The first month of 2023 has flown by, but we have made every day worth it here at TCS. This week was filled with good spirits welcoming Mr. Dan back to the school! The offsite PE has been a hit the last couple of weeks at the gymnastics gym. Here are some interesting fun facts to start off your weekend:

1. The little dot over a lowercase i and j has a name , “tittle” meaning a tiny amount or part of something. 
2. Water sounds different depending on its temperature due to how fast the energy molecules move (faster when hot).
3. Rhythm is the longest English word without a vowel.  

Here’s a look at what is happening in each of the classes:

What’s happening in Social Studies?

Students have been working hard to finish up their first ever DBQ! Students have not only been focusing on the content of social studies, but also their skills in ELA as they were challenged to create a paper using the DBQ as sources to cite within their paper! 

Students will turn in a final copy of their paper on Monday, and then will be moving onto their next unit. Students will be looking at society during the Industrial Revolution. Students have requested to start every unit with them creating vocabulary lessons to teach their peers in order to master the new terms. 

What’s happening in ELA?

This week eighth graders are finishing up with their literary essays. Each student has taken their essay through the writing process using the box-and-bullet method. You can ask your child to see an example of what that means. Your students also learned how to write an introduction identifying the topic and thesis. Students are also expected to use MLA for cover sheet, in-text citation, and bibliography. I anticipate the students being through with their essays no later than Tuesday, January 31st. Please follow up with them and see where they are in their literary essay. Each student’s essay should have an introduction, three paragraphs, and a conclusion. 

Finally, your students have completed week twelve grammar lessons and will begin week thirteen next week. 

What’s happening in Science?

Eighth graders worked diligently on their Science Fair project this week! They are excited about their topics and ready to set up their procedures. They identified their independent and dependent variables, as well as their control and constant variables. They discussed the importance of maintaining the same constant environment for as many trials they can perform to get the most compelling results. Eighth graders will continue to work on their projects next week, diving into the FUN experimentation stage of the project.

What’s happening in Math?

This week, eighth graders have been continuing their “Function” study. We have covered domain and range, absolute value equations, and inverse functions this week. We will finish inverse functions next week, review for the assessment, and take the final assessment towards the end of next week. Students will be able to identify functions based on their graphs, write rules using function notation, analyze situations and use function notation to describe what is happening, identify and describe an absolute value function and use inverse functions in the appropriate context.

Important Dates:

• February 14 – Valentine’s Day Bake Sale, Book Fair, and Bingo! (1:15 – 2:45)
• February 20-21 – February Break (No School)