Cluster 6 Newsletter

February

Dear Cluster 6 families & caregivers!

High School registration is coming up! Look for more information soon.

Our 8th graders had the chance to tour the Watertown High School Career, Technical and Engineering facilities this week so ask your student about the woodshop, kitchen and cable TV studios they saw. WPS has excellent vocational pathways for our students.

-- Cluster 6 Team

English

This week, students are working through lessons and practicing specific skills on iReady. We’ll wrap up the week with MCAS writing practice.

Next week, we will be starting our first Book Club of the year. The genre of our first rotation will be “Coming of Age”. Students will choose from a variety of novels and work with their peers to discuss characters, settings, conflicts, and themes. We will focus on reading skills as well as academic writing and group collaboration.

Civics

Civics students have been working very hard over the past week and a half to practice their Social Studies CER writing. We are answering the question, “How did the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) influence the U.S. Constitution?” by looking at three sources and drawing evidence from them. Students are filling out a graphic organizer, coming up with reasoning to explain their evidence, and working to write their five paragraph essay in class. Each student will receive specific written feedback on their work, and also individually conference with me. And all that is just for a small practice grade! In another week, we’ll work on a more heavily weighted CER that will be an assessment of the writing skills students have been practicing.

We will also be continuing our study of the Founding Documents by taking a close look at the Bill of Rights, and how those rights and freedoms apply to real-life situations. We’ll look at how the Constitution was ratified, learn about the debate over ratification between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and do a small research project about Shays’ Rebellion, which took place right here in Massachusetts. We will also be having a midterm exam the last week of the trimester to review key content and help prepare students for the transition to high school level work!

Current Learning Targets:

I can explain how the Iroquois Confederacy influenced the writing of the US Constitution and the creation of our American democracy.
I can understand each of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, and I can apply my knowledge to real-life scenarios.

Math

8th Grade Math students have been learning about data displays, such as scatter plots, lines of fit, histograms, etc. They’ve used lines of fit to predict data when there are gaps in the data, or future. Students used their understanding of linear relationships and equations to solve for these types of data, as well. Next up, 8th Grade Math will be studying exponents and exponential relationships. Exponential relationships involve ideas such as how fast a rumor can spread, or how interest rates can affect growth. They’ll also use their understanding of exponents to apply to scientific notation. How far away is the Sun from Earth… in feet?

Algebra students just finished solving very complex rate/time/distance problems, and literal equations. Being able to manipulate equations, solving them for given variables when more than just x and y are involved, is a key skill for performing well in physics in high school. Algebra kids will now begin to learn about functions. Can you be in two different places at once? That’s one example of a situation that is not a function.

Science

We are starting to wrap up our study of evolution. This week students researched and created Wanted Posters about specific invasive species – ask your student about their project! Next week will bring the last new content for the unit: phylogenetic trees, which are tools used to show the evolutionary relationships between species. Then we will finish the week with the Evolution Unit Test on March 6 and March 7. Supplementary review materials (listed by topic) to help students prepare for the test can be found here: Review Materials for Evolution Unit. Our next unit of study will be physics.

5.2 Evidence for Evolution

I can analyze different types of data to compare species and construct phylogenetic trees for many living and extinct organisms based on shared features.

5.3 Fossil Record, Geologic Timeline, and Extinction

I can evaluate the main causes of extinction in different places on earth.
I can illustrate how a specific invasive species has damaged an existing ecosystem.