Tuesday February 24th

7th & 8th Grade General Science: Today in science students learned about different temperature scales and how to make conversions between them. The class also went over the initial rules for the Thermal Insulator Competition this week.
Homework:

• Complete review worksheet 6-2 "The Nature Of Heat"
  
• Begin gathering materials for the Thermal Insulator competition. Students will need a large coffee can sized tin can for their experiments.
  

7th Grade Math: Today students continued learning applying scale factor of coordinate points to make two similar figures.
Homework: Finish making drawing and corresponding list of coordinate points for the figure.

8th Grade Math: In math students continued working on the personal finances unit. In today's class period they finished working with through the costs of buying a home that they found in the local paper. They then transitioned to part two of the assignment in which they investigated the costs of renting a house or apartment.
Homework: Work on real estate buying and renting worksheets.

Tuesday February 10th

7th & 8th Grade General Science: Today in science students completed the second of several insulation labs. They collected their data and then began working on the graphs and data analysis.
Homework: finish graph, comparison of results (data analysis), and conclusion to insulation lab #2

7th Grade Math: Today students continued learning about finding the area and perimeter of squares, rectangles, parallelograms, and triangles. Students completed a measurement activity to practice calculating area of different shaped objects in our classroom.
Homework: Finding area of shapes worksheet is due Wednesday at the beginning of class.

8th Grade Math: In math students continued working on the personal finances unit. Today the focus was on deductions taken from a paycheck (federal taxes, health insurance, Social Security, etc.)
Homework: Discuss with parents/guardians how your family pays for health insurance and what that cost is per month. Have parent/guardian sign off on page indicating they talked about topic of health insurance costs and/or other deductions from a paycheck.

Monday February 9th

7th & 8th Grade General Science: Today in science students learned how to compare the insulation values of two different substances that they had collected data on in a lab last week. They then graphed their results, completed mathematical calculations to compare substances, and wrote a conclusion to the insulation lab.
Homework: finish graph, comparison of results, and conclusion to insulation lab #1

7th Grade Math: Today students were introduced to the "Cabin Building Project". In this project students will learn and apply skills in area/perimeter, rates, scale, and calculations with money.
Homework: Finding area of shapes worksheet is due Wednesday at the beginning of class.

8th Grade Math: In math students were introduced to the "Personal Finances" unit that we will be working on periodically throughout the next two months. Students looked at salaries of various job categories and educational backgrounds.
Homework: Discuss with parents/guardians their field of employment and their educational background. Have parents sign/initial paper to confirm that they discussed this topic with student (No information that families feel uncomfortable sharing needs to be written on the homework, just a signature that student took time to have discussion with parents/guardian).

Wednesday January 28th

7th & 8th Grade General Science: Today in science students continued working with their groups on their electromagnetic spectrum projects. The final project due date will be Friday at the beginning of class.
Homework: none (final group project due Friday)

7th Grade Math: Today students finished working on their assignment 4.6 Practice. The class then began learning how to calculate a fraction into a decimal.
Homework: Finish 4.7 Practice 2-22 evens and 23, 24, and 25 (due tomorrow).

8th Grade Math: Today students continued to learn about zero and negative exponents. Students generally struggled with this new material so we will review it more before our test next week. On Friday all 8th graders will be visisting Juneau Douglas High School for a orientation with school administrators, counselors, and teachers.
Homework: Finish 4.6 Practice (evens) due tomorrow

Tuesday January 27th

7th & 8th Grade General Science: Today in science students listened to a guest speaker who works for NASA. Students observed and compared thin cross sections of glacier ice and "icicles" on a light table with polarizing filters. Tomorrow the class will resume their group projects on the electromagnetic spectrum. The final project due date will be Friday at the beginning of class.
Homework: none

7th Grade Math: Today students finished working on their assignment 4.6 Practice. The class then began learning how to calculate a fraction into a decimal.
Homework: Review #1 (Prime # Review & Factors Review) is due tomorrow

8th Grade Math: Today in math students graded their assignment 4.5 Practice. Students then learned about zero and negative exponents. We will continue this challenging section in class tomorrow.
Homework: Review #1 (review of Exponents and scientific notation) due tomorrow