WEEKLY BULLETIN: GRADE 8 LEARNING SUPPORT

JANUARY 20, 2012

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL MANILA

This Week in Grade 8

ENGLISH: In both Monroes and Shulls English classes, students watched brainpop.com videos and The Master Race documentary on the Holocaust to build up their background knowledge of WWII and the Holocaust. Students are now into the rst week of reading their novels and are beginning their weekly Literature Circles to discuss the novels focusing on literary terms such as theme, vocabulary, character development, etc. SOCIAL STUDIES: This week students watched a video on the Philippines People Power revolution. They took notes on the history of the Marcos regime which led up to the peaceful revolution of the people in the mid 1980s. Next week
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER: * Jan. 21 - International Family Fun Day at ISM 1-6pm * Jan. 23 - No School - Chinese New Year

students will begin to write a persuasive essay answering the question, Was People Power a success or a failure? SCIENCE: Students spent the week exploring various simple machines - the wedge, pulleys, inclined plane, and the lever. The concept of mechanical advantage (MA) was explained and students learned the MA formula and made calculations with each simple machine. Next week students will begin their performance task working in a group they will design and build a rescue machine (see Mr. Pasambas blog for details).

MATH: Students began and completed, this week, their Statistics performance task for which they created their own scatterplots on the computer to based on class measurements on height and arm span. They are now discussing graphs how to read a graph, create one, and nally will create data graphs on their calculators.

UPCOMING ASSESSMENTS & DUE DATES: * English - reminder for students to stay on track with their group assigned reading sections

IMPORTANT WEBSITES USED IN CORE CLASSES: Google Docs brainpop.com Noodle tools - research skills & notecards

Strategy Instruction Class

Skill & Strategy Areas of Focus: Vocabulary Development: - Developing strategies to help determine meaning of new vocabulary & expanding students vocabulary base - Using context clues - Categorizing/Classifying - Understanding words with Multiple Meanings - Prex & Sufx meanings using these to help determine word meaning - Root Words/Base words - for meaning The Writing Process: - We are beginning to look at the structure of a persuasive paragraph or essay - how to support your opinion with valid reasons and organize them into a strong persuasive paragraph Research Strategies: - using templates to organize information - Noodle tools online - Paraphrasing skill practice Study Skills: - Note-taking strategies: we are using the Cornell method which is the 2 column notes method (main ideas on left side; supporting details on right) - difference between facts and opinions
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Study Skills Time Management Self - Advocacy Paragraph Writing Summary Writing Editing Strategies Interactive Reading Learning Styles

Time Management: - chunking long term/ large assignments into smaller due dates

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