What's Happening 2019-2020
  • Home
  • Grade 6
  • Grade 7
  • Grade 8

March 2020

2/27/2020

 

Literacy

WORK DUE

This month we will be preparing for the New York State ELA test.  Students will do most of the preparation in class.

We will launch Fantasy book clubs this month.  All students can be working on their reading stamina by increasing their reading time.
March 25 & 26: ELA Test

Book club meetings weekly.

​

Math

WORK DUE

Students will be finishing up Unit 3 - Symbolic Manipulations by first week of March. (see February Looking Forward for a list of topics and links.) 
Here is a link detailing how the mathematical concepts are developed in this unit. 

Here is a link detailing some worked out examples in this unit. 

We will start Unit 4  - Systems of Linear Equations 
In this unit, students will dive deeper into linear equations - both standard form and slope-intercept form. We will also be looking at a variety of ways to solve a system of linear equations to make decisions about a problem. 
Here is a link detailing how the mathematical concepts are developed in this unit. 

Here is a link detailing some worked out examples in this unit. 

We will end the month with Unit 5 - Transformational Geometry studying different types of transformations on a coordinate axes and relating that to algebraic thinking. ​
HW daily - whether it is an assigned homework to be collected or completing work from class. 
Different classes are in different parts of the problem. Please check your child’s planner at least once a week. 


Quiz weekly 
The quiz is usually on a concept learned from a previous week or earlier in the week, not the day before or the period of. Encourage your child to reach out for a lunch meeting if he/she is still confused after multiple days of studying the same concepts.

​

Science

WORK DUE

We started March by building our Rube Goldberg machines. Ask your students to see pictures or videos of their machines! They have been making incredible contraptions, applying their knowledge of Newton’s Laws, simple machines, and the variables that cause motion. They will present their machines to each other this week, bringing our force and motion unit to a close. 

Our next unit is astronomy. We will focus on the interactions between the Earth, Sun, and Moon. Students will study the conditions that make our planet habitable, and use that understanding to decide where NASA should send a probe to look for life. They will “pitch” their plans to each other.
Homework:
Notebook Quick Checks
EdPuzzle videos
Google classroom quizzes (~1 every 2 weeks)
Keeping up with notes and in-class assignments

Rube Goldberg Machines
(Blueprints, Step Lists, and Machines)
Due the week of 3/9

​

Social Studies

WORK DUE

For the first two weeks of March, students will be completing their unit of study on immigration.  At the turn of the 20th century, millions of European immigrants came to America while the government barred nearly all Chinese immigrants from entering.  At the same time, African Americans were fleeing the South as new economic opportunities opened up in the North and West.

Students have explored who is included and excluded from American culture and why; the role race plays in shaping migrant experiences; and how migrants negotiate cultural worlds.

Our next unit of study will explore the World Wars and the interwar years, critically examining the impact on American culture, race relations, and women’s rights. 
Due Dates

Unit 5: Immigration
Final Project: Synthesis Page
Due Date: Friday, March 13th

Launch Unit 6: The World at War
Monday, March 16th

First Week: World War I

​

Spanish

WORK DUE

This month, students will finish Unit 6: El fin de semana. Students speak and write about what they did over the weekend, and will write about what their peers did over the weekend. We will also do readings that talk about past events. ​
  • Daily writing about past events
  • Dialogue: “¿Cómo lo pasaste?”
  • Project: My weekend

Advisory

Students will be spending time preparing for student-led conferences this month. They will also continue their activism projects.

February 2020

1/31/2020

 

Literacy

WORK DUE

This month in Literacy our reading and writing strands come together!  In writing, students are crafting a final project that answers one of the Essential Questions of our cross-curricular Disrupting Racism unit.  And at the same time, we are in book clubs reading with lenses in our Critical Reading unit.

Disrupting Racism EQs:
  • How does race function as a social and political construct?
  • How is my racial consciousness being challenged and changed?
  • How do we have challenging conversations about race?
  • How can we disrupt racism?  

Critical Reading EQs:
  • How can we use our club work to identify stereotypes, injustice and inequality? 
  • How can we disrupt “isms”?  (racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, gender norms, etc.) 
  • How does media create and reinforce our social norms?
  • How can I use book club talk to challenge my own assumptions and bias?
Reader’s Notebook Gallery Walk and Collection
Week of February 10th


Disrupting Racism Project
Due week of February 24th 



Graded Book Club Talks
Talks may be graded at any time...be ready!

​

Math

WORK DUE

Students will be finishing their third unit, Symbolic Manipulations. By now, we studied:  
  • Interpreting expressions in context and vice versa
  • Distributive Property by using the partial product visual 
  • Like terms in context 
  • Replacing expressions into a variable into the  equations 
Continuing along this trajectory, students will look at contexts when solving systems of linear equations.

​
Please check your child’s planner for homework daily.


Quizzes weekly.


Science

WORK DUE

This month, students develop their scientific investigation skills through our study of force and motion. They will conduct experiments and collect observations to make sense of Newton’s three laws of motion. 

We will continue to explore force and motion by studying mechanical advantage and simple machines. Students will apply all of their knowledge from the unit to design a Rube Goldberg machine with a group. This project will closely resemble the international Rube Goldberg machine contest that students from around the world participate in each year. Here is one of the videos we used as a mentor for launching this work. ​
Homework:
Notebook Quick Checks
EdPuzzle videos
Google classroom quizzes (~1 every 2 weeks)
Keeping up with notes and in-class assignments

Projects:
Rube Goldberg Machine
Due last week of February

​

Social Studies

WORK DUE

Students are continuing their investigation into the large waves of immigration to America between 1880 and 1925.  We have explored the Chinese Exclusion Act - the first and only restrictive immigration measure that targeted a specific group of people by race or nationality. We are turning our attention next to Ellis Island and those immigrants who sparked reform movements for better housing and working conditions.  Our next case study will be the African American Great Migration out of the Jim Crow South and into the large cities of the North and West.

We will end our unit of study with students researching neighborhoods throughout lower Manhattan and investigate people, places, and events that are important to the history of immigration. Students will then map out and lead walking tours to the points they investigated.

​
Immigration Case Studies:
Chinese Immigration under the Exclusion Years (1/27 - 2/7)

Ellis Island Immigration 
(2/10 - 2/14)
​

Friday Writing: How and why did the Industrial Revolution influence the lives and migrations of Eastern and Southern Europeans?

African American Great Migration
(2/24 - 2/28)

Final Project: Choose a case study; create two historical-fiction characters that correspond through letters discussing life before, during, and after im/migration
Due: 3/13/20

​

Spanish

WORK DUE

This month, for our speaking work, students will create a class character using vocabulary they have learned throughout the year. In reading and writing, students will continue with their work of talking about main character, setting and plot in Spanish. For Señor Wooly work, students will continue watching Señor Wooly videos and using vocabulary learned to help their reading comprehension.
jcohen@is289.org

​
  • Class Character story
  • Detailed narrative map
  • Señor Wooly video story translations

Advisory

Students are researching their issues and exploring solutions for their activism projects.

January 2020

1/2/2020

 

Literacy

WORK DUE

Critical Reading Study-- As a part of our continuing work in the Disrupting Racism Unit, students will join book clubs to discuss how both visual media and books contribute to the way we see the world.

We will conduct a personal Social Media Investigation, look at advertisements and on-line videos along with watching sit-coms and reading books. You can expect students to be able to “Deconstruct Media” and discuss stereotypes and unhealthy norms and values.  


Writing Mini-Unit--In the first half of January we are doing a quick study of powerful anecdotes (which we are calling “Tiny Stories).  In December, students looked at mentors and tried out some stories from their lives in their Writer’s Notebooks. They will choose one to revise and publish mid-January.

Later in January we will begin work on the next big writing unit: Focus & Elaboration in Essay when we analyze mentors and gather ideas for journeys of thought we might take in an essay.
Reading

Week of January 27th:
Graded Critical Reading Club Talk
​

Essential Questions:
  • How can we use our reading, watching and talk to identify injustice and inequality? 
  • How can we expose and interrupt unhealthy social norms? 
  • How does media create and reinforce our social norms?
  • How can I use book club talk to explore ideas and challenge my own assumptions and bias?

Writing

Tuesday, January 21:
Tiny Stories Due


Math

WORK DUE

This month we will start Unit 3: Symbolic Manipulations(Say it with Symbols). The essential questions are: 
  1. How are equations and systems used to model “real” world situations? 
  2. How are equations and systems used to make decisions in “real” world situations? 
Students will be moving from concrete to abstract look at Distributive Property, solving equations, solving systems. They will also be analyzing situations and making decisions given a contextual problem. 

This link will provide an overview of how concepts are developed in this unit. For more detailed version of how the math is developed, see here. (Be warned though - it is 21 pages of math reading. 😀)
Homework will be given daily. 
See your child’s planner

Quizzes at least once per week.

​

Science

WORK DUE

We are continuing our exploration of evolution this month. We are finishing our work around the biology of skin color, and learning about how skin color evolved to both protect the folate in our blood and allow us to synthesize vitamin D. We will then analyze evidence for evolution to see how scientists pieced together the history of life on Earth. One of the pieces of evidence we uncover is the vestigial structures you can find on your own body!

We will begin our Force and Motion unit at the end of the month. Students will study Newton’s Laws and explore machines, culminating in a project where they create their own Rube Goldberg machines!

Homework:
Notebook Quick Checks
EdPuzzle videos
Google classroom quizzes (~1 every 2 weeks)
Keeping up with notes and in-class assignments

Projects:

Synthesis Page
​Due the week of January 21

​

Social Studies

WORK DUE

This month, students are continuing their unit on Scientific Racism and Eugenics.  Through this interdisciplinary unit, students will study issues related to race through literacy, science, and social studies.  In social studies, we focus on the historical origins of the idea of race, how the definition of race evolved in U.S. to justify racist social and legal politices, and how it evolved into the field of eugenics.

We will then begin our study on Immigration.  We will explore the lives and challenges of the great waves of immigrants who came to this country during the turn of the century. We will explore Chinese immigration through Angel Island, European immigration through Angel Island, and the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South and into Northern and Western cities. We will explore these movements through the lens of race, power, and gender.

​
Unit 3: Scientific Racism and Eugenics
Notebook Synthesis Page: 1/14/19



Unit 4: Immigration
Launch 1/14

​

Spanish

WORK DUE

Students will being the unit “El niño desobediente.” Target vocabulary includes the words escucha, hace, and debe hacer. ​
  • Speaking tasks related to target vocabulary
  • Reading comprehension assessment
  • Free write using class vocabulary

Advisory

We are continuing to develop our activism projects in advisory. Ask your student what they are working on!

December 2019

11/24/2019

 

Literacy

WORK DUE

Our Poetry Study is wrapping up!  Students are revising their poems to be more vibrant and focused.

In reading, we are launching our Skinny Books/Big Ideas Unit.  This is a part of a bigger grade-wide study of Disrupting Racism. 
​

Students will be reading a variety of texts with a critical lens asking: How are groups represented? Is this fair? Who has power? How are systems of power at work? How can we disrupt racism?

Final 3-5 published poems and draft packets are due:
Monday December 9 (801 & 803)
Tuesday December 10 (802)


In-class Poetry Share:
Thursday, December 12 (802)
​
Friday, December 13 (801 & 803)


Math

WORK DUE

This month, we are continuing and will complete:  
Unit 2 - Linear Models

Students are making scatter plots, drawing best-fit lines, computing residuals to determine accuracy of best-fit lines  and making predictions. 

Another emphasis of this unit is interpreting two way tables and writing valid conclusions based on the data given. 

Here are some resources you might find helpful for this unit: 
Worked out HW examples from this unit
Progression of Math Concepts for this unit
Practice with Two-Way Table
​Scatterplot Practice
Homework daily 
(see your child’s planner daily) 

Exit ticket
​
Once every week or every 2 weeks

There will be a short Winter Break packet assigned (12 questions). If your family is leaving early, please be sure that your child picks up a packet. This packet will be given out on 12/19 (W). 

*Quiz 1 and 2 has given back, so make sure to sign the quiz the check it over with student.


Science

WORK DUE

Unit 3: Evolution
We will use what we learned in our study of reproduction and genetics to examine how life on Earth has changed over time. Our focus will be on human evolution. We will start with a study of the biology of skin color to support our interdiscipinary Disrupting Racism unit. We will look at current research in biology and anthropology to discover why we vary so much in this biological trait. We use this video as the cornerstone of our study:
HHMI: Biology of Skin Color
Students continue to delve into the theme of change over time by analyzing and interpreting fossil record data to find patterns that document the existence, diversity, and extinction of species throughout Earth’s history. Students further develop their understanding of evolutionary relationships in the second part of the unit by examining the underlying mechanism for the evolution of species, the process of natural selection.
Unit 2: Reproduction and Heredity
Genetic Testing Report
801 - 12/9
802 - 12/6
803 - 12/6

Synthesis Page
12/12

Unit 3: Evolution
Exit Tickets
Quick Notebook Check
Google classroom quiz


Social Studies

WORK DUE

Current Events
Coming back from Thanksgiving break, students will spend the week researching current events that connect to an aspect of their identity.  It’s our chance to assess the historic events happening today - events we feel a connection with and are passionate about. Students will research into the root causes of the event, teach other students, and reflect on their learning.
​

Disrupting Racism
December 9th, we are launching Disrupting Racism in social studies.  Students will explore the origins of the concept of race during the Enlightenment and its evolution through United States history.  We will explore how and why scientific racism developed, how it evolved through Eugenics, and impacted social and political decisions.

Students will use their NBs to track their personal understanding of race - how it changes and/or deepens through their study of history.
Dec. 2 - 6: Current Events

Assessment: Dec. 6 
Gallery Walk of student NBs
Friday Writing: Based on the gallery walk, students reflect on current events, personal connections, and connections to history


Dec. 9: Disrupting Racism

Assessment: Tracking thinking through notebook work & Friday Writing


Advisory

This month we are launching our Disrupting Racism unit in advisory. 

November 2019

11/6/2019

 

Literacy

WORK DUE

In Reading work we’ll be launching our Skinny Books/Big Ideas unit.  You can expect to see students reading one or two books each week with their book club. They are doing in-depth analysis work on the ideas, craft and norms found in shorter novels.  (Some of these WILL be below grade level-- never fear, they are doing college-level analysis work and will be moving to harder texts in the next unit.)

November continues Poetry Study in 8th grade!

We study ideas and elaboration in poetry by reading TONS of poems in Poetry Immersion, living like poets in Observation Walks  and memorizing a poem we love. Ask your poet which “Doors of Poetry” they are going through this month.

Reader’s Notebook collection - week of November 4th.

10-15 Poem Tries in your Writer’s Notebook - due by Tuesday, November 12.

Five poems you plan to revise - Submitted via Google Classroom by Friday, November 15.


Math

WORK DUE

By now, we have moved into our first 8th Grade CMP book, Thinking with Mathematical Models. In this unit, students collect data via experimenting. This is very similar to what they have done in Science in 6th, 7th and even 8th grade. We talk about 
  • controlled variables and 
  • margins of error
Analyzing the data and trying to make a prediction (not just a conclusion) is crucial in this unit. Sometimes, the data is not perfectly linear. When that is the case, they make predictions by graphing. On a graph, the data might look like it could be modeled by a best-fit line. Concepts such as correlation coefficient, residuals arise to help us determine how accurate our predictions are. You might find this link helpful if you attended Math Night. 

Continuing to review linear relationship from 7th Grade and our first unit will be helpful for this unit (but it is not the essence of this unit). Since CMP3 is a problem-centered curriculum, our department’s teaching philosophy is to continue having discussions in class, make connections from one representation to the next, and “setting the stage” to be successful when the doing the problem. By doing this, we are fostering, reinforcing and emphasizing the need to think in any given mathematical situations and not just follow a set of steps or a given formula.
Homework daily 
(see your child’s planner daily) 

Exit ticket
Once every week or every 2 weeks

Check Up - roughly every 7-8 school days. 
(So far, we had 1. This will be returned the week of 11/8. Please ask your child to see it.) 
*Also Unit Wrap Up was returned the week of 11/1. Please ask your child to see it and sign it.

There will be a short Thanksgiving Break packet assigned (15 questions). If your family is leaving early, please be sure that your child picks up a packet. This packet will be given out on 11/20 (T). 
 
A helpful tip: 
From time to time, ask your child to show you his/her notebooks. All homework, assessments are returned and should be taped into their notebooks. This is a good way to not look at just the grade but how much your child understands and how he/she can improve.


Science

WORK DUE

This month we will wrap up our Reproduction and Heredity unit. Students studied cells, DNA, cell division, and reproduction in October. Now they will move into genetics and patterns of heredity. Students will use what they’ve learned across the unit to analyze and interpret genetic test results from fictitious families to determine the probability of genetic disorders in offspring. The unit with culminate in a genetic testing report modeled after real test reports from genetic testing labs.

We will begin our Evolution unit in December. Throughout this month and over Thanksgiving break, students can practice the skills that will support them in high school science by previewing material from the unit. They can do this by reading classroom books on evolution, seeking videos or articles online, or using Google classroom to check out a bibliography of resources. Exceptional science students read ahead to prepare themselves for what’s coming up!
Homework:
Notebook Quick Checks
EdPuzzle videos
Google classroom quizzes (~1 every 2 weeks)
Keeping up with notes and in-class assignments


Projects:
Genetic Testing Report

Due the week of November 18th


Synthesis Page
​Due the week of November 25th



Social Studies

WORK DUE

During November, students will be exploring current events that have their roots in America’s founding institution of slavery.  Students have already explored mass incarceration, school segregation, racial profiling, and several other contemporary issues. Students are now digging into the history of slavery itself to better understand the roots of these issues.  Students will also investigate how the Civil War and Reconstruction impacted the issues that our country continues to face today.
Unit 2: The Unfinished Civil War

Final Project: Interactive NB page and Fishbowl Discussion

Due date: 11/25-11/26

Spanish

WORK DUE

Students will finish Unit 2: Reading in Spanish. We will conclude our class read-aloud “Brandon Brown vs. Yucatán.”
Comprehension questions based on reading
Vocabulary recording

​

    8th GRade Team

    Christina Di Zebba - LIT
    Johnny Yan - MA
    Jaclyn Maricle - SCI
    Patrick Hector - SS
    Jennie Cohen - SPA/ESL
    Lori Coopersmith - LS
    Keisha Adams - LS

    Archives

    November 2019

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly