Math:
This week the 7th finished their unit with lessons over similarity and reviewed the entire unit. The 8th grade class read What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras? by Julie Ellis to introduce them to the Pythagorean Theorem and had then lessons over it and its converse. They then started a poster to showcase the difference between the theorem and its converse. The Algebra class completed lessons over simplifying square roots, including monomials, on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday they completed the unit review, and on Thursday they worked on two extension assignments. The first assignment was a poster illustrating the product, power, quotient, and negative exponent rules. The second assignment was calculating exponential regression and making predictions about exponential growth and decay.
Humanities
Switching novels took center stage this week in Humanities. Students took the opportunity to review the literary essays they created for Warhorse. They looked over the evaluative comments and revised their writing to refine the argument, thesis and document examples and citations from the novel.
Jumping into our new novel The Book Thief, students reviewed the tale of Liesel and her struggles during the prelude to World War II in Germany. Students related various aspects of the themes and the tone of the novel to their experiences in their Theme classes about the war and the conditions that led to it.
Theme
Turning away from World War I, students began their investigation of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, many of which led to World War II. Students finished their remembrances of the Great War with commemorative coins, a reflection of the same designs for those created by the US government in 2018 to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the armistice.
Moving into the conditions that led to World War II, students examined documents that outlined the causes of the conflict. We began in the Theme room after it was “destroyed” under the same circumstances as the conditions in post war Europe. To identify this destruction and the mindset of the leaders who created the treaty, students gained insight into the punishment inflicted on Germany, and how it led to the conditions for the second war. This was all documented along with an examination of the differences between Facism and Democracy.
Seventh grade students move through station work solving equations
At top, students observe and tend to the produce in the World War Victory Garden. Above, PE class allowed Epsilon students to explore and connect with their neighborhood in Crestview.
At top, student react to the list of titles on a Banned Book list as part of a project looking at the topic in connection with their new novel The Book Thief. Above, Ms. Shari works with students on the revising of their Warhorse literary essays.
At top, Theme students sit with furniture and supplies strewn about the floor to simulate the destruction fo the European countryside following World War I. Above, students attempt to guess liess and truths during a game about the Treaty of Versailles.
