Voyager Poetry Slam Competition Friday, February 17th!

Join us Friday for our Voyager Poetry Slam Competition from 1:45-2:45 in the Auditorium!  Come see original poetry presented in small groups and individually.  

Week of February 6-10

TA’s Notes:

***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***

No School: Monday, February 27th - Friday, March 3rd

VOYAGER RECYCLE SALE

ALL Voyager Families:

The Voyager Recycle Sale is Saturday, April 1st!  Save the date!

This is our biggest, most fun event of the year.  A giant indoor yard sale!!!!  Please start to gather anything you'd like to donate...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!

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

We kicked off two big projects this week. The stock market game officially started on Monday. Students put their research to use by making their first investments in the game. The rules require each team to purchase 5 stocks in the first 5 weeks and spend $50,000. The game runs for 10 weeks and teams win by having the highest total equity for their portfolios. Students are competing against teams across the state.

Voyager kicked off its Poetry Slam unit with a trip to the Flynn to see Mayhem Poets. This group of performance poets mix hip hop, theatre, stand up comedy and serious poetry together for an amazing show. During the unit, students will participate in poetry writing, performance, and interpretation workshops to create their own poetry performance for a Poetry slam contest at the end of next week.

Workshops on rhythm, voice, body percussion, public speaking, and choreography!

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

Important Note: Aron and I will need to change the spring conference day! I have an appointment in Boston on that day that cannot be changed.  We are sorry for this inconvenience.  We will be sending out a new schedule for conferences next week, so you can make advanced plans to attend.  Thanks for being flexible!

Math 5 and 6:

We participated in several days of studying the “math” behind the stock market.  This mathematical work was designed to provide mathematical skills and understandings to playing the game and making wise decisions as you take risks with the allotted $100,000.  The workshops focused on and potentially answered these three questions:  

• What causes stock values to change?  We looked at phenomena like decreased supply of good cocoa for making chocolate; how weather might be to blame for rising costs; how natural disasters or tragic events like Hurricane Katrina can favor some companies and hurt others.  
• How can the value of our money grow?  We looked specifically at interest bearing savings.  We looked at the Tale of Two Savers.  Ron started saving young and did so for 6 years.  He then left his money in his savings account, without withdrawal for another 9.  His friend, David, didn’t start saving until six years after Ron, and then saved for 10 years.  Who had more money after the 15 years?  RON!  The motto is SAVE for as long as you can!
• When do you buy, sell, or hold stock?  We looked at 6 companies and phenomena (like Martha Stewart goes to jail because of insider trading) to see how that might affect your decisions to buy, sell, or hold your stock.  This was fun! Ask your child what they decided given perceived risk and benefit.

⅚ Science:

We only worked on creating a Gravity Test this week.  This is the final project in our early gravity work.  We will get back to the Solar System after the poetry slam unit.  

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

CMP8

The 8th grade class is working hard on quadratic equations, equivalent expressions and finding landmarks on parabolas that are reflected in the factored form and standard form.  Through class discussion and utilization of Desmos, our online graphing calculator, we can create parabolas that are “thin” and “wide” due to the coefficient of x2, their maximum/minimum point (vertex), line of symmetry, y-intercept and x intercepts.

http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/beginning-algebra/s12-05-graphing-parabolas.htm

CMP7

Students are deligently working on their “Shrink it Down and Blow it up” projects.  Many have gotten through shrinking and enlarging, but our the last task is to make a distorted image that uses a rule like 2x,y.  This means that the horizontal dimension is doubled, but the vertical dimension stays the same.  

Science 7th/8th

During the poetry unit, students will give up their science period through next week.  However this week students were working on thier “Life in the Universe” essay.  During our Alien Planet project students were given scientific articles, astronomy websites and videos as resources as they created their planets and aliens.  This 3-5 LEAF paragraph essay asked the question:

Why is the work of astrobiologists important? What would it mean to find life elsewhere in the universe? The deadline for this essay was on Thursday.

Week of January 30 - February 3

TA’s Notes:

***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***

The new deadline to order a Yearbook is Wednesday, February 22nd.  

Yearbook Order Form

Please note, no additional yearbooks will be ordered.

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

We started preparing for the Stock Market game this week. The Stock Market Game

Is an online simulation of the global capital markets that engages students in the world of economics, investing and personal finance. Students work in teams to invest 100,000 virtual dollars in stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Students practiced team building skills and how to make it to consensus. This will be important when they start making decisions about how to invest their money. In the first 5 weeks, teams must invest in at least 5 different stocks and spend a minimum of $50,000. Lessons on what is a company? What is a stock? What is risk? And what is diversification? Will be taught before the first orders are placed Monday afternoon.

Poetry Slam Competition - On Wednesday we will be going to the Flynn Theater to see Mayhem Poets. This is a poetry performance field trip that will kick off our 5-8 Poetry Slam unit. Students will work in groups to create their own poetry slam performance for Friday, February 17th. In morning classes students will write poetry based on a selected theme. They will the work with their group to write a final poem and performance during our afternoon periods. Students will work on crafting poetry with poetic language, a point of view,  and conveying human emotion. Vocal elements (tone, volume, pitch, pace, rhythm, gesture) will also be judged in the competition.

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

5th GRADERS! We spent every day this week enforcing a clean cubby policy. No snack

Math 5:  It was a busy week of dividing multi-digit numbers using ratio tables and area models.  The purpose of these strategies is to see that multiplication and division, albeit opposite operations, can be used simultaneously when solving problems. See the example below.

The idea behind showing students these interacting strategies is that they can then visualize division in different ways. Many students have a sense of the standard algorithm but haven’t yet mastered the process.  Keep showing them this if you like.  For now, students are having great success understanding the divisor represents groups of, as both the ratio and area model indicate.

Unit Assessment was today!

Math 6:  More Geometry this week!  We worked on coordinate graphing this week, reviewing x,y coordinate points and how to use coordinates to find area and perimeter of polygons in space.  We also reviewed Volume and Surface Area.  We will take our assessment on Tuesday.  

We will be taking advantage of some of the math necessary to play the Stock Market game by looking at decimals, daily trading options, and growth of money over time.  Students will keep regular watch over rising and falling stock values and graphing this data to look at trends and patterns. When do you sell?  What should you buy?  The graphs will tell us so!

⅚ Science:

Pictures speak louder than words! Take a look at our week’s worth of learning!

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

We worked on public speaking throughout this week. Students did research for a project of their choice relating to immigration, and then prepared a three minute speech based on this research. On Thursday we had two guest teachers, Stan Williams and Emily Rinkema, from CVU give a demonstration class for us. Students did work in separate groups on different challenges related to public speaking. On Monday students will present their speeches to the full class.

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

CMP8

Students started the week investigating the area of squares and what happens to the area of the figure when you decrease one dimension and increase the other dimension.  The expression we created was a quadratic. (x -2) (x +2).  We found that this equation, when expanded using the distributive property, is equivalent to x2 -4.  We watched a very cheesy rap video on the F.O.I.L method, check it out for yourself. Cheesy F.O.I.L. Method  Rap

Finally, using algebra tiles we used a hands-on approach to factoring binomials.  

CMP7

We completed our last investigations in our unit “Stretching and Shrinking”, played jeopardy, reviewed our class record and completed the assessment. We are beginning our “Shrink it down and Blow it up” scaling project.  Students have selected their images and project specifics have been added to Google Classroom.

Science 7th/8th

This week students completed their Alien World Project. During the week, they shared their ideas with each other and worked toward creating a scientifically accurate planet and alien species.  On Friday, Gold Class presented to Blue and then Blue presented to Gold.  There is a lot of creative science going on and many students have done extensive research on how different attributes such as low gravity, thin atmosphere and moons can cause interesting conditions on the planet.

Week of January 23rd -27th

TA’s Notes:

***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***

A Note from Ms. Sherman:

Just a reminder that our Recycle Sale is coming on April 1st. Although this is months away, I wanted to plead with you to hold on to your “stuff” just a little longer and consider donating it to our cause. We need to have a very robust sale this year to gain the funds necessary to attend the different field trips intended in the spring and throughout the rest of the year. We would really like to push for good quality housewares, especially moderate sized pieces of furniture. You may be thinking of upgrading or replacing and if you are, please consider bringing your used goods to us for this sale. Antiques have also been great sellers for us as well! Parents of small children are always looking for clean, gently-used toys, books, and clothing, and others really enjoy the hunt for special treasures like jewelry, outerwear and house decor. Thanks in advance for helping us to make this year’s recycle sale a hit!  

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

This week we read an article about exposure to ads and the impact it has on kids. Students learned some of the tricks and strategies companies use to try to get kids - and adults -  to buy their products. They then used these strategies to make their own ads (skits, videos, or posters) in small groups. Each group presented their ad and the rest of the class analyzed it for the strategies used.

We also kicked off our financial planning poster competition. Students have to make a poster with a money plan that addresses the four choices people can make with money. Students will be using a website (themint.org) to find tips and strategies to illustrate and record on their posters. Ask your student about those choices.

Moby Max - We are now using Moby Max - Social Studies. Students are completing lessons that support the content that we are focusing on in class that week. We have had a couple of technical glitches with this switch and a few students are having a tough time getting to the lessons. Have your check in with me if they are still running into problems.

*Reminder - Google Classroom now only shows work completion scores.

                    JumpRope shows academic and habits of learning target scores.

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

Jumprope Update:  I have scored all work to date. Please ask your child for recently returned work.  Scoring Summaries are attached to many of those evidences.  This gives an opportunity to look at Jumprope and the evidence simultaneously and ask questions to me about how things were interpreted!

Math 5:  We spent three days this week practicing the traditional/standard algorithm for multi-digit multiplication.  Many kids have made big progress on this skill.  Please feel free to lob in a problem before dinner time to continue to practice the skill.  We also began multi-digit division using area models and ratio tables.  The program does not expect proficiency in the “long division” strategy (the one you know).  This does not mean that it won’t be introduced, but students will not be proficient by the end of Unit 4.

We will wrap up this unit next week and move toward a Unit Assessment by the end of the Week of Feb 6.  Lots of practice before the assessment!

Math 6:  Students in 6th grade have been making tons of generalizations about polygons and measurements like area and perimeter.  Specific investigations of triangles have produced generalizations like “to find the area of a triangle you multiply the base x the height and then divide it by 2” and generalizations for parallelograms have include generalizations like, “the area measure for any parallelogram is the same as for a rectangle which is base x height.”  The students have been out of their mind excited about answering questions (and a little mad at me when I don’t get their voice out in the air!), which speaks to the interest and understanding of spatial/geometric reasoning.  We have another 1 ½ weeks before we close up Covering and Surrounding.  Then on to decimals...

⅚ Science:  We spent our week customizing our foam rockets and practicing launch techniques and recordkeeping of data for distance traveled.  We are excited to have an audience at our challenge Monday beginning at 1:15 in the new gymnasium.  We hope you can join!

Gravity Challenge: To Build a Paper Castle!

We did have a Galaxy Competition called the Gravity Challenge.  It was fun for the kiddos and lots of points were awarded to Galaxy groups based on positive behaviors like collaboration and leadership! In addition points were awarded to build the tallest, most beautiful and most stable structure.  Yes, out of paper and with only one run of staples!  See photos below!

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

This week in Humanities we worked on revising our argument essays from the Japanese Internment unit. Students honed their abilities to make a claim and support it with evidence from reliable documents. We also introduced our final research for the Immigration unit. Students will propose a topic that they want to look into in more depth, choose a method of research including conducting interviews, experiential learning or gathering articles from the internet, then choose a method of presentation. Finally students will give a two to three minute speech on their project.

We will have CVU teachers Stan Williams and Emily Rinkema in next Thursday to teach a lesson on public speaking to help students meet their learning targets. In eighth grade we also spent time watching CNN student news and discussing current events.

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

CMP8

What do you call a parrot that won’t eat?  A polynomial...... This week students explored mono, bi and trinomials. We began investigating quadratic function equations and learned about specific landmarks of parabolas like a maximum and minimum point, line of symmetry and x intercepts.  These topics are all part our new unit “Frogs, Fleas and Painted Cubes”.  Students received their Looking for Pythagoras Unit assessment back.  As a class they did a great job showing their understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem.

CMP7

This week students worked on creating ratios from corresponding and adjacent sides of similar figures.  This concept has been a bit of a “sticky wicket” (as seen on their Check-up #2), but we are working through both the vocabulary and the understanding that similar figures have many numerical relationships. We reviewed equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages while exploring terminating, repeating and cycling decimals.These numbers will help us with ratios and proportions as we move ahead.  This unit will be coming to an end next week, so look for the announcement of the “Stretching and Shrinking Unit Test”.

Science 7th/8th

Students have been working on their Alien Planet Project.  We rolled dice to select attributes for their earthlike planets and this week they began researching similar planets within our solar system that have different gravity, atmosphere, moons and temperature.  Using these attributes they began creating creatures that are adapted to an environment that they created.  The learning targets for this project include:

• Creating a clear, accurate model which represents complex relationships between components
• Using a model to describe relationships including details necessary to show full understanding
• Constructing an explanation for a situation using multiple sources of evidence that are consistent with scientific ideas and theories
• When given multiple sources students can effectively communicate main ideas and make connections with the real world

Next week students will present and defend their aliens to their classmates.  

Week of January 17th - 20th

TA’s Notes:

***Please do not send in any food to be shared among Voyager students***

8th Graders:

Baby Photos wanted for Yearbook by February 1st!  These pictures can be turned in to me with your name and “Voyager” on the back so they can be returned, or emailed to KFieldsend@cssu.org.

Message from 8th Grader to Parents:
I am Emma Howe and I am in the 8th grade. For my 8th grade challenge I am focusing on Cancer. Next week I will be having a week long fundraiser challenge. Can you please send in your kids with coins. Thank you and have a good weekend.

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

Tuesday

Reading Cafe - Independent reading time. The goal is to build reading stamina. Studies show that the ability to read for extended periods of time is a good indicator of success in college.

The learning target is to "get lost in the book".

Wednesday

Argument writing - Students worked on writing strong conclusions by highlighting their main points and making it personal for the reader by offering greater insights, questions, or a challenge to take action.

Current Events - Mr. Maika taught students about the culture and people of Hawaii.

Thursday

Economics Kick Off

Personal Finance - Students reflected on their personal finances. They wrote about how they currently use money for spending, saving, investing, and donating. We then read an article about kids who shared their stories of bad choices with money and what they do now. These students have personal financial plans that include saving 10%, investing 30% in stocks, donating 10% to charities, and spending money on things they really need. A goal for the unit is for students to come up with their own financial plans.

Students are working on completing an online course called Everfi - Vault. Below is a description of the program.

Vault is an interactive learning course specifically designed to introduce financial education skills early in a child’s cognitive development.  The course uses the latest in new-media technologies to bring complex financial concepts to life for today’s digital generation. Evidence-based learning theories are incorporated to increase students’ knowledge and build the foundation for making good financial decisions at a young age and promote career development skills.

Topics Covered:

• Responsible Money Choices
• Income and Careers
• Planning & Money Management
• Credit & Borrowing
• Insurance & Safety Management
• Savings & Investing

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

Math 5:  This week, students built skeletal arrays for multiplication and practiced modeling the area of a rectangle to find the product of problems like 76 x 34.  We then color coded area models and related them to the standard algorithm for multiplication (I know you have all been waiting for years for this!).  The purpose of this relating was to see that the conceptual understanding of place value related to the less conceptual recipe for multiplying.  I was pleasantly surprised by just how strong so many students are in terms of place value understanding, and that carrying a 2 to the tens place in the standard algorithm shows that they understand that the 2 is a “twenty”. We ended the week with some practice and games multiplying multidigit numbers.

Math 6:  With a visit from our math coordinator this week, who commented that “your students are jumping out of their seats to answer questions about area of triangles,”  my response was “of course!  Is there anything more exciting than the area of a triangle.”  They really were jumping out of their seats!  We are discovering so much more than area, by seeing patterns and relating numbers/measures, or quantifying the effects of multiplying, that students are becoming so obviously thrilled by their discoveries.  Well, let’s pretend shall we?  I have noticed a measured increased in excitement in geometry, which often happens because it is so visual, measurable, and filled with patterns.  In particular, I have been pleased to introduce problems where decimals or fractions are used, say for the base and height measures, and that students are using skills from previous units to solve those problems.  I heard a lot of “oh yeah, that’s how you divide fractions.” OR “I forgot that 4.6 is also 4 6/10 leading to an increase in proficiency when finding the area of a rectangle.  Quick Quiz Friday will measure student proficiency on area of rectangles and triangles.  On to parallelograms next week...

⅚ Science: Gravity continued this week with some discussion and video reinforcement of what we have learned about how gravity affects objects on Earth.  And the big news of the week is that we are building rockets (no propellants, just rubberband rockets) so that we can compete in a challenge on Monday, January 30th from 1:15-2:50.  If you can join us, it would be fantastic.  We will have 8 launch stations and it would be helpful to have one person per launch station.  Please email me if you think you can join.  It will be in the New Gym.  

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

In 7/8 Humanities we continued our Immigration Unit by doing an inquiry into the treatment of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast during World War II. Students compared and contrasted primary source documents and archival video to determine which was the most reliable source for understanding this chapter in American history. In their writing, students are practicing making claims and supporting them with evidence. We also had a class discussion, "What are the greatest challenges facing the nation?" on the eve of the presidential inauguration.

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

CMP8

This week we explored the common misconceptions in using the Pythagorean Theorem.  We investigated several “interesting no’s” or math processes where errors had occurred. We ended the week with a review of all the major concepts and played a close game of Jeopardy.  On Friday we began our “Looking for Pythagoras” Unit Test.

CMP7

Students have been working hard to understand the relationship between scale factor, area and perimeter.  We have practiced problems on similar figures and finding unknown side lengths, nested triangles and ratios and proportions.  I have asked students to look for an image that they would like to reproduce for our upcoming scaling project. We ended the week with the Check-up!

Science 7th/8th

Both Blue and Gold classes were given feedback on their last data analysis entrance task on the distance of planets from the sun.  As a collective group, students have done a great job at making claims based on observations, however, their evidence has not been data driven.  We practiced data analysis using data about the diameter of planets.  The question we were exploring was: “How are planet diameters related to what we know about the formation of the solar system?”  We found that  the rocky or terrestrial planets are substantially smaller than the outer gas giants. Our evidence showed that the diameters of  terrestrial planets are less than 8,000 miles whereas the gaseous planets range in diameter from 30,000 to 88,000 miles.  This relates to the current  understanding that outer planets formed first and were able to gather materials (gases and debris) from the sun’s initial blast.  The rocky planets formed second with less materials to work with.   Finally, we rounded out the week the introduction of our ”Alien Planet” project, where student will create a planet and alien based on different attributes. (low gravity vs. high gravity, high temperature vs. low temperature, etc).