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
Meal Train For Matthew Yandow
amerrill@cvsdvt.org
jroof@cvsdvt.org
mquatt@cvsdvt.org
After School Homework Club: CHANGE IN DAYS OFFERED
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IMPORTANT LINKS
ACADEMIC UPDATES
- More dates have been added to the Meal Train for Matthew Yandow, a former WCS student (and brother of Voyager's Mackenzie Yandow) who had a stroke on October 21 of last year. Matt is now a 16 year old sophomore at CVU, and is just returning part time to school after missing almost three months of instruction. He is also attending OT and PT appointments multiple times a week. His mom, Amy, has been busy driving him all around to all of these appointments and has not been able to return to work, so the meal train has been really helpful for the family. Please consider bringing them a meal if you know them and you are able to. Here is the Meal Train Link. If it's inconvenient for you to bring a meal to their house after school, you can drop it off at Voyager House with Ted Milks and he will see that it gets delivered to the family. Thank you for considering!
- 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.
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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.
- 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
Ms.Q/ Mr. Sironi
CMP8
At the beginning of the week students received their Growing,Growing,Growing assessments back. As a class they showed a lot of grit on a very long and comprehensive assessment, and overall they did a great job! Make sure to check JumpRope and talk with your student about the results. This week we took linear equations to a new level. We practiced changing slope intercept form y = mx +b to standard form Ax + By = C and then began creating tables and graphs for these linear functions. We ended the week with creating a system of linear equations. A linear system can be two related linear functions. For example we have 100 tickets to Majestic 10. How many adults and students can attend a movie?, a + s = 100 What number of adults and students can attend a movie for $1000 , 10.50a + 7.75s = 1000. The graph looks like this:
We can find a solution to the two equations at the intersection point. We will continue to work with systems of linear equations through graphing and then move onto finding solutions algebraically.
CMP7
We began the week with pushing our thinking about similar figures and how it relates to angles, side lengths, perimeter and area. We then moved on to those crazy cartoon characters the Wumps.
We practiced graphing points on a coordinate grid and then used rules such as 3x,3y to enlarge the figure and x, 3y to create a distorted figure or imposter. Students also worked on Wump hats that had horizontal and vertical change such as a rule x+ 2, y +3
These figures are allowing us to see geometric transformations on a coordinate grid.
Science:
Why do astronauts float on the space station? The answer may surprise you. Ask your 7th/8th grader their understanding of this scientific phenomena. You can also check out this Veritaseum video. Gravity in Space. Students are currently working on their “Story of the Universe” project where they will create a visual model of what happened for a segment of time in the creation of our universe. We will be presenting these projects some time next week.
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Mr. Roof - 7&8 Humanities
This week, students worked on conducting research on important battles of WWI. This research will be presented through a slide show that highlights the who, what happened, when, where, why did the battle begin, and how did the battle impact the outcomes of WWI. We learned how to cite online sources and why it is important, and then how to compile those citations on a works cited page. Students were able to practice their speaking and presenting skills as well. This is technical and difficult, but students are doing a great job with it. The presentations are due Monday, meaning that students need to be ready to present Monday morning in humanities.
Students also worked on IXL. All students should be finished with the diagnostic, which means that the diagnostic would state that all levels are up to date (the level indicator is a small dot at this point, not a line or bubble shape). This will really help students to fine tune the skills that need the most work. Students continued their independent reading, although there was no reading log this week.
Students also worked on IXL. All students should be finished with the diagnostic, which means that the diagnostic would state that all levels are up to date (the level indicator is a small dot at this point, not a line or bubble shape). This will really help students to fine tune the skills that need the most work. Students continued their independent reading, although there was no reading log this week.
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Ms. O’Brien Classes
⅚ Science: We made some great claims this week in science class through a lot of great discussion and another gravity investigation on pendulums. See all the progress we made below. We now know that gravity is a downward force, because the center of the Earth is pulling us toward it. We also know that it does that, pull on us and all other masses on Earth because it is so massive! And bigger masses pull on smaller masses. We also know that when we drop two objects to Earth, they will hit at the same time, given some careful experimentation. Again, this is because those objects cannot win the contest with the Earth’s mass. Watching the hammer and feather on the moon video confirms that this is true, that the mass of the Earth outweighs all other dropped objects, and therefore pulls to it. The misconception that there is no gravity on the moon has been kicked aside. There is gravity there! It’s just not as great, because the moon’s mass is so much smaller than the Earth’s mass. Lots of amazing science talk this week!
Math 5: It was a great week of learning this week as we cycled back to the three dimensional measure of volume. Students reviewed how to determine volume and then took a quick quiz on these strategies on Thursday. We also finished up our geometric art projects, located below. It was fun to take a few class periods to test our spatial reasoning ability in an artistic way! Today, we launched our next unit, on whole number multiplication and division. Students are in very different places and so as we move forward, I will be sure to consider current skill level, so as to keep everyone engaged.
Math 6: We reviewed surface area and volume this week to finish up the geometry standards for Grade 6. Students are working on a project based assessment designed to reinforce application of these two math measures. They are building tent designs, sketching scale models and determining surface area. Now they have to do the heavy lifting of learning. The project is due next week, so check in on your child’s progress on the project.
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Mr. Merrill - ⅚ Humanities
Reading Cafe: Students are participating in the Reading is an Investment program sponsored by the Vermont State Treasurer’s office. The program promotes the teaching of personal finance by providing quality children's books that explore financial subjects to participating schools.The program offers students the opportunity to learn about money and basic financial concepts and to help students make the connection between these stories and their individual lives.
We are using read alouds for the three required books in the program, and students have a crate of books to select from that all have financial themes for their own reading. We have had some great conversations about these books, mostly focusing on wants vs. needs.
Stock Market Game: The stock market game officially started on Monday. We have been learning about the market and a variety of other important economic concepts. One important lesson was on the concept of economic risk. Students identified which kind of investments (stocks, mutual funds, and bonds) would be considered speculative, moderate, or conservative levels of risk. Mr. Milks has an interest in the stock market and has been supporting the students in class with their stock research. We have been using Yahoo Finance and a number of other market websites for our research. Every team has invested in at least one stock. The game is 10 weeks long and by week 5, every team must have invested in 5 stocks and spent $50,000.
Writing: Students received feedback on their compare/contrast survival essays. We focused on revision and editing this week. Students worked on strengthening their sentences by considering organization, word choice, and adding more depth and detail. Analyzing the evidence is a challenge for many writers. Explaining why the evidence supports the answer is the goal. We posted a list of analysis sentence starters for students to select from and get their analysis thinking started. Our editing checklist focused on capitalization, punctuation, and commonly confused words. Students worked individually and with a peer to complete the revision and editing process.
Ms. O’Brien Classes
⅚ Science: We made some great claims this week in science class through a lot of great discussion and another gravity investigation on pendulums. See all the progress we made below. We now know that gravity is a downward force, because the center of the Earth is pulling us toward it. We also know that it does that, pull on us and all other masses on Earth because it is so massive! And bigger masses pull on smaller masses. We also know that when we drop two objects to Earth, they will hit at the same time, given some careful experimentation. Again, this is because those objects cannot win the contest with the Earth’s mass. Watching the hammer and feather on the moon video confirms that this is true, that the mass of the Earth outweighs all other dropped objects, and therefore pulls to it. The misconception that there is no gravity on the moon has been kicked aside. There is gravity there! It’s just not as great, because the moon’s mass is so much smaller than the Earth’s mass. Lots of amazing science talk this week!
Math 5: It was a great week of learning this week as we cycled back to the three dimensional measure of volume. Students reviewed how to determine volume and then took a quick quiz on these strategies on Thursday. We also finished up our geometric art projects, located below. It was fun to take a few class periods to test our spatial reasoning ability in an artistic way! Today, we launched our next unit, on whole number multiplication and division. Students are in very different places and so as we move forward, I will be sure to consider current skill level, so as to keep everyone engaged.
Math 6: We reviewed surface area and volume this week to finish up the geometry standards for Grade 6. Students are working on a project based assessment designed to reinforce application of these two math measures. They are building tent designs, sketching scale models and determining surface area. Now they have to do the heavy lifting of learning. The project is due next week, so check in on your child’s progress on the project.
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