Week 4

September 25th - 29th

DC Fundraising

Please turn in completed cookie dough order forms to Ms. Knippen by Tuesday, October 3, 2017.

Checks payable to Bayside Middle School. Pick up will be Thursday, October 12, 2017, from 2:45-5:30 in cafeteria.

Math

Ms. Knippen

jknippen@foxbay.org

Hours 1 and 8 - Mathcounts worksheets will be due on Mondays. Mathcounts is a problem solving competition sponsored by the Society of Professional Engineers. In February, 8 students will participate in the Milwaukee area competition.

We will be finishing our Ch. 1 work on graphing functions.

Hours 3 and 7 - We will work on the second half of Ch. 1 - solving multiple step equations with variables on both sides of the equation. And then we will rewrite formulas for a given variable.

Science

Ms. Waller

twaller@foxbay.org

This class continues to impress. During lab work they have been remarkably focused. Because I am meeting with small groups to give feedback, our labs require a lot of independence from students. So far almost everyone is managing time well. If groups get behind, they may have to complete parts of the lab during study hall, recess, or after school. Students will be creating the steps of their experiment to answer the question we came up with as a class. Tuesday's work will focus on completing experimental designs, conducting experiments, and collecting data. On Wednesday students will write and share conclusions. On Thursday students will take their first concept check-in (which is like a quiz). I do not use these scores as part of the science grade. It is to give your child information about what they understand and what they still need to work on. Then we will turn to the second part of the reading which focuses on matter and changes that can occur with changes in temperature or during chemical reactions. Students will continue to practice the skill of selective highlighting and they will be introduced to magnet summaries.

English

Mr. Heimerl

zheimerl@foxbay.org

We will continue to explore the techniques students will include in their memoirs this week. In particular, we will be focusing on grammar, taking a close look at the "out of order adjective" and the present participial phrase, which students will need to include in the final drafts of their memoirs. Throughout the week, students will have short grammar assignments for homework, and we will finish the week with a grammar quiz on Friday.

Reading

Ms. Brinnington, Ms. Traska, Ms. Hiir, Ms. Allen

dbrinnington@foxbay.org, straska@foxbay.org, ghiir@foxbay.org, jallen@foxbay.org

We continue analyzing short stories this week. Annotating these texts has been introduced, as it is an important skill to have for high school. The students will focus on “The Gift of the Magi” along with “Charles”, and continue discussing thematic connections along with irony and its impact on a story’s plot.

The vocabulary root word for this week is -pos, meaning ‘to place, put’. Sentences are due Wednesday, quiz Friday.

Social Studies

Mr. Blahnik

bblahnik@foxbay.org

We continue learning about the United States Constitution this week.  We are learning about the powers of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government.  We are also discussing the different issues and compromises that arose during the Constitutional Convention.

We will then begin our debate on the ratification of the United States Constitution.  Students will either be Federalists or Antifederalists and the two groups will present their historical sides arguments on whether or not the US Constitution should be ratified in 1788.  We will then examine the Bill of Rights that were added to the United States Constitution. 

Week 3

September 18th - 22nd

Math

Ms. Knippen

jknippen@foxbay.org

Things are rolling along!! Please make sure your child has a calculator for class. It is an important material that must be brought to class.

Math 1 and 8-We will be working through the second half of the chapter on evaluating functions. There will be a quiz on the first half of the chapter early in the week. 

All Mathcounts work is due on Mondays. Students do not need to spend more than 60 minutes on each workout. They certainly can do more if they have time. The program does not expect mastery of every single problem type.

Math 3 and 7-Work continues on solving equations. Students will have a quiz on the first half of the chapter early in the week. The chapter will finish up at the end of the week.

Science

Ms. Waller

twaller@foxbay.org

We'll open the week with our first Socratic Seminar. This is a student-led discussion where content from our science readings is explored. Students are graded based on the quantity and quality of their contributions. This can be a bit anxiety-provoking for shy kids. If this describes your child, talk to them about using our back channel chat as an alternate way to contribute. I always remind the students that they are not supposed to have all the answers during a Socratic Seminar. Questions and content they are confused about are the most valuable discussion topics. We'll spend the rest of the week on our first lab. Students will be working in groups of three. They will each receive a grading sheet for the lab so they know what they need to accomplish. Additionally each group will have several scheduled checkpoints with me to get feedback on their lab work so they can make improvements as they go. 

English

Mr. Heimerl

zheimerl@foxbay.org

This week, students will continue their exploration of the memoir, searching for topics and reflecting upon what will work for their own memoir.

Beyond that, we will begin to dive into grammar, starting with a review of sentence structure and comma basics, preparing for our first major unit – free modifiers and the "out of order" adjective.

Reading

Ms. Brinnington, Ms. Traska, Ms. Hiir, Ms. Allen

dbrinnington@foxbay.org, straska@foxbay.org, ghiir@foxbay.org, jallen@foxbay.org

The students will wrap up their conversations around our first short story, “Stop the Sun”. A quiz will follow, expecting students to demonstrate their critical thinking skills and their use of textual evidence as support. Furthermore, we will be setting goals for the reading MAP assessment as this ultimately helps them take ownership of their learning. The end of the week will be geared toward a “Stop the Sun” post-lesson focusing on a specific song written during the time of the Vietnam War. It is important to recognize how songs can provide entertainment, but also help bring people’s attention to world problems. Songs can inspire people to find solutions... songwriters use their lyrics to educate, inspire, and influence change.

The vocabulary root word for this week is -grad and -gress...meaning ‘step’. As usual, sentences are due Wednesday and the quiz is Friday.

Social Studies

Mr. Blahnik

bblahnik@foxbay.org

During the third week of Social Studies, we are learning about Government and the United States Constitution.  Students are working on a project where they are creating their own government and incorporating ideas from John Locke and Thomas Hobbes into their project.  The project is due on Tuesday.  Students will continue to learn about the Constitutional Convention and we will study the U.S. Constitution.  Next week, we will start preparation for our first debate.  Students will be either Federalists or Antifederalists and will debate whether the US Constitution should be ratified in 1788.  Students will also have reading assignments in their online textbook.  These will be posted on Google Classroom.  

Weeks 1 & 2

September 5th - 15th

General News

For those new to Bayside School, welcome!  We will post and send out an overview of the upcoming weeks’ events to this blog each Friday. More details relative to daily lessons and homework will be posted to students’ Google Classroom accounts. Please do not hesitate to contact any teacher below if you have questions.

Math

Ms. Knippen
jknippen@foxbay.org

Welcome to 8th grade!! Your children are doing an awesome job! They are already taking good notes, doing homework and participating in class. Some need a reminder to bring calculators to class (not the worst thing to have as a reminder.)

Math 1 and 8-We are covering functions as they occur in given situations, tables and graphic representations. Students are working in groups on in-class work. Their homework is a "review & preview" section, so it requires minimal assistance as the hard stuff is done during class time. It's kind of a flipped class in terms of work and the level of difficulty.

Mathcounts is also in full swing. It is a problem solving program in which we will compete against other schools in February.

Math 3 and 7-We are already solving equations. Students have been working on one and two-step equations. They're doing awesome showing work and keeping work organized.

Science

Ms. Waller

twaller@foxbay.org

What a great first week I had with your children! They are anxious to do well in science this year. I introduced the scientific process with a three-hole bottle demonstration. We also spent some time getting to know each other and reviewing the classroom expectations.  They spent Friday learning about lab safety. 

During week two we'll begin our first textbook reading focusing on the reading strategy of turning the section heading into a question and using that to guide selective highlighting. Once we are done with the reading, I'll spend a day setting up expectations for Socratic Seminar and the students will participate in their first one next Monday. Please ask your child to see the unit plan for our Matter and Movement Unit. It is posted on Google Classroom. 

English

Mr. Heimerl

zheimerl@foxbay.org

We're off to a great start in 8th grade English! The first week, we went over general expectations and routines of the classroom and began to work on our first major unit – the memoir. Students reflected upon their thinking stills, creating a metaphor to describe themselves, they wrote and shared a "6-Word Memoir," and we began unpacking what it takes to write a good memoir.

During week two we'll begin our exploration of the memoir, reading multiple short examples and beginning to brainstorm ideas that students could use in their own memoirs. Beyond that, we'll also begin our first work with grammar, reviewing basic sentence structure and digging into free modifiers and adjectives out of order.

There will be minor homework assignments throughout the weeks but no major assessments.

Reading

Ms. Brinnington, Ms. Traska, Ms. Hiir, Ms. Allen

dbrinnington@foxbay.org, straska@foxbay.org, ghiir@foxbay.org, jallen@foxbay.org

Welcome back to school! We look forward to working with your child this year as we continue strengthening our literacy skills.

The first two weeks will be spent analyzing and discussing the importance of perspective when it comes to reading various texts. It is important to be aware that we may read books through a different lens...this is what leads to higher-level conversations and a better understanding of the world around us. Thematic connections will also be a large part of our conversations. The short story “Stop the Sun”, written by Gary Paulsen, is one example of a text we will utilize to strengthen our thematic connections.

Vocabulary also continues this year. Students will study new Greek and Latin root words on a weekly basis - week one begins on September 11th. Students are aware that they will receive their root word on Mondays, contextually rich sentences are due every Wednesday, and a quiz on Fridays follows.

Social Studies

Mr. Blahnik

bblahnik@foxbay.org

We are off to a great start in Social Studies!  The first week of class, we went over different rules and expecations for class.  Students also registered for their Google Classroom account, online textbook account through TCI, and created a Newsela account for current events articles. On Fridays, we incorporate current events into Social Studies class. We read some current event articles and we started watching CNN 10 (formly called CNN Student News) which is a daily 10 minute news cast geared for Middle and High School students.  Students reflected on a newstory of their choice and turned it in on Google Classroom.

During the second week of class, we started our first unit on Government and the United States Constitution.  We learned about different types of government and we studied the philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes and their views on government.  The students had two reading handouts that were due and had completed Ch. 8 section 1,2, and 3 of their textbook for homework.