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.
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.
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