videos together using imovie. We will have the “Voscars” next week. Students will select the top 5 videos to screen and vote on best film, actors, etc.

The stock market game is a huge hit and the students are working very hard to put together a strong portfolio for the competition. We learned about diversity, risk, mutual funds, and bonds this week. Students also researched industries and companies as they considered potential investments. We currently have 6 teams in the top twenty of our region!

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

This week during our morning times together our focus has been on biographies. We asked questions such as: What do they sound like? How are they written? What is included? We did a read aloud of a biography, and students participated in discussions around comprehension, predictions, and author’s voice. As the week came to a close students were introduced to their next big writing piece, which is writing a biography on an important person from WWII. Students took some time to pick a person they wanted to write about, and the people are ranging from political leaders to military generals to athletes. We spent Thursday and Friday in the Library, and with the help of Ms. Hennig, the students were given a range of resources to use to learn about their important person. We are really pushing students to start using a variety of resources when completing a research project, so they are not just relying on websites and the internet. This writing project is going hand in hand with our afternoon classes, and it is also providing students with a more personal or insider perspective on aspects of World War II.

Our afternoons have been focused on continuing our journey around the world learning about World War II. Our 7/8 community has become pros at taking notes! I have been really impressed with the level of dedication and focus while learning about the war. Students have been using the interactive map to guide them through the many years of the war. Students have been traveling to Europe, Northern Africa, Asia, and America learning about different events from the war. This week our focus was on the Battle of Britain, The “Blitz”, and the Leningrad Siege. Students also watched videos on Wartime Nutrition, Rosie the Riveter, and learned about wartime propaganda. Students took a look at a variety of posters such as posters promoting conservation of materials (food, rubber, gasoline), warning about espionage, and encouraging women to join the workforce. Some students even created their own propaganda posters, and these were great! As the week came to a close students took a look at panzer tanks, flying tigers, and kamikaze planes. This immense amount of information gained over the past 2 weeks has been put to great use in class discussions and reflections, and will be used as their research to put towards their World War 2 Perspectives Project which will be launched at the end of next week. Students have been working really hard, and have been saying that they are learning A LOT! Some students have said the map has allowed them to learn about events they had never heard about, get an inside look at some of the tanks and planes used during the time through the 3-D interactive imagery, and some have even said that they can’t believe how much was going on in the world during one time! I look forward to closing up our work next week and launching the new project!

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

CMP8

This week we completed the “Frogs, Fleas and Painted Cubes” unit with a general review of all the concepts we have covered.  We created class records, completed a review and discussed strategies for identifying quadratic equations, quadratic tables and graphs.  Due to the Spanish and French midterms, we extended our test taking to Friday.  Next week we will move on to the unit called Function Junction!  This unit explores function notation and a new set of mathematical concepts.

CMP7

We completed the “Comparing and Scaling” unit with a creation of a class record of the major concepts we explored.  We played a rousing game of jeopardy and completed the test on Thursday and Friday. Next week we will begin with the unit called “Moving Straight Ahead” which introduces linear functions.

Science 7th/8th

This week students worked feverishly to create their “Koke Chiller” devices.  Students tested and redesigned their chillers for optimum chilling and researched the science behind thermal energy transfer. On Friday, the “Koke” Company Executives came to hear the scientific sales pitches by each team and how their chiller was the most effective.  Then the challenge actually took place to see what team could chill 250 ml of room temperature “Koke” to the lowest temperature in 10 minutes.  It was a very exciting event, and the results will be announced Monday.  Next week we will have block scheduling during theme week.  Students will place the finishing touches on their projects and take a Thermal Energy Unit Test.

Week of February 2

SBAC House Updates:   Voyager House ONLY!  (Does not apply to other houses).  The ⅞ testing window for SBAC begins on April 1.  The ⅚ testing window for SBAC begins on May 4.   We ask two things of families and students:  please leave cell phones at home during this time.   Phones that are on will interfere with our WiFi connectivity.  Also, please secure earbuds for your child.  If you do not own those, you are welcome to buy a set or borrow a set here at school.  We will continue to remind you of this on the Voice.

TA’s Notes:

The DANCE was super!  Thanks for all of your support and work!

After school with Ms. Sherman:

Reading club continues to meet on Wednesdays from 3:00-4:00. Below are the rest of the dates.

February 11th

February 18th (last day of Reading club)

Reminder- Below are after school offerings on Voyager House

Monday- Math with Ms. O’Brien

Tuesday- Homework Club with Ms. Percy

Wednesday- Reading Club with Ms. Sherman

Thursday- Homework Club with Ms. Percy

              -Writing Workshop (⅞) with Ms. Wesnak

              -Math Help (⅞) with Ms. Quatt

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

This week we wrapped up script writing for our Instructional Survival Videos. Students completed typing their 3 column script drafts, and the content revision process. Students worked in small groups to read aloud specific parts of their scripts (ex. hook) and used “I like, I wish” statements to suggest revisions. We then did some self editing, and started to organize our filming schedule for next week. Students should bring in any materials they will need for video making by Tuesday next week.

The Stock Market Game is on! Students are on teams, have roles, and have started researching  to build their portfolios. All decisions must have team consensus before any transactions can occur. By week 5, each team must have spent $50,000 on 5 different stocks.  Weekly meetings will give teams a chance to report out on research and make decisions on next steps. A weekly evaulation/log will be required of every student. Have a discussion with your student about the stock market, companies, and your own investments. Students will be learning about diversification, risk, mutual funds, and bonds next week. They are able to purchase funds and bonds in the game.

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

Math 5:  This week, we worked hard on long division problems that have no remainder and the documentation necessary to show and explain strategies for solving them.  Students learned the names of the three terms in a division problem and matched each term to the dimensions and area of a rectangle. We also compared our own work to work that was modeled well and found that we needed to work a little harder to justify our reasoning in a diagram so that it can stand alone as an explanation.  Thursday and Friday were review days for our upcoming assessment on Tuesday.  

Math 6:  We wrapped up our Let’s Be Rational book on operations with fractions and I’m still noticing some confusion, mostly with identifying operations in word problems.  How do you know what operation to use in order to solve a problem?  It actually takes some careful reading and an ability to identify words and contextual clues for operations.  A problem like “she used ⅔ of the 2 pounds of blueberries” is very different than “she used ⅔ of a pound for the muffins, how many pounds did she have left if she had 2 pounds to start” which is again different from “each muffin requires ⅔ pounds.  She has 2 pounds.  How many muffins can she make?”  Are you thoroughly confused?  We will continue to work on this skill as we enter a quick unit on decimals, which will be very skill based, but also about identifying operations.  

⅚ Science: More modeling!  We did some additional modeling this week on moon phases and identified which phase our moon is in for solar and lunar eclipses.  During our long block this week we identified why objects appear to be the same size when they aren’t!  The activity we did this week began with this challenge:  make the spherical objects appear to be the same size.  Students were given 3-4 objects and had to figure out how you could get them to appear the same size from a given viewer’s eye.  Students strung themselves across the classroom and down the hall in order to make a marble, golfball, field hockey ball and basketball appear to be the same size and some groups kept mathematical data to then talk about with the group.  Discoveries?  A ball that is twice as large in diameter would need to be twice as far away in order for it to appear the same size as a ball that is two times smaller and two times closer!  

Makeup Day:  Friday long block students who are not skiing had the opportunity to make up work.  Hopefully for some, that opportunity cleared some of those missing Jupiter Grade assignments.  It was quiet on house and many students were super focused.  

Coming Soon!!  A CVU senior will be running a rain barrel painting workshop on Thursday, February 19 at school.  It will likely be an all day affair on the ⅚ side and if you like to design and paint things, we could use your help.  The last time I did this, 3 students walked into me with very wet paintbrushes, so bring old clothes.  Let Colleen know if you are interested in coming.  Engineering Challenge day is on the 12th of March. This will be streamed online via our website, and your child will be participating in one of the 4 challenges offered.  If you would like to see it in person, I can provide more details soon, but for now, mark it on your calendar.  

Math Club: So sorry to do this for the next two weeks, but Math Club will not run, Monday, February 9 and Monday February 16.  I will run two lunchtime/recess math clubs for anyone interested during this timeframe.  Things will pick up again in March.

MobyMax:  I seemed to have a grip on who has been using the EASY button on Moby.  This week students may use the application as makeup for weeks missed.  I have had a personal conference with most 5th graders and will have one with each 6th grader next week to discuss progress made.  Thanks for your work at home addressing it and monitoring use.  

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

This week during our morning time together we had our mini grammar study on conjunctions. Yes, we did have Schoolhouse Rock’s, “Conjunction Junction” stuck in our heads for most of the week. Our main focus was on understanding the use of coordinating conjunctions. We looked at how they are used in sentences and how they are used with commas. Students participated in a lot of in-class guided practice, used conjunctions in their journal writes, completed practice for homework, and even participated in a conjunction challenge! By the end of the week all students took a short quiz on conjunctions to show their gained knowledge of using conjunctions with commas. Our next grammar study will be focused on subordinate conjunctions and semi-colons. These will all certainly come in handy when we get to our biography and personal narrative writing pieces!

Our afternoons have been focused on understanding and gaining a global perspective of World War II. Students have been using History.com’s interactive map to guide them through the many people, places, and events of this time period. We have been alternating between map work as a whole class with guided note-taking and discussion and partner work. Right now our events are focused on the Holocaust. Along with using the interactive map, we have been watching clips of interviews with Holocaust survivors, reading additional articles, and having great discussions in class. Although this is a tough time period to learn about, students have been really engaged in hearing about personal stories and digging into the wealth of information on the map. Students have also made comments about how eye-opening the material is, and how with every new piece of information they still can’t believe that this all happened. Learning about World War II is an extremely deep topic, and I encourage you to engage in conversation about what we are learning, discussing, and watching in class. Take a look at the map if you’ve got a chance! It’s very cool, and you could easily spend a lot of time on it!

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

CMP8 This week based on a student’s searching and inquiry, we learned a novel way to figure out how to form a quadratic equation from a table that might not have the landmarks we have become accustomed to.  It has certainly made a difference to have an additional tool in our math tool box to help us navigate quadratics.  We also had the opportunity to build small catapults.  In this investigation, we used the projectile motion to devise the quadratic equation and find the maximum point of our curve.  We had some tricky calculations and found that we needed to review how to input our equations into the calculator. (- x2)  We will finish this unit with a review and a unit test next week.  Don’t forget Mobymax! CMP7 This week the 7th graders learned a lot about commissions, mark-ups, buying and selling rates of cars.  Mr. G. gave us some insight into restaurant work and how the money his makes is divided between himself and the different parties such as the hostess, the bartender, the dishwasher and the house.  Seeing how percentages, ratios and proportions are used in day-to-day life was great! We moved onto measurement conversion problems.  Students rolled the die to select the methodology in which they would solve the problem: ratio/proportion, rate table or equation.  We have completed the Comparing and Scaling book and will be having a review and unit test next week.   Don’t forget Mobymax. Science 7th/8th Students completed their thermal energy demonstrations this week.  They had the opportunity to see firsthand what it’s like to engage their classmates in the scientific process.  Gathering materials, trying out the experiments, figuring out whether the class understood the scientific concept was a challenge for many.  We also began our “Koke Chiller Challenge”, an engineering task where students create a container that will chill a room temperature beverage in 10 minutes.  We will complete this project next week with a competition for the “Chillest”Chiller.