Cluster 6 Newsletter (12/4)
December 5-December 16
Math
Over the past week or so, both the 8th Grade Math and Algebra classes have learned the basics of linear equations in slope-intercept form. These are relationships that describe/display a constant rate of change. For the Algebra class, this is critical material to learn as it’s an 8th Grade Math standard, and we will now build upon that in the next chapter of our book. 8th Grade Math will begin to apply the basics to real-life scenarios and examples where these constant rates of change occur.
Next week, the Algebra class will learn about frequency tables, dot plots, scatter plots, and prediction/model lines (lines of fit) in data, using their knowledge of linear relationships to make predictions.
Science
We have been focusing on the two types of cell division, mitosis and meiosis. These words sound the same and the processes have many similarities, but they are different in important ways. Ask your student to explain! We also learned about Henrietta Lacks and her cancer cells, which have been used by researchers to study how cells grow and function, to study diseases, and to develop vaccines and medications. Her contributions to modern medicine are innumerable and her story is an important one to study and share.
In the next few weeks, we will be studying Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics. Students will complete a lab during which they will discover whether or not they are a “super-taster,” a characteristic controlled by our genes.
The learning objectives are below. We will continue our weekly routine of having practice work assigned at the beginning of the week and assessments taking place at the end of the week.
3.1 Mendel’s Work
I can describe how Mendel’s experiments with pea plants demonstrated patterns in heredity.
I can compare and contrast genotypes and phenotypes for a variety of traits.
I can show that many traits have dominant and recessive alleles that lead to different phenotypes for individuals.
3.2 Probability and Heredity
I can use Punnett Squares to predict the probability of offspring having a particular genotype and phenotype.
I can understand that there are multiple patterns of inheritance.
Civics
This month in Civics, students are studying the origins of our American democracy. We’re learning how the ancient Greeks and Romans, Enlightenment thinkers, and British documents like the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights influenced our Founding Fathers as they created our new nation. After December break, we’ll put the spotlight on indigenous influence on our government as we examine our founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and look at how the Iroquois Confederacy inspired our democracy.
At the end of December, students will participate in a historical influencers bracket-style debate, where they’ll take on the persona of someone we’ve studied about that influenced American democracy. They’ll use their creative writing and speaking skills to persuade their class that their version of democracy is superior to all others. We’ll crown a champion of democracy in each class!
In addition, at this time of year, students in 8th grade participate in the Martin Luther King, Jr. essay contest, sponsored by the committee that runs our annual Watertown Unity Breakfast in January. We’ll be learning about social justice and equity to help build background knowledge of the civil rights movement, and students will write an essay that invites them to reflect on the legacy of Dr. King and how his principles of nonviolence have influenced our American community. It’s going to be a busy month!
ELA
This week we worked on our reading stamina. This is something that most students in 8th grade need to work on. The trends of things happening at a quick pace with videos online have made it challenging for some students to attend to reading. I encourage students to read for at least 20 minutes each day. It does not even need to be the class novel, it can be anything!
We worked on reading comprehension and the central idea. This was done through CommonLit. This was a great way to take a little snapshot of where we are with our reading comprehension in a more “test-like” situation.
Next week, we are going to try to complete our novel and take a summative assessment of their progress in CER writing. The prompt will target their character work throughout the book and use their skill of using direct evidence from the text to support their claims.
ESL
Entering ELD (ELD 1)
This week we continued describing jobs using nouns and action verbs. Students learned how to make a verb like “dance” into a noun like “dancer.” We also started making questions in English by switching the position of the noun and the verb in the sentence, so that “You can dance” becomes “Can you dance?”
Next week we will practice our new skills by interviewing people with different jobs in the school and we will begin our new unit on numbers.
Emerging ELD (ELD 2)
This week we started writing personal narratives about a time that we helped someone. We’ve made the jump from ‘first, next, then, after, finally’ to organizing our reading and writing with ‘beginning, middle, and end’. We have worked on adding details to events that happened, and we will do a brief overview of the revising and editing parts of the writing process, as we dive into this later in the year.
Next week we will move into a unit about animals and start learning the difference between fact and opinion. We will also be identifying details in text and using sensory adjectives to describe.
Phonics
This week we worked with the short u sound and new high frequency words. We read an informational text about the sun and practiced a new prereading strategy. It was amazing how much students already knew about planets and the solar system!
Next week we will work with short e sound and new high frequency words.