Team 83 Newsletter

It’s hard to believe how quickly the first month of school has flown by! Students are settling into their routines, building connections, and engaging more confidently in their learning. As we move past the halfway point of Trimester One, it’s exciting to see the progress already being made and the positive energy growing in classrooms.

Upcoming Events:

• Week of 11/17-11/21: Spirit Week
• 11/21: Pep Rally
• Entire Month of November: No Absence November- The grade with the lowest number of absences gets a pajama day!

Our October Student Spotlight Award goes to Christopher Littlefield, a shining example of perseverance, accountability, collaboration, and kindness. No matter the challenge, he approaches each task with determination and a positive attitude, showing true perseverance in both academics and personal growth. Christopher consistently demonstrates accountability by taking responsibility for his job as a student, meeting deadlines, and striving to do his best every day. As a collaborative classmate, he works well with others, offering support and encouragement to peers during group projects and classroom discussions. Most importantly, Christopher leads with kindness—always ready with a smile, a helping hand, or a thoughtful word that makes others feel valued and included. He truly embodies the values that make our school community strong.

Feel free to contact teachers on team using Talking Points or calling us (see links below for both)

In Unit 2, we’re learning about rights- why they matter, and how we can teach others about them. Students learned about events during the American Revolution that sparked concerns about rights, how rights are protected in the Bill of Rights, and how it’s the job of the government to protect rights. We wrote a “letter” to ‘break up with Great Britain’ and had fun thinking about how we could apply our historical learning in a creative and modern way!

We will discuss moments of rights violations, how rights have evolved over time, and how rights apply in schools. Students will work in teams to create a product to teach others about a specific right and why rights matter.

Conversation ideas for parents and guardians:

• "I heard you are learning about rights in Civics class. What’s one interesting thing you’ve learned or read about related to rights?"

• "I understand you wrote a break-up letter in Civics. Who broke up? How does this relate to your lessons on rights?"

• "I understand you are doing a project in this unit. Who are you working with? What right are you focusing on?"

• Annotations: Students are interacting with texts by asking questions, having opinions, and making connections

• Plot: Identifying the six parts of a story (exposition, inciting incident or conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution)

• Citing textual evidence: Students are practicing how to support their ideas with quotations from texts. They are learning that summarizing a text or putting it in your own words is not the same as citing textual evidence.

• "The Tell-Tale Heart" Blackout Poetry: After reading the chilling short story by Edgar Allan Poe, students created a blackout poem with the text (see the images for a few examples)

The image shown above is by Arina S.

Here is a look at a few upcoming assignments:

• Check PowerSchool regularly for updates

• Reading at home is always encouraged! Check out Sora for free online books and audiobooks: Click here for Sora

  
  

Inclusion classes include English Language Arts (ELA) and Math:

ELA: We are continuing our unit from StudySync, “Everyone Loves a Mystery. “ Students are actively reading, making annotations, answering questions and digging deeper into each text that is read.

Math: Students are strengthening math skills as well as working on grade level math concepts.

ELA: Students will make comparisons between different texts read in class and explore how they share a common theme.

Math: Students will focus on understanding square and cube roots, while also using each to solve equations.

• Encourage your student to read at home

• Have them summarize and/or ask questions about what they are reading

Students completed the unit on Square Roots, Cube Roots and Comparing Real Numbers on Oct. 28th. We have started our unit on Solving Equations in One Variable.

Students must show all of their work when they are solving equations. We have gone over the process of showing work for equations during each class.

Students will continue working with equations and begin to solve more complex equations.

First in Math: Students should continue to work on their Weekly Stickers, by the end of the Trimester Math 8 students should have 800 stickers. Have your child log into First in Math and have them show you how many stickers they already have.

We began this unit with a review of Newton’s Laws and the different forces that can act on objects. We then looked at how these forces and laws apply to the Starship program in Boca Chica, Texas. From there, we took a look at how the Earth, Moon, and Sun interact including phases of the Moon, orbits, eclipses, and seasons.

We are branching off of our look at how seasons are caused to take a deeper look at how different weather events occur. We will connect local weather to seasonal weather and then local and global climate.

1. We have textbooks in science that we will use from time to time to review material from previous years or introduce new material. In any event, students need to fully read the assigned pages and not just Skim & Scan.

2. When an opportunity arises to use open notes or open book on a quiz, make sure you make the best of that opportunity!

3. Keep your Science Notebooks up to date.