Week of March 21, 2016

Purple Curriculum Updates

Pre-Algebra I with Bina:

This past Tuesday, the 22nd, the Blue Roomers took the chapter 10 test on probability. Probability is a difficult concept; therefore, I have given the students the opportunity to correct their tests and earn half credit for corrections. I helped the students with corrections during class and after school. They submitted their corrections on Friday, the 25th. After I have reviewed their work and given them credit for their corrections, I will send the chapter 10 tests home. Meanwhile we have begun covering chapter 11 on integers, coordinate planes, and graphing simple function.

Pre-Algebra II with Jared:

In Pre-Algebra II, students continued working on dot-to-dot exercises, to perfect their understanding of the coordinate plane. They also worked on graphing functions, discovering function rules, interpreting graphs, and figuring out simple and compound interest.

Pre-Algebra III with Emily:

This week students took a quiz on the first four sections of the chapter. They practiced reading and interpreting circle graphs as well as finding the central angles  and then using compasses and protractors to make circle graphs. We continue to practice reading graphs critically, choosing the best graph for the given data, and then making the graphs carefully and with all the appropriate elements.  

Algebra I with Molly:

This week we reviewed Chapter 8 on Monday and took a test on Tuesday. Our new chapter has us reviewing polynomial expressions. They practiced adding and subtracting polynomials, then finding the greatest common factor for each term of the polynomial. We learned to factor out a greatest common factor (GCF) from a trinomial.

Geometry with Holly:

We started this week in Geometry with a quiz over the first three sections of material,  Then, on Tuesday we discussed using trigonometry to help in calculating area, and on Wednesday and Thursday discussed  circles, arcs, and how to calculate the area of circles, sectors, and segments of circles.

Language Arts with Jared:

This week students reviewed for their vocabulary test via a lengthy game of bingo. They also reviewed for their grammar test on verbs. Besides these two tests, students spent much of the week working on a shoebox diorama about their most recent outside reading book.

World Studies with Emily:

Seventh and eighth graders read a chapter from the book "The History of the World in 100 Objects" by Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum. It was about how a sculpture from the Parthenon of a centaur battling a Greek man personified the ultimate fight: the battle of rationality versus irrationality, of reason versus barbarity, and about the concept of validating war by dehumanizing your enemy, making them the "other". Eighth graders had some excellent discussions, as did seventh grade, but time ran short. Sixth graders read about Greek democracy and completed some worksheets about the reading.  On Wednesday, all students practiced asking and answering common NHD judging questions. On Thursday, all classes began reading about the Roman Republic. And, of course, we all went to Radford University on Friday for the NHD regional competition.

Life Science with Molly:

This week we continued to candle our incubating eggs and learn more about birds. We also learned more about heredity and probability. Students learned how to use Punnet squares to predict the possible genetic outcomes of offspring. Students did an activity about dominant and recessive traits present in our classroom such as dimples, widow’s peak, and cleft chin.

Spanish with Olga & Corinne:

Morning Spanish
This week we reviewed for and took a test on Tuesday on clothing vocabulary and stem changing verbs.

Spanish B

We started a new chapter where we are learning vocabulary to talk about volunteer work, the environment, and places in the community.  We will continue working with the preterite (past) tense and will learn new irregular verbs in the present tense. We returned the last test to the students and it should be in their portfolios.

Spanish C

On Monday, we reviewed for the assessment that we had on Wednesday.  This unit is proving to be challenging for most students, so we will be revisiting some of the material.

Spanish D/K

We continue working with the past subjunctive. On Wednesday, we had a quiz on this tense/mood.  We also listened to music and completed lyrics with missing words as a listening activity. I assigned the students poems to be memorized by April 15. This is a typical activity for HS Spanish II, and  great way to practice pronunciation and learn new vocabulary words.

Art with Patti:

For warm up this week, students added a pattern using a non-traditional too (paper tubes, bubble wrap, card board), they also added an area of texture. After they did a quick response to the warm up prompt, students continued work on their projects. Most of them are working on either artist inspired project, and some have started an art project responding to the element of art “space”. We also looked a quick video about M. C. Escher.

Computer Lab with Holly:

This week the students completed the Word documents they began last week using styles to document their favorite landmarks from the Landmark Game.  The 7th graders presented their landmarks to the rest of the class.

Life Skills / Sex Ed with Molly:

This week 8^th grade students had a guest speaker, former New School student now high school freshman, Cecelia Kominski. She spoke positively to the students about her experience as a freshman and gave them great advice about their next adventure in high school. 6^th grade students discussed the images we found in magazines last week. We then watched video about eating disorders, steroids, and other extreme things teens do to manipulate how they look. 7^th grade students did not have life skills this week, due to our history speaker. Next time, we will expand out media influence to popular music before moving on to pornography in print and on the internet, specifically on apps like Instagram.

Thank you from, The Purple Team