Week of November 28-December 2

TA’s Notes:

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

Dates to Remember:

Friday, Dec 2nd, 7pm: 6th - 8th graders are invited to Shelburne Community School Dance (permission slip attached and were handed out to students)

Wednesday, Dec. 7th: Voyager Family Night in Voyager Kiva & WCS Auditorium

Sunday, Dec. 11th, 11:30am - 4:00pm: Polar Express Elves (for those who signed up- email with details to follow soon)

Parents welcome at all Dec 21st events!

Wednesday, Dec 21st, 7:30 - 8:15am: 7/8 Meet the Authors Open House

Wednesday, Dec 21st, 9:30 - 11:50am: 5/6 Harry Potter Open House to celebrate unit Wednesday, Dec 21st, 1:15 - 2:30: 7/8 Physics Expo

Wednesday, Dec 21st, 2:05 - 2:45: 5/6 Quidditch Match in New Gym

No School: Fri, Dec 23rd - Mon, Jan 2nd

A HUGE thank you to all the ⅚ parents who helped make our “Harry Potter” learning spaces a big success!!

Voyager's Annual Family Night and Talent Show - December 7th, 6 - 8pm!!

It's that time of year again for Voyager Family Night!

We will have snacks first in Voyager's Kiva, then go to the auditorium for some fun and open-mike performances.

Students can sign up for a performance spot with Ms. Fieldsend if they are interested.

Throughout the evening raffle prizes are awarded as a fun way to celebrate the night.

We do ask that families to please donate a raffle prize or bring a small snack to share, based on the core class your child is in.  Such prizes in the past have been movie tickets, gift cards or any sort of small treat.

Sign up sheet is here: Voyager Family Night Sign Up

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Please park & enter at the back of school near the Cafeteria.

We look forward to seeing you all the night of December 7th!

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

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Unit Highlights:

• Sorting Ceremony - Students were magically placed in houses using our sorting hat. Houses work together to earn points throughout the unit to win the House Cup.
• Students can earn individual points for their house by displaying awesome collaboration and problem solving skills and by completing tasks.
• House Challenges - There were 4 house challenges this week: Harry Potter Trivia, Jelly Bean Jar, Human Knot, and Harry Potter Characters Wheel of Fortune.
• Harry Potter Character Meet and Greet - students dressed up as a character and had to meet and socialize with at least 10 other characters (while being “in character”)
• Screen writing: We learned how stories are told in a visual way. We used very simple stories with a crisis to model each of these important building blocks - characters, setting, dialogue, and action. Students then wrote their own stories. We also analyzed a short film (Jacob Frey - The Present - https://youtu.be/96kI8Mp1uOU ) and created our own visual story boards to map out the setting, characters, crisis, climax, and resolution. Students will be working in teams to write their own script and create their own short film by the end of the unit.

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

What an awesome week!  I’ve had so much fun, yes, FUN!  Thanks to all who helped to make this magical experience at Hogwarts happen. Everything the kids say and do each day had been powerful learning and you can just tell that the motivation to learn is bubbling up!

Math 5:  Busy week of learning and events at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  We ended many classes with group challenges and points were awarded towards the House Cup Challenge, a competition of Goodness and Greatness for all four houses at Hogwarts.  Who knew that competition would help us keep kids on track!

Focus topics included:

• Understanding of the effects of multiplying by 10, 100, 100 and dividing by 10, 100, 1000.  
• Use of Base Ten pieces when representing numbers and adding and subtracting decimals.
• Deeper understanding of the place value system.
• Relationships between one place value and another in the Base Ten Number System.

Math 6: We ended many classes with group challenges and points were awarded towards the House Cup Challenge, a competition of Goodness and Greatness for all four houses at Hogwarts.  Who knew that competition would help us keep kids on track!

Focus topics included:

• A deep focus on division. See public records below.

Science ⅚:  We have begun our learning about the topics related to Harry Potter - flight,properties of changing matter, light energy, and simple machines.  We watched four video clips to launch our topic introductions.  Harry Potter learning how to fly for the first time; Harry making powerful potions, Harry receiving his Invisibility Cloak for Christmas; and Harry, Hermione, and Ron on the moving staircases on their way to the Gryffindor Common Room.

We then launched our reading and research by learning about two column notetaking.  We practiced this system for taking down details and main ideas, in that order.  The kids did a great job!

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

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

CMP8

This week we tweaked out the difference between growth factors and growth rates from exponential tables.  We learned some handy tricks to finding the growth rate from the growth factor and several methods of how to find it mathematically.   At the end of the week students worked together on a partner quiz.  Finally exponential decay was introduced by looking at mortality rates.  What if Voyager House was exposed to virus that had a 95% mortality rate?  What is the decay rate and factor in this situation. It was seriously scary!

CMP7

We explored multiplication and division of positive and negative integers, reviewed multiplication and division of mixed numbers and finished off with order of operations.  At the end of the week we completed a Partner Quiz!  Next week we will  review and complete this unit with an assessment.

Science 7th/8th

This week the 7th and 8th graders began a project that will take us through to our holiday break.  We are going to complete our Forces and Wave Interaction Unit with a Physics Exhibition.  Students will work by themselves or with a partner to create an interactive model that will capture their essential questions based on a physics topic.  Topics range from how sound travels, how light passes through materials to electromagnetic forces. Students will be researching their topics, answering their essential questions, creating visual and interactive pieces for their exhibit.  Before we open our exhibits to the public, students will present their material to the class, so that everyone is exposed to the science content.  Finally on December 21st we will have an open house at 1:30- to the end of the school day.