Week of November 7th - 11th

TA’s Notes:

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

Dates to Remember:

Thursday, November 17th, 5th/6th WCS Engineering Competition (Auditorium)

Friday, November 18th, 7th/8th WCS Engineering Competition(Auditorium)

Wednesday, Dec. 7th- Voyager Family Night in WCS Auditorium

Sunday, Dec. 11th - 11:30am - 4:00pm Polar Express Elves

Thank you to all who donated items and gave their time in making this year’s Book & Media Sale a success!!  Voyager raised $523.39 which passed our goal of $500 so we are very excited!

This would not have been possible without such amazing students and parents in Voyager House.

THANK YOU!

Join the WCS Penguin Plunge Team!

We need YOU to join our Williston Wildcats Penguin Plunge Team!   This is our 7th year having a school team participating in the Penguin Plunge.  The Penguin Plunge is a fundraiser for the Special Olympics and all the participants jump in Lake Champlain! It is very cold but lots of fun.  The date is Saturday, February 4th and it takes place at the Burlington Waterfront.   We want students, teachers, staff, parents, and siblings on the team!   Please email Jodi Bartley at jbartley@cssu.org or Jessica Haskins at jhaskins@cssu.org or  if you have questions.

Click HERE to register with WCS Wildcats

After school with Ms. Sherman:

THANKSGIVING BASKETS!!!

Just a friendly reminder to families that we are doing a “food drive” for Thanksgiving. Each core has a sign-up sheet for items. We hope to create 4 complete Thanksgiving baskets to donate to our local families this holiday. Check in with your children about what they have signed up for. Your child can bring in their item any time next week and drop it in the bin, in their core classroom. Thanks in advance!!!!

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

Highlights of the week:

• Student Election - All students (5-8) voted using a copy of the actual ballot. Results will be posted online by the Williston Observer.
• We researched the candidates before we voted (based on characteristics, experience and the issues) and students practiced some argument writing techniques to write a persuasive outline on the candidate of their choice.
• We reviewed the Electoral College system and students completed scorecards and maps of the election results.
• Reminder - students should finish reading their mystery novel this week.

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

Math 5:  I must admit...we did use a little time this week to work on our engineering challenge, and so a little less than normal to report!  Monday was review day.  Mr. Menke finished up his learning sequence with students by reviewing unit material in small groups.  Students took the assessment Tuesday.  We have spent the rest of the week either working on corrections on the assessment or receiving some reinstruction on missed items.  On Monday, 5th grade parents will receive all work done this first 8 weeks of school.  There is a letter on the folder that you should read first, and then review any work with students.  I would like this folder back filled with student work.  It helps us as we navigate this new standards based grading.  Thanks!

Math 6:  I must admit...we did use a little time this week to work on our engineering challenge, and so a little less than normal to report! We have begun the 2nd investigation in Let’s Be Rational which begins to tackle the concept of fraction multiplication.  There will be a lot of modeling in this investigation, so you may see a lot of brownie pans and number lines before we get to generalizations about fraction multiplication.  Stay tuned...

Science ⅚:  The 2016 Engineering Challenge takes place next Thursday all day.  Please know that your child will be assigned a time to present their solution and that we will let you know when that will be as we finalize the schedule. It’s nice when parents can join us in the audience.  Most of the week was dedicated to learning about the Design Process and building skills to work with group members.  Designs were finalized and some building has begun!

The Week in Mr. G’s Room (⅞ Humanities):

In Humanities this week we continued pounding out word counts for our novels. As a class we have written nearly 200,000 words. We are at 38% of our goal for the month, 494,701 words, which is a little ahead of where we need to be, as long as students are writing on weekends as well as over Thanksgiving break. Students have participated in word count battles writing as much as 1,000 words in one 15 minute session. Some of these lightning stories have become important parts of their novels. In the afternoon we have been working on Personal Learning Plans and developing goals for next trimester.

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

CMP8

This week 8th graders have been exploring more models of exponential growth. Exponential growth graphs show an increasing rate of growth over time.

We learned about growth factors, starting values and related them to our tables and equations.  We also practiced our exponent rules and explored the meaning of fractional exponents. A fractional exponent looks like this:

If you would like to learn more about these interesting numbers. This Khan Academy video will help you.  Fractional Exponents  Finally, we looked at several biological systems where exponential growth occurred. Aquatic plants in lakes, the Burmese Python explosion in the everglades and mold growth on bread.

CMP7

We have been working on all sorts of math models this week...number lines and chip boards.   This week I found myself struggling with a math model that had you recreate a starting math board from a series of additions and subtractions of integers. For example: 7 black chips were added, now there are 8 black chips and 3 red chips on the board.  What was the original board?  I was stumped and  had totally misinterpreted the math.  Students showed me their models and helped me through my disequilibrium.  Kudos to the class!  We finished the week with several math card games that had students adding and subtracting positive and negative integers.

Science 7th/8th

We completed our force of gravity simulation lab by sharing our graphs and discussing the relationship between mass, distance and gravitation force.  Students created claim and evidence statements using evidence from their simulations.  We learned about the difference between mass and weight and how it relates to gravity.  Students discovered how much they weigh on different planets and moons.  We ended the week with team and task selection for the engineering task. Next week we will be participating in the school wide engineering challenge.  7/8th grade students will compete against other WCS teams with rubber band cars, ziplines, marshmallow launchers and ball ramps. Friday, November 18th is the big competition day!  Parents are welcome to come on down to the auditorium to watch the fun!