8th Grade 4th Quarter Newsletter
March 21, 2025
Stay Up-to-Date with our Classrooms!
Staying connected to our families is important to our teachers. In addition to the front page of our Canvas courses, we are excited to share this quarterly newsletter with our families to keep you aware of upcoming events, activities, lessons, units, and materials from our classes! The 8th Grade Team has compiled this newsletter to share some of the upcoming experiences your student will be having with us. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child's teachers!
As a reminder, printed report cards from 3rd Quarter will be sent home with students on Friday, April 4th.
8th Grade Exploratory Classes
Art
Choir
Students are starting their final round of music for their Spring Concert. After their last concert, students participated in a March Madness Broadway bracket where they compared different songs from various Broadway shows. For their final concert, they will be performing “El Vito”, a Spanish folk song, “Carry the Light,” a song that talks about being a force of good in the world, and “Lord, Send Your Spirit,” a classic gospel song from Dr. Raymond Wise. They are also preparing a combined performance of the Bruno Mars/Lady Gaga song, “Die With A Smile” with the 7th grade choir. The deposits for Orladno are due this Friday, March 21st. Students can audition for the A Capella choir on April 10th and 11th, and the final concert is on May 20th.
Band
Engineering
PE and Wellness
This semester PE classes will learn Spikeball, Basketball, yoga (stretching), ultimate frisbee, four square games, and they will be creating their own games. In wellness, we will be learning about bullying, sympathy/empathy, vaping/nicotine, SMART goal setting - revising old goals, and relationships.
Technology
Innovation
8th Grade Core Classes
ELA
Math, Algebra, and Geometry
8th Grade Math
Students in 8th Grade Math and in the middle of their Functions unit. Here students will use their prior knowledge of linear relationships to develop an understanding of functions. They will use diagrams, function tables, graphs, verbal descriptions, and equations to analyze relations and develop skill and fluency with linear models. From here we will cover Systems of Equations and Scatter Plots Data.
Algebra Class
Students in Algebra will spend all of April learning statistics as well as reviewing for the OST. We will work through parts of CPM Chapter 6 and Chapter 10 in our lesson work. All of our Learning Opportunities will shift focus to review for the OST at the end of April. I will be compiling past questions asked on the OST for us to answer / review. This is essentially a review of everything that we have learned thus far this year. My hope is that it leads to great conversations about our content as well as higher-level conversation about the “why” behind what we are learning. We will not take a test prior to the OST as we will be reviewing as we learn our statistics content. Post OST, we will take a test over what we learned from statistics, and then we will be in review for the final exam. We are quickly approaching the end of the course! Students have done a fantastic job this year. We just finished our last round of MAP testing, and I am so proud of the students. 83% of students grew from their winter scores with an average of 7 points of growth - those are wonderful numbers that the students should be proud of. We are looking forward to ending the year well in Algebra 1!Honors Geometry
During the fourth quarter we will apply what we have learned about two-dimensional shapes to three-dimensional solids. We can use three-dimensional solids to model the world around us. For example, we can use a cylinder to approximate a part of a tree trunk or human torso. After completing the solids unit, we will work on some challenging problems that require using many of the skills learned this year. These problems will help review material for the state test on April 29. We will use the month of May to complete some closure activities in the final chapter of our curriculum. These include conic sections and the Golden ratio. We will also do some algebra review so students will be well prepared for Honors Algebra II next year!
Science
Social Studies
Last quarter, students learned about the formation of our new nation starting with the drafting of the U.S Constitution. We discussed the differences between the Federalists and Antifederalists as well as the compromises they had to make to get it ratified, namely, the Bill of Rights. We dove into the presidencies of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Students learned about the War of 1812 and other early conflicts between the United States, Great Britain, France, and Native American tribes. We ended the quarter discussing the presidency of Andrew Jackson and had a debate on whether he was a villain, hero, or somewhere in between.
In quarter four, students will spend time learning about westward expansion, including the Oregon Trail, California Gold Rush, Mexican-American War, and Texas Revolution. After spring break, we will begin discussing some of the early causes of the Civil War including the Industrial Revolution (specifically the invention of the Cotton Gin), westward expansion, and growing tensions surrounding the topic of slavery. Students will study different abolitionists including Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. We will end the year learning about the different battles of the Civil War, the strengths and weaknesses of the Confederacy compared to the United States, and reconstruction of the nation after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House. This will be a jam-packed but exciting quarter! Let’s finish off the year strong.
Common Sense Media is an online tool that can help parents and students make informed decisions regarding media use. This tool can be used for many types of media, including books, movies, video games, and apps. Additionally, the “Parent Tips and FAQ” section can provide families with valuable support on facilitating social media, cell phone, and screen time use with their child.