Cluster 6 Newsletter (9/23)
9/23-10/7
Cluster Announcements
- Make sure to send in any signed forms such as: Nurse, Chromebook, PE, Photo/Video release
- Here is the link to the specialist S'more (Music, Tech Ed, Health, Art)
ELA
Happy first weekend of fall. It was very nice to meet the large crowd of 8th-grade caregivers at the back-to-school night. We really appreciate your dedication and support in helping to make this such an impactful year for our students.
Students have recently completed their About the Author assignments and it has been wonderful to learn so much about their lives. The students showed great promise in following directions, using a graphic organizer and exemplar to support their planning, and writing in different verb tenses. This first writing assignment gave us an opportunity to learn a bit about their personal lives, as well as, get a glimpse into their writing strengths.
Over the next few weeks, students are working on a Short Story and Narrative Writing Unit to further assess, practice, and (somewhat)master their skills in reading comprehension and writing. Our first short story, Being Mean by Gary Soto, was read in class this week and the students really seemed to enjoy the story. Following the story, students were given a prompt to write their own personal narrative. The story and the prompt can be found in the google classroom for ELA.
Next week we will continue our work around narrative writing. The classes will be taking their drafts and focusing on specific development skills to help enhance their stories. Hopefully, they have some fun with this writing!
Please reach out with any questions, clarification, or concerns at any point in the year. Have a wonderful weekend.
🍂🍁☕🍎
Science
We have been working to establish routines in science class as we delve into our first topic in the Earth Science unit, the layers of the Earth. We begin each class period with a 3-minute writing in response to a prompt related to the day’s content. This routine allows students the time to shift into science class mode, recall information from earlier lessons, and get primed for the upcoming lesson. We also started our practice work/assessment schedule that will be maintained throughout the year. Practice work (reading, vocabulary, and a means of demonstrating content comprehension) is assigned on Mondays and is due on Thursdays. Fridays are assessment days, which will most often be short quizzes on the week’s content. If you are interested in knowing more about the role of practice work and assessments, and how grades will be determined, please read 8th Grade Science Grading Policy.
Upcoming Learning Objectives:
1.2 I can describe how convection currents in the mantle are the driving force of
plate tectonics.
I can describe how objects or materials of different densities can interact with each other.
I can use models to explain how convection currents cause plate tectonics.
I can describe how heat can be transferred through convection, conduction, and radiation.
1.3 I can use models to show that the continents have moved and continue to move over time.
I can explain who Alfred Wegener was and what evidence he used to support his theory.
I can provide evidence and reasoning to support the theory of continental drift.
I can refer to climate, landform, and fossil evidence to explain how continents moved.
Math
Next week, we will continue to work with figures on a coordinate plane, implementing angle relationships.
The math department would like to remind families that homework is very important for doing well on assessments (quizzes and tests) in school. The expectation is that students have an assignment every night, although we do begin at the end of class and some students finish the assignment before they go home.
Civics
In Civics, we have been asking ourselves the questions, “Who are we as Americans? What is our national identity?” Students illustrated their answers on a large class map of the United States of America and they had to work together to create a unified design for their map. All year long, we will come back to this theme of American identity.
Students also got a preview of the Constitution of the United States of America since September 17 is Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of the document that created our whole government. We focused on the Preamble (introduction) to the Constitution and the 6 purposes of government listed in it. We watched the classic Schoolhouse Rock song “We the People” (check it out online!). Ask your student if they can name (or sing) the purposes of government according to the writers of the Constitution.
Next up, our rights and responsibilities as Americans, citizenship, and the Legislative Branch. Thank you to everyone who was able to come to Back to School Night on 9/22 and we look forward to meeting all Cluster 6 families at parent conferences in October and November.
English Language Development (ELD) classes
Entering (ELD 1)
This week, our students worked to present skits where they greeted people and held a conversation about what they liked or what they needed. They did a great job speaking clearly and confidently in English and we had a good time as students made us laugh together.
Ask your student questions like “How are you?” “Where are you from?” and “What do you like?” and see what they answer!
Next week, we will begin working on numbers in English and how to read and say mathematical vocabulary.
Emerging (ELD 2)
This week we worked on modals: have to, need to, may, might, and could with learning about careers and jobs of community members. We also have learned possessive pronouns and adjectives, and are shifting into subject and object pronouns next week. We are also talking about time, and introducing the concept of cause and effect through readings about life cycles.
Developing (ELD 3)
This week we continued our values unit and began working on fiction by discussing why people tell stories and reading fables. Our goal was to understand the author’s purpose by finding the moral of the story. We began to learn about how to tackle new vocabulary using context clues and practiced using a dictionary. Next week we will talk about the elements of fiction: character, plot, setting theme and conflict.
Expanding (ELD 4)
This week, students read, discussed, and wrote descriptions of why the US celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month, which began on September 15th in order to commemorate the Independence Days of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and, a couple of days later, the Independence Days of Mexico and Chile.
Ask your student what they learned about the history of Spanish-speaking people in the United States!
Phonics
This week in phonics we learned when to use capital letters and have mastered naming the letters in the alphabet. We are working towards mastery of the sounds of the letters, and identifying them in nonsense words. I’ve been assessing each student’s current phonics knowledge so that the students and I can identify why they already know and what vowel patterns or digraphs they need to work on. Next week we will begin the short a sound and a new set of High Frequency Words.