TA’s Notes:
***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***
Last day of School- Friday, June 10th Half-Day (dismissal is 11:55am)
The Late Activity bus will End on June 1st
The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):
We kicked off a week of studying the Civil War with an ABC Brainstorm, thinking about all the things we know about the war that start with each letter of the alphabet. We studied the causes of the war, the major battles, the aftermath and lasting effects. Students independently read a Civil War ebook and completed a packet of questions, vocabulary, and a map of the Union and Confederate States of America in 1861. Students watched a BrainPOP video on the causes of the Civil War and took a quiz. We then studied and performed a play (in the classroom) on the 54th Massachusetts (the first black soldiers in the war). We also read a graphic novel on Gettysburg and viewed some clips from the movie. We read the Gettysburg address and translated it to form a easier to understand kid version. We also completed a read aloud of a short story about the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Students made organizers in their Reading Response Notebooks for the read alouds and wrote reflections in their writer’s notebooks on the play and how the 54th MA contributed to the war effort and in changing our country. We also watched a BrainPop video on the Civil War and students completed a final quiz.
On Friday afternoon, Richard Allen, a local historian and former WCS teacher, spoke about his latest book - Ambition & Grit - The Life of Truman Naramore: Civil War Veteran and Entrepreneur. Naramore was a Williston resident who fought in the Civil War and ended up at Andersonville Prison. When he returned to Vermont, he was an inventor and entrepreneur and later went west to California. The book is available at the Dorothy Alling Library.
FYI - On June 7th and 8th, we will be going off campus and walking over to the Dorothy Alling Library to the Vermont Room to see the collection of objects from the 19th century. We will be analyzing these objects and learning about life in Vermont during the 1800’s.
The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):
Math 5: We are fully immersed in our solar energy unit. Math you might say? Well yes! Students have been learning about the mathematical side of solar energy by reading tables and graphs, making tables and graphs, collecting data on temperature changes, looking at how the dimensions of a rectangular prism might affect heat retention, making mathematical inferences about heat absorption and reflection (wavelengths) and looking at temperature ratio/conversion (degrees C to degrees F). The most perfect way to teach math in my opinion. I would be psyched to see some cool things come from this work, building solar homes, looking at energy efficiency and looking at how the angle of the solar cell panel affects the speed of a solar car. All activities for the next two weeks!
Math 6: We are really working hard to move through Variables and Patterns with efficiency. A lot of good learning happened this week. The focus of our learning is on tables, graphs and stories and understanding variables, how to read relationships between them, how to determine trends and patterns in a data story, and to decide which representation gives us the information we are looking for at any given time. We focused some on a bike tour that I took along the Oregon Coast. I have them a set of data and asked them to make inferences about what the data means to them. Why did I only do 40 miles one day and 80 or more on other days? What explains this? Weather, terrain, a great coffee shop, charging my cell phone, climbing the Cascade Range, all affected my distance over time data.This provided a great foundation for students to think about relationships amongst variables and to see that sometimes we need all three representations, tables, graphs, and the story, in order to make the most sense of situation.
Science ⅚: What a great week! We finished the Prismatic Pool Explanatory Model and moved right back into the Global Warming Phenomenon. Students are drafting a model that explains Global Warming and this is an assessment piece for this unit. On Tuesday, we will begin a race around the US to geologic locations of note, in order to stretch our brains and learn more about the rock cycle and its role in a changing planet.
The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):
This week our morning classes together have been dedicated to our myth and legend writing project. Students have been given every morning this week to work on this writing piece and have also been provided with a graphic organizer/brainstorm, steps to success in the writing process, and early access to the rubric. Students are really having a great time with this final writing piece, and a lot of students are interested in having a read aloud to share their writing! Our stories so far are truly spanning the globe, and some students are even providing illustrations to go along with their writing. I look forward to seeing the finished product, and then building our second edition of student written myths and legends from around the world.
Our afternoon classes have been 100% dedicated to The Amazing Race! The Amazing Race is a week long integrated unit between Humanities and Science, and the unit is modeled after the television show “The Amazing Race”. Students arrived every afternoon and were given clues/riddles that brought them to a mental or physical challenge somewhere on the globe. The focus of the race was on the theme of “Traveling the World to Better the World”, so each challenge focused on a global area of need. Students were told they had to travel to Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe as they all started in North America, and they all ended in Australia! Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to get to Antarctica. Students could pick their travel vehicle and which continent they went to first, second, etc. Students had a BLAST with this unit and truly synthesized their learning throughout the year in Humanities, and put their recent work in science to the test for a few of our challenges. Here are our challenges by the day:
- Monday: Earthquakes! Help build earthquake proof buildings in a country that is on the earthquake belt or is prone to earthquakes. Prove that they are prone to earthquakes with scientific research, and then, using limited materials, build an earthquake proof house/building that can withstand the shaking on our earthquake simulator!
- Tuesday: Endangered Languages! Find a place in the world where a language is endangered and at threat of extinction. Brainstorm ways to help preserve that language and explain the importance of language on a culture.
- Wednesday: Volcanoes! Find a place in the world that has a volcano. Research that volcano and find a series of facts about that specific volcano. Once the research was complete students had to run out to the volleyball courts to save a city that had just been buried in ash (sand)! In the sand we had buried vehicles, army men, and buildings. Using limited tools and wearing ash simulating goggles, students successfully saved these cities!
- Thursday: Staple Foods and Food Insecurities! Students had to research the staple food in their final continent and research how that food is grown and what it is used for. Then in a blindfolded taste test, students had to figure out which staple food they were eating went with each continent - all 7! Once they passed this challenge, or perhaps had to wait out their time due to wrong answers, they were off to Australia/New Zealand for their final challenge! Using an atlas and a list of countries with their latitude and longitude points, students had to correctly identify which country was in relation to each set of coordinates. After completing the worksheet, students were off on a foot race to break through the finish line!
We had such a great time with this mini unit. It was amazing to see the work from our geography and geology units come to life in a creative, hands on, and fun way!
The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):
CMP7
“It’s all about the base..,bout the base....” We were all about the base of 3-D figures this week and how the base can help us find the volume of a prism. Students used blocks to create 3-D models and calculated the volume and surface area of these structures. We also learned to draw a top, side and front view, and then convert those views into isometric drawings using isometric grid paper. Learning about spatial relationships, how to interpret flat patterns, and then drawing them accurately really tested many of our students this week.
CMP8
Kudos to the 8th graders! They worked hard this week to complete their review, organize their notebooks, and work on areas that they struggled with in order to prepare for the final exam. The exam was given on Friday morning and results should be in early next week. I am very proud of their grit, determination and focus!
Science: We enjoyed the Amazing race! (See Ms. Wesnak’s explanation above.)
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