TA’s Notes:
***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***
A Note from Ms. Sherman:
Just a reminder that our Recycle Sale is coming on April 1st. Although this is months away, I wanted to plead with you to hold on to your “stuff” just a little longer and consider donating it to our cause. We need to have a very robust sale this year to gain the funds necessary to attend the different field trips intended in the spring and throughout the rest of the year. We would really like to push for good quality housewares, especially moderate sized pieces of furniture. You may be thinking of upgrading or replacing and if you are, please consider bringing your used goods to us for this sale. Antiques have also been great sellers for us as well! Parents of small children are always looking for clean, gently-used toys, books, and clothing, and others really enjoy the hunt for special treasures like jewelry, outerwear and house decor. Thanks in advance for helping us to make this year’s recycle sale a hit!
The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):
This week we read an article about exposure to ads and the impact it has on kids. Students learned some of the tricks and strategies companies use to try to get kids - and adults - to buy their products. They then used these strategies to make their own ads (skits, videos, or posters) in small groups. Each group presented their ad and the rest of the class analyzed it for the strategies used.
We also kicked off our financial planning poster competition. Students have to make a poster with a money plan that addresses the four choices people can make with money. Students will be using a website (themint.org) to find tips and strategies to illustrate and record on their posters. Ask your student about those choices.
Moby Max - We are now using Moby Max - Social Studies. Students are completing lessons that support the content that we are focusing on in class that week. We have had a couple of technical glitches with this switch and a few students are having a tough time getting to the lessons. Have your check in with me if they are still running into problems.
*Reminder - Google Classroom now only shows work completion scores.
JumpRope shows academic and habits of learning target scores.
The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):
Jumprope Update: I have scored all work to date. Please ask your child for recently returned work. Scoring Summaries are attached to many of those evidences. This gives an opportunity to look at Jumprope and the evidence simultaneously and ask questions to me about how things were interpreted!
Math 5: We spent three days this week practicing the traditional/standard algorithm for multi-digit multiplication. Many kids have made big progress on this skill. Please feel free to lob in a problem before dinner time to continue to practice the skill. We also began multi-digit division using area models and ratio tables. The program does not expect proficiency in the “long division” strategy (the one you know). This does not mean that it won’t be introduced, but students will not be proficient by the end of Unit 4.
We will wrap up this unit next week and move toward a Unit Assessment by the end of the Week of Feb 6. Lots of practice before the assessment!
Math 6: Students in 6th grade have been making tons of generalizations about polygons and measurements like area and perimeter. Specific investigations of triangles have produced generalizations like “to find the area of a triangle you multiply the base x the height and then divide it by 2” and generalizations for parallelograms have include generalizations like, “the area measure for any parallelogram is the same as for a rectangle which is base x height.” The students have been out of their mind excited about answering questions (and a little mad at me when I don’t get their voice out in the air!), which speaks to the interest and understanding of spatial/geometric reasoning. We have another 1 ½ weeks before we close up Covering and Surrounding. Then on to decimals...
⅚ Science: We spent our week customizing our foam rockets and practicing launch techniques and recordkeeping of data for distance traveled. We are excited to have an audience at our challenge Monday beginning at 1:15 in the new gymnasium. We hope you can join!
Gravity Challenge: To Build a Paper Castle!
We did have a Galaxy Competition called the Gravity Challenge. It was fun for the kiddos and lots of points were awarded to Galaxy groups based on positive behaviors like collaboration and leadership! In addition points were awarded to build the tallest, most beautiful and most stable structure. Yes, out of paper and with only one run of staples! See photos below!
The Week in Mr. G’s Room (⅞ Humanities):
This week in Humanities we worked on revising our argument essays from the Japanese Internment unit. Students honed their abilities to make a claim and support it with evidence from reliable documents. We also introduced our final research for the Immigration unit. Students will propose a topic that they want to look into in more depth, choose a method of research including conducting interviews, experiential learning or gathering articles from the internet, then choose a method of presentation. Finally students will give a two to three minute speech on their project.
We will have CVU teachers Stan Williams and Emily Rinkema in next Thursday to teach a lesson on public speaking to help students meet their learning targets. In eighth grade we also spent time watching CNN student news and discussing current events.
The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):
CMP8
What do you call a parrot that won’t eat? A polynomial...... This week students explored mono, bi and trinomials. We began investigating quadratic function equations and learned about specific landmarks of parabolas like a maximum and minimum point, line of symmetry and x intercepts. These topics are all part our new unit “Frogs, Fleas and Painted Cubes”. Students received their Looking for Pythagoras Unit assessment back. As a class they did a great job showing their understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem.
CMP7
This week students worked on creating ratios from corresponding and adjacent sides of similar figures. This concept has been a bit of a “sticky wicket” (as seen on their Check-up #2), but we are working through both the vocabulary and the understanding that similar figures have many numerical relationships. We reviewed equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages while exploring terminating, repeating and cycling decimals.These numbers will help us with ratios and proportions as we move ahead. This unit will be coming to an end next week, so look for the announcement of the “Stretching and Shrinking Unit Test”.
Science 7th/8th
Students have been working on their Alien Planet Project. We rolled dice to select attributes for their earthlike planets and this week they began researching similar planets within our solar system that have different gravity, atmosphere, moons and temperature. Using these attributes they began creating creatures that are adapted to an environment that they created. The learning targets for this project include:
- Creating a clear, accurate model which represents complex relationships between components
- Using a model to describe relationships including details necessary to show full understanding
- Constructing an explanation for a situation using multiple sources of evidence that are consistent with scientific ideas and theories
- When given multiple sources students can effectively communicate main ideas and make connections with the real world
Next week students will present and defend their aliens to their classmates.
No comments:
Post a Comment