TA’s Notes:
***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***
VOYAGER RECYCLE SALE
ALL Voyager Parents -- Sign Up!
The Voyager Recycle Sale is Saturday, March 26th! This is our biggest, most fun event of the year! A giant indoor yard sale!!!! Please start to gather anything you'd like to unload...household items, old artwork/posters, furniture, rugs, sporting equipment, books, toys, gently used jeans, dresses, jackets (any clothes must be clean, properly folded and ready to 'sell') costume jewelry, tools, working electronics. What a great activity for the upcoming February break! Spring cleaning!
All items can be dropped off at WCS on Friday, March 25th between 6 and 8 pm. The sale is Saturday, March 26th, 9:00 am - 2:00 pm. If you are new to Voyager (parents of 5th graders, or new students) please make an effort to join us, this is a wonderful, community- building event and everyone has a blast. We'll have a bake sale, on-site DJ playing music. 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!!!
Please sign up at this link: http://bit.ly/1L6dcOU Please save the date and volunteer for a shift. Shifts are only 2-hours, so a great opportunity to help out! Please find attached a poster that you can post/print and share with your friends. If you have any questions please feel free to contact Ann Schmidt at apechaver@yahoo.com
Conference Sign Ups:
Big Basket Raffle
Collections for the 16th 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, April 2nd, 2016.
Merrill: Spice it Up!- Donation suggestions: Hot sauce, Spice rubs Gourmet salts, Salsa, BBQ sauce, Chutney, Cookbooks about spicy foods, dried hot peppers, and gift cards to Mexicali or any other restaurant with a spicy theme. Gift cards to specialty markets.
O’Brien: Sock it to Me!- Donation suggestions: Socks for all ages and occasions, Darn Tough socks, Ski socks, Basketball socks, running socks, funny theme socks, Sock Monkeys and Sock Dolls. Gift cards to places that sell socks, like Dick’s, The Sock Market, or any apparel shop. Currently the basket is empty!
Quatt: Spa Day- Donation suggestions: spa socks, lotions, hair towel, foot care set, candies, bubble bath, bath salt, hand soap, pedicure set, candles, bath fizzers, bath pillow, diffuser, massager, nail polish, tea, gift certificate to spa.
Wesnak- Games Galore- Donation suggestions: Card games, board games for all ages (Pictionary, Apples to Apples, Scrabble, Life, Candy Land, Clue, Cranium, etc.), dice games, book of card game rules, hand
held video games, gift card to stores like Toys R Us, Best Buy or Wal-Mart.
- Voyager ⅞ SBAC Testing: March 21st - April 1st (students cell phones will be off and locked up for day)
The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):
This week Ms. Rice and Ms. Kiely continued leading their unit on slavery. Students finished reading Nightjohn, by Gary Paulsen, in their book groups. For the first half of the week, students focused on making comparisons between the historical fiction novel and slave narratives. They also attended two mini-lessons to learn about writing an introduction and conclusion, and crafting a thesis statement. On Thursday and Friday, students worked to complete an outline and draft of an informational writing piece that examines how realistic Nightjohn is in comparison to the slave narratives we have been exploring. We will be reading and commenting on their drafts over the weekend, and students will have time on Monday to edit individually and with a peer before submitting a final draft. Students also began working on a sequence map that illustrates the six most important events in Nightjohn and explains why those events are important. Due to the fire drill, one class had more time to get started than the other, but our hope is that all students can complete this assignment by Tuesday.
The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):
⅚ Math: While I was in Texas at a conference both classes went on a geometric journey of sorts, to review material on points, lines, rays, segments, and angles. Both groups will continue this work in their respective curricula in order to master some geometry concepts at their grade level.
⅚ Science: Students launched a project this week on the human body. They chose a research question of their choice and collaborative groups were formed. Students spent the early part of the week researching and taking notes on their topic. In addition to this work on the human body we are also learning about the microscope and its role in microbiological discovery. We learned that it was an essential engineered tool that allowed us to see cells, thus, changing the face of what we know about life.
*SAVE THE DATE! Important Note: On March 31st, all students are presenting their human body projects at an evening exhibit. The exhibit night is not an open house; students will be signing up for a ½ hour timeframe to present their projects. Each collaborative team will present their answers to a research question while a panel of peers and you! ask questions to press presenters on their learning. Please join us! More details to follow but get it on your calendar!
Your child has chosen a start time slot for his/her group. A slip will be coming home today with this proposed ½ hour timeslot. If this time does not work for you, please contact me and Katie immediately! We want you there, so please mark your calendars now!
The Week in Ms. Wesnak’s Room (⅞ Humanities):
This week students have been wrapping up their work with “The Giver” and have been diving deep into the Space Race!
Our morning classes were dedicated to bringing our work with “The Giver” to a close. Students finished watching the movie, and all seemed thoroughly engaged by its telling of the story. Students participated in a great discussion about the film and then completed an on-demand writing prompt where they had to argue which format told a better story of “The Giver: The book, the play, or the movie. As the week continued on we began engaging in the Space Race unit with some fun and creative journal prompts, videos, and a reading which described both sides of the Space Race: USSR vs USA. We ended the week with a discussion on our reading and making final conclusions about the Space Race.
In our afternoon classes we dove into learning about the Space Race! Students were introduced to the space race with a great teaser video from History.com. Using the video, students developed questions they had about the Space Race and what it was, who it involved, and why it happened. These questions helped to guide our studies for the rest of the week. As the week went on students were given their vocabulary terms for this mini unit and then took part in a simulation to create an interactive timeline of all of the events that took place during the years of the Space Race. We ended the week with some Space Race jeopardy, bringing our unit on the Space Race to an exciting close.
The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):
CMP7
The last few weeks we have been looking at a variety of real life situations where tax, tips and mark-ups are utilized. Having your child figure out the tip on your next dinner outing would be a fine thing to practice. We reviewed unit rate and how this can be utilized as the constant of proportionality, slope and rate of change when we look at linear equations. We completed this Comparing and Scaling Unit with a jeopardy and a unit assessment. We are moving on to “Moving Straight Ahead” which explores linear relationships through graphs, tables and equations.
CMP8
The past few weeks the 8th graders have learned how to move functions around in the cartesian coordinate plane. These transformations are derived by subtle changes in our equations. For example we learned about the vertex form of the quadratic equation which is a(x-h)2kwhere (h,k) is the vertex. We explored that the “a” flips and widens or narrows our function, the “h” moves it right or left and the “k” moves the function up and down. We reviewed these concepts along with function notation and completed the unit assessment on Friday.
Science 7th/8th
In science class we have been delving into the concept of matter and nonmatter, the physical and chemical properties of substances and what happens when matter combines to make new substances. Students began the week by classifying a set of cards with a variety of words like wind, fire, electricity, water etc. into matter vs. nonmatter. We had a rousing discussion about whether fire and light were forms of matter. We performed a series of experiments where they had to observe and discuss whether what they were seeing was a physical or chemical change. A candle burning, steel wool connecting with a battery, baking soda and vinegar, cornstarch and water and burning paper. Each investigation students were asked to defend whether it was a physical or chemical change. In the end students needed to write a claim and evidence statement to defend their decision. I did a quick demonstration by combining a series of substances where there was a color change, gas production, temperature change and a product that could put out a candle. Finally, students learned about different types of chemical reactions like synthesis, decomposition, single and double replacement. We rounded out the week with a review session and we took an assessment on the first section of chemistry.
