Continental Math

Alison Spasyk

Twelve years ago, Mr. Reese was 15 years older than his son is now. If the son is now 10 years old, how old is Mr. Reese now?

This is Continental Math. It’s all about problem solving. Students working on problems that really make you think a little harder. Continental Math groups usually meet once a week with a parent volunteer. Groups practice problems and learn problem solving strategies. It is a great way to build up your math confidence and you can prove what you have learned once a month when there is a meet. A meet is like a test consisting of six challenging problems, each getting harder. You have 30 minutes to complete the questions.

You do not have to be great at math to participate in Continental Math. It is for anyone grades 2-8 at any level. It is a great way to improve your skills and learn useful math concepts that will not only help you in the monthly tests but in everyday math class and beyond. Continental Math is also extremely fun and enriching.

This year’s Continental math session has just ended, but we are always looking for new people for next year. Continental math is also competitive. The third grade winner this year was Amanda Li and second place was Jessica Klein. First place in the fourth grade was a tie between Benjamin Herskowitz and Baker Angstman and second place was Storm Rushford. In the fifth grade, first place was Ben Klein and second place was Justin Schaaf. The winner of the sixth grade was Ananth Malladi and second place was Sam Gelin. First place in the seventh grade was Will Hubbard and second place went to Zach Varricchione. The winner of the eighth grade was Kathy Joseph and second place was Alison Spasyk.

And for those who put on their thinking caps, the answer to the sample 8^th grade problem above is that Mr. Reese is now 37 years old.

Madeleine Barrett; Avid Student Playwright

Madeleine Barrett

I was ridiculously excited. But intermixed with that excitement was a bit of nervousness. Okay, a lot of nervousness. I had only contacted these people through e-mail. I had never met them, nor had they met me. What if I did not live up to what they expected of me? What if they thought I was just a child? Or worse— what if there were other children there and I was taking this too seriously?

These were all the thoughts I had while walking into Flynn Space on Monday, the second of April. I had been invited to judge the plays for Young Playwrights, a program in which I was a participant last year.

I had contacted Cristina Weakland, the director of education, and she had come up with opportunities to help me in my 8^th grade challenge, but also in my passion for writing and theatre. She then directed me to Joan Robinson, the Associate Director for School Programs. They invited me to come help judge the plays submitted by the schools around Vermont, and then to attend the Festival in May. I was awestruck by this honor.

That very same day as the judging, I had come back from a weekend trip to Boston for a final showing of Les Misérables on tour (Yes, this is what we playwrights do in our spare time) and I was so tired that all my negative thoughts ate at me. What if? What if? It was not helped by the fact that when I got there, the inside door was locked. Just in front of it was a sign that read: Young Playwrights Judging meets down here, with a nice and big arrow pointing to the stairs. The elevator would not go down. What if I had come to the wrong place? Or the wrong time? What if it was the wrong day?  My father and I stood there for a few moments, awkwardly shifting in the thick silence. But soon a woman with short hair wearing a white Irish cable knit sweater went to unlock the door. I opened my mouth to speak, but she didn’t seem to notice me or my 6-foot-something father. But just as she turned the key, she also turned to me, and said welcomingly—

“Are you Madeleine Barrett?” and extended her hand as I said yes. She brought me down to the basement stage room and explained to me what would be happening. I was still a tad jumpy, but seeing that stage down there and feeling the atmosphere made me feel much more secure; and as the others filed in, I knew I was with my own ‘kind’ and I felt completely at ease. Some people as they walked in looked confused at my presence and my tiny briefcase. Some looked just plain surprised. Others rushed toward me and introduced themselves, asking about what brought me here. I met my e-mail buddies, along with seeing people I already knew. When we began, we sat and introduced ourselves. We were to state our name and what force had brought us here, or our occupation. The line slowly progressed toward me. Each person had fantastic feats under their belts— like being in medical school or producing a show professionally, and I wasn’t sure what to say to make me sound in the least bit impressive. Finally they all glanced toward me. And the words were coming out before I knew it.

“Madeleine Barrett; avid student playwright.” I said certainly. They all smiled— some seemed as if it was because I was ‘cute’, but most others looked almost proud at how well I was blending in. I was the only younger-than-adult person there. When they divided into groups of four and divvied up the plays, the real fun began. We’d go through a play, making it come to life as best we could, and then comment and rate it. Between plays, I’d glance at the treat bowl in the center of the table, which none had yet taken from. I must not give into my childish urge for sweets! I did not want to be the first to break, but I was. Oh, well.

Each play was unique. Some did need some clear editing work, but they all shined in their own light. One of the things I found was that the group much preferred the plays of the middle-school pupils than that of the high school students. We had some real fun with characters, and it is not because we’re all undiscovered stars that an agent was never lucky enough to pick up. Well, that too. But it was because each person really made their characters, and story, shine in one way or another.

I must admit, I was much impressed by the work of the students. Now, the last thing I wish to be sounding like is superior. I am most certainly not, or I at least do not think of myself as being this way. I make mistakes; have stiff dialogue in some places; and sometimes many too-dramatic-storylines, among other things. When my school selected Young Playwrights participants this Fall, I was not selected since I had already had the chance to participate last year.  I felt an unbelievable sadness about this. I was jealous of those who were lucky enough to have their name plucked by fate. For a long time I was bitter.   But now I know without my misfortune, I would have never have looked for another way to be involved and have this awe-inspiring experience. By reading the work of others, I gained insight into my own writing.

I grabbed my briefcase and the last bits of chocolate from the treat bowl, looking around the near-empty room. Our group was the last one there. My father came in, right on time, 7:00 pm, and waved. They greeted him as Madeleine’s father.  “You can call me Bob,” he said with a wry smile, “but my name’s David.” We all laughed.  “Now we know where she gets it from.” Joan said with a wink.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Magic of the Big Top Awaits…

Sophia Gigliotti

 This past week was the Voyager production, “Clowns and Crooks”. The play was written and directed by Voyager teacher, Mr. Messer and Madeleine Barrett, a Voyager student. Students received their scripts before Winter break, and the students rehearsed from Winter break until the performance day. The performance was held on January 19th to an enthusiastic audience of parents and friends. It took a lot of effort, and every Voyager student had a part in the production. Big or small, every job was very important.

 In the play, a family, the Carr’s, are mugged on their return from a showing of “Breaking Dawn” by a seemingly common criminal. They soon discover that the criminal is much more dangerous than expected. The witness protection program moves the family to the circus, and the main character, Olive Carr, does not have an easy transition to her new life. She runs away, and finds out her family is in danger. Realizing the importance of family, she heads back to the circus to save the day.

 Before Winter Break started, Voyager held auditions for everyone interested in being onstage. Students could sign up for an acting role, stage crew, props, publicity, costumes, lights, sound, or an acting extra, which is a non-speaking role. For auditions, there was a reading for each character. Our directors, Mr. Messer and Madeleine Barrett, were in charge of casting for every Voyager student.

When I asked Voyager students if they had learned or gained anything from being in the play, Marlee Gunn, a stage manager of the play, said “I learned about being backstage and working together to get things done on time.” Being in a play can be very beneficial to students, because they learn important skills to work together, make friends, and gain confidence onstage. Maddie Collins, who played the youngest Carr, Sydney, answered “I think I have definitely gained confidence in myself because I needed to perform in front of a big audience, and in order to do that you need to be confident, especially when you’re dressed like a three year old!”

 A few stage crew members and Ms. Hill (a teacher in Voyager) painted our sets, which turned out fabulously! As Marlee mentioned, Voyager was pretty rushed on time since Winter break fell within our production time. We really had to work together and make sure everyone was helping, and we made it! The props, costumes, sets, and the actors all had to hurry to make the deadline, and everything came out great! Good job to the Voyager cast and crew for the wonderful production, “Clowns and Crooks!”

Enrichment Garden Science Class

A group of 5^th and 6^th graders from across the school has been working with Andrew the Gardener, Mrs. Gigliotti and Mrs. Milks to understand our school garden, management of this and all gardens,  and how the vegetation around the garden has developed over time.  As part of the class, students completed research for and produced the following blog entries.  Service was also a major component of the course and the students participated in service sessions in which they put the school gardens to bed, turned, spread and stacked the compost, and assisted 3rd and 4th grade art classes in a soap making project.

Plants vs. Weeds    

Angela Tarracciano, Shayla Lawrence, and Nick Petrunich       

              

Plant	Weed
A plant is something that you plant!                 Some plants that you would find in the garden here at school are mint, broccoli, kale, and Brussel sprouts.	Weeds are plants that naturally grow on their own.  Some weeds you would find in our garden is dandelion and grass.

 

 

The WCS Medicinal Plant Bed

Sierra Polley

The following plants can be found in our WCS Garden medicinal plant bed.  Please see the table for potential uses.

Information taken from: Bremness, Lesley. Herbs. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2002. Print.

Plant		Medicinal Uses
Echinacea		Stimulates the body’s defenses against disease.  It is antibiotic, antiviral and restores inflamed connective tissue, treats fevers and may reduce allergies.
Mint		Stimulate digestion and reduce flatulence.  Helps get rid of colds and can relieve headaches and other pain.  If you inhale the essential oil, you can treat nausea.
Sage		The volatile oils in sage kill bacteria, making the herb useful for all types of bacterial infections.
Sunflower		The seeds can be used to treat coughs and kidney inflammation.  The root is a laxative and treats stomach pain.
Wild Strawberry		Used to relieve kidney and liver issues.  Can be made into juice that may relieve fevers.  Soothes sunburn and lightens freckles.  Makes a common herbal tea and can be used as an oily skin tone

 

Enrichment Garden Class works to Put The WCS Garden To Bed

How to Put a Garden to Bed

Evan Turner and Nick Durieux

It’s the end of the season and you have all this good and nutritious stuff going to waste. All these useful ideas could be used to make sure you are making the most of your garden this year and preparing it for a great growing season next year.

 How to put a garden to bed:

1. Play “Dead or Alive”.  We pulled out lots of dead plants from the garden clean out service session.
2. Dead goes to compost.
3. Choose what you want to eat and eat it.  We ate cale and broccoli.
4. See if we can harvest seeds from anything.  In our medicinal plant garden we kept the big aster, strawberries, and Echinacea plant.  We also kept the sage and some mint.  We cut and dried echinacea flowers and sunflowers so that we can plant the seeds later.
5. Turn the soil and add compost.

 

Tools that will help you put a garden to bed:

• snippers-make sure to secure the lock when you are not using these
• spading fork- get weeds out by roots
• rake- for raking and smoothing
• forked hoe- to rip open the ground (loosens soil in long line, and then you can take out the weeds
• Grabby fork- like rake, only grabber
• Wheelbarrow- for carting stuff

 NO More wasted plants and a happy garden for the future!

 

Enrichment Garden Class Participates in Science-Art Collaboration

Having Fun AND Learning at The Same Time!

Danielle Urban & Shannon Loiseau

Equinox house third and fourth grade students worked with Andrew (The gardener), Ms. Baker, Ms. Amanda from Equinox, Ms. Milks, and the Garden Class student helpers  to use their math, science, art and team work skills to make a soap. They made a variety of different soaps using herbs, plants and oils.

One recipe that they developed contained yarrow, birch, lavender, ylang ylang, a bit of oatmeal, a drop of sage and a Shea butter soap base. Another recipe included birch, clove, wintergreen, oatmeal and an olive oil base. Although the classes developed different recipes, they were similar.

Some of the ingredients the students had to choose from were:

Herbs	Oils
Birch- Pain Relief Yarrow- Skin astringent (cleanser) Calendula- Skin astringent (cleanser) Oatmeal- Skin calming Rose Buds- Relieves stress Mint- Energizing Lavender- Calming scent Anise Hyssop- Scent Beet Root- Pink Color Ailonet- Red/Brown Color	Clover- Comfort and Pain Relief Rosemary- Awakening Eucalyptus- Cleansing Patchouli- Relaxing Ylang Ylang – Relaxing Vetiver- Grounding Wintergreen- Awakening

The students could choose one oil and a variety of different herbs and plants. If you want to make soap we would recommend to pick plants, herbs and oils that go well with each other.

We hope you have fun making your sensational soap!  Soap you later!

Enrichment Garden Class Composts

Composting

Jessica Gagne

Compost is a nutrient rich soil that you get when you mix kitchen scraps and yard waste. When these things decompose, compost is created.

 WHAT YOU NEED

• Brown stuff- for example, dried grass, leaves and shredded newspaper (carbon rich)
• Green stuff-for example, vegetable peels and fruit rinds (nitrogen rich)
• Dirt, water, compost turning tool like a pitchfork
• Compost bin (or spot for a compost pile)

HOW TO MAKE THE COMPOST

1. First you need a compost bin.  You can buy or make your own bin.  See the links below for how to build your own bin.
2. Layer your brown and green materials.  You need a mix of brown and green stuff.  See http://www.compostinstructions.com/about/for more information.
3. Water it.  Compost needs to be damp like a squeezed out sponge.  It should be able to drain easily.
4. Turn your compost to increase air flow.  To increase air flow, you can turn your compost with a shovel or pitchfork every few days or once a week.

 

 

Learn More About Composting

Shorya Malhotra, Tommy Zych, Skyler Blow, MattYakubik

The following links could help you with composting.  As part of our garden class, we learned about how to compost.  A few of us reviewed a bunch of websites for composting as a smaller group project.  We think these might be most helpful links.

VIDEOS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq3yfKCC9ok

WEBSITES FOR HOW TO COMPOST

http://www.composting101.com/what-to-use.html

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/composting-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html

 

Garden Design for Enrichment Garden Class

Garden Design

Alexa Pudlo and Taylor Antonioli

In our garden class we learned about how to design a garden.  Things to keep in mind when starting a garden:

• What size garden bed do you need for spacing of the plants? We learned that different plants need different amounts of space.  For example, summer and winter squash need a lot of space, but carrots don’t need a lot of space.  Sometimes plants can be put closer together than Gardening books say.  One way to use space well is to put plants at the edge of the garden and let them flow out onto the grass. 
• Soil quality and depth needed for plants. Some plant need different types and depths of soil.  If you plant a carrot and you don’t know what kind of soil you’re planting it in, it might not be very good.
• How will you (and the school) use what you are planting?  We had two beds to plan for (see bottom photo below).   In one bed, we planned to grow cucumbers, melon, and squash because that’s what the kids in our group like to eat (first photo).  Another group planned an herb garden with thyme, parsley, cilantro, basil and chives, because that’s what the kitchen here at school uses most (second photo).
• It’s better to plan out your garden on paper first.  See our plans below.

 

Williston Sweeps the District Spelling Bee

7/8 Spelling Team (left to right): Janina Cuneo, Cassidy Price, Kathy Joseph, Summer Bishop, Brigitte Durieux, Jake Kahn

By Kathy Joseph

Thursday, October 4^thwas an exciting day for the Williston Spellers. The Spelling Bee District Competition was held last Thursday, and took place in the Williston Central School auditorium. Both the Williston 5/6 and 7/8 teams had been practicing and working hard for the Bee, and they’re glad to announce that it all paid

5/6 Spelling Team (left to right, then front to back): Ananth Malladi, Sam Gelin, Baxter Bishop, Joe Warren, Julia Neeld, Tommy Zych

off. The 7/8 team won by a landslide, earning 92 points out of a perfect score of 96. They only misspelled one bonus word during the whole competition- emphysema! The Williston 7/8 team competed against the two other 7/8 teams in the district, Hinesburg and Shelburne. Shelburne came in second with 68, and Hinesburg finished last with 54 points.

The 5/6 team had quite a different story. There were three other schools to compete against, and they were racing neck and neck against them until the end. The Williston team started strong, but until the final round (there are 8 total rounds), they were always either tied or a little behind another team. Charlotte was fully expecting to win, having been in the lead since the beginning, but the Williston team had an exciting finish and made no mistakes for the final two rounds. They won by just two points. The final score was Williston in first place with 82 points, Charlotte with 80, Shelburne with 76, and Hinesburg with 56 points.

For the first time in several years, both the Williston Spelling Bee teams are excitedly preparing for the regional meet that will take place on Saturday, November 5^th. We wish them both the best of luck!

Williston Central School students are SMART!

Maddie Collins & Katie Usher
Friday, September 2, 2011

On the first Friday of the school year, all of WCS went to an assembly regarding the school environment. It was lead by many of the school’s leaders. In the beginning of the assembly we discussed school activities and opportunities for students. We also discussed the new expectations called SMART.
There are many opportunities for students in the school in which to participate.  Some of them are sports related while others are extracurricular activities. Also, there are leadership groups that help make the school a healthier environment. Some of the leadership groups are LUCA (Leave Us Clean Air)and VKAT (Vermont Kids Against Tobacco) deal with drugs and alcohol. AWOD (A World Of Difference) deals with school wide issues, and LEAD (Leadership Education Against Drugs) which covers many topics relating middle school issues.  Those are only a few of the many options for students.
The new expectaions called SMART stand for Safe, Mindful, Accepting, Respectful, and Truthful. As a reward, if an adult in the school notices a student being SMART they will  give you a “SMART cell”. “SMART cells” are small marbles. When you receive a “SMART cell” you put it in a receptacle in your classroom. When your classroom receptacle is full it then gets poured into “The Brain”. The Brain is a large brain shaped container that gets filled with “SMART cells”. When The Brain is full the entire school gets to celebrate with a special reward. The first time the brain gets full, the school gets to have extra recess. Then the reward will be chosen by the student council.

This assembly introduced new ideas to the school. We think that the new changes will be excellent for our school environment. So far, it has had a great turnout.