WEEKLY BULLETIN: GRADE 8 LEARNING SUPPORT

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL MANILA

This Week in Grade 8

ENGLISH This week students were focused on taking the ERB standardized test for writing. It took 2 class periods and tests the students writing skills. Next week English classes will be analyzing a poem that represents the theme of transformation and writing an essay about it. SOCIAL STUDIES The theme of Transformation continues with students nishing up learning about the American, French, Russian and Iranian Revolutions and sharing their knowledge with their peers. Next week they will begin working on the performance task - a Transformation Expo - for which they will focus on a Middle Eastern country that
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER: New Book Fair - Nov. 21-24 Filipiniana - Nov. 25

has transformed or is in the process of transforming itself through revolution. They will also relate their specic revolution to similarities with historical revolutions and the four stages of a revolution.
SCIENCE

students wrote as well) onto my blog for added support as well. MATH The work on geometry continues and the assessment has been changed to December 2. Students continue to practice determining measurements for angles, triangles, etc.

This week found us exploring potential and kinetic energy in terms of physics. Students learned the formulas and practiced calculating to solve word problems to determine the amount of either potential or kinetic energy. It seems they are enjoying it - the math is a bit tricky, but they have been given lots of practice time to understand and apply the formulas. I will post the notes I took on the formulas (which all the

UPCOMING ASSESSMENTS & DUE DATES: Science: quiz on Energy November 22 or 23 Math: Geometry Assessment December 2

IMPORTANT WEBSITES USED IN CORE CLASSES: Google Docs brainpop.com

Strategy Instruction Class

Skill & Strategy Areas of Focus: The Writing Process: - Using editing checklists (COPS, SCOPE) - Vocabulary development - Brainstorming - using Study Skills: - understanding new vocabulary through context clues

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Study Skills Time Management Self - Advocacy Paragraph Writing Summary Writing Editing Strategies Interactive Reading Learning Styles

templates to organize prior to - Note-taking strategies: we writing; we are going to are using the Cornell introduce and experiment method which is the 2 with the program column notes method (main Inspiration. ideas on left side; - Identifying & Generating Topic Sentences, Compound Sentences (FANBOYS) - writing short stories/ paragraphs based Research Strategies: - using templates to organize information Reading Comprehension: supporting details on right) - Paraphrasing skills

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