Happy New year!



A lot of changes have happened in our class since "last year"!

• Although we lost a couple of students, we gained three awesome new kids: Amanda, Nicholas and Lucas.


• We have a new schedule. We found that lots of time was being wasted with our old schedule and this new one seems to be working wonders.


• Our new MAPS classes include Edu-Dance(you should see their moves!) and Art(wire sculptures)


• We have a class pet. He is a ball python named Steve. He is the most loved reptile in the universe. Who would have thought kids would line up to hold a snake? His favorite place is on someone's wrist during class.

Morning Meetings:
Our morning meetings as always are my favorite time of the day. I love how tight knit our homeroom class is.

Math Skills:
7th graders have been working on mastering integers. 8th graders are working on inequalities in algebra. We have really focused on getting basic skills mastered. Next week both classes will start a graphing project that includes putting the entire school on a coordinate system. Seventh graders will concentrate on the coordinate system and plotting points on an xy graph. 8th graders will learn how to use graphing to solve algebraic equations.

Science:
7th graders kicked off our unit on populations and ecosystems. We are currently learning about genetics and heredity. Ask your student what a larkey is! We plan on incubating chicken eggs in the next couple of weeks.

8th graders kicked off our unit on chemistry. We are currently learning about elements, compounds and mixtures. Ask your student to tell you the difference between a metal and a nonmetal.


Our Unplugged project is well underway. Students are learning about the importance of electricity and what things we need to be "connected" to our society. All students should be done reading "the People of Sparks"by now. We are currently working on gathering information for their podcasts. Each student was to collect three articles pertaining to the topic they chose about energy, electricty or conservation. We will begin Podcast recording next week.

Upcoming events:

• 8th graders are planning a babysitting night fundraiser for Friday February 5 . We hope to turn it into a monthly event where IA parents and maybe parents from the community can drop their kids off for a date night while 8th graders babysit. More details coming in the Sunday nite IA call.
• We scratched the 8th grade Washington DC trip for this year and are planning to go to Sacramento instead. Details are coming! Look forward to a call or email from Clarissa's mom about how we can make this trip a reality.
• For February: Winter Olympics 8th grade Science Service Project. We will be learning about potential and kinetic energy, motion, velocity and acceleration. Hoping to involve the whole school in Winter Olympics games created by us.