📝 This Month in 8th Grade 🍎

👋 Hello families,

Here’s a look at what’s happening in our classroom this month. We’ll share what students are learning, important reminders, and ways you can stay connected and support learning at home.

In this update:

1. Core Content Info

2. FAPEL Info

3. General Information

💡Tip: Be sure to reach out to the appropriate D65 personnel if any follow up questions.

🌟 What We Are Learning

• Balancing One-Variable Equations: Students are mastering multi-step equations by working backward using inverse operations. They are discovering that some math problems have one solution, no solution, or infinitely many solutions.
• Exploring Multi-Variable Equations:

  
  

  
  

  We are looking at how two variables interact using problem scenarios, tables, equations, and graphs. Students are learning how a change in a real-world constraint alters a graph.
• Graphing Inequalities: Through interactive tasks, students are solving situations where things aren't equal. They are learning how to graph a range of possible answers rather than just a single number.

🗣️ Math Talk: Vocabulary to Try at Home

Using mathematical language at home helps reinforce what we learn in class. Try spotting these terms when your student is working:

• Constraint: A limitation or restriction (like a budget or time limit) in a word problem.
• Inverse Operations: Operations that undo each other (like multiplication and division).
• Solution Set: All the possible values that make a mathematical statement true.

During the month of September, our social studies class focused on community, personal history, and America's struggle for equality. We started the school year with "getting to know you" activities and built our own personal timelines to share our unique stories with each other. Then, we transitioned into history by studying the landmark 1963 March on Washington and the era of Reconstruction after the Civil War. To bring these lessons to life, we are currently creating Protest Posters designed to urge the government to protect the civil rights of the four million newly freed people in the South.here

This month in Library the students speed dated with books. They rotated through 6 tables of titles to sample a variety of titles to find a match, i.e. a book to check out.

Nichols Middle School will host lunch groups facilitated by the District 65 Family and Community Engagement Team (FACE). Lunch groups are an opportunity for students to benefit from an additional connection with a District staff member as a source of guidance and support. The groups are held in several of our District 65 schools and facilitated by members of the Family and Community Engagement (FACE) team.

Here are a few important dates:

• Sept 21 – Non-Attendance Day (Yom Kippur)
• Sept 23 - School Improvement Day - No School
• Wk of Oct 5 – Parent Teacher Conferences
• Oct 9 – Non-Attendance Day
• Oct 12 - Non-Attendance Day (Indigenous Peoples Day)