Going into this first newsletter I am writing this year, I look back to the summer and realize just how far we have already come in this school year! It has been a wonderful start so far and I know we as a staff are looking forward to building off of that going forward. It is important to look back and reflect on not only school, but life in general. In order to grow, I have myself been working on this to try and become the best version of myself I can be. That led me over the summer to come up with an overarching theme for school this year and that led me to think of the word perspective. It is important to learn not only about your own perspective but also others not only in this country, but around the world. I began the year by showing each class a great video of students from a school in London trying southern barbeque for the first time (ask them about it!) They enjoyed watching the students’ faces as they had brisket, mac and cheese and corn bread for the first time and realizing that things we take for granted are new and unusual to others, just as things may be new and scary to them. I hope going forward to continue to show them that not only do we grow as people by reflecting on our own personal experiences, but also through the perspective of others!
ELA- 8th grade writers have been working hard on drafting and revising their positions papers. They kept tone and pacing in mind this week as they wrote. We also started our grammar study, reviewing prepositions and parts of a sentence.
Next week, papers are due – the due date has been moved to 9/11 to allow more time to polish drafts! We will also test our grammar skills on that day.
Science- This week in science 8th grade deepened their understanding of gravity by comparing the gravitational force on different celestial objects. They looked at the mass and size of an object to discover the things that contribute to each object’s gravity. Students also recorded their jump height to calculate how high they could jump on different planets. Next week 8th graders will have their first science quiz over the first two investigations. We will also begin talking about potential and kinetic energy by building some marble tracks!
Social Studies- Eighth graders are wrapping up their projects on the ideas of revolution and have been doing a wonderful job! We will be wrapping those up next week and are finishing up our first unit and getting ready for our first test. We will be creating the study guide together on Wednesday for the test a week from them.
Math- This week in math, 8th graders built onto their new knowledge of compass constructions, and older prior knowledge from seventh grade math, to complete different rigid transformations such as rotations, reflections, and translations. This exploration will help guide us into our future explorations of angles, symmetry, and proofs.
Next week, we’ll use the previous week’s practice of basic transformations to evaluate symmetry and complete more complex point-by-point transformations. We’ll also use their transformations to help us form conjectures about symmetry and congruence. Hello, proofs!
