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07 Oct 2022
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October in the 8th Grade

Humanities

This month in ELA, students are hard at work on their personal essays. They have studied model texts from expert professional writers as well as student writers, and they are now putting their learning to practice in their own stories. A reminder that students can use these essays in their applications to private schools. They follow the ISAAGNY prompts exactly!

In Social Studies, students are learning about the geography, agriculture, and economy of the antebellum United States. As part of this, we learned about the history of cotton and indigo in the New World, a commodity that was fostered with the labor and knowledge brought over by enslaved Africans. As part of this project, students did natural indigo dyeing on cotton. See their beautiful products below!

Judaics

It’s been a wonderful start to the year with the 8th graders! To prepare for Yom Kippur, we learned a strange aggada (story from the Talmud) about a man who encounters Satan just before the fast starts on Erev Yom Kippur. Students were surprised to hear that “Satan” in rabbinic Judaism is not a red devil with horns and a pitchfork. Satan is a “stumbling block” – it’s the person or thing that brings out the worst in you and makes you look at the qualities in yourself you dislike. We discussed what was the “satan” in our own lives, and also had a lot of fun making videos and puppet shows to tell the story.
In Tanach, we explored the story of the spies’ visit to scout out the land of Canaan. They leave as proud leaders of the 12 tribes, and 10 of them return feeling small and weak in contrast to the nations they encountered in Canaan: “we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves and so we must have appeared to them.” This opened up wonderful conversations about comparing yourself to other people, and how terrible and insecure that can make you feel.
Looking forward to more learning and deep sharing with your amazing kids!
Chag Sukkot sameach,
Jessica

Science

Science started strong with the discovery of what is an atom. Students created 3D models using beads and pipe cleaners. They needed to correctly position the three basic particles within an atom, namely the electron, proton, and neutron. This first interactive activity allowed students to visually see these particles and start to understand the structure of an atom. We also used our interactive software from “Explore Learning” in order to further discover these particle interactions within atoms. Science continued with its exploration of atoms and the periodic table. We conducted an activity that required students to complete a Periodic Table puzzle. This allowed students to understand how this table is organized with protons and electrons. Students then were assigned different elements in order to make a brochure about the properties of their elements. We also played a fun atomic bingo activity in class in order to discover how elements are arranged on the periodic table. This allowed students to notice the difference between the element name and its symbol. In the following weeks, we will apply our knowledge about atoms to the concept of molecules. We cannot wait to have our first chemistry experiment. Hint, it will involve beakers, bubbles, and enjoyable learning.

Mike Noll

Math

The 8th grade has been hard at work exploring the first module of their textbook: Ratios and Linearity. Not only have they learned how to write numbers in scientific notation and make calculations using that format, but they’ve also learned about the purpose of writing numbers using scientific notation- including the history of scientific notation through an activity about the Greek mathematician Archimedes!  Recently, we’ve delved into exponent properties and, in the coming weeks, they will expand this knowledge to perfect squares and cubes, the Pythagorean Theorem, and Irrational Numbers.
Shana

Hebrew with Tamar

Over the past weeks in Hebrew we have been using our Back to School booklet to review and refresh our usage of previous vocabulary. We are using verbs in the past tense as well as verb names, to form grammatically correct sentences that describe things we did over our summer break. Large part of our classroom practice is strengthening conversation skills; Using verbs that describe summer activities, we had a discussion on whether summer break should be shortened or not. Students wrote down their thoughts and practiced saying their ideas on this topic. We are  now practicing the impersonal way to describe things you can do or cannot do over vacation and during school time.

Hebrew with Tomer

The 8th graders are getting to be fully immersed in Hebrew. The class is committed to speak only in Hebrew. One living proof and a way to do so is to create different activities that require the students to speak only in Hebrew, such as the Newsdesk that we conduct every week where the students collect news, create videos, and speak their views, all in Hebrew. 

 

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