WEEKLY BULLETIN: GRADE 8 LEARNING SUPPORT

DECEMBER 2, 2011
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL MANILA

This Week in Grade 8

ENGLISH This week found the students working on Task #3 - a 4 or 5 paragraph essay (depending on the class) analyzing a poem; identifying the meaning, poetic devices used by the poet and their impact on meaning. They have been working through the writing process at each stage. Next week, leading up to vacation, students will complete Task #1 - a Poetic Scrapbook (a bit like a portfolio of the Poetry unit). Most of the work for their scrapbooks has already been completed with a few additional assignments that will be focused on in the coming 2 weeks. SOCIAL STUDIES The performance task on Transformations has been and will continue to be the focus
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER: December 5-9: Spirit Week December 9 - Sports Day December 15 - 1/2 Day

over the next few weeks. Students have been researching, creating notecards, and practicing paraphrasing skills in order to gather information on their Middle East country and revolutions. Working in groups, students will organize their information into a presentation explaining the different stages of revolution that their group/country is involved in, how it connects to other historical revolutions, and how it is transformational for their country. SCIENCE The Pendulum performance task for the Work and Energy unit is in full swing right now. Students are in the process of completing their pendulum experiments

and writing their full lab reports showing their results. Their experiment design and data tables/ projected graphs will be due next week and the week before holiday break, respectively. MATH Today the students are nishing the Math geometry unit. Next week will begin a unit on Statistics as well as continued work on Basic Skills to prepare them for their Basic Skills Assessment #2 on December 12 or 13 (depending on class block).

UPCOMING ASSESSMENTS & DUE DATES: Science: Pendulum Lab due dates: Dec. 7/8 & Dec. 13/14 Math: Basic Skills Assessment #2 - Dec. 12 or 13

IMPORTANT WEBSITES USED IN CORE CLASSES: Google Docs brainpop.com Noodle tools - research skills & notecards

Strategy Instruction Class

Skill & Strategy Areas of Focus: Vocabulary Development: - Developing strategies to help determine meaning of new vocabulary & expanding students vocabulary base - Using context clues - Categorizing/Classifying - Understanding words with Multiple Meanings - Prex & Sufx meanings using these to help determine word meaning - Root Words/Base words - for meaning The Writing Process: - Using editing checklists - Brainstorming - using templates or Inspiration to organize prior to writing - Identifying & Generating Topic Sentences, Compound Sentences (FANBOYS) - ordering paragraphs: placing sentence strips into proper paragraph order Research Strategies: - using templates to organize information - Noodle tools online - Paraphrasing skill practice Study Skills: - Note-taking strategies: we are using the Cornell method which is the 2 column notes method (main ideas on left side; supporting details on right) Time Management: - chunking long term/ large assignments into smaller due dates
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