Week of March 27th - 31st

TA’s Notes:

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

No school Friday, March 31st- 

Ms. Sherman:

VOYAGER SALE IS APRIL 1st!!!!

Donate some great stuff so we can make some needed cash!!

*Drop off your stuff on March 31st from 6-8

*Volunteer or shop between 8-2 (until 3 for pick-up/clean-up)

*Donate baked goods for our concession stand sales

*8th graders-get some community service hours in!!!

Parents of 8th Graders…...Want a night out? I’m willing to do an 8th grade fun night with Voyager students on April 14th from 7-10:30 (or 11:00 tbd.) In order for this to happen, at least 80% of the 8th grade class must be in attendance and have rides to and from the event. If this sounds like a good plan to you, please have your son/daughter let me know they can attend by April 3rd! There will be a behavior contract/permission slip going out soon. Student are allowed to show up late or be picked up early with prior notice. There is no cost to the students, only that they bring a good attitude with them as I am donating my efforts and personal time!

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

Week 3 of Mr. Maika’s Solo has been going great!  Students have done 3 more simulations as they make their way through the American Revolution.  On Monday students re-enacted the Battles of Lexington and Concord.  They had to make quick decisions that affected the outcome of the battle and the fate of their characters!  Although it ended in victory for the Patriots there were a few Americans who decided that their fortunes lay with the Loyalist side.  While there were one or two Patriot deserters there were far more Loyalists and Undecided Citizens who made the choice to join the Rebel cause!  On Tuesday students learned about the Declaration of Independence and what it said (we came to the conclusion that it was a very wordy break-up letter).  On Wednesday and Thursday students learned about the Winter at Valley Forge and designed their own military uniforms and regimental flags which they paraded and displayed for their peers.  Next week students will be doing the final simulation:  The Battle of Yorktown!  After that they will be writing the stories of their characters and what they experienced throughout the American Revolution!

Financial Literacy Poster Contest

Here are the results of the state wide Financial Literacy poster contest our students entered a few weeks ago. Many Voyager students were recognized for their excellent posters!

Elementary, 5th grade                   1st          Alex Zuchowski                           Williston Central School

Elementary, 5th grade                   2nd        Kevin Lahiri                                  Williston Central School

Elementary, 5th grade                   3rd         Gabriella Clark                             Williston Central School

                                                             

Middle School, 8th grade              1st          Isabella Gaffney                                Homeschooled

Middle School, 6th grade              2nd        Julia Lamorey                                    Williston Central School

Middle School, 6th grade              3rd         Joey Merola                                   Williston Central School

                                                             

HONORABLE MENTION recognition

Jasmine Cousino               Middle School Division                   Williston Central School

3D Vermont Competition

The Williston Central School 3D Vermont Team recently placed 2nd in the annual town history 3D competition at Vermont Technical College in Randolph. High School and middle school students from around the state are challenged to work in teams to research and recreate 3D models of historical buildings in their area. In the process they uncover and document the history of buildings and create a multimedia presentation to accompany their printed 3D models (3dvermont.org).

The WCS team selected the historic Catamount Family Outdoor Center to research and model for the competition. The team members were:

Joshua Perkins

Ethan Varricchione

Tyler Davis

Matt Zych

Addison Urch

Colin Zouck

Addison Hunter​​

Peyton Jones

Ananya Rohatgi

Julia Lamorey

Advisors - Ellen Arapakos and Aron Merrill

Here is a link to a nice blog of the competition created by the SketchUp team that attended from Boulder, CO.

https://spark.adobe.com/page/e04keIDo3PcMA/

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

Math 5:  This week students finished up the 2 dimensional unit by replicating a Swiss artist, Paul Klee, who uses geometric shapes to create cool art!    Here is Paul Klee’s work...

And here is some of our work…

We also practiced using the protractor!  For some this was a new skill while for others, an expertise.  Thursday quiz on geometry vocab and moving on to 3-D for next week!

Math 6:  Students are getting all jammed up in percents! This is a very hard skill!  We have finally arrived at the algorithm for percents of a number (multiply the decimal name of the percent X the number) and then I throw out this one - 76 is 80% of what number?  To solve these problems we used fact families.  We will be closing down the decimal ops book on Tuesday and then moving on to Variables and Patterns.  We will try to have a rigorous 3 weeks leading up to vacation, so that there is algebra exposure right before the SBAC testing after break.

⅚ Science:  Students explored water this week and discovered that it is sticky!  This characteristic helps to explain the popped water balloon phenomenon and why water droplets on wax paper are so difficult to split AND why two droplets dragged near each other will join easily!  See photos below of our work playing with water and designed new water experiments!

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

We have jumped in to WWI with both feet now. In the morning we are covering battle strategies from the beginning of the War, the Schlieffen plan for Germany, and Plan 17 for France. We are looking at the conditions of trench warfare, the Invasion of Belgium, Serbian Resistance, and the influence of modern weaponry on warfare. In the afternoon students are applying what they have learned in an online battle simulation. Students are forming alliances, making and breaking treaties, and moving their armies across the map of Europe to see if they could have changed the course of history.

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

CMP8

This week in math class we looked at the equation for jumping things.....frogs, fleas and people. We were asked to consider the standard quadratic form, ax2 + bx + c and equation that looked like this: -16t2 + 8t + .2, for a frog.  Each coefficient plays a part in how an object jumps.  In this case the -16x2 tells us that this is a parabola that looks like a frown and represents the pull of gravity on a jumping object with “t” representing the time in seconds squared.  The 8t is the initial velocity of the frog at “8” feet per second. Finally, we have the starting height of a frog, which is .2 feet from the ground.   We worked on reviewing our quadratic graphing, finding factored forms and multiplying binomials.  This unit will be wrapped up next week.

CMP7

The 7th graders were in desperate need of making ratios, percentages and comparison more real.  Students created survey questions, decided on a survey size, learned a little about Google Sheets and began taking data from their peers to fulfill their sample size.  Our next mission is to use ratios, percentages and measures of center: mean, median and mode to analyze our data.  Students are going to create a presentation of their findings.

Science 7th/8th

Where does a tree get the mass it needs to transform from a seed to a tree? If you put seeds into a sealed jar with water and a wet paper towel, will the mass of the jar increase?  We pondered these questions this week as we recorded the mass of our “Seedling in the Jar” experiment.  We also reviewed photosynthesis and looked at how energy flows through the ecosystem in a food pyramid.  Students participated in an online interactive investigation, which followed energy as it travels up the pyramid from plants to consumers (herbivores, omnivores and carnivores) . Students investigated a forest, lake, desert and ocean ecosystem. This investigation is a graded assessment for creating a meaningful graph, analyzing data, making numerical comparisons of energy transfer between different ecosystems and constructing explanations from multiple resources.
 

Week of March 20th - 24th

TA’s Notes:

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

Don’t forget that conferences are coming up for many families and that students should attend his/her conference!

Voyager Recycle Sale!

We are in need of more parent volunteers!  Students will help a lot but we also need parents to be there for pricing and organizing.  This is our one big fundraiser for the year and we really need support!  

We need items donated Friday night and volunteers for both days still.  Please consider this fun event which supports all Voyager students!

Volunteer Sign Up

Voyager Spark students at 3D VT Competition in Randolph, VT

And the group took home 2nd place!!!

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

This week students have been wrapping up the first half of Mr. Maika’s American Revolution Unit.  We have been learning about some of the causes of Colonial discontent and displeasure with the British.  We are very close to the outbreak of War!

To finish the week students have been working on creating a character that they will roleplay through 5 days of simulation starting on Thursday 3/23.  Their characters are colonists living in Lexington, MA in 1775.  So far students have been very creative with their character backgrounds and have embraced the opportunity to take on a new identity!

To chronicle the events of the simulations students will have created a journal for their character where they will write down their feelings and experiences.  At the end of unit they will be using their journal to craft a narrative writing piece that will tell the story of their character!

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

Math 5:  Students began work on the properties of quadrilaterals and how they can be classified.  This classification process relies heavily on geometry language and so there was a lot of cross referencing our Math Antics videos where we collect geometry terms.  We solved riddles about geometric shapes and made our own, in order to practice using the attribute and name of geometric shapes language.  Today, I introduced the artist Paul Klee, whose work with geometric shapes made him famous.  Students are creating a cityscape, in which they use geometric shapes to create city architecture.  And as a bonus, they will include their favorite moon phase from our science unit to create a night scene!  Thanks to Liz Demas, our art teacher, for helping with materials and acting as a consult!

Math 6:  Some weeks I find that one lesson becomes 4!  This was one of those weeks, where the complexity of the task, relied on a lot of prior knowledge and proficiency to meet the goal.  The topic was percents and the context was which is the better buy.  Students have seen these kinds of problems before with ratios and percent bars with fractional pieces.  But these problems were particularly challenging for students and so we spent the extra time.  It was time well spent!  I think that students are learning how to reason on their own, draw on prior knowledge, and consider recent learning to figure out the math. I have chosen to do a lot of brain exercise in this unit anyway, encouraging long division, where others might just say, well use a calculator. I have done this because I think it has been good brain work.  So many kids have felt the learning curve, struggling and struggling and then having a breakthrough, and this has been awesome to see!  Decimal ops will wrap up soon, and then we dive deep into an algebra unit, Variables and Patterns.

⅚ Science:  We have finally wrapped up the Solar System unit.  It went on and on! A choice I made given the awesome math connections worth elaborating on!  Students worked on relative size this week, remodeling how to make balls of different sizes “appear” to be the same size, graphing this data, making predictions about other ball sizes by using the graph, and then using their eye to check whether the trends in the data held true. Students learned that a ball that is 2x bigger than another ball, must be twice as far.  This mathematical work was designed to explain two phenomena, why the sun and moon appear to be the same size, and why our star, the Sun, is so much brighter than other stars in the sky!  On to Properties of Matter starting Monday!

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

Students in both grades applied themselves to SBAC testing this week. Completing nearly three full days of continuous testing takes a great deal of discipline and perseverance and Voyager students comported themselves admirably. On Thursday and Friday, we had some time to make up work that we missed with last week’s snow days. Students are completing an infographic to explain a cause or important feature of WWI. Next week we will be beginning a WWI simulation activity to help us understand how alliances, geography, and new technologies influenced the outcome of the Great War.

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

CMP8

This week the students completed their SBAC testing.  They worked hard and persevered through some rigorous problems. We finished the week with reviewing how to find a quadratic equation from a table and continued work on our partner quiz.. There was no IXL skill work this week.

CMP7

Our 7th graders toiled long and hard on their SBAC tests. We began a survey project at the end of the week.  In this project students will write a relevant survey question, collect data, analyze it, and create graphical representations.  Students will write a conclusion based on their data which includes ratios, percentages, and measures of central tendency of a sample group. There was no IXL skill work this week.

Science 7th/8th

This was a very abridged week due to SBAC testing.  Students completed their reading and responses on photosynthesis and cellular respiration.  We reviewed the similarities and differences between plant and animal cells, and talked about what seeds need to grow and flourish.  We began a seedling experiment in a closed system to conjecture whether plants would grow and the mass would change over time. Next week we will be back to a regular schedule.

Week of March 13-17

TA’s Notes:

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

March 31st: No School

Voyager Recycle Sale Set-Up 5:30 - 8pm

April 1st: VOYAGER RECYCLE SALE!!  8:30am - 4pm

May 5th- Voyager Dance

After school with Ms. Sherman:

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

This week we are working on the Road to the American Revolution Unit!  Students are reading My Brother Sam is Dead to get an idea of what life was like for people in the Colonies during the Revolution.  They should have read through Chapter 10 by Friday 3/17!  

After our mid-week vacation we played a Mercantilism simulation where students played the parts of France, England, and Spain and their Colonies.  Students traded with each other to acquire valuable resources and score as many points as possible in the process.  By the end of the game students started to see that the Mercantilist system heavily favored the ‘mother’ countries and put the Colonies at a disadvantage.

On Friday students learned about the Proclamation of 1763 and the restrictions on Colonial expansion in the wake of the French and Indian War.  In the afternoon students participated in a Taxation simulation so that they could learn about one of the major causes of Colonial discontent in the leadup to the Revolutionary War.  During the Taxation simulation the students really got into it and really felt unfairly treated.  Here are some pics!

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

Short but sweet today...

Math 5:  Geometry Everywhere! Geometry language is flying all over the place.  You will see in Math learning logs that students are logging geometry language so that we can use the language regularly in our turn and talks and in our investigations of spatial math.  The Math Antics videos are excellent for introducing the language and providing visual representations for those terms.  Check them out!  https://mathantics.com/

Math 6:  Decimal Multiplication and Division are a dog for students. If you can, please practice whole number multiplication and division at home.  This is the most difficult step for understanding how decimals operate and would be worth the extra help at home.  Mastery is important here!  

⅚ Science:  We have had a ton of fun modeling observable phenomena in our Solar System.  We had the challenge of drawing explanatory models of the moon phases and also trying to understand why the Sun and Moon appear to be the same size even though we know they are different sizes.  We used the railroad track and telephone pole phenomena to look at relative size of objects and why we perceive them differently than they actually are.  See some modeling photos below!

 We had a busy week of modeling the moon phases through explanatory models on paper.  

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

This week we are working on infographics related to the start of WWI and preparing for SBACs on Monday. For next week, the best things that students can do to get ready is to get plenty of rest, eat a good breakfast and bring some snacks to school. Also, students done early with their tests will have to have a book to read. For some students this will be a significant amount of time to dive into a book they are really enjoying. We’ll be collecting recommendations in class, and students should bring a stack of at least three books to school. Coloring books or drawing paper are also a good idea for students who like to draw.  

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

CMP8

Even though we had an abridged work week, the 8th graders showed some excellent focus and grit while learning how to find a quadratic equation from a table.  Essentially, students used the second difference to find the “a” in our ax2 + bx + c, the coordinate from the table where x is “0” to find the “c” and then used what we had  ax2  + c to find the missing “b”.  We finished the week with a Partner Quiz.

CMP7

In our short week, the 7th graders have spent some time reviewing changing ratios to percentages, finding equivalent ratios, and comparing ratios to find out which term is greater.We finished the week with a check-up on the first investigation.

Science 7th/8th

This week we finished up our yeast experiments and focused on the process of cellular respiration and compared it with photosynthesis.  We looked at the similarities of the equations and talked about where the energy came from and went. Using blocks we created glucose molecules and diatomic oxygen molecules and placed them in a cow mitochandria, took them apart and rearranged them to form carbon dioxide and water molecules.  Energy from the glucose molecule was released.  Students have a reading assignment with highlighting and questions due next week.

Week of March 6th - 10th

TA’s Notes:

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

VOYAGER RECYCLE SALE

ALL Voyager Parents -- Sign Up HERE!

The Voyager Recycle Sale is Saturday, April 1st!  This is our one big fundraiser to send all Voyager students on an overnight at Camp Abnaki.

Our goal is for every family to donate at least item of quality to this fundraiser.  (Drop-offs prior to 3/31 can be arranged if needed)

All items can be dropped off at WCS on Friday, March 31st between 6 and 8 pm.  The sale is Saturday, April 1st, 9:00 am - 2:00 pm.  

Save the date and volunteer for a shift.  We need lots of help from Voyager students and families to make this a success!  Help is needed setting up on Friday evening, we have 2-hour shifts on Saturday throughout the sale and baked goods & drinks are needed for students to sell as concessions.  Lots of great opportunities to help out!  

If you are new to Voyager (parents of 5th graders) please make an effort to join us, this is a wonderful, community-building event and everyone has a blast. It draws a huge shopping crowd and has become a Williston tradition.  It is a great way to clean out and recycle your unwanted items and find new treasures!!!

⅞ INFO:

7th & 8th graders will start taking the SBAC’s (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) starting Monday, March 20th and this will continue throughout the week.  Please make sure students get plenty of sleep, eat a healthy breakfast and come to school ready to give it their all!

⅞ Conference Schedules:

Friday, 3/31 7/8 Spring Conference Sign Up

Saturday, 4/1 7/8 Spring Conference Sign Up

The FAP Big Basket Raffle!

Collections for the 17th Annual Big Basket Raffle and Silent Auction are underway! This is one of FAP’s biggest fundraisers of the year, with proceeds funding FAP programs that support all WCS and ABS students, families and staff. Items donated by our Williston School District families will be made into beautiful themed baskets that will be raffled off at the BIG BASKET RAFFLE on Saturday, March 25th , 2017.

Mr. Merrill- Dog Days

Ms. O’Brien- On the Water

Mr. Godfrey- Gift Cards Galore

Ms. Quatt- Java Lover

Students will have the opportunity to enter individual raffles for a chance to win a special activity or experience with staff from both buildings to help raise money for FAP grants, field trips, etc. We have over 25 opportunities, with over 100 winners total, between ABS and WCS!

• Tickets will be sold the week of March 13 – 17th at each school
• Drawing on Friday, March 17th and winners notified Monday, March 20th

Each student will get one free ticket and additional tickets will be sold for 25 cents each (suggest limit of $5). During the week of March 13-17th students at ABS can purchase tickets outside the gym between 7:45am and 8:30am and at WCS during lunches. The winners will be chosen on Friday the 17th.

** Click HERE to sign-up to help sell tickets mornings at ABS **

Contact Shani Varricchione/FAP with questions

willistonfap@ccsu.org

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

This week we kicked off our US history unit with a study of three countries (Spain, Britain, and France) that played a big role in the race to establish colonies and control of North America. Students participated in a play about the Jamestown colony, a role play of first contact between the French explorers and Algonquins, and a reenactment of the battle between Samuel de Champlain and the Iroquois. This battle set the stage for the next 150 years, with the Iroquois siding with the British and Algonquins with the French and culminated with the French and Indian War ending in 1763. This is important background information for the focus of our unit - the Revolutionary War.

Here are links to short videos of the reenactments.

Script Run 5th.mp4

Script Run 6th.mp4

Silent Run 6th.mp4

We also introduced our literature group book - My Brother Sam is Dead.  A nice summary of the book can be found below.

This young adult novel, which successfully captures the pain of the Revolutionary War, is a fine example of historical fiction. The American Revolution was a war that divided families (English loyalists versus eager Patriots) and one of the families being torn apart is the Meeker family. Young Tim sees his 16-year-old brother join the militia to fight the British, while his father tries to remain loyal to the crown. Their hometown of Redding Ridge, Connecticut is a Tory town, and it is a constant struggle for the family to remain neutral. As the war progresses, Tim has to learn some very hard lessons: Life does not always follow the easiest and happiest course. Readers will be drawn in by compelling characters, and also by the novel's well-crafted historical backdrop. The Collier brothers have written a story that reaches across historical boundaries, and has become a modern-day classic.

Scholastic.com

My intern, David Maika will be taking over the class for the next two plus weeks to teach his solo unit on the Revolutionary War.

Dear Voyager House Parents,

My name is David Maika.  I am Aron Merrill's student intern for the 2016-17 school year.  I've been working with the 5th and 6th graders from the very beginning of the school year and have loved every minute of it!  Starting on March 13 I will be doing my 2 weeks of solo teaching.  I am in UVM's Middle Level MAT program and specialize in Social Studies.  I will be teaching the 5th and 6th graders about the American Revolution.

The first week of the unit will provide students with the background and causes of the Revolution.  The second week we will be conducting a 5 day simulation of the Revolutionary War.  Students will create a character that they take through the simulation and will be keeping a journal where they write about their character's experiences.  At the end of the unit students will use their journals to turn what they've learned into a narrative piece about their character.  By the end of the unit students will know the causes of the American Revolution, the major events of the Revolutionary War, and will understand why Americans fought for their independence and what the human cost of the war was.

I am very excited to begin my solo teaching and look forward to being in front of the class every day!  If you have any questions for me please feel free to contact me.  My e-mail is dmaika@cssu.org I check it frequently!

Thank you,

David Maika

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

Math 5:  This week we began a new unit in Geometry.  I heard a lot of “YES” exclamations and so I better get this right!  We spent our week keeping track of new vocabulary that we are learning in this content area, because there is so much.  Ask your Voyager about coordinate points, coordinate grids, looping, linear relationships, x and y coordinates, and lines, segments, points, and rays.  There is a lot to learn.  This unit will involve a project so be on the lookout next week for a project summary and plan.  Our focus this week was on naming points in space, specifically using an x and y coordinate name (x,y).  Students had lots of practice plotting points.  We also spent most of our exploration time later in the week on growing cube sequences.  Students were building arrangements, predicting future arrangement patterns, and then graphing the pattern in order to say something about how it is growing or changing over time. Bridges takes the extra step to graph these patterns, an excellent precursor to higher level algebra.  There are lots of stretch opportunities in this work for kids on both ends of the spectrum of comfort with geometry.  

Math 6:  We spent 4 days on one concept this week and it was time well spent.  The kids kept asking me why it was Decimal Ops 2.3 Day Two and then Day Three!  I spent extra time on multiplication of decimals!  I think it was worth it!  Although photos that I send home may be hard to understand, the ideas that students are generating in class are truly deep!  The public record below demonstrates just how versatile students are when looking at decimal multiplication.  This work has required some solid whole number multiplication and division, so it has given us another opportunity to practice these operations with whole numbers. We began decimal division today, Friday, and will assume a few days of work with this next week.

⅚ Science:  Science has been very dynamic this week!  Students reviewed concepts of gravity on Earth early this week and are working to generalize to explain how gravity might affect objects in space. Specifically the goal this week has been around modeling observable phenomena.  We tackled the day night model, which drew a lot of ahh’s as students tried to figure out how the Earth moves to get the sun to “rise” in the East.  We must be rotating counterclockwise for this to happen!  You may notice that your child has an E and W on their hands.  They were helpful in modeling this for the group!  Long block this week was a big class with lots of group discussion and modeling with moons on skewers!

Photos below.

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

This week in 7/8 Humanities we have been studying the causes of WWI. Students are working on presenting their ideas using graphs, maps, and visual images, creating infographics of the war.

The Stock Market Game continues. This week students have been reflecting on the collaborative process and assessing themselves for their group work. Friday students present their first Stock Report to the class.

The Observer has put out a call for student work and several Voyager students have submitted poems, art, and other pieces for publication.

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

CMP8

This week we began each math session with SBAC questions.  We analyzed what was being asked, discerned what answers were clearly wrong and looked for the best possible answers.  As the week went on we looked at tables, graphs and equations and decided what type of function they represented.  We established our class records for all the things we have learned about quadratic functions and reviewed graph and table landmarks.  We took a pause from our work to discuss our class culture and how we could improve our communication and focus.  We explored quadratic equations that have coefficients greater than 1 and how to factor those types of functions.  We ended the week with a practice partner quiz.  Next week we will have the “real” thing and will complete our investigation looking at projectiles.

CMP7

Part-to-part and part-to-whole proportions were a major focus for the week.  We looked at proportions in recipes, reviewed percentages, multiplication and division of fractions and figured out how to find an unknown “x” in a proportion.  At the end of the week students took a Check-up for the first investigation.  We began each class this week preparing for our SBAC testing by reviewing questions.  We reviewed how to eliminate answers and hone in on the best response.

Science 7th/8th

We began our new unit this week by discussing what it means to be “alive”.  We categorized different items by living (biotic) or non-living (abiotic)  We had a few sticky “wickets” such as eggs, seeds and viruses.  We had a reading, vocabulary and discussion about the characteristics of life. During our long block class we performed a lab experiment with yeast.  We tested different levels of sugar, yeast or warm water to see what condition would allow for optimal growth of our yeast organisms.