Week of April 30-May 4

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:

May 8th - ⅚ Brook trout stocking on Lewis Creek in Starksboro, VT. Date Tuesday, 5/8. Permission slips and more details to follow.  Field Trip Form HERE

May 28th- No School

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

Highlights:

• We kicked off our Civil War unit by exploring what we already know and want to know about the Civil War.
• We started a read aloud of Soldier’s Heart by Gary Paulsen. As we read we are listing topics and big ideas that will help us discover the themes of the book.
• We had several activities that were based on the division caused by the Civil War, both geographically and politically.
• Tree planting along Allen Brook. Please remember to check your student for ticks tonight!

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

Math 5:

Computational Fluency:  It’s never too late to practice the 6, 7, and 8’s!  Before our next big unit (Prime Time), I thought it would be important to put a little extra time into basic 0-12 fluency.  Many students made great progress this week, either with accuracy or speed.

Conversion: We spent this week talking about length as a measurement, and specifically focused on unit conversion of length (within the Metric and US Customary System).  Common Core sees this as an important skill and the focus of the conversion was around using ratio tables to convert. A worthwhile and useful application of multiplication.  

Math 6:  

Students spent the week designing their own individualized learning by focusing on standards that he/she has not met and taking responsibility for the relearning plan.  I did assess two different skills this week for each student, so you will see updated scores on Jumprope after this weekend.

We also are continuing the table, graph, and equation pursuit in algebra!  Students are beginning to see patterns in data, graphs and equations that will lead them to linear and proportional relationships, a prerequisite skill for Grade 7.  Students are making great connections and seeing similarities between equations and within equations, graphs and tables.

⅚ Science:

What explains the ‘fog’ above the Grand Prismatic Pool?  Students are in hot pursuit of explaining the Grand Prismatic Pool phenomenon and made a positive move in that direction this week by observing vaporization and condensation.  We heated water and watched both evaporation and boiling, examples of vaporization, and created conditions for condensation, so that students could see phase change. This model demonstrates the role that heat energy plays in phase change. In this model we could see that fog’ was created.  In addition, we poured water over dry ice to show ‘fog’ and I asked students if they believed that the fog in the pool is created because of hot or cold water. I then revealed the truth, the water is hot. The ‘fog’ above the pool can be explained as a phase change from liquid to gas. The ‘fog’ can then be explained by cooler conditions above the pool as a phase change from gas to liquid.  

We had an awesome time planting trees Friday!  Please do a tick check!

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

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

CMP7

This week we began our “Moving Straight Ahead” Unit with finding our average walking rate for 25 meters.  Through a series of steps students figured out what their walking rate was in miles per hour. We found out how many calories we burn based on our weight and walking rate.  We figured out how long we would have to walk to work off a McDonald’s Big Mac. For many, they would have to walk for at least 8 hours to burn it off. I hate to think what a pint of Ben and Jerry’s is!  We also graphed our different walking rates in Desmos, an online graphing calculator. Students are beginning to see the relationship between rate of change and the slope of the graph. We rounded out the week with solving all sorts of algebraic equations.  We are learning to keep things balanced.

CMP8

We began the week with a series of stations that looked at all things quadratic.  We explored triangular and square patterns, understanding the equation for a fixed perimeter of a rectangle, played with the different coefficients in a standard form, played with algebra tiles and learned the area model of going from factored form to expanded form. Next week we will finish our quick quadratic blitz with an assessment.

Science 7th/8th

  Teams spent the first part of the week completing their earthquake proof structures.  We placed two 450 g weights at 15cm and 30 centimeters and then ran the earthquake shake table for over 20 seconds.  Some of the building designs were interesting and effective. We had cross bracing, use of trusses, dampers, tension wires and base isolation.  The structures were so well made that only a few showed signs of failing. Unfortunately, our shake table failed. We could not complete our testing due to an electrical malfunction in the device.  We are still hoping for a possible shake table from another source....until then we are beginning our scientific reflections on our work.

Week of April 16th - 20th

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)

SPARK: The final session of Spark Enrichment will begin the week we come back from April break.

Here's the listing of workshops and the link for registration.

Dates to Know:

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

Friday, May 4th - For Vermont Arbor Day (Friday, May 4th) ⅚ students will be participating in a community volunteer riparian tree planting along Allen Brook (immediately as you enter the nature trail behind the soccer field). This site in Williston lacks adequate riparian buffer habitat. Students should wear boots or old sneakers and dress to be outside for most of the day.

Week of May 7th - ⅚ Brook trout stocking on Lewis Creek in Starksboro, VT. Date TBD based on weather forecast. Permission slips and more details to follow.

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

This week, Mr. McElroy is wrapping with his Slavery Unit with the ⅚ students. They have spent time this week working on their final project for the unit, a character creation where the students create a fictional slave based on real historical information they’ve learned during the unit. Some are making posters, while others are making collaborative skits, and everything in between. They will be presenting their projects during a Gallery Walk on Friday morning, finishing off the Slavery Unit before we head off for break.

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

Math 5:

Highlights:

• Students learned about area of rectangles and then used the strategies of subdividing and enclosing to find the area of composite shapes.
• Students revisited the concept of volume to apply the l x w x h strategy to composite solids.  
• Students reviewed rounding and took a cumulative review quiz to make sure the concept has stuck!

Math 6:  

Highlights:

• We took a big leap this week and focused on equations.  See public records for some of the specifics. We are fully into an algebra unit at this time and many students are loving the abstract math.

⅚ Science:

Highlights:

• We were introduced to our anchoring phenomenon to ask the question what is happening and why is it happening?  The Grand Prismatic Pool in Yellowstone is the geologic feature we are trying to understand! Maybe a trip to Yellowstone is in order:).
• We learned about the four spheres of Earth.  New language includes the hydrosphere, geosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere.  These vocab terms are critical for meeting the standard for this unit (that all spheres are interconnected).
• We played the Toss the Earth game.  The goal of the modeling scenario was to see if we can describe the Earth’s surface.  We collected data and compared it to the actual surface area data for land and water. Our experimental data matched our theoretical data.  Lots of math.

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

ELA: In English, students worked on writing for a public audience and possible publication. They wrote in any style they wanted, with either new pieces, or by editing and revising an older piece. These pieces will be submitted to The Scribe, which is Williston Central School’s literary magazine, or to The Williston Observer for the Kids take over the Observer edition. Students have reading log 30 to complete over vacation, which they began on Monday of this week.

Last week, students were able to have a presentation from Pastor Andrew Magnuson on Christianity.

SS: Students worked on the engineering task during the afternoon, so social studies was postponed.

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

CMP8

This week we began investigating quadratic function. These are functions that form parabolas.

We looked at landmarks such as the maximum point, x-intercepts, y-intercept and the line of symmetry.  Students also began working with polynomials: binomials and trinomials. These are expressions that have a number of terms such as x2 + 3x + 5, this is an example of a trinomial.

We also practiced using the distributive property to create equivalent expressions, such as

x(x + 3) = x2 + 3x.  We learned about the FOIL method when multiplying binomials.

CMP7

This week the 7th graders did a fabulous job completing and presenting their survey projects.  We shared our work in a “Speed Dating” format and so every team had the opportunity to share their results from their data.  We worked on creating class records for our Comparing and Scaling Unit Test and then worked toward completing the assessment.

Science 7th/8th

This week our earthquake resistant building engineers were treated to guest speakers.  Erik Urch, who is a geologist, helped us to understand how earthquakes work and the types of waves that are created.  We used springs to enact p-waves and s-waves. Lauren Davis helped us to understand what architectural structures help hold up buildings.  Using tinker toys and pictures students began to get ideas of how to build their structures. A rigorous approval system was followed as students did background research, listed important vocabulary, explored the science of earthquakes and buildings that can handle seismic waves and created designs ideas.  They were given specific materials and constraints. The “Great Shake” will not happen until we get back from break.

Week of April 2-6

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)

TESTING...TESTING...TESTING

Hello Voyager House Families,

Next week Voyager House will be conducting the SBAC and Science testing.

We would GREATLY APPRECIATE that you make every effort not to schedule regular appointments during this time as all testing needs to be made up at a later time.

Also - please support your child by encouraging good sleep and healthy food/snacks/drinks.

Also- Don’t forget to equip your child with earbuds!

Thanks so much parents and guardians!

VOYAGER 5-8 SBAC Testing Schedule

MON 4/9	TUES 4/10	WED  4/11	THURS 4/12	FRI 4/13
Regular	8:30-10:30 ELA CAT	8:30-10:30 ELA CAT 1:15-2:45 Math CAT	8:30-10:30 ELA PT *read text *first draft handwritten 1:15-2:45 ELA PT Type up and edit	8:30-10:30 Math PT

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

We did some preparation for SBAC testing which starts on Tuesday next week. Students reviewed the training and practice sites and answered some practice questions.

Mr. McElroy and the students have wrapped up reading Nightjohn and will be taking this week to focus on important historical events leading up to the Civil War and how these events affected or were affected by the institution of slavery.

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

Math 5:  Students had a ton of fun this week playing with the characteristics of polygons.  Specifically we reviewed key characteristics like parallelism, perpendicularity, congruent, side measure, number of sides, and angle measures within polygons in order to name them.  Students brought prior knowledge and some new ideas to the table when solving Polygon Riddles. Students were given clues, one at a time, that were true characteristics of polygons, in order to ultimately name the polygon.  Students also continued work with visual patterns and graphing them, in order to solidifying graphing techniques and make claims about the story of a growing pattern.

Math 6:  6th graders made a big algebraic dive this week by graphing all week and looking at linearity.  Does the data graph as a line or not? What does that graph tell us about the data? We graphed several scenarios this week, from distance traveled on a bike tour, to cost of bike rentals, to look for patterns and trends that might tell the story of the data.  Students have become excellent at graphing and specifically discussed: why are two lines parallel? What happens when a line crosses the y axis at zero? At some other place? Where can I see those realities in the table? What happens when one line is higher than the other?  What does this tell us about rate? What does an intersecting set of graphed data tell us? We are moving in the direction of understanding how equations can further clarify the story of graphed data!

⅚ Science:

Students continued to make way on their modeling human body interactions.  Group work has been a great aspect of this project. We ended our week with the UVM Pathology Dept, who brought technicians in to show students, how blood is drawn, what autopsies reveal about a person’s disease history, what urine and blood can tell us, what bacteria lives on our door knobs and faucets, and how we use microscopes to diagnose.  It was really interesting!

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

ELA:  Our 7th and 8th graders are continuing to work on their commonly confused words. There are so many words, and they’re all affected by the effects of definitions and spelling! Independent reading focused on these words, complex and compound sentences, and also analysis of author’s craft. This means that students examined the WHY behind the choices that authors make, either with plot elements or with the actual structure and word choice. Students continued reading sacred stories and answering comprehension questions. In addition, students read a synopsis of Guys and Dolls so that they would have more background knowledge when watching the school musical.

SS:  Students worked on current events, using CNN 10. We are working on using evidence to support a quote, and will be transitioning to analysis of stories from summary soon. Students also used time to work on their math and science projects this week, and did not have class on Thursday due to the musical. We also worked on world religions by completing a practice quiz.

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

CMP7

This week was all about statistics!  Students formed survey questions that elicited both categorical and numerical data. Questions like: What sport do you participate in? How many hours do you study? How much sleep do you get at night?  What social media app do you use? We began to analyze our data and looked for trends, make some comparisons and making meaning from the numbers. Students were asked to make predictions before we began data collection and we will see how accurate they were. Beside learning about different graphic representation, we will learn to use Google Sheets to create graphs and use different functions.

This week we learned about the 5 number summary: minimum, maximum, median, quartile 1, quartile 3. We then created box and whisker plots that represented the data.

Before break we will wrap up this unit with a summary of our findings and the Comparing and Scaling Unit Test.

CMP8

We completed our Butterflies, Pinwheels and Wallpaper unit with finishing our mandela project.  Students needed to address how their images showed: translation, symmetry, dilation, rotation and reflection.  They came out beautifully. We began our BPW unit test and will continue into the next week.

Science 7th/8th

This morning our students shared with the greater Williston Community their learning of their self selected geology topics. Our 3rd and 4th grade visitors were very impressed with the models, activities, and enthusiasm our students shared with them. Hats off to the hard work our 7th and 8th graders presented today, we were all truly impressed with their exhibits. Be sure to ask your child about their presentation and topic! Mrs. Quatt will be taking the back the saddle in science, it has been a pleasure teaching our students for the past 4 weeks and I look forward to continuing to work with them as we approach May.