7-L News

Team 7-L Science with Mr. Dellinger

        Recently, we have started on Unit #3 “Properties of Matter.” In this unit students will be learning about the classification of matter and should be able to identify something as an element, compound, or a mixture. Students will also be able to identify elements by their properties and should understand how physical and chemical changes affect matter.

        Students recently were asked to create a superhero or supervillain that utilized one of the physical or chemical properties of matter. They used their notes, textbooks, and prior knowledge to come up with an original comic worthy character. Students also wrote a 25-100 word summary that had them relating the information discussed in class to their character’s abilities. Below are two student examples from this activity.

 

Team 7-L Math with Mr. Flay

The past few weeks have seen students' on 7-L complete Chapter 3 Operations with Rational Numbers. Students' worked hard on converting fractions to decimals, decimals to fractions, comparing rationals, classifying numbers, and adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing rationals!  This chapter involves a lot of thinking, as many of the problems include many steps!  Students' did a great job! We watched a fun video on YOUTUBE to help us gain understanding of how to classify numbers.  Here is the link for anybody who is interested!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m94WTZP14SA&sns=em.

We also tried to break up seat work with some stations when were dividing rational numbers.  The following picture shows students' working in teams to solve division problems throughout the classroom!  

 

The Advanced Pre-Alg group has been working on Chapter 4 Expressions and Equations as the Pre-Algebra group finished up Chapter 3.  They have solved one and two step equations and will have the chapter wrapped up before the winter vacation!

Team 7-L students' are a great group of kids to work with!!! 
I hope everyone enjoys their winter break!!!

Team 7-L Academic Lit. with Mrs. Vasellas

Mrs. Vasellas' Academic Lit classes have started Unit 2: Craft and Structure of Informational Text. Students will be reading a variety of texts to determine author/reader's perspectives, viewpoint and author's purpose.

Team 7-L English with Miss Maxwell

Miss Maxwell's students have just started working on A Christmas Carol. Students in Miss Maxwell's English class will be reading the classic story aloud as a play during class.  While reading the play,  all classes will be looking a literary elements in the story.  Students are very excited to read parts of famous characters like Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim.  Some students have even started brushing up on their English accents!

Team 7-L Social Studies with Mr. Arigo

Students in Mr. Arigo's Social Studies classes are researching about various cultures from around the world using a combination of methods including new technologies and classic informational texts.  Students are also comparing the unique "American Culture" with others and what makes our diverse country so special!

8-L News...

Team 8L December Blog

Science - In Science class we are studying the processes of erosion and deposition.  There are four agents of erosion that we are covering (gravity, water, wind, glaciers).  Students are drawing various features produced by some of the agents and identifying diagrams of other features.  We are doing a minimum of 3 labs associated with this unit.  We will finish up the unit before Christmas break.  Resources for the unit include our textbook, online textbook lab, and various graphic organizers.  There will be a unit test on the information.

Health - Understanding of the male and female reproductive system and how they function.

Math - Honors Alg students are nearing the completion of the linear graphing unit.  They have been assigned a small project in which they will gather data (about a topic of their choice), graph it, and obtain the linear function which represents the overall correlation of the data.  This process emulates that which cities, counties, and maybe even states use when they do population projections, anticipate utility usage during peak temperatures, and estimate the number of travelers during the holiday season.  The next unit, Writing & Graphing Linear Inequalities, will mimic much of the work in our current unit, with a few slight twists unique to the world of the algebraic inequality.

The Prealgebra 2 class are also nearing completion of a unit, Expressions & Equations, in which they've learned how to solve 1-step, 2-step, and multi-step equations, as well as how to apply the Distributive Property - an Algebra staple!  Yet to be studied in this unit are atypical equations, or those which do not have unique solutions.  Like their Honors Algebra peers, their next unit is Inequalities, in which we will focus on solving and writing them to model real world situations.

Algebra 1A students are about 4/5 of the way through Unit 1, which is the longest unit in their curriculum!  Thus far the focus has been on the solving and writing of linear and absolute value equations; yet to be completed are percent of change, dimensional analysis, and uniform motion topics.  These last three sections will invoke much of the equation work done throughout the earlier parts of this unit.  Students will be happy to know that Unit 2 is much shorter and may work the creative side of their brains, since we'll be looking at (among other things) patterns of number behavior and determining the equations that generate such items.

English - In English, Book Clubs are well underway. Student groups are reading and examining literature together in a fun and relaxed way. Individual assignments are prepared and then shared with the groups for in-depth analysis and discussion. At the conclusion of the unit, groups will be sharing their books with the rest of the class in the form of a presentation using technology. Also, students will complete a character analysis of one of the characters from the novel. Areas of focus include literary devices and techniques including irony, foreshadowing, flashback, symbolism, and allusion. Additionally, students are learning to analyze the craft and structure of fiction text to construct meaning.

Social Studies – We have just concluded our unit on the American Revolution and are transitioning into how our Constitution was created.  First, we are learning about the Articles of Confederation and why the Articles needed revised.  From there, we will be learning how changing the Articles led to the forming of a whole new system of government with the ratifying of a new Constitution.  In this new Constitution, we will learn how power is divided in the three branches of government and how the Constitution affects our daily lives.

From all of us onTeam 8L – Have a terrific vacation and a Happy New Year!

Spelling Bee

Our annual Spelling Bee was held on Friday, December 13th.  Congratulations to all of the students who participated in the Spelling Bee!  How nerve-racking it must be to stand up in front of over 900 people and test your spelling skills--everyone did a great job!   Special thanks to Ms. Henze, Ms. Jackson and Ms. Strayer for putting together the event.

Ms.  Henze and Ms. Jackson getting ready to start the Spelling Bee!

Little by little, our field of spellers was getting smaller!

Spelling the final word--hoping for a win!

Congratulations to all of our participants!

Holiday Concert

On Sunday, December 15th, the Senior High Auditorium was full of visitors who enjoyed the Junior High Holiday Concert!  Congratulations to all of the students who participated and to Ms. Davis, Ms. Hammers and Ms. Loyer--you all did great!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to the winners of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Patriot's Pen Essay Contest!

Junior High Dance

On Thursday, many students stayed after school to show off their moves with their friends.  Everyone appeared to have a great time!

 
 

 

 

PRIDE

Congratulations to our weekly PRIDE winners!

Another group of PRIDE winners enjoying some free time in the gym.

Guidance News...

• December and January are busy months in the guidance office.  We organize a holiday gift-giving program.  Over forty staff members volunteered to sponsor a child or provide household items for JH families in need this season.  Applications to York County School of Technology have been submitted.  All 95 students who applied will be interviewed here at the Junior High on January 15^th and will then visit Tech on January 30^th.  The course selection process is starting for our current 8^th grade students.  Parents should receive a letter from the high school within the next few days explaining this process.    The following are important dates for parents to know:
• January 7 - Student orientation to 9^th grade course selection
• January 8 – Parent’s Night at the high school auditorium
• January 14 – 17 – 8^th grade scheduling with high school counselors
• After January 7^th, teachers will provide students with their course recommendations for 9^th grade.  It is expected that the student will bring those home to discuss with parents prior to entering their requests online, which will take place at school sometime during the week of January 14.  The high school guidance counselors are involved with this process as well.  They will visit the junior high to introduce course selection to the students and assist while students complete the actual scheduling online.

What's happening in Unified Arts

Physical Education News

HANDSTANDS, PIROUETTES, AND TOUR JETES!

In Physical Education, Mrs. Downs’ classes are beginning the SPATIAL AWARENESS unit.  This unit involves moving across the mats in a variety of dance, ballet, gymnastics and tumbling moves.   Spatial awareness requires balance, coordination, flexibility and a positive attitude.  We begin with the easiest skills and progress at an individual level.  Seventh graders are required to demonstrate at least 5 skills of their choosing.  Eighth graders are required to create a unique floor exercise routine using the skills learned they last year!

Library Class

This month in library class, students are continuing to work on research of their internet safety topics.  We're discussing how to use the internet efficiently and safely for research.  Students learned how to conduct effective searches using good keywords and other search strategies like quotation marks and site indicators.  They played the Google Game to see who could get the fewest research results, and we had some groups get down to single digits.  Now that's some good searching!  We also talked about evaluating websites.  How do you know if you can trust what you find on the web?  It's easy - just evaluate the site using the Five W's.

Next up - putting all of the information we found together to make a fun and informative glog.

Family & Consumer Science 7

The last rotation of students wrapped up the class completing the Challenge Lab Unit and the Hunger Crisis Unit. For each lab, four teams compete. Their challenge is to take 3 random ingredients and turn them into a dish that is judged on their creativity, presentation, taste, group dynamics, and organization with minimal time to plan and execute.

The Hunger Crisis Unit focused on hunger in America and how we can be a help to those in need. The eight classes put together 16 casseroles. The casseroles will be delivered to Our Daily Bread Food Pantry in York, PA.

The new rotation of students have studied the “Food Plate” and are now focusing on food and kitchen safety.

8th Grade Art

Rotation 1 Animated Clay Vessels are complete and they look fantastic! After the first firing, students finished them with a coat of ceramic glaze that turns colorful and glossy when heated. Now that they’ve been fired a second time they are ready to be used.

Students in the new rotation have been hard at work preparing to begin their first project…Insect Drawings. We’ve discussed the importance of the elements and principles, practiced value techniques using different types of drawing materials, and explored the many areas of insect art. As we approach Christmas break, they will be focusing on using each of these things to create a detailed drawing of an insect of  their choice.

8th Grade Tech. Ed.

The new rotation of students is in the middle of working out the details of their product designs. Classes will begin construction of their prototypes in the next few classes. Look for pictures of their progress in the coming weeks.

7th Grade Music

Students are learning the elements of music.  Here, a student is drawing a picture representation of the meaning.  Students displayed their picture meanings and did a Gallery Walk to identify the elements.

Here are 3 up close. #4 is Tempo (speed of the beat) #5 is Tone-color (unique sound of an instrument) and #6 is Form (how the song is put together).

8th Grade Family Consumer Science

In 8th grade Family and Consumer Science with the new rotation of students we are currently working on completing our unit on our need for clothing.  We are getting ready to start our hand-sewing unit and will soon be able to correctly sew on buttons, do a hem and make seam repairs all by hand.

Team N students are looking for reasons we wear clothing, ask them the 5 reasons.

Teacher Impact Awards

Please consider nominating one of our teachers for the Teacher Impact Awards!

In order to nominate a teacher, click on the following link:

Teacher Impact Awards Nomination Form

PRIDE Winners

A PRIDE winner and friends hanging out in the gym for their reward.

Congratulations to our monthly PRIDE winners!

Congratulations to our weekly PRIDE winners!

News from 8-N

8N Blog

           

Social Studies News from Mrs. Heishman and Ms. Behounek

         This month in American History, students are learning about the American Revolution.  Before the winter break students will be given the opportunity to earn extra credit by researching and creating a timeline for an influential person from the American Revolution.  The students will select one person from a list of sixty important people.  There will be a chapter test at the conclusion of the unit including the American Revolution.  Students will be given a week’s notice of when the test will be, and they will be given a study guide a few days before to aid them in studying for the test.  Our next area of study will be the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Academic Literacy News from Ms. Smith

         Students have just started Unit 2, Craft and Structure of Informational Texts.  They are currently learning how authors express their viewpoints and are analyzing how authors respond to conflicting viewpoints in writing.  Next, they will be looking at different sentence formations and text structures.  At the end of the unit, students will compare two arguments and evaluate which author made a better argument and why.

Mathematics News from Mr. Mikula and Ms. Behounek

         Team 8N students are completing several Study Island tests in December.  All classes will have time to work on the tests during class, but many students will need to find time outside of class to complete assignments.  Students know that they can retake a test as many times as they need to.  They should "view solution" for any question that they answer incorrectly.  Their score is based on the highest 10-question test that they complete in each section.

Language Arts News from Mrs. Mason and Mrs. Dinsmore

         This marking period, our primary focus will be identifying and analyzing literary elements.  Students will be reading several short stories, and they will be analyzing the use of setting, plot, conflict, characterization, character motivation, and theme.  Additionally, as students read these short stories, they will be responding to several writing prompts using the short answer essay response format that they will be expected to use on tests like the Reading PSSA and the Literature Keystone exam.  Students will also be required to cite textual evidence, make inferences, and draw conclusions as they respond to these writing prompts.

         Something new this marking period are the book club groups that started on November 1.  Students have been assigned novels based on their reading abilities.  They are expected to read these novels outside of class, and they will be completing reading reflections, engaging in group discussions, and completing group projects in class.  The majority of the grades associated with the book club groups will be individual grades, so it is very important that students are completing the assigned reading each week!

Science News from Mr. Resh and Mrs. Dinsmore

         We have just completed Weathering of Rock & Creation of Soil.  Now it's time to figure out how that soil is eroded away, and the effects of erosion and soils' deposition somewhere else.  Are soil deposits as valuable as bank deposits???  You might be surprised.  Hop on board as we catch a ride on a glacier or landslide...although one may be more fun than the other.

Health News from Mrs. Couch

         In Mrs. Couch's health class, students are starting the Growth and Reproduction Unit.  Tracing the growth of a human from fertilization to birth.  Heredity will also be discussed as well of the stages of life.   The pictures taken are from an opening activity where the students explored how much they already know… 

News from 7-N

7N Blog Update

Academic Literacy with Mrs. Mahan

In Mrs. Mahan’s class, we just took a quiz on Inferring and Annotation. The kids did really well! J We are starting up a unit on Point of View and Author’s Purpose in non-fiction next. We’ll look at author’s opinion and how to identify what the author is trying to communicate in various texts.

English with Miss Wachter (Mrs. Ross)

In English, another unit is coming to a close. Students will be finishing up with suffixes and taking the final word morphology quiz! The next unit students will be learning about the elements that make a story and reading many short stories in class. The current book assignment has the students comparing and contrasting two mystery/suspense short stories and writing an informative writing piece. This is due January 10th.

Math with Mr. Josuweit

We’ve been working with fractions for the past two weeks and we will continue to work with them for a little bit longer. Fractions are something that we all use in our daily lives so I’m looking forward to showing the students exactly how they can do that. Fractions will take us up until the middle of December when we will switch over to equations.

Math with Mr. Dansberry

Hopefully the talk around the dinner table about fractions has been positive, because the students have been doing very well with fractions operations.  Alas, all good things must come to an end, so we will be wrapping up fractions on Thursday, December 5th and starting the review process the next day in preparation for the test on fractions on Thursday, December 12th.  After fractions, we will start our unit on expressions and equations.  I know that some students really loved (and others loathed) hands-on equations, but we no longer work with them here at the junior high.  I will try to tap into the students' knowledge of them to help connect prior learning to new learning.  As you can see, we have a jam-packed fourteen days before our next break.  We are certainly going to make the most of those days.  Have a great holiday season!

Social Studies with Mr. Whiteford

Before the Thanksgiving break, we finished our first unit of the year, Geography.  In this unit, we discussed the 5 themes, parts of a map, landforms and bodies of water, and finished with culture.  Our discussion of culture ended with a project that students completed with a partner.  For this project, the students compared elements of culture in the United States with those of a foreign country.  Some of the things that students looked at were food, clothing, customs and education.  Students conducted research online and presented their information in a Google slideshow.  Instead of having students come up and present their slideshows to the class one-by-one, we did a “gallery walk” where students went around the room with their partners to view different slideshows and write down interesting information they learned.  Afterwards, they completed a reflection in which they rated how well they thought they and their partners worked on the project and wrote down anything they thought they could have done better.   

Our next unit will be about Explorers.  In class today (Tuesday, December 4th), we started discussing what caused people in Europe to want to explore new lands.  Before the end of the calendar year, expect your student to come home discussing their Explorer Project!

Science with Miss Taylor and Mr. Josuweit

Before Thanksgiving break, we finished our unit on atoms, which was our first chemistry unit of the year.  The students are getting a better idea of the rigor and pace of the course now, in addition to the increased workload and required vocabulary.  They are continuing to enjoy all of the crazy science songs.  We are currently starting our final chemistry unit, Matter.  There are three lessons in this unit: Classification, properties, and changes.  We will finish up this unit before Holiday break and be ready to start physics when we return!