DATA 8th Grade Newsletter

ELAR

"I'm never nice. Want a Coke?" 

- Dallas "Dally" Winston 

(greaser character in The Outsiders)

Reading and study of The Outsiders continues this week.  Students are making annotations through a Thought Log posted in Google Classroom.  If students are absent on a day we're reading in class, chapters will be temporarily posted in Google Classroom, and students are expected to keep up with reading in addition to filling in the Thought Log on their own time - this can be accomplished at home or during tutoring hours.

-Mrs. Burciaga

Tutoring

Tuesday after school, 3:45 - 4:15

Thursday before school, 7:45 - 8:15

Lunch tutoring is available upon request

Questions or concerns?  Feel free to email me:  jburci@neisd.net

MATH

“One of the pleasures of looking at the world through mathematical eyes is that you can see certain patterns that would otherwise be hidden.” 

- Steven Strogatz

As we near the end of the semester (yikes!), I've shared with my students that we've been handed a challenging medical situation to deal with. I'm encouraging them to work hard to keep up, and we've got a great team planning for any time I might be out of class. Please encourage your student to take advantage of class time allotted to completing problem assignments, so we can make sure we are all able to successfully complete the semester.

Algebra 1: We've laid a foundation for our Unit 4 topic, and students are getting increasingly confident is the "method of substitution". We're adding "elimination of variables" as a second tool, and will round out the semester with linear systems in context, i.e. word problems. Ahead lie the Unit 4 test, and their first high school Semester Exam. It will all be in the past before you know it!

Geometry: Students in Geometry have been studying triangle congruence criteria, and using them as a universe in which to develop the ideas and skills of logic and proof. We'll be wrapping this piece up this week, so we can start into Unit 5 on Similarity and issues of scale. The proofs are a struggle for many students, but a good number seem to have a strong aptitude in the area. There's plenty here to challenge everyone, and there's definitely some potential future lawyers and mathematicians in the house!

-Dr. Koepp

SCIENCE

EXPERIMENT. FAIL. LEARN. REPEAT. 

We will begin this week with a new unit, Force and Motion. In this unit students will explore the concepts of force and motion, learning how forces affect the movement of objects. We will investigate how forces like gravity and friction act on objects, causing them to start, stop, or change direction. Through experiments and activities, students will learn that force is a push or pull that can create motion and change an object’s speed, velocity, and acceleration. 

We will look at Newton's second law of motion and how an objects acceleration depends on the mass of the object as well as the Force applied. We will practice calculating force, mass, and acceleration. 

U.S. History through 1877

Mrs. Malin's Classes

Mr. Lovett's Classes

Principles of Architecture: 

Architecture students have begun the unit on home design. One of the main things they learned was the three areas of a home. Next week they will be making bubble diagrams for homes they plan to design. 

Digital Media 2:

Digital Media students went through one of those topics that are not a lot of fun to talk about this week. Hopefully, they have an appreciation of the many legal issues creators of digital media face. Next week, we will be finishing up our repetition projects and getting them ready to present to the class.