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| Gala & Auction: April 28, 2012 | Family Fun Night: February 24, 2012 | | www.barnesvilleschool.org | joy. support. excellence. | |
| Social Studies | | After finishing our study of World War 2, the 8th graders will begin to explore the emergence of the Cold War. We will also begin to immerse into the final research project. Parents will receive a detailed packet of information which clearly describes the various steps which will be taken. I hope to have student topic areas defined shortly after returning from Spring Break, and then students will narrow their thesis or the questions they wish to answer. And then the research will begin! Presidential leadership will be a big focus this final trimester as we work our way through the 1950s into the 2000s. Civil rights, the space age, and Vietnam are just a few of the additional topics which will be covered. Students will receive a new book, All The People, which will serve as the framework for our studies. |  |
| Science | | April is here! That means it is time for the Amusement Park Project! As a class the students will create a working scale model of an amusement park. Through careful planning, and lots of trial and error, the students will create rides that teach them many basic principles of physics. They will explore Newton's laws, gravity, centripital force and other forces.
Please join us on Thursday, April 21st at 8:30 am in the media center to visit our amusement park.
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| Honors Algebra | | During the month of April, we are moving on to operations with rational expressions. On the surface, it appears that we have left factoring behind, but then comes addition. Finding the least common denominator requires...FACTORING! When we finish with rational expressions, we will move on to a review of graphing. We will look at different ways of writing the equation for linear equations. After that we will move on to explore nonlinear equations and functions.
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| Geometry | | Our study of geometry has been focusing on triangles and their properties recently. We have discerned how to prove triangles are congruent (equal in size and shape) and what other observations and conclusions those proofs can lead to. We have looked at exterior angles of triangles and how they relate to the angles within the triangles. We have recognized that a larger angle faces a larger side of the triangle and that the lengths of the sides of a triangle follow specific rules and limitations. When we complete this unit on triangles, we will begin our investigation of quadrilaterals and circles. | |
| Algebra | | Students will cover Chapter 9 in their text. Students will learn about adding and subtracting polynomials, multiplying and factoring, multiplying binomials and special cases. Factoring trinomials and special cases and factoring by grouping will be covered as well.
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| Language Arts | | The students will complete their reading of George Orwell's Animal Farm as their final novel in Language Arts. Mini lessons on the Broadway musical, "Memphis" will be given to students in preparation for seeing the show during their end-of-year New York City trip. A review of speech presentation skills and practice will occur during the remainder of the trimester. Ongoing grammar, vocabulary and the reading of short stories will continue. | |
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| | Art | | The eighth graders spent most of March learning about oil painting, doing a practice painting of a lemon to try out the medium, and then taking one of their Frederick photographs to inspire a painting. Their photos and paintings are hanging in the art hallway. Most have started their complex grid design, where they will take an image by a famous artist and change it 11 different ways. They will first use shading to draw it representationally and then they will try to reproduce it in color. They will next change the image according to four aspects of design-stylization, geometric, decorative and abstraction. They also are doing a graffiti project for the Spring Fling auction item.
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| Physical Education | | This past month, the eighth graders have been introduced to different parameters of fitness. They have been learning and practicing these skills in our Workout Wednesday circuit training sessions. The skills range from basic cardiovascular exercises to advanced body weight core exercises. They are working hard and improving with each class. | |
| Spanish | | This month, we will learn about classes that students like and dislike. Students will be able to give their opinion about different subjects. Students will also be writing school schedules in Spanish. In grammar, we will be learning about present participle which is the “ing” ending in English. And for culture, students will be learning about Dominican Republic and Venezuela. | |
| Music | | April will shower the students with music from all the corners of the world. There will also be an emphasis on classical music. Listening selections of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi and Grieg, to name a few will be experienced. This type of creative listening can encourage the child to recreate whole worlds in their imaginations. Piano and guitar instruction continues and provides not only a strong basis for musical theory comprehension but a pleasure in and of itself. | |
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