With another full week in the books and Labor Day weekend fast approaching, it amazes me how quickly the beginning of school has gone so far! With a new schedule, new off campus adventures and new cross curricular projects, these middle schoolers are adapting and thriving to all the wonderful things going on here. It is amazing to see first hand just how well everyone is doing and how hard they are working on being the best they can be. Though I am looking forward to enjoying the long weekend (as I am sure many of you are!) I cannot help but express my excitement for this school year, because if it is anything like the start we have had, this is going to be one special year!
-KH
Upcoming Dates:
- Off Campus: Sixth – Wednesday, Sept 2nd
- Labor Day (No School) – Monday, September 7
- Cooper Cluster Lunch – Wednesday, September 9th
- Middle School Curriculum Night – Wednesday, September 9th 5:30pm-6:30pm
ELA: This week in 8th grade ELA, we continued our photography and writing study – we talked about how photography can make the ordinary extraordinary, and how to mimic that in our writing. Photographers got out and experimented with cameras this week, adjusting settings and capturing a variety of subjects for our photography and writing exhibit on Friday 9/11. On Friday, 8th grade was tested for vocabulary. Be sure to check out their grade in their take home folders next week. Test corrections can be made on all ELA tests that are below a 90 for partial credit back by the following Wednesday!
Next week, photographer writers will consider lighting and editing in photos as we talk about mood and rewriting in our writing. We will also begin our first grammar unit of the year with a test planned for 9/11.
Science: This week in Science, 8th graders investigated transverse waves and the properties shared by all waves. Using springs, students measured amplitude, wavelength, and frequency, building a physical understanding of how these properties describe waves. Students then explored how waves carry energy by investigating the movement and energy of ocean waves.
Next week, students will continue exploring wave energy through engineering challenges. They will examine a real-world example of a bridge collapse to investigate how waves can transfer energy through structures. Students will then apply their understanding of sound waves by designing and creating an insulated “room” from a shoebox with the goal of blocking sound waves.
Social Studies: The eighth grade class has been doing a fantastic job with the introduction of world history beginning in 1750 and the rise of new ideas of government. We have worked on the ideas that led the colonies to revolution as well as looking at primary sources from the time. Next week we will start our first project on liberal and national revolutions in which students will become citizens of the time period and use those primary sources to create journal entries about the revolution.
Math: This week in Algebra 1, students learned a few different functions and formulas they can use in Google Sheets to help them more quickly analyze data. We had a discussion about spreadsheets and how they’re helpful in the real world, but how important it is to still know how to analyze data by hand. Next week, we’ll add standard deviation and outliers to our data analysis vocabulary. We’ll study the effect of an outlier on a data set, and what standard deviation and what it means rather than finding the standard deviation. We’ll use technology to help us with that!
