Check out the attached material about an essay contest sponsored by Central One Federal Credit Union.
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New month, new unit! In ELA, we started our Hero Unit. This unit centers on the idea of the monomyth - the hero's journey. In the unit, we will be focusing on these essential questions:
During the unit, students will read both ancient myths and modern superhero comics and stories and will analyze the elements of the monomyth in each. The unit will end with students writing their own hero story. Check out this video, it gives a great overview of the monomyth! Problem solving is an important part of our work in math this year. Students often believe that problem solving is simply applying a formula to a “word problem.” But, real problem solving is what you do, when you don’t know what to do.
All students had an opportunity to work with Ms. Freedman on the “Build your own Burger” problem. In this problem, Friendly’s Restaurant advertises that there are over 10 trillion combinations. Students used multiple strategies to evaluate the validity of this claim. Ask your student if the claim is true and which problem solving strategies they used. Thank you to all those who came to Curriculum Night last night - we enjoyed meeting you! If you could not make it, the presentation we gave on each of our core classes is attached. It also includes some information on Conference Day. During our presentation, we talked about homework on 8 Blue. Here is an article that might be helpful in understanding the research behind our philosophy on homework. www.edutopia.org/blog/research-trends-is-homework-effective-youki-terada
Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School Presentation InformationOn Wednesday, October 3rd, Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School will be visiting OMS to deliver a 30-minute informational session to all interested 8th grade students. The presentation will provide an overview of the many programs available at AVRTHS as well as admissions information. If you would like your student to attend this presentation to learn more about AVRTHS, please click here to give permission to attend on the Powerschool Parent Portal by clicking on "Sports, Activities, Permission Slips" in the left navigation bar and checking the Assabet Presentation Permission box, then click submit.
More information about AVRTHS can be found at www.assabettech.com. There will be a field trip held at the end of October for interested OMS to tour AVRTHS. More information will follow to those who attend the presentation. Questions can be directed to Jennifer Lencioni, Grade 8 Counselor at [email protected]. We have had a great start to the school year. After taking time to get to know each other we have been focusing on becoming familiar with the 8th grade curriculum and refreshing previously learned skills. I am meeting with students to discuss their strengths and their goals for this year. I hope to have the meetings completed by the end of the week. We recently did an activity to reinforce the importance of writing clear procedures in science labs by writing the procedure to make a ham and cheese sandwich. The students had many different procedures and enjoyed watching our 'volunteer chef' make a sandwich based on someone else's procedure.
Next week we will begin to make tool kit cards/procedural guides to use in math class and also do review activities on parts of speech. I am posting homework in the Learning Skills Class daily for those students who may not remember an assignment or may need some clarification on the assignment. If you child does not use a paper planner or an app to manage their work, I will encourage them to find a system that works for them this year before they enter high school. I am available for after school help on Monday's and Wednesday's until 3:30. We have been busy in Social Studies getting acclimated to our first "real" History course and talking about why history is important to pay attention to. We have covered basic timelines for this year, talked about how small events can have a big impact, how to identify and use primary and secondary sources, and why paying attention to our world is so important. This week, we will move on from introductory information into our first unit: Ancient Rome. The syllabus for this year (written for students) is attached. Feel free to contact me with any questions at [email protected]
We have been working with measuring in SI units in science class. Ask your student what is something that is about 1 meter in size? What is something that is about 100 grams?
Next week, we start talking about motion. This has been an exciting week in ELA on 8 Blue! Students worked on defining their interests and passions and they created their own personal blogs! Here is why students are blogging this year: Students are blogging about things they are interested in. Some of the topics are dance, book reviews, music, sports analysis, and more. I believe that teaching students to write for different purposes and audiences is an important skill. This unit also is teaching students about creating a positive digital footprint and gives them practice writing in the "real world."
The students are so enthusiastic about this assignment! I am so excited to see these amazing blogs as the year goes on. Ask your son or daughter to see their blogs! They should have the basic template set up, and the first post should be in progress. Their first two posts are due tomorrow, so they should have a decent start! You can see the blogs by going to the ELA course materials page in Schoology. There is a link to the blogs at the bottom of that page. Happy reading! If your daughter or son is interested, yearbook club sign ups are taking place! See the attached flyer for more information.
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The 8 Blue TEamMs. Amaral - Social Studies Archives
August 2019
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