KCJH NEWS

January 2014
KCJH Choir
Five students from our sixth grade choir traveled to Dodge City this last Saturday to rehearse and perform with one hundred and seventy-five 6th graders from all over Kansas. Congratulations go out to Ashlind Gumpenberger, Laney Phillips, Laura Oberley, Kellie Rhodes and Katie Ward on a great performance! The 7-8th choir are preparing for contest and singing valentines. They will deliver singing valentines February 14th. Ask a choir student for more details. Happy Valentines Day! Singing valentines are seven dollars each. Please ask about them! The WWII play chronicles the German-Jewish Frank family and others when they hid from the Nazis in the Netherlands. Cause and effect of historical events was the major literary element studied, along with dialogue. After writing an autobiographical essay, both English classes started on grammar. The 7th graders started revisiting and learning more about prepositions. In their next unit, they get to practice writing a short story Adjectives and adverbs are being studied in 8th autobiographical writing unit, also. After the grammar, we will turn back to composition with a short story unit. Accelerated Reading continues to be a requirement for both grades Reading grade. Ten points are required every 9 weeks. The students were given a week to consider what they wanted their cause to be and she titled this joint project The Stand Project. The following Friday at the Impact meeting, students were given a sign that read I stand and they were to fill in the blank. Each student made their sign and the group then went upstairs to the mezzanine in the varsity gym and displayed them for our community to see. I was proud to see our kids take the project seriously. And I really think many of them gave some thought to what they wrote down, said Mrs. Headrick. There was a little disagreement over whether or not students should have to put their names on their project sign; however, after some discussion in class and through email, most of the students who took part in the conversation felt like if they were going to say they stood for something, they should be brave enough to own it by putting their name on the sign.

Reading/Language Arts

In Reading for both classes, we have been studying drama- its elements and types. Seventh grade just finished reading The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, by Rod Serling. This science fiction play let the students learn about characters motives and what important details are. The 8th grade is in the middle of the play The Diary of Anne Frank, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett.

The Stand Project

Lillian Hinshaw, KCHS Senior, visited our Impact meeting on Friday, January 24 with a challenge to the student leadership group. Earlier that week, we had celebrated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., and she was inspired by his stand for civil rights Lillians parents, Donnie and during his life. She challenged the Rhonda, joined us for the project group to find their cause. To find as well as the superintendent from something they could take a stand for Haviland, Glen Davis. or against. And she challenged them to write them down.
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KCJH NEWS
Social Studies
In seventh grade, we have been learning about Kansas History. We will be doing a complete semester this year for it. Our first unit focused on the physiographic nature of Kansas. Students examined the diversity of geography Kansas has to offer. One assignment featured a physiographic region map. As we move into February, students will work from the text through the chronological history of Kansas. The class uses the new and improved Kansas Journey, textbook. The class is currently studying Kansas native tribes and their interactions with early explorers such as Coronado. With the movement toward common core curriculum, students will engage in a more diverse way of looking at history. Students will be encouraged to do more writing this semester as part of the literacy of common core. In eighth grade, students are learning about the first industrial revolution. They have been focusing on the beginning of the industrialization of America. Important people such as Samuel Slater, Eli Whitney and Robert Fulton have been covered. Students were introduced to the textile industry and how it worked in the early 1800s. As part of the unit, students will be doing an interview project in which they pick a famous inventor and learn about them. They will then go before the class and will be interviewed by the instructor. Following the industrialization unit, students will examine the expansion of the West. The seventh grade classified certain living this in their most basic groups. Both biotic and abiotic things were found in a variety of ecosystems. Students then learned about terms such as: omnivore, herbivore and carnivore. In addition, the seventh grade identified living things as producers and consumers. They examined the role of adaptation on environments as well. The big project for the ecology unit was a food web collage in which students listed various living things from a certain ecosystem and provided detailed information about that ecosystem. The eighth graders have been studying environmental sciences. They examined the basic cycles of earth such as: water, nitrogen and carbon. They did several activities that were web research based in which they looked at the Greenhouse Theory. They did an in depth study of the Chernobyl disaster as an environmental issue. The eighth grade also made three dimensional water cycle projects as a hands on learning tool. As we move into spring, the eighth grade will look at animals and plants as biological sciences.

Sciences
In science, the seventh grade has been learning about ecology. Students examined different levels of ecosystems from the biosphere down through the most specific ecosystems. Students learned various terms which effect the life cycles of organisms in their environments.

KCJH I Stand!

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KIOWA COUNTY JUNIOR HIGH

JANUARY NEWS
7th Grade Math
In the month of January, seventh grade math students finished discussing and working through many different types of problems containing ratios and proportions. Students have become familiar with many different ways to use proportions from scale models and scale drawings to indirect measurement using shadows. Sometime when the weather turns a little warmer and we have a little more sun, we will try to go outside and use what we learned to indirectly measure some items around the school grounds. Students have now begun working with percents and have quickly learned that they can use proportions when working with many types of percent problems. While working with percents we also take some time to talk about using estimating strategies to help us solve problems and also to check to make sure answers make sense. There was some good classroom discussion about how to be a smart consumer and to always have an idea of how much one might pay for an item before purchasing it. When students wrap up this chapter as January end, our focus will shift to collecting, displaying and analyzing data.

KNOWLEDGE

Discovering something new so you can be better at whatever you are doing!

8th Grade Math

Geometry has become the main focus for the eighth graders. By the end of January we will have wrapped up the chapter on the basics of geometry. Students learned to use correct notation when identifying geometric figures. They also worked with congruence statements and identified missing side lengths and angle measurement in geometric figures. For February, we will stick with geometry and review how to find perimeter and area of different twodimensional shapes. However, students will quickly switch to finding volume and surface area of different three-dimensional figures. Students will be learning about how to use different formulas for different shapes. It is a goal that students will not only know the formula but also understand the formula and why it works.

New Teacher! This semester the 7th and 8th graders have a student teacher. His name is Kaelin Shuck. He is from Hugoton, Kansas. He is currently attending Barclay College in Haviland. His plan is to teach either elementary or middle school. Mr. Shuck is doing a great job. He is under the supervision of Kirk Miller in the science and social studies area.

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