Friday, October 6, 2017

Weekly Update - 10/6

Greetings Team Equinox Families:


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We hope the start of the year is treating you well! Here’s what your child has been up to this week on Team Equinox~


  • Survey - Thanks to those of you who have responded. If you haven’t yet, we’re asking parents to fill out this survey to tell us a little bit about you and your child. This survey should take no more than 10 minutes.


Science:
In science, we have finished our station work! I’m sure your student is happy to hear that. At this point, if your student has not finished their stations, I am asking that they come to lunch or after school to finish it up. The same is true for students who have not yet completed their “work” assessment- see PowerSchool. Next on the docket, we have started our Simple Machine Project.  Students have a choice of a bunch of mini-projects (worth a variety of points).  They can choose between writing a creative story, constructing a Rube-Goldberg Machine, writing a song/poem, creating a notebook sheet/poster, or a student led project. The combined value must be 100 points or higher and will count for ½ of the final assessment for our simple machines unit. Depending on our progress, we may finish the week with a traditional assessment or start Newton’s First Law.      


Humanities:
In social studies, students have been looking at the conditions that led up to the American Revolution, including British taxes and acts, the idea of “taxation without representation”, the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party, and revolutionary propaganda.  Students will be creating their own propaganda posters to convince their viewer to support their Patriot or Loyalist cause.


Homework: Hand in “Revolutionary Reporter” assignment (news report of either the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party)


In language arts, we have continued our trip into the surprising world of The Giver. Students have been continuing their note-taking practice, and we have been exploring how to determine meanings of new words in the text. We also compared the world of The Giver with that of Milton, Vermont in a Venn diagram. For our grammar practice, we focused on appositive (TMI) commas and coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS) commas. Next week will be Mr. Moore’s last week before going out on paternity leave until January 3. We have had a visit from the long term sub, and we hope to have her back this week to make this transition as smooth as possible.


Homework: Independent reading for 30 minutes (for 5 of 7 days per week).

Math:
Grade 7: Students continued to analyze tables and graphs and continued to practice writing algebraic equations to represent the proportional situation.  Next week students will take an assessment to check in on their understanding of proportional relationships.


Use the link to parent tips if you want to see examples of what we are currently working on and what you can do to help.


Grade 8: Students continued to explore linear equations in algebra.  Students worked to determine if an equation has one solution, no solution or infinite solutions. Students also reviewed the rules of operations with positive and negative numbers. Next week they will continue to work on solving equations in the context of word problems and will move on to equations with two variables (x and y).


Use the link to parent tips if you want to see other examples of what we are currently working on and what you can do to help.



Team Equinox

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