Dear Parent/Guardian,
Greenville County middle schools will be using a student-centered blended mathematics curriculum for the 2025-2026 school year. GCS has partnered with McGraw Hill for a task-based math program and software to fully implement both South Carolina College and Career Ready Math content and process standards.
McGraw Hill offers blended math (consumable text and Aleks software) offers the most successful math program in the nation: they have researched how students think, learn, and apply new knowledge in math, and then crafted materials that play to each student’s learning needs. By constantly developing new ways for students to learn, McGraw Hill ensures that students achieve greater success and improved math scores.
The textbook your child will receive is theirs to keep. There is space for writing, sketching, drawing, cutting, pasting, and constructing new mathematical ideas. Students may want to highlight key terms, take notes in the margins, or even doodle on the cover. They can make it their own!
Throughout the lessons, students will build new knowledge based on their prior knowledge. They will apply math to real-world situations so that they can see why it’s meaningful. If students need additional practice, they can find it in Aleks Software, the Assignment Pages or the Skills Practice pages available in your child’s portal and Student Backpack.
Today’s workplace demands teamwork and self-confidence. McGraw Hill designed the Math Series to help students to make the most of their math courses. In the classroom, students will be encouraged to work together in pairs or in groups because it gets students talking about their insights. Everyone will share his or her ideas and thoughts in class - Learning by Doing® and mathematical discourse/accountable talk.
You may find this new textbook to be different from what you are used to, but it’s for all the good reasons described above. McGraw HIll knows you want to help your child be successful in math class, and supports and encourages involvement in your child’s learning.
Tips for a successful year:
Make sure your child is at school every day. Class discussions and opportunities to explore problems with classmates cannot be reproduced.
Help your child find a place and time for homework. Stick with this routine every day. The homework may be the lesson-specific from the student text (Assignment Page), Skills Practice, and/or software practice on Aleks
When assisting with homework:
Help your child make sense of the problem by asking them questions (find out what they know about the problem and what they are trying to figure out). o
Encourage your child to use problem-solving strategies (draw a picture, act it out, work backward, guess and check, use simple numbers at first, etc.)
If you have classroom-specific questions, please contact your child’s teacher.
Math 8 Syllabus - Northwood Middle School
Room: 807
Phone: 355 - 7022
Email Address: jaramsey@greenville.k12.sc.us
McGraw HIll
Aleks student software
8th Grade Year-At-A-Glance
Unit 2: Congruence and Similarity
Suggested Pacing: 23 Days
Essential Question
What does it mean for two objects to be congruent or similar?
Encourage students to share their initial responses to the Essential Question. Because students have not yet been formally introduced to congruency or similarity, they may not have much to share. Then revisit the question throughout the unit, and ask students to expand on or revise their initial responses.
What Students Are Learning
Describe the characteristics of translations, reflections, rotations, and dilations.
Translate, reflect, rotate, and dilate figures.
Describe a sequence of transformations that map one figure (a preimage) onto another (the image).
Explain why two figures are congruent using rigid motions.
Determine whether a pair of triangles is similar by using Angle-Angle Similarity.
Find distances or lengths that are difficult to measure directly by using properties of similar triangles.
Unit 3: Linear Relationships and Equations
Suggested Pacing: 20 days
Essential Question
How are linear relationships related to proportional relationships?
Encourage students to share their initial responses to the Essential Question. Because students have not yet been formally introduced to linear relationships, they may not have much to share. Then revisit the question throughout the unit, and ask students to expand on or revise their initial responses.
What Students Are Learning
graph a proportional relationship and describe the slope as the constant of Proportionality.
compare two different proportional relationships by comparing the slopes.
explain why the hypotenuses of similar triangles have equal slopes.
derive the equations y = mx for a line through the origin and y = mx + b for a line intercepting the y-axis at b.
solve linear equations with variables on both sides.
determine the number of solutions to linear equations.
Unit 4: Understand & Analyze Functions
Suggested Pacing: 20 days
Essential Question
How do you use functions to model relationships?
Encourage students to share their initial responses to the Essential Question. Because students have not yet been formally introduced to functions, they may not have much to share. Then revisit the question throughout the unit, and ask students to expand on or revise their initial responses.
What Students Are Learning
Identify and use qualitative features of relationships.
Determine if a relation is a function by using a table or mapping diagram.
Represent functions in different forms and determine if a function is linear or nonlinear from multiple representations.
Analyze functions to interpret their rate of change and initial values.
Compare functions represented in different forms.
Topic 5: Patterns of Association
Suggested Pacing: 18 days
Essential Question
What kinds of patterns can be found in data?
Encourage students to share their initial responses to the Essential Question. Because students have not yet been formally introduced to bivariate data, they may not have much to share. Then revisit the question throughout the unit and ask students to expand on or revise their initial responses.
What Students Are Learning
• represent bivariate data on a scatter plot.
• investigate and interpret patterns in bivariate data
Unit 6: Angles, Triangles, and the Pythagorean Theorem
Suggested Pacing: 20 Days
Essential Question
How can angle relationships and right triangles be used to solve everyday problems?
Encourage students to share their initial responses to the Essential Question. Because students have not yet been formally introduced to right-triangle relationships, they may not have much to share. Then revisit the question throughout the unit, and ask students to expand on or revise their initial responses.
What Students Are Learning
Explore using relationships among angles formed when two parallel lines are crossed by a transversal.
Explore the relationships between the interior and exterior angles of a triangle.
Calculate and estimate square roots.
Apply the Pythagorean Theorem to determine the measures of the sides of a right triangle, to determine the length of a diagonal line on the coordinate plane, and in real-world applications.
Use the converse of the Pythagorean Theorem to analyze triangles.
Unit 7: Volume
Suggested Pacing: 17 Days
Essential Question
How can volume be used to solve real-world problems?
Encourage students to share their initial responses to the Essential Question. Students have experience in solving problems involving the volume of cubes and rectangular prisms and should have ideas to share. Then revisit the question throughout the unit, and ask students to expand on or revise their initial responses.
What Students Are Learning
Find the cube root of a value.
Find volumes of cylinders, cones, and spheres and use volumes to solve problems.
Use volume formulas to solve problems in a context.
Unit 9: Irrational Numbers, Exponents
Suggested Pacing: 26 Days
Essential Question
Why are the properties of numbers important?
Encourage students to share their initial responses to the Essential Question. Students know some properties of numbers but will learn more throughout this unit. Then revisit the question throughout the unit, and ask students to expand on or revise their initial responses.
What Students Are Learning
Explore converting rational numbers into repeating decimals.
Use a number line to locate, compare, and order rational and irrational numbers.
Generate equivalent expressions using zero and negative exponents and properties of powers.
Notebook with loose-leaf paper
Textbook
Chromebook
Pencils (at least two)
Calculator
Graph paper
Assignments that are not handed in on the assigned due date will be coded as NHI in the gradebook and can be turned in for up to 5 school days. After the 5th school day, assignments will no longer be accepted.