Core Subjects

The English 7 course uses the StudySync Grade 7 Curriculum. Each of the four units (Conflicts and Clashes, Highs and Lows, Chasing the Impossible, Moment of Truth) include lesson sequences and materials structured to meet the Common Core State Standards in meaningful ways and to provide flexibility for a range of learners. Formative assessments in each unit are designed to measure student progress towards mastering focus indicators for the processes and content of English. StudySync is a comprehensive English Language Arts curriculum that is designed for all 21st century learners. StudySync combines print books with a digital platform for reading and writing. Students will have their own online digital binder where they will receive their assignments, store their writing, and receive teacher and peer reviews.

The English for Emergent Multilingual courses use a version of the StudySync Grade 7 Curriculum that is slightly modified for students who are learning English. Each of the six units (Conflicts and Clashes, Highs and Lows, Chasing the Impossible, Moment of Truth, Test of Time, and The Power of One) include lesson sequences and materials structured to meet the Common Core State Standards in meaningful ways and to provide flexibility for a range of learners. Formative assessments in each unit are designed to measure student progress towards mastering focus indicators for the processes and content of English. StudySync is a comprehensive English Language Arts curriculum that is designed for all 21st century learners. StudySync combines print books with a digital platform for reading and writing. Students will have their own online digital binder where they will receive their assignments, store their writing, and receive teacher and peer reviews. Student will be scheduled in to one of two classes based on their language needs.

English 7 for ELs 1 & 2

Double period class that focuses on StudySync 7th grade curriculum coupled with English Language development in order to meet the Common Core State Standards. .

English 7 for ELs 3

Single period class that uses the StudySync 7th grade curriculum and language supports in order to meet the Common Core State Standards.

The daily physical education program offers a comprehensive and well-balanced series of instructional activities. At each grade level there are six focus areas: Exercise Physiology, Biomechanics, Personal and Social Responsibility, Fitness, Physical Activity and Motor Learning. The six focus areas are taught throughout the year through the following units: net games, invasion games, striking activities, conditioning and physical fitness, and dance. Individual and team game tactics as well as fundamental skills are taught throughout the units. Each student is expected to change into approved P.E. attire, i.e., shorts, t-shirts, sweats/warm-ups, and proper shoes. Students are assigned a locker with a lock for their clothes.

Comprehensive health education is taught for a term of 9-weeks during Grade 7. Knowledge, concepts, skills, and strategies essential to making healthful decisions are presented promoting lifelong health and well-being. Certified Health Education teachers implement a variety of learning activities to promote and practice wellness skills and health literacy. The development of lifelong positive health-related attitudes and behaviors are emphasized to promote self-reliance and self-regulation. Skills include accessing information, decision-making, goal setting, communication skills, analyzing influences, and advocacy.

Key Concepts

• Mental and emotional health – self-esteem; conflict resolution skills; mental illness; self-injury; depression and suicide prevention.

• Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs - alcohol; inhalants; other drugs and drug trends.

• Personal and consumer health - risk factors for non-communicable diseases; risk factors for communicable diseases; protective factors.

• Family life and human sexuality - family; components of health relationships; personal health care; condom use; tolerance for sexual orientation, reproductive systems

• Disease prevention and control - accessing information about sexually transmitted infections; accessing information about HIV/AIDS; analyzing influences about communicable diseases; goal setting to prevent communicable diseases.

Parents of grade seven students will receive information about the two opt-out units of Disease Prevention and Control and Family Life and Human Sexuality at the beginning of the school year through an evening meeting. Parents wishing to opt their child out of these units may check “No” on the permission form sent out during the first week of school. If no permission form is returned, the student will receive this instruction. Students opted out will receive an alternate independent study unit to be completed in an alternate location.

The NGSS aligned Investigations in Life course provides opportunities for students to engage in science and engineering practices and apply crosscutting concepts to deepen their understanding of core ideas across science disciplines. The curriculum is phenomena-based; instruction is woven around a relevant anchoring phenomenon/project that drives student learning. Students apply their understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to propose solutions to problems. Instruction provides opportunities for hands-on explorations, productive discourse, and purposeful reading and writing. The course engages students in learning around cellular structures and processes, matter and energy flow in organisms, inheritance and variation of traits, ecology, and biological evolution.

Through the study of world civilizations and global interactions from 1000 CE to 1450 CE, students learn about political, cultural, geographic and economic systems today and in the past. They study the rise of empires and nation-states in Europe, Africa, and Latin America and the impacts of their interactions still felt today. Building on historical thinking skills learned in Grade 6, students continue to engage in sourcing, close reading, corroboration, investigation, contextualization, and historical interpretation as they examine primary and secondary sources.

This course is built around the core Grade 7 social studies curriculum, Historical Inquiry in World Studies 7, that includes historical content from civilizations of Latin America, Africa, and medieval Europe as well as global interactions following Columbian Exchange. Cohort students will go beyond this core as they learn additional content, explore deeper connections to today, engage in investigative inquiry to strengthen their writing through Document Based Questions, and enhance their learning through relevant literature connections. They will also participate in the National History Day (NHD) competition to research historical topics related to a NHD annual theme. Students will be enrolled in this course based on teacher recommendation and/or assessment data.

As in Math 6, students start Math 7 by studying scale drawings, an engaging geometric topic that supports the subsequent work on proportional relationships in the second and fourth units. It also makes use of Math 6 arithmetic understanding and skill, without arithmetic becoming the major focus of attention at this point. Geometry and proportional relationships are also interwoven in the third unit on circles, where the important proportional relationship between a circle's circumference and its diameter is studied. By the time students reach the fifth unit on operations with rational numbers, both positive and negative, students have had time to brush up on and solidify their understanding and skill in Math 6 arithmetic. The work on operations on rational numbers, with its emphasis on the role of the properties of operations in determining the rules for operating with negative numbers, is a natural lead-in to the work on expressions and equations in the next unit. Students then put their arithmetical and algebraic skills to work in the last two units, on angles, triangles, and prisms, and on probability and sampling.

This advanced course follows AMP 6+ by including the remaining grade 7 standards and all grade 8 standards. In this course. students will study of rigid transformations and congruence, scale drawings, similarity, and slope. Students will build upon their understanding of expressions and equations by learning how to represent relationships in different algebraic forms, writing equivalent expressions, solving one variable equations and inequalities, and begin the study of linear relationships. Students will also explore topics related to functions, volume, exponents and scientific notation, the Pythagorean Theorem, and irrational numbers.

Illustrative Mathematics Algebra 1 is designed to analyze and model real-world phenomena. Exploration of linear, exponential, and quadratic functions forms the foundation of the course. Key characteristics and representations of functions – graphic, numeric, symbolic, and verbal – are analyzed and compared. Students develop fluency in solving equations and inequalities. One- and two-variable data sets are interpreted using mathematical models.