March Newsletter
Term 3 ends Friday!
Grade 8 Course Selections-
English-
Our research papers and presentations are done! The kids worked very hard on this project! All the grades areupdated in Aspen and, hopefully, you got to see their rubrics.
We will be starting an “oldy but goody”, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. So, it will be time to travel down the Mississippi River and see what kind of trouble Tom can find.
Keep checking Google Classroom for upcoming homework and important dates. Also, the Tom Sawyer packet will be posted there just in case it may have been forgotten at school when it comes time to do homework!
The students will be taking the ELA MCAS on April 30th and May 1st!
Social Studies-
We are almost done on the Unit of Ancient Greece. We did so much! Instead of a traditional discussion about Athens and Sparta, we played our own version of Family Feud. The Spartan Family vs. Athenian Family played intense rounds of various Ancient Greek knowledge and trivia and it was really fun and exciting! We looked at primary and secondary sources, including Ancient Greek Pottery and even recreated some of our own artwork. Students worked on a project that favors either Sparta or Athens, it is a very well discussed debate! A chapter 6 vocabulary quiz and Chapter 6 test will be scheduled soon. There will be a study session held after school. Next unit of study is Ancient Rome and we will be introducing a research project that will bring us to the end of the year. Keep checking Google classroom for updates! For students who owe me make-up work, I encourage them to stay after school. Just send me an email.
Science-
We have made it through this cold month of March and have come to the close of our ecology unit! We have discussed ecosystems, predator-prey relationships, symbiosis, and animal adaptations for successful reproduction. We also completed an entire Photosynthesis Hyperdoc Assignment, which included a Flipgrid Video about Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration! It is time to leave Life Science, and begin our study of Physical Science topics, which tend to be more challenging for 7th grade students.
In our Physical Science Unit, the students will be able to explore the concepts of magnetism and electromagnetism, kinetic and potential energy, thermal energy, and electricity. We will be able to do some cool experiments like building electromagnets, and some insulator and conductor testing. Thank you for continuing to check Google Classroom for announcements, homework assignments, and to check in with what we are working on. Pretty soon you will start to see some information about the Science and Technology/Engineering Fair Project, so keep an eye out for that! Please keep on monitoring your student to make sure s/he is completing weekly research on time! Thank you very much and happy spring!
Math-
We just finished up our 6th math test of the year. We are going to be focusing on scale drawings and probability while we review (or go deeper) in all of the topics we have learned this year. We will continue to have the weekly IXL & TenMarks assignments, but we will not have any over April vacation. Mrs. Perrault will be available after school on Tuesdays & Wednesdays and during Powerblock on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. My softball schedule will make after school help a little difficult, but I’ll let the students know each week when help is available.
We will be taking MCAS on May 16 & 17.
The first test for term 4 will be
A,B, & C Blocks
Thursday May 9th for A, B, & C blocks
E & F Blocks
Friday May 10th for E & F blocks
Reading-
Students did a great job reading, Harris and Me. We had our final test and completed alpha boxes. The creativity and artwork was impressive!
In class, we are working on figurative language. Students worked on different activities to reinforce the meanings as well as to create their own examples of poetry. For example, the “object bucket” had some interesting objects for students to write about. The most talked about? My old school Blackberry. How ever did I deal with such a strange phone? “Mrs. Theriault, you actually used this dinosaur?” Great metaphor!! We will continue to study the meanings of the terms and we have a quiz this week. Please encourage your student to actively participate in class and ask if they ever have any questions. Term 4 tends to go by like the blink of an eye….. Poetry overload! :)
Up next- Anne Frank. We will learn about Anne's life with her family in the annex, as well as the tumultuous time period of WWII. We will be collaborating with Mrs. Thomas on some informative activities. Vocabulary and spelling quizzes will revolve around the story from our literature books. Announcements will be made on Google Classroom.
Please encourage your student to bring a pleasure reading book to class each day. Thanks!