Week of March 12-23

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.***

Voyager Homework Club- Tuesdays (2:00-3:30 pm) and Wednesdays (3:00-4:30 pm)

Dates to Know:

March 22nd- Jump Rope Reports are emailed out to families (Marking end of Trimester 2)

March 23rd- No School (Parent/Student/Teacher Conference Day)  

Recycle Sale Drop Off 6-8pm in Cafeteria

March 24th- Voyager Recycle Sale 9am - 12 noon:  Sign up sheet HERE

Thursday, March 29th - Voyager ⅚ Open House 8:30-9:30am: Students will have personal narratives available for a reading cafe, a math statistics project, and a cell animation for our unit on the human body on display.

April 23rd- 22nd- No School (April Break)

Message from Administration:

WCS has been working in collaboration with the Spiral International organization to connect our school with schools in China.  I am excited to announce that 9 Chinese middle school students will be coming to WCS from April 1st-April 7th. WCS is seeking host families for them.  This is an incredible opportunity for our middle level students to make a personal connection with a Chinese student. The Chinese student would stay with their host family and attend school each day.  

If you are willing to host one or two Chinese students, please email Jackie Parks for more details.  jparks@cvsdvt.org  

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Hello Incoming CVU Class of 2022,

It's hard to believe that the summer will be here before we know it and what better way to spend the summer then getting to chill with your friends while having a blast at Camp.  

The CVU Summer Camp is an exciting summer camp experience where incoming ninth graders have a chance to learn the layout of CVU and meet CVU Faculty while participating in daily activities lead by experienced upper class students. This camp will help students to grow relationships with other students from all the sending schools. Students can choose different interest groups that they will participate in new and exciting activities lead by their upper class members.  Along with fun daily activities such as tie dye, capture the flag, and karaoke battles, snacks, lunch and a camp T-shirt are included in your camp fee.  Scholarships are available upon request.

Please take some time to review our website via the links below with important info about the daily schedule, interest areas and other program information.  

Please follow the link below to register your student.

CVU Summer Camp Website

CVU Summer Camp Registration

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out!  We look forward to sharing this once in a lifetime opportunity!

"The CVU Summer Camp is amazing! It allowed me to meet so many new people that I then was able to know on my first day at CVU so it made all the difference!"  - Jensen Marrott

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Rick Kinsman

CVU Summer Camp Director

Transition Coordinator, Special Services Department

Champlain Valley Union High School, CVSD

369 CVU Road

Hinesburg, VT 05461

(802) 482 - 7195

_______________________________________________________________________________

Advanced Coder Camp

This new, advanced coding camp at Vermont Technical College – Williston Campus provides an opportunity for campers ages 11 - 17 with some programming background to dive deeper into programming. The camp will be held July 23-27, 2018. Campers will learn to develop simple Android applications using Java and xml.  Smartphone apps, robots, video games, small business—the world runs on code. Whether you dream of becoming a Google developer or want to launch your own mobile game startup, your coding path continues here. Cost is $150 – plus many scholarships available.

Contact: Zoe McDonald at zmacdonald@vtc.vsc.ed

Bonnie Birdsall

Digital Learning Leader

Public Information Officer

Williston Schools

Williston, Vermont

New email address: bbirdsall@cvsdvt.org

Twitter: @bonniebird

Notes from Ms. Sherman on behalf of all Voyager Teachers and Staff:

To all our Valued Voyager Parents and Guardians,

Happy Third Trimester!!! As we enter into the last stretch of school, we as Voyager teachers have been discussing what progress we would like all our students to be working towards by June. Our goal for these shifts is to give kids opportunities to become more independent with completing and managing their work, and to also give ample time for kids to be metacognitive and reflect on their collaborative skills in the classroom. With this progress in mind, there will be some shifts in our practices on house, and we wanted to make sure to provide you with information regarding these changes.  Thank you for your support, and please feel free to contact us for questions and clarification.

Schedule: On Mondays, starting on March 23, students will begin their day in core and have a check-in to see how they are doing.

Activities during this time will include →

1. Check google classroom for completed, not completed, or not turned in assignments
2. Check in on JumpRope
3. Complete Google Form regarding homework completion
4. Make a plan for completing outstanding work
5. Students will share this completed form with their parents/guardians (Please make sure your child is sharing this with you weekly and let us know if they are not.)

New Classroom Practice with Collaboration Focus: All students in Voyager are accustomed to the use of entry and exit tasks, especially in math class. Voyager teachers will be adopting this same practice for kids to take time to reflect on their collaboration skills. This reflection work will be done a minimum of once a week and will happen when the teacher sees fit.

Below is what it will look like→

1. Students will self assess on a defined 1-4 scale
2. Students will write a short statement of reflection with evidence and analysis of scores
3. Teachers will then also score everyone using the same 4 pt scale
4. Teachers will then upload these (teacher) scores to JumpRope under Habits of Learning on a bi-weekly basis

Teacher Shift in Practices: In an effort to guide students towards more independent practice and personal responsibility for their work completion habits, Teachers will no longer be sending out Friday emails. However, if you need more information, we will do our best to meet or correspond with you regarding your questions and/or concerns.

Below are ways to help students and their families stay on top of their work→

1. Check google classroom and JumpRope with your child regularly
2. Talk about and review your child’s Monday Work Completion Google Form
3. Read the Voyager Voice every week!

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

Slavery: Mr. McElroy started his solo unit focusing on Slavery before the Civil War. Students spent time reading excerpts from slave narratives as well as viewing historical pictures of enslaved people from the years before the Civil War. Students have been reading Gary Paulsen's Nightjohn in class and have spent time comparing and contrasting the experiences of the characters in Nightjohn to the experiences of former slaves in their narratives. Thursday morning, Joan Robinson from the Flynn Theater led a supplemented activity that allowed students to revisit the Freedom Train performance they viewed last week at the Flynn.

Current Events: Students read a story and completed a post-reading activity covering main points of the article.

3DVT: Students continued their progress on their projects.

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

Math 5:

Math 6:  

⅚ Science:

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

ELA & SOCIAL STUDIES: We had an alternative type of week as so many of our students are involved in chorus and band. Their amazing concert performances occurred this week

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

CMP8

This week the 8th graders continued to explore geometric rotations and the coordinate rules that transform figures from one quadrant to another.  Along with the coordinate rules, students investigated what happens to line segments of geometric figures as we translate and rotate them.

Next week we will have an assessment on Investigation 3.  We also plan to do a brief mathematic mandala activity where students will create an image that shows multiple forms of geometric transformation.

CMP7

The 7th graders turned their attention to unit rates and how these rates can be placed into a linear equation and then graphed.  This is our first glimpse of building equations and exploring linear functions. We investigated the difference between direct variations, y = kx  and linear equations that are in the slope intercept form y= mx + b. Direct variations are a form of linear equation that crosses the y-intercept at  0,0 and the table shows x changing and y changing in proportion.

x	0	1	2	3
y	0	2	4	6

We will be having a check-up next week and will hopefully begin a survey project.

Science 7th/8th

Week of March 12th - 16th

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.***

Voyager Homework Club- Tuesdays (2:00-3:30pm) and Wednesdays (3:00-4:30pm)

Dates to Know:

March 21st- 7:00pm 7th & 8th grade Spring Concert

March 22nd- Jump Rope Reports are emailed out to families (Marking end of Trimester 2)

March 23rd- No School (Parent/Student/Teacher Conference Day)  Signs ups went out already, if you do not have a time to meet with your students teacher and wish to do so please contact Katie Fieldsend at KFieldsend@cvsdvt.org or 871-6148

Recycle Sale Drop Off 6-8pm in Cafeteria:  Volunteers needed for set-up

March 24th- Voyager Recycle Sale 9am - 12 noon: Volunteers needed for sales & clean-up

Concessions can be donated as well  Sign up HERE

March 29th - Voyager ⅚ Open House: Students will have personal narratives available for a reading cafe and the human body project will be on display.  8:30-9:30am.

April 23rd- 22nd- No School (April Break)

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

Lewis and Clark: Students completed a read aloud of the book and a sequence map of the major events of the expedition. They also completed 4 journal entries as members of the Corps of Discovery.

Current Events: Jigsaw activity on a variety of articles with sharing and discussion.

Slavery: We enjoyed our trip to the Flynn theater. Freedom Train introduced Harriet Tubman, slavery, and the Underground Railroad to students in powerful play performance.

3DVT: We made a quick stop at the Isham Farm and took a tour of the barn and walked around the property. Students were warmly greeted and welcomed by Ginger and David Isham.

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

Math 5:  We had a conversation today about what it means to do your best effort the first time around.  I spent hours helping create survey ideas for each of the students but feel as though that work could have been put in by the students initially.  Please feel free to remind your kiddos, when they are doing homework at home, to put in a best first effort by following protocols and guidelines put in place in the assignment.  

Math work focused on surveys, making edits, asking numerical questions, and building a frequency table for survey responses.

We will get back to our geometry unit next week.

Math 6:  We had a conversation today about what it means to do your best effort the first time around.  I spent hours helping create survey ideas for each of the students but feel as though that work could have been put in by the students initially.  Please feel free to remind your kiddos, when they are doing homework at home, to put in a best first effort by following protocols and guidelines put in place in the assignment.   

Math work focused on surveys, making edits, asking numerical questions, and building a frequency table for survey responses.

We are going to be building algebraic reasoning beginning Monday, with our new unit, Variables and Patterns. This is an essential unit for 6th graders as they transition to 7th grade.  I will be working to help build some skills in this math domain before SBAC in April.

⅚ Science:

We had a slow science week this week!  Not as many classes due to changes in schedule and snow days.  Our two classes this week were centered around building storylines and prepping for our first of two animation videos, on the structure and function of cell parts.  The larger animation/modeling project description will be launched on Monday.

Anna and Julia, 7th graders gave a workshop on stop motion animation!  It was awesome to have them join us and educate us on their learning and expertise!

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

ELA: In English this week, we worked on reflecting and updating our academic and personal goals. We also updated our principles and values. All of this is in preparation for conferences, which are next week on Thursday and Friday, or at other individually scheduled times. We also continued our practice of independent silent reading supported by reading log 25, due Monday.

Social Studies: This week, we continued research to complete our world religions comparisons chart. We are learning what makes these religions different, similar, and what impact they have had in the world. We also had a visit on Friday from four UVM international students. They came and shared about culture and geography from their countries: India, Mongolia, and China. As usual, we also worked on current events via CNN 10 from 3/12/18.

The Week from Mr. Shepley’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):

CMP8: This week in 8th grade math, our students expanded on their understanding of symmetry. Coming back from break we have been working on transformations of congruent figures using rulers, protractors, and tracing paper - very hands on an experiential practices proving symmetry and congruence. This week, we put our rulers and protractors away and began creating rules for our transformations on the coord point grid. Students explored reflections (mirrors) and were introduced to the rules of rotations where we will be picking up next week. All this work is preparing students for their upcoming unit in quadratics.

CMP7: This week in 7th grade math, students continued their work with proportions. As a whole, our 7th grade class doing extremely well with comparing, scaling, and solving for ratios. As we progress into next week we will be turning our thinking from proportions into unit rates which will become our tools for thinking of linear equations. Students are well equipped for the road ahead.

Science 7th/8th: In science, we have investigated scales of time, change over time, the anatomy of the earth, convection currents and their role in the movement of our Earth’s crust. Last week’s activity, recreating pangea, provided the foundation for this weeks investigation of plate tectonics. Student’s investigated, and modeled the change of our continents over time and realized that the Theory of Continental Drift is incomplete - wonderful discussions of the mechanisms of plate movement were had Thursday afternoon as students connected convection currents to plate movement. Today, Friday, students modeled converging plates that create mountains. Students will be finishing their lab next week and beginning to examine weathering forces and their interconnected principles that influence our planet.

Week of Mrach 5th - 9th

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.***

Voyager Homework Club- Tuesdays (2:00-3:30pm) and Wednesdays (3:00-4:30pm)

Annual Voyager Recycle Sale

March 24, 2018 from 9:00 -12:00 PM

Dear Voyager Parents,

It is that time of year again, when Voyager House hosts our Annual Voyager Recycle Sale, (Indoor Yard Sale) to raise money for Voyager overnight field trips.  

SIGN UP SHEET FOR RECYCLE SALE HERE

Items to Sell:  We appreciate gently-used and never-used items that you think would be someone else’s treasure!  We especially ask that you donate at least one small item (worth about $5) or one larger item (worth about $10+).  If you have something of greater value, Mr. Merrill will help to price it appropriately. That way when antique dealers come, Voyager benefits the most from that item’s worth.  The clean up can be difficult, so please follow the Goodwill guidelines for what they can accept and not accept, so that we aren’t charged for disposal. (https://www.amazinggoodwill.com/donating/donor-guidelines)

Donation Drop Off:  If you can, drop those items off on Friday, March 23rd, from 6-8 PM.  If you cannot make that drop off time, please feel free to bring those items to Katie Fieldsend’s office in the Project Room.  

Items We Need Donated to Make the Sale Successful:  Bags, boxes, sale stickers to place on items, did we say bags and boxes!  These can all be dropped off prior to the sale in Voyager Project Room.

Thanks for all you do to make Voyager a great place to learn!

Voyager Teachers

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

Reading Cafe: We are reading a book about Lewis and Clark aloud. Students are making a sequence map of important events.

PLP Reflections: Students are reflecting on their 2nd semester, writing a letter to parents that will serve as a source for our upcoming parent conferences.

Lewis and Clark: We read a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis. It contained all of the orders and expectations for the expedition. Students summarized these orders, prepared a journal cover, and started to write their first journal entries as members of the Corps of Discovery. We also watched clips from the Ken Burns series on Lewis and Clark to understand the challenges and obstacles they faced.

Permission slips went home for the ⅚ trip to the Flynn next week. Please look for it to sign and send back. Thanks!

⅚ Voyager is welcoming a new intern!

"Kevin McElroy is a graduate student at the University of Vermont who will be working with Aron Merrill's 5/6th graders for the remainder of the year. Although new to Voyager, Kevin has spent time in Williston Central School this year and is looking forward to working on the team. After gaining a BA in History from the University of Vermont in 2015, he has spent time as a historic site guide in the Adirondacks, a middle school para-educator in Newton, MA and an ESL teacher in Prague, Czech Republic, using these experiences to help improve his teaching styles and practices. In his free time, Kevin enjoys writing and playing music, snowboarding and traveling. He's looking forward to a great few months with Aron and his Voyager students!"

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

** Away at a conference the end of this week- see next week’s Voice for class update **

Math 5:

Math 6:  

⅚ Science:

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

ELA and Social Studies: This week, we began our study of world religions. We will focus on Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism, but discuss other religions as well. We will have community expert from each religion visit our class to give us more information and to answer our questions. Students are working on completing a comparison chart, using research and class materials. We examined the complex, historical city of Jerusalem, and answered questions from a reading. In addition, we worked on CNN 10 and our Independent Reading with reading log 24. The use of commas and semicolons, along with capital letters is an ongoing focus for our writing. We are also trying to improve our written responses by using more specific details.

The Week from Mr. Shepley’s Room (⅞ Math & Science):

CMP8

    This week in CMP8, students began investigations of triangle congruence and its relevance to transformations of shapes. This has been an introductory week to geometric proofs that they will, without a doubt, be encountering over the next few years in high school. Students engaged in speed dating activities to find congruent partner shapes, drawing triangles and attempting to disprove theorems, and applying their new understanding to prior proof methods of transformations. Students will be wrapping up problem set 2.3 that blends our congruent determining short cuts with shape transformations. Class records will find their place on our walls next week as student move toward completing this unit.

CMP7

    Ratios, rates, proportions, equivalent fractions, and scaling have been the name game this week. Students started the week with an investigation determining the difference in caffeine concentration between 5 common energy drinks. Students found that 5 hour energy was the highest concentration of caffeine per ounce - lots of good math discussions around this. Students continued to hone their skills of constructing, analyzing, and expressing ratios and rates from word problems. Friday morning, students did a quick lab to refresh approaches to scaling in a new context. How many drops of water fit on a penny - how can we find the number of drops for a quarter? Fun week in math, students will continue exploring proportions next week as we work toward our check up.  

Science 7th/8th

    With the launch of our Earth Science unit Monday, students spent the first few days of the week examining the scale of geologic time. This is an important perspective to conceptualize. Students converted important geologic event from billions of years ago into the more tangible units of meters, centimeters, and mm. Students found that local geologic features, such as, the green mountains, Iapetus ocean, lake vermont, glaciers, and more occurred relatively recently in the grand scheme of time - and that the presence of human beings is the analogous to the last letter, of the last word of our Earth’s timeline. Student’s engaged in an activity at the end of the day Friday, reconstructing Pangea - a concept that is launching our coursework Monday, as we investigate large scale mechanisms of change that influence our  Earth’s surface. Students completed a claim and evidence statement from this lab activity.