TA’s Notes:
***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***
Parents welcome at all Dec 21st events!
Wednesday, Dec 21st, 7:30 - 8:15am: 7/8 Meet the Authors Open House
Wednesday, Dec 21st, 10:00 - 11:30am (time change): 5/6 Harry Potter Open House to celebrate unit: Muggle Magic Show & Filmfest
Wednesday, Dec 21st, 1:15 - 2:30: 7/8 Physics Expo
Wednesday, Dec 21st, 2:05 - 2:45: 5/6 Quidditch Match in New Gym
Muggle Magic Show and Filmfest ⅚ Voyager students
Wednesday, December 21st 10-11:50 AM
- Slytherin and Hufflepuff will present magic @ 10-10:40 and @ 10:50-11:30 a short Harry Potter film
- Ravenclaw and Gryffindor will present a short Harry Potter film @ 10-10:40 and a magic show @ 10:50-11:30.
Thank you to all the Elves that participated in this year’s Polar Express!
It was a huge success for the Vermont Children’s Trust Foundation and meant a lot to all the families who participated in the Polar Express. Congratulations to all of our fabulous Elf Volunteers for making that day special for so many!
8th Graders:
In order for 8th graders to participate in the overnight 8th grade trip this year all forms need to be signed and turned in by December 20th along with payment.
If there is a need for a scholarship please let me know and I can help with this.
Any questions, feel free to contact me.
Thanks!
Katie
The Week in Mr. Merrill’s Room (⅚ Humanities):
Short film making: Students are working in teams to write and film an adapted screen scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. We are using WeVideo to make our short films. Mr. Maika taught the students some film and editing techniques to use in their films. Groups have had to collaborate, problem solve and improvise along the way to make their final product.
We have also been working on a writing piece that compares the book to the movie. Students made long lists of differences, but had to really think about how those differences impacted the story.
The Week in Ms. O’s Room (⅚ Math & Science):
***Dean Menke, Ms. O’Brien’s intern is finishing up his internship next week. We have so appreciated all the work that Dean has done for us all this fall. He has poured his heart and time into each Voyager student and we will all miss him. His professional colleagueship will also be sorely missed. If you have a chance, stop by and wish him well! Good Luck Dean!
Math 5: Division modeling was introduced this week. Bridges has a nice way of introducing this concept with the use of base ten pieces and linear base ten pieces. Students revisited the structure of the rectangle while thinking about the relationships between dimensions of a rectangle and the area of the rectangle. Students have a lot of experience with multiplying dimensions of a rectangle to get the area, but less experience when given the area of the rectangle and only one dimension (thus a division problem). We are making these associations regularly, by looking at what we know and what we have to find out. I had a few ahh’s yesterday when students saw the relationship between multiplication and division in the modeling. It confirms how important the visual side of mathematics is for students. I know it is difficult for you as parents to understand what we do each day and especially how we do it. Like all math, we eventually arrive at the algorithms and generalizations you do know and understand. Thanks for your patience as they develop conceptual understanding. I will be giving a unit assessment before break...I will likely break it up into parts as we review ideas Monday-Thursday next week.
Math 6: This week we finalized our work in the last investigation by looking at 18 word problems to determine the operation/s necessary to find a solution. We also reinforced our understandings of fact families, integrating variables into the expressions in order to find the unknown value. For example, given the equation N x ¾ = 2 ⅔ students would need to understanding the following fact family:
N x ¾ = 2 ⅔
¾ x N = 2 ⅔
2 ⅔ ÷ N = ¾
2 ⅔ ÷ ¾ = N
We recognized that only the last equation, 2 ⅔ ÷ ¾ = N, is solvable for N. And now students are able to see a solution strategy for that original problem, N x ¾ = 2 ⅔ .
Today, Friday, we wrapped up the Let’s Be Rational unit, with a unit assessment. Students have come a long way since the beginning of the unit back in early November! And we have covered some big ideas - all operations with fractions, fraction story problems, fact families and their value in solving one step algebraic expressions, determining operations needed to solve problems. I have been very pleased with the work ethic and stamina of this sixth grade group. They have worked hard!
Science ⅚: This week has been all about planning! Students have chosen a puzzling phenomenon to present at the Muggle Magic Show and are coming up with exciting ways to explain what is happening and why it is happening to ¾ grade students. The Muggle Magic Show will be Wednesday morning tentatively planned for 10-11:30. (There will be two 45 minute rotations...Slytherin and Hufflepuff will be in the first 40 minutes (10-10:40)and Ravenclaw and Gryffindor in the second 40 minute rotation 10:50-11:30). We look forward to your audience if you can make it! Also, on Tuesday, each small group (of which your child is a member) will present their phenomena and a small workshop to our students, as a way to share a little bit more of what they know. We got a glimpse of this on Tuesday, during one of our group challenges. We presented a challenge in which students took N.E.W.T. s, a series of tests of wizarding magic (actually like a science quiz) to prove their understanding of their topic area. It was a team challenge, so they helped each other complete the NEWT specific to their topic area and for the most part each house passed! They have a basic understanding of the science concepts for their chosen topic. So needless to say, this week has been spent planning for that too! Monday is a dry run practice day and pulling together materials for phenomena. Please ask your child what he/she is doing and be sure he/she has the materials needed.
The Week in Mr. G’s Room (⅞ Humanities):
The Week from Ms. Q’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):
CMP8
Students completed their Growing, Growing,Growing Unit test at the beginning of the week. Students were given an opportunity to work on “4” level learning target problems on exponential growth and decay to close out this unit. We are moving on to our new unit called “Looking for Pythagoras”. In this investigation we will explore the proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem through drawing squares, triangles, diagonals and finding multiple ways to find the lengths of sides.
CMP7
This past week we reviewed inequalities, operations with fractions, finding averages, and reviewed operations with positive and negative integers. At the end of the week students retook assessment questions where they did not meet the target. They were also given the opportunity to work on “4” level learning target questions related to operations that utilize positive and negative integers.
Science 7th/8th
Students are finishing up their project work for our Physics Expo that will take place on Wednesday, December 21st. Students are practicing with their models, making sure that their written material is accessible to our audience and preparing to field questions from the audience. It has been very busy!
