Language Arts: 

• ELA:  This week we started out debate unit. Students were assigned a topic and a pro/con side, and were provided a myriad of credible resources.  They are working collaboratively with their groups to find evidence to support their claims this week.  Next week, we will start the debates in class.  Please note that this Friday, February 27th, your child will have a vocabulary/ grammar assessment; thank you in advance for reinterating the importance of studying for this assessment.  

• Advanced: Students have been doing such an amazing job of analyzing philosophers and their ideologies. It is a challenging concept, but they are clearly showing their understanding through their writing. We will begin reading the short novella The Little Prince next week and apply what we have learned so far to the story. Reminder that students will also take a vocabulary and grammar final this Friday. We will spend tomorrow in class reviewing. 

Math:

• General Math:  Having studied the various exponential rules the students were recently assessed on them.  Next week the students will begin our study of scientific notation.  While scientific notation seems to be a discrete topic, in reality it is nothing more than the application of the exponential rules the students have already studied.  This is an important connection that the students should make in this unit.  

• Algebra:  Students are representing square roots and cube roots to approximate their values. We will be moving on to exponential functions next week.

1. • • • Geometry:  The first portion of this week the students explored parabolas and their formulas.  For the remainder of this week and next they will determine the perimeters and areas of figures on the coordinate plane as well as prove relationships about distances and angles on the coordinate plane, in and out of context.

Science: We completed our Chemical Reactions unit today. Tomorrow, we will begin our Life Science units. Students will explore the molecules that the body needs by using the Metabolism Simulator.

Social Studies: We are finishing up the trimester this week. Our final Cold War assessment is a document-based question, in which students will read passages and determine important information about the Cold War, followed by an essay in which they will synthesize their learning.  All of this work will occur in class.  Next week, we begin our study of human rights, and we focus on the worst abuses of those rights as we examine 20th-century genocides.