8th Grade Newsletter

Homeroom Update:

Thank you for all the wonderful Thanksgiving wishes. I hope your Thanksgiving season was full of gratitude, family time, and a chance to slow down and enjoy all the blessings that can be easily taken for granted. As we return back to school, we are celebrating a new liturgical year within our Church, observing a new liturgical season (Advent), as we are patiently waiting for the joyful celebration of Christmas!

During this busy holiday season, please be sure to check with your preferred High School web pages for up-to-date application information. Keep in mind that if a Catholic High School education is a priority for your kiddo, we strongly recommend you apply to two or more Catholic High Schools.  

We also want to reinforce the importance of monitoring PowerSchool as we are starting our second trimester, for both the students and for you as their parents. Missing work should be a rarity at this point in the year, and needs to be made up in a quick, timely manner moving forward. This practice of staying on top of our classwork will help set clear, age appropriate expectations as we head towards high school on the very near horizon! Thank you for your support of these efforts in advance.

Important Upcoming Dates:

12/2: noon dismissal (Staff Development)

12/4: Breakfast with Santa

Come help support our school at this fun, St. Leander tradition!

12/9: 7th/8th grade dance!

12/12: Our Lady of Guadalupe mass 

12/13: PTG meeting

12/15: Christmas Program @ 7pm in the Church

12/16: Disaster Drill/ Dismissal @10:30am

*All students must be picked up by an adult listed on their Emergency Form!

12/17 - 1/3: Christmas Break

1/4: first day back

1/7: High School Placement Test

(administered at the High School location that you signed up for; please triple check that you are signed up before we break for Christmas!) 

Social Studies & Religion:

In our Social Studies class, our 8th graders are digging deeply into the importance of the Revolutionary War and how our young nation set up our representative government. They are participating in creating domino tiles displayed in our room to illustrate the “domino effect” of events leading up to the American Revolution.This time period in history is always a passion of mine to teach, so it’s wonderful to hear our 8th grader perspectives on the events that shaped our emerging nation and national legacies! We are well on our way to seeing what struggles and successes came from the Articles of Confederation, the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the early years of the ideas around the role  of the  “Presidency”. 

 In Religion class, 8th grade has been preparing for our upcoming Christmas Nativity Play. Our performance will be on Thursday, 12/15 in our Church. All 8th graders will be asked to arrive extra early (exact times will be sent home soon) so we can get into our costumes and prepare for the big show! Participation in the play is a time honored tradition here at St. Leander school for 8th grade students; I am proud of their progress, and look forward to their performance! Please double check with your student to make sure they have everything they need in preparation for the play. I’d strongly encourage you to also get their advice on where to sit in our Church to ensure the best view of their specific roles :)

Math & Science:

For Math, 8th grade students have just finished  reviewing basic algebraic concepts like the distributive property and solving basic equations. This month, we will now move on to newer and more advanced concepts regarding “Non Proportional Relationships”. This chapter focuses on converting data to graphs, a crucial skill for the upcoming science fair, using the formula (y= mx+b) finding the Slope( m) the y- intercept (b) and what each variable represents. We have also begun practice exams for the high school entrance exam and will continue to review these problems in preparation for the January exam.

For Science, 8th grade students have begun working on their science fair project while simultaneously reviewing the basics of the scientific method in order to correctly execute a controlled experiment and use the appropriate terminology when writing their abstract. In December, while still working on their project, we will review previous physics concepts and move on to learn the periodic table of elements, atomic structure, and the basics of chemistry.

ELA:

In Literature, 8th graders are continuing their novel study for S.E. Hinton’s That Was Then, This is Now.  Students have just completed their first summative writing assignment for the novel, and will continue working on vocabulary, comprehension, and discussions related to the novel. For ELA, students have begun reviewing for the HSPT with my primary focus being on  prefixes, suffixes, and roots  to help them with the Language Arts section of the test.  We have also begun to work on timed mock HSPT tests, as well as taking notes on test taking strategies.