7th and 8th Grade
PCCS Newsletter 11/13/2020
Good Evening and Happy Friday,
I hope everyone enjoyed the warm weather we got during that first week of November but now the cold is here. Although it’s getting colder make sure your students are still getting plenty of off-screen time, enjoying the outdoors, but bundle up first. We miss all of our students and cannot wait for the day we can all be back together again.
Math with Mr. Hershiser:
7th Grade Math:
Students in 7th grade A and B math have been working hard to complete their end of the trimester project on hurricanes. Ask your students, “Have hurricanes gotten worse over the past 100 years?” or ask them “What’s the difference between a tropical storm and a hurricane?”
8th Grade Math:
Students in 8th grade A and B math have been working hard to complete their end of the trimester project on Federal Budgets. Students have analyzed the federal funding for each of the 50 states and they have learned some cool math tricks on Google Sheets.
Science with Mrs. Jackson:
7th Grade Science:
Students in 7th grade have just finished learning about the skeletal system and have moved into understanding our digestive system. In the next coming lessons, we will learn about how different food molecules break down to give our body energy and how the digestive system works. Students will be creating a large scale comic that describes how a piece of food is digested!
8th Grade Science:
Students in 8th grade have been working towards their mastery of circuits. Sent home to your students last week was a bag with a 9-volt battery, holiday lights, brads, and paperclips. Students will be using these supplies to create model homes with working circuits. Please use the time to gather some materials for your children such as a cardboard box, art supplies, scissors, tape, and glue.
ELA with Mrs. Stewart:
7th Grade ELA:
We have started our unit on persuasive writing by looking at types of persuasive appeals and the idea of a target audience. Up next: Students will be creating commercials using one of the persuasive appeals and directing the message to a randomly assigned target audience. We also will be reading some persuasive articles and looking at the way writers support their claims. In addition to the persuasion unit, we will be doing an independent reading project during Trimester 2; by Dec. 4, students should pick a book they haven’t read before that is at least 200 pages long (or approved by me) and let me know the title. It can be fiction or nonfiction.
8th Grade ELA:
The eighth grade has been practicing annotating texts and reading to build background knowledge about the Holocaust. Next week, we will have our first discussions over the books they have chosen to read. Details on what they need to read and by when for their books can be found on our homework doc. On Monday, we will be having our independent reading book celebration, in which students will present their projects for the book they read during Trimester 1. (The date of the celebration was moved so that it wouldn’t overlap with their essay).
Social Studies with Mr. Flood:
7th Grade SS:
What an epic two weeks!
Not only did students get to witness a very important election, but they also got to take their first Constitution Quiz. There will be two more quizzes in the unit. As a reminder, they are allowed to use their blue books on quizzes, so when they have assignments to finish in the blue book, they really should be doing it in a timely fashion!
In the next two weeks, 7th grade will be focusing on the branches of our federal government. They also will be starting to learn about the amendments.
8th Grade SS:
We just finished our imperialism unit with an exciting Netflix project. These grades should be in today— students had to create a “Netflix series” based on America’s experience with imperialism. This week, we started discussing the causes of World War I and will be preparing for a CER coming up in the next few weeks covering that topic. Students should be well aware of the terms Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism as we move forward in this unit.
Today we have wrapped up the first trimester. We made it! Thank you for supporting your students throughout this strange time of remote learning and let’s kick off the second trimester strong!