Voyager Welcomes Lauren Drasler to the Team
Hello Team Voyager Families,
My name is Lauren Drasler and I have recently enrolled in the Teacher Apprenticeship Program through Champlain College. I’m really excited to be starting my career as a teacher at Williston Central School. I was born and raised in southern Vermont, and recently moved back to Burlington after living in Plainfield, Vermont for a year.
My name is Lauren Drasler and I have recently enrolled in the Teacher Apprenticeship Program through Champlain College. I’m really excited to be starting my career as a teacher at Williston Central School. I was born and raised in southern Vermont, and recently moved back to Burlington after living in Plainfield, Vermont for a year.
I graduated from the University of Vermont in 2014 with a B.S. in Animal Science and a minor in Public Communication. It was through my time at UVM that I truly discovered my love of science, and further developed my passion for literature and writing through my communications classes. I am eager to share both of these interests with your students during my internship at Williston Central School.
For the past two years, I served as an AmeriCorps member in the Vermont Youth AmeriCorps program. During my first year of service I oversaw an internship program for high school students, and in my second year, I had the opportunity to assist with and grow a mentoring program in central Vermont. These experiences helped me to realize my interest in working with youth, and led me to pursue this teaching certification in both middle school English and science.
I am excited to share my experiences and ideas with your students in Voyager House at Williston Central School. Please feel free to e-mail me (ldrasler@cvsdvt.org) with any questions. I look forward to meeting and working with you in the coming months.
Best,
Lauren Drasler
8th Grade Yearbook - Baby Pictures Wanted!- Every year the 8th graders get to submit a quote and baby picture to go along with their school picture. This is a fun part of the yearbook although it is not required. Every 8th grader received an email with a link for their quote. Baby pictures can be emailed to me or your house TA. If the picture is a hard copy you can also give that to me or your house TA. Please make sure your name and house is written on the back so we can get the picture back to you. Pictures will be returned to you within a week of the deadline. The deadline for quotes and baby pictures is February 18th.
- Please contact abeauregard@cvsdvt.org with any questions.
- To order online go to jostensyearbooks.com
- Yearbook Order Form
8th Grade Student / Parent Night @ CVU on Thursday, January 24, 2019
- Where: Champlain Valley Union High School, CVU Gym
- For: 8th Grade Parents and Students of the Class of 2023
- When: Thursday, January 24, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
- Click here for more information.
- This evening will provide you and your son/daughter an introduction to the academic and elective programs they will experience in the 9th grade.
- A clear and calm morning routines helps students to enter their school day successfully. We are encountering more and more students coming to school between 7:30-7:55 am and we are not equipped to handle the numbers. Please do not drop your child off prior to 7:55 am unless it is absolutely essential. If you have to drop your child off early, please reinforce that the expectation is that students sitting in the front lobby until 7:55 am and engaging in a quiet activities. Ex. listening to music, reading or finishing homework. Thanks for your help with this. - Jackie Parks
- 8th Grade Challenge help is being provided through our Spark program on Thursdays. Harbor teachers, Ms. Griffin and Ms. Taylor, will be available on Thursdays from 3:00-4:30 to give students assistance from any house! It's a great time to get work done and get great advice and instruction on your challenge.
- Please email tmilks@cvsdvt.org and your core teacher if your student will be absent, needs to be picked up during the day for an appointment, or will ride a different bus home. Core teacher emails are:
amerrill@cvsdvt.org
jroof@cvsdvt.org
mquatt@cvsdvt.org
After School Homework Club: CHANGE IN DAYS OFFERED
- Voyager House offers an after-school program to all 5-8 grade Voyager students who would like a smaller, quieter setting for work completion. We accept any student who is motivated to be there and willing to work independently and who is open to support. We may also recommend this opportunity to students who are in need of work completion or who consistently fail to complete assigned work. It has been a great program for students and we are happy to have the staffing and funding to offer it again this year. Ms. Kim and Ms. Allison, our two house paras, will be the contact adults for this group.
- Every Tuesday (2:00-3:00) and Thursday (3:00-4:40) right after dismissal.
- Occasionally cancelled due to staffing. We will let you know as far in advance as we know!
- A late bus is available for transportation home.
- Membership is through interest and motivation as well as strong recommendations from teachers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT LINKS
- Student Assistant Professional (SAP) - https://spark.adobe.com/page/ssMYvqB70CDFQ/
- WCS Athletics - Click this link to the website to view all information regarding the WCS Athletics program.
Voyager House Learning Tools for teachers, students, and parents
- Google Site - an important site for regular communication coming from Voyager. This site will be modified weekly and should be bookmarked on your desktop or laptop. This site contains a link to weekly academic summaries as well as important upcoming events. https://sites.google.com/cvsdvt.org/voyagerhouse/home
- Google Classroom - an online planner platform where students can check on daily assignments. This is in lieu of a paper planner. Just ask your child to log in using his/her email. It is important to know that this is not an assessment database. We do not check completion of the assignment on this platform. However, we do ask that YOUR CHILD press the button MARK AS DONE when an assignment is completed. This will make it easy for you and your child to discuss completion of work.
- Google Mail - an email system used by Williston Central School. All students have an email account and students use it regularly to communicate with peers around collaborative work and project-based learning. This is a great way for teachers to communicate with students and a great way for students to get reminders about assignments from Google Classroom.
- Jumprope - an online platform for assessment of the targets. Students can view weekly or biweekly his/her achievement on the targets by logging in using his/her email and a password. This password was emailed to each student in a letter last week. *Habits of Learning, like homework completion and collaborative learning skills will be posted on a biweekly schedule. This is where you CAN SEE whether your child is in good standing on daily assignments. https://nyc.jumpro.pe/login/
- Protean - an online Personalized Learning Plan (PLP) platform used primarily at this point by 7th and 8th graders. ⅚ students may post executive function skills reflections, personal interest projects, and other measures of growth and reflection after 1st trimester. https://app.protean.me/index.html
- IXL - a program that supports students on math and language arts skills. https://www.ixl.com/signin
- Moby Max - a math program used by ⅚ math students to build computational fluency and fill gaps in understanding on major concepts. Students have a username and password for this program.
- Typing Club - a program used by the ⅚ humanities students to build typing skills.
ACADEMIC UPDATES
Mr. Roof - 7&8 Humanities
During our morning blocks, students met with their literature groups to discuss their books. Students reviewed vocabulary from the book and took notes on survival skills used by the characters. They will be using these notes for a final writing piece after the unit.
We also spent time reflecting and writing about the survival challenges.There were some great discussions on how teams can improve their performance. Taking time to read the directions, plan, assess their supplies and talents, read their survival notes, and communicate with each other were some of the big ideas that came up. We noticed a huge improvement in each teams efficiency by the end of the week.
Students had to work on an IXL diagnostic this week, which will help IXL to become more personalized in the future. Reading Log 14 is due Monday, and CNN 10 was due Friday, January 18. Students worked on the target of reasoning and analysis to explain evidence, as well as reading about the major fronts of World War I. Students will work on finishing our World War I unit with a project about the major battles of the war.
Ms.Q/ Mr. Sironi
CMP8 - his week we revisited scientific notation. Scientific notation is used when expressing very large numbers or very small numbers. For example the distance from the earth to the sun is 9.3 x 107 or the mass of a carbon atom which is 2.0 x 10-23. We also investigated operations using scientific notation: addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. All of these operations bring together our understanding of exponents and the rules governing them. Next week we will review all of the major concepts in our Growing,Growing , Growing unit before we take our assessment.
CMP7 - This week in 7th-grade math, we have been finding the volume and surface area of various types of 3D shapes. These kinds of mathematical calculations are a multi-step process that push students to use multiple strategies and ways of thinking. We finished our juice-box project with presenting different 3D containers such as spheres, cones and cylinders that all had the volume of 200 ml. We created our class public records in preparation for our summative assessment early next week.
Science: There were no science classes this week due to our Survival Unit!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Merrill - 5/6 Humanities
During our morning blocks, students met with their literature groups to discuss their books. Students reviewed vocabulary from the book and took notes on survival skills used by the characters. They will be using these notes for a final writing piece after the unit.
We also spent time reflecting and writing about the survival challenges.There were some great discussions on how teams can improve their performance. Taking time to read the directions, plan, assess their supplies and talents, read their survival notes, and communicate with each other were some of the big ideas that came up. We noticed a huge improvement in each teams efficiency by the end of the week.
.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ms. O’Brien Classes
Math 5: We finished up our Prime Time unit with an assessment this week. Students have learned a ton about whole numbers, including how to solve problems with multiple operations, solve problems using the properties of numbers, and understanding properties of operations. It was very foundational learning and I hope it will translate to new situations we face this year. Our geometry unit began mid week and we have already mastered how to look at a growing cube sequence (what things must we observe in order to understand how it is growing) and how to plot points on a coordinate plane. The algebraic connection to these two discrete learnings is that you can actually graph a pattern in order to understand the mathematics behind the pattern. Good leaps into abstract math!
Math 6: We finished up our Let’s Be Rational book this week. It was a long and arduous unit which was supplemented over and over with rich algebraic reasoning. Thus the extended time to complete. We learned a ton and I’m hoping that our future units will shorten up, based on some solid understanding of fractions. We are taking a break from CMP and so you may notice more handouts from a program called Open Up. I’m making this decision based on the effective continuum of learning in this program and the richness of the materials. If you find your child struggling at home, please let me know.
Science 5/6: No science this week. Just an amazing week outside! Students applied a lot of workshop learning to the real world. It was fun to remind them all that this whole simulation of winter survival was not real (which of course they knew) and that the point and purpose of the unit was to collaborate, apply learning and have an awesome attitude when working together. We saw so many students step right up to the plate, and these efforts were noticed and celebrated. Awards will go out Monday to winning teams, successful survivors, the allstar survivor team, and just overall to all students! Talk about GRIT! It took a lot for students to be outside for 90 minutes each day and we are super proud of them. See these great photos below!
No comments:
Post a Comment