TA’s Notes:

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

***Please notify us if your child has strep.  Thank you for this courtesy.***

JumpRope, our online student information portal, is currently being updated. New data will be available later next week.

Dates to Know:

• Sat, Oct 7th- Fall Festival @ WCS  8:30 - 10:30am Breakfast in Cafeteria, Touch-a-Truck & crafts.  Adults $8, Students $5, Seniors $6, Under 4 Free.  Benefits Unified 8th Grade Trip

8th Graders needed!  Sign up sheet: Fall Fest Sign Up

• Tues, Oct 10th- First week of Homework Club.  Happens every Tuesday & Wednesday

• Fri, Oct 27th- Voyager Harvest Breakfast Open House 7:45 - 8:45am in Voyager

House.  Come see various works students have created on display.

• Wed, Dec 6th- Voyager Family Night / Variety Show 6 - 8pm at WCS in Dining Room & Auditorium

NOTES FROM MS. Sherman:

HOMEWORK CLUB!!!!

Homework club will start next week! It will meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Students will be supervised by Allison Cobb, our fabulous house paraprofessional. Students will be given a movement break and snack at the beginning of the session. See the information below. If you have more questions please feel free to contact me via email: csherman@cvsdvt.org.

When: Tuesdays (2:00-3:30) and Wednesday (3:00-4:30)

Where: Voyager House

Transportation: Personal Pick Up or late bus available

Given: Break and Snack

Who Should Attend: Students who have the ability to work independently at times, self-regulate their behavior with minimal reminders, and who have to ability to sustain work attention for 30-60 minutes in a period.

Notes: Some students may be requested to attend due to their need for individual assistance with work completion.

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

As we continue to read “I Am Malala”, students are noticing (and making t - charts in their reading response notebooks) what life under the Taliban was like for Malala. They are also keeping track of the challenges that Malala faced and how she responded to those challenges.

Students will be making a claim and using evidence from the book to support their claim in their first argument piece. We did some small group and individual practice with these learning targets (making a claim/using evidence) this week to prepare for that writing assignment.

We also continued to work with the rich vocabulary from this book. We played “overheard conversations”, a game that requires students to work in pairs and create a conversation for 3 vocabulary words (without using the words) and have others guess which vocabulary word is being discussed.

For our current events lesson, students learned about cause and effect relationships and we used news stories to link a cause and an effect for the event.

FYI - I have data for JumpRope, but it is curently being updated for us. This data should be available later next week.

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

Math 5:  We learned new strategies for multiplication this week and practiced and practiced them through problem strings!  Students learned strategies like the over strategy, the five is half ten strategy, and the fifty is half 100 strategy.  We reviewed our collection of strategies (see pics below) and then took a quiz.  We did review quizzes today and recorded our changes in thinking, after I returned corrected quizzes and kiddos tried again.  We will move on to partial product and the traditional algorithm next week.

Math 6:  We wrapped up our learning on ratios, by discussing simplest form of a ratio (when a ratio cannot be divided any further by common factors for the numerator and denominator) and unit rate (the per one comparison statement).   Students are finding out just how valuable ratio tables are to solving problems like, if 4 noisemakers are sold for $12, then how many noisemakers can we buy for $24? Or if a dozen eggs are sold for $3.60, then how much does it cost for one egg?   In fact, I have asked many to always make one, because the visual table is so powerful. We did two very big assessment tasks this week.  First, we went over the math reflections and created a on the target standard for ourselves.  This will be posted on student PLP’s so students can go back to this standard, when they write the next math reflection.  It is a way to get kids to stretch in their writing so they see how important writing is in the math. Then, we worked on making corrections on our checkup.  We calculated the number of changes we made to our thinking as a way to prove how important a second chance is.  We will do this regularly with checkups, and less so on final assessments.   It was a great weekend.

⅚ Science:  This week we focused on finishing up our designs and polishing up our writing.  Lauren Davis and Sarah Healy were again here to add expertise to the design and writing process respectively and what a value they have been to us!  Design drawings will be included in the grant proposal and writers will be credited for their excellent efforts polishing work.  Moving on to a new unit next week!

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

English/Language Arts:

This week, we began our Narrative unit and completed our book recommendations. We now have a beautiful wall of book covers created by our students!

For our Narrative unit, we read three short stories and examined author's’ techniques and craft, as well as the elements of plot. As usual, we continued with our independent reading supported by reading log 5.

Social Studies

This week, we began our World Cultures and Religions unit. This unit will explore the concept of culture- what it is, supported by numerous examples. We will also do a survey of the world’s five major religions. Embedded within both of these concepts is Geography. This week, we looked at the five themes of geography, we introduced the extensive vocabulary that will accompany the unit, and we previewed and reflected upon the learning purposes and goals of the unit.

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

CMP8

This week the 8th graders performed experiments with paper bridges with varying thickness and length.  We used Smart Cells as weight and explored what load each bridge could hold.  We were looking for linear and non-linear trends in our data.  We practiced solving multi-step algebraic equations and reviewed three ways to find a linear equation from a table, graph and two points.  We dabbled in finding the line of best fit from a scatterplot using Smarties!

CMP7

We continued our exploration of angles and polygons with a question.  “If we can find a rule for finding the sum of the internal angles of a regular polygon, does it work for irregular polygons, both convex and concave?”  Students worked in teams to prove or disprove their thinking. Using protractors, rulers and angle rulers students argued their case.  They needed to convince their peers and the skeptics with their stellar mathematical thinking.

Science 7th/8th

Students researched their element to find out physical properties like melting point, color, density and the ability to conduct electricity.  They also researched chemical properties like reactivity in air, water and with other elements.  Students also found out about common uses and interesting facts.  All this information has helped created a back story and characteristics for their superheros and villains.   Students will be finishing up their creations and presenting them early next week.   Please see Google Classroom for project details.