TOPS 8th grade weekly preview
Hieger, Shannon
Dear families,
Attached is a short list of academic programs for families looking for afterschool and summer offerings. Many have lost their summer programming due to COVID19, but the organizations are still around. This list shows programs that have obvious summer offerings (in highlighter yellow) but also contact information to explore further if there are any unadvertised offerings.
For your calendars: Passage Ceremony, live-stream webinar at 7:00PM, Wednesday, June 16.
For the last week of school, because we are a K-8, we do not have the additional in-person requirements that other secondary schools do. Our schedules will remain the same with the exception of the last day, Friday June 18th; the afternoon classes (in person and remote) will end at 1:30. Students attending in person that day should bring all SPS issued technology items to check-in. There will be additional tech return times communicated by Ms. Schwentor for students not attending in person that day.
And a note from Mr. Nick Schirmer: Hey TOPS Families, it’s time to return all your books to the library! I have officially stopped checkout for this year and am starting to collect books. If you have materials from the TOPS library, please return them as soon as possible. I will be sending out notices next week. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Thanks so much for a great year in the library!
Humanities:
We conclude our reading of Stamped next week, with topics covering up through modern times including hip-hop, “color-blindness”, Hurricane Katrina, and Black Lives Matter. Students will complete and submit their cooperative group timelines and reader’s response notebooks. Social Studies sees us through the end of the Civil War including Lincoln’s assassination, the effects of the war, and Reconstruction. Due dates:
Monday, June 7: Research module 4 or 5 uploaded to Schoology
Tuesday: work on missing or incomplete work, review notes for next week’s Civil War test
Wednesday: Civil War map and timeline uploaded to Schoology
Thursday: Anti-racist timeline submitted
Friday: Stamped reader’s notebook (2nd half of book) submitted
Math:
This week in math:
- We are spending the remaining long days this week and next week reviewing the most important material from this year. We spent Tuesday looking at solving equations and Friday on slope intercept form/linear equations.
- On Wednesday, we discussed an article about math anxiety and adults saying that they themselves are bad at math (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/04/25/stop-telling-kids-youre-bad-at-math-you-are-spreading-math-anxiety-like-a-virus/). It’s a short read and might change how you speak around your kiddos.
Coming up:
- Next week we will look at exponent rules and factoring quadratics.
- We will end the year with a fun movie. I think we will probably watch Stand and Deliver.
Due Sunday
- Students do not have any more graded work for the rest of the year. If they want to improve their grade, they may turn in late/missing work or redo assignments they did poorly on.
- Optional Quiz Corrections are available on Schoology for the unit 6 quiz. Students may go back and look at the problems they missed and correct them for partial credit back.
Science:
This Week: We finished Phylum Annelida (took a Quizlet) and started Phylum Arthropoda
Next Week: Finishing Phylum Arthropoda (taking a Quizlet) and starting Phylum Mollusca
In partnership,
Shannon Hieger shhi...@seattleschools.org
Bo Cao by...@seattleschools.org
Dan Bloedel dmbl...@seattleschools.org
Hieger, Shannon
Dear families,
We’ve almost made it and are looking forward to celebrating your students at Passage next Wednesday at 7:00PM, Zoom link invitation coming from Ms. Schwentor soon.
Looking for ways to keep them sharp over the summer? For ELA, have them read, read, read. Suggested summer reading books attached. For Math see below:
- Math In Practice – Math For A Month Calendar, by grade level, quick daily activities that a family member/student can do together. You can download them from the website (scroll down the page) and change the title to math over summer and make it a “bingo” card activity. https://www.heinemann.com/mathinpractice/covid19-resources.aspx
- Math Learning Center – Math At Home is continuing to put up a few instructional routine problems each week. There are also the printable practice page workbooks. https://mathathome.mathlearningcenter.org/
- Bedtime Math Books – you can print a few examples from the site, and they’re pretty good/interesting problem solving stories with nicely leveled questions. https://bedtimemath.org/what-we-do/books/
- Greg Tang Summer Math Challenge: You can print gameboards, but does require some online access for students. https://gregtangmath.com/summer#gameboard
- SPS Summer Learning Page – will have activities/lessons posted for those with online access in July
- Lesly University - this page is by grade level with lots of good books, printable games, etc. Check the end of the document for some good resources that are multi grade level or grade level agnostic. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YhpyimLwtjGENVskHLeL_X947D5O1KVag1SZjz7gXos/edit?fbclid=IwAR1a8ib9goAni1IRB4E-s4gHTL5zMUooSoj-uXXWGLqTZlDpsI3i3ZklYFU#
- OSPI Math At Home Newsletter – Summer Edition w/ summer math calendar, PDF link here
Humanities:
The final ELA unit of the year is Family Life and Sexual Health. Lesson topics next week are Reproduction and Pregnancy, HIV and other STDs, Birth Control, and Affirmative Consent.
Social Studies wraps up with our Civil War ‘final’ on Tuesday, to emulate the experience of a high school final. We will also spend time preparing for Passage, appreciating the school’s Drama productions, and final Social Emotional Learning activities.
Math:
This week in math:
- We reviewed Factoring Quadratics on Tuesday and Exponent rules on Friday.
- On Wednesday, we watched a portion of the Bob Emergency video that we started a few weeks ago. It has great usage of data and charts to tell a story about how we are running out of Bobs in professional sports.
Coming up:
- Part 2 of the Bob Emergency Video
- The final two days of school we will watch Stand and Deliver (1988). It’s a PG rated movie that follows a new math teacher at a LA High School called Garfield. A classic!
Due Sunday (6/13)
- Students do not have any more graded work for the rest of the year. If they want to improve their grade, they may turn in late/missing work or redo assignments they did poorly on.
- If students have any missing or late work, it must be turned in before Sunday is over. They will get a final chance to check their grades on the source next week before I finalize grades.
Science:
Email Mr. Bloedel with any questions.
Warmly,