For the majority of winter, students are (appropriately) in the Dark Ages...a time of transition between the 'light' of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.  During this time a variety of topics are covered both in the Islamic Empire (past unit) and in Western Europe (current unit).  Students are currently studying the Vikings and their interactions with France and England.

Ask your son or daughter which Viking king united Scandinavia - their answer will probably be very familiar to you! 

Students have finally finished up their articles on both the history and legacies of the Islamic Empire as well as current events regarding the Middle East and Muslims in the US today.  I was very impressed not only with their independence in their planning, but the variety of topics that students chose to cover, the creativity and professionalism in the visual presentation, and their willingness to help one another with peer feedback.  A couple of student examples are below.

Students have designed an investigation based on four options. They are observing  endothermic and exothermic reactions,  the formation of a precipitate or a catalyst. Students will write a lab report explaining what their findings.
Ask your student about his or her investigation.

Two 8 Blue students showing their support for today's AFC Championship Game! 
May the best team win!!  

The placement test will be on February 8th this year. We will not dedicate any class time to preparing for the placement test. The test will contain questions based on the work that we have done in eighth grade, not prior year topics. There will be questions from Say It with Symbols, Thinking with Mathematical Models, and our current unit involving square roots, real numbers, and Pythagorean theorem applications.
 
Students are welcome to prepare for the test by reviewing our work so far this year. The study guides from all of the previous units are in Schoology, in both the SIWS folder and TWMM folder.
 
Other resources include the following websites:
http://mymathuniverse.com/programs/cmp3/channels/8 
http://figurethis.nctm.org/fc/family_corner.htm
https://bhi61nm2cr3mkdgk1dtaov18-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Parent-Night-Handout-vF-1.pdf
https://www.khanacademy.org/