Week 4 Sept 24-28

Before recapping last week, I would like to give you details of the upcoming week's activities. Our final total for our bake sale and snow-cone fundraising was $288.60 which comes to $8 per person raised.  Students were asked to bring in the remaining $12 on Monday.  On Tuesday, we ask that all supplies are brought in.  (Past experience has shown that it is best to take an inventory of our supplies BEFORE the day we leave!!)  Students will begin Wednesday morning in the classroom where we will kick-off the Rate Our Beaches Project in the morning. We will be completing preliminary activities to enhance our experience at San Clemente.   We will have lunch at school, pack our cars and leave immediately afterward(approximately 1:00 pm).  We will return to school on Friday at noon.  I have emailed all parents the full camp-out itinerary.  If you have not received it, please contact me immediately at lisa@innovationsacademy.org .

To all who came to Back To School Night, I enjoyed meeting with you! It was wonderful sharing in your students' experiences in 8th grade so far.  Please know that my classroom is open to you anytime, not just during family nights and school events!  Please stop in often to see your child's work or to discuss their successes or challenges.

Upcoming Events
Monday Oct 1:  $12 due for trip
Tuesday Oct 2:  Camp supplies in classroom
Tuesday Oct 2:  Language of Math Quiz 3
                          real number        natural number       whole number
                           integer            rational number        irrational number
Wednesday Oct 3-5 San Clemente Trip
Tuesday Oct 9: Language of Math Quiz 4
                          frequency table           bar graph          line graph
                          mean            median             mode

Some assembly required

Feedback and Adding Color

Last week we completed our tessellations and have them displayed in our classroom.  They look fantastic!  Along with beautiful artwork, the following  objectives were satisfied:

Common Core CA 8^th Grade Math Standard - Geometry 8.G-1,2,4:

Understand congruence and similarity using physical models, transparencies, or geometry software.

1. Verify experimentally the properties of rotations, reflections, and translations

2. Understand that a two-dimensional figure is congruent to another if the second can be obtained from the first by a sequence of rotations, reflections, and translations; given two congruent figures, describe a sequence that exhibits the congruence between them.

4. Understand that a two-dimensional figure is similar to another if the second can be obtained from the first by a sequence of rotations, reflections, translations, and dilations; 
given two similar two-dimensional figures, describe a sequence that exhibits the similarity between them.

Completed Tessellation

Language Of Math used in this activity: 

 tessellation     polygon       equilateral triangle      rhombus      hexagon       

symmetry     axis of symmetry     transformation

• • 
    translation       reflection    rotation   center of rotation

In Math, our discussion and activities to explain real numbers is continuing.  We discussed the difference between rational and irrational numbers as well as learned how to estimate square roots that are not perfect squares.  Students are beginning to recognize square roots that are not perfect squares are irrational numbers.   

For example: 

Between what two whole numbers would you find the square root of 20?  

Answer:   Between 4 and 5.  

Why?  Because the square root of 16 = 4 and the square root of 25 = 5. Since the square root of 20 lies between the square root of 16 and the square root of 25, then it must also be between the whole numbers 4 and 5.

For more practice,  check out http://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra/exponents-radicals/e/square_roots_2  click on the hints for help.

So how is this going to help me in real life?  Estimation is a valuable tool in measurement, grocery shopping, determining how long it will take to travel somewhere....  When we recognize that fractions, decimals, and irrational numbers are just numbers that fall between whole numbers, we can at least get a close estimation to a number that is easier to visualize.

We will begin working on integers this upcoming week.

Week 3 Sept 17-21

Thank you to all those who helped out with our Bake Sale! We made $208, which lowers each student's cost for the San Clemente Campout by $5.80.  We plan on selling Sno Cones after school this Tuesday and Thursday to bring that total even higher.





Upcoming Events:
Tuesday Sept 25 The Language of Math Vocab Quiz 2
                    axis of symmetry      transformation     translation
                    rotation            center of rotation        reflection
Thursday Sept 27 Tessellations due

Thursday Sept 27 Back to School Night 5-8pm (classroom visits from 5-6 and again at 7-8.  All            school meeting in Multi Purpose Room from 6-7) Parents and students invited

Tuesday Oct 2 The Language of Math Vocab Quiz 3
                  real numbers       natural numbers      whole numbers
                  integers           rational numbers      irrational numbers

Wed Oct 3 9:00am - Fri Oct 5 12 pm:  San Clemente State Beach Campout


Math
Our tessellations are looking beautiful!  Students will have them on display at Back to School Night on Thursday with a description of their artwork written in terms of their new math vocabulary.

Creating the design on an
 equilateral triangle

Tracing the reflection

Perfecting the design

Checking for symmetry

I met with each student individually to discuss their math assessments as well as concepts each student felt they needed to practice. Math groups will begin this next week. Check out http://www.tenmarks.com/  We will be using this website in class for math practice.  You will hear more about it as students start using it in and out of class!
                                                                                                                                                                            During week 4 we are investigating "real numbers" and comparing/contrasting
different number sets with an emphasis on rational and irrational numbers. 
See the above events for the vocabulary connected with real numbers(Quiz 3)

According to 8th grade common core standards for math, this week students will: 

Know that there are numbers that are not rational, and approximate them by rational numbers.

1.  Know that numbers that are not rational are called irrational. Understand informally that every number has a decimal expansion; for rational numbers show that the decimal expansion repeats eventually, and convert a decimal expansion which repeats eventually into a rational number. 

2.  Use rational approximations of irrational numbers to compare the size of irrational numbers, locate them approximately on a number line diagram, and estimate the value of expressions (e.g., π2). For example, by truncating the decimal expansion of √2, show that √2 is between 1 and 2, then between 1.4 and 1.5, and explain how to continue on to get better approximations.Use properties of rational and irrational numbers.



Science
 While scientists study how nature works, engineers create new things. Scientists usually perform experiments using the scientific method; whereas, engineers follow the creativity-based engineering design process. 

We will be using both of these processes in our class this year. A comparison of both is below:

Table 1. Comparing the scientific method with the engineering design process. Copyright © Megan Podlogar, ITL Program, College of Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder.

In an activity that demonstrated how to use the Engineering Design Process, students were given the challenge of creating a marble track in which a marble dropped from a height of at least 12 inches and travelled at least 3 seconds before reaching the end of the track. The only materials allowed were a toilet paper roll, a manila folder, 3 index cards, scissors and a meter of tape This activity included planning, making observations, testing through trial and error and thinking outside of the box.

Building

Testing the design

A re-design that worked
after trial and error

Thinking outside the box.
This one stayed on the track
for 13 seconds!

See you all at Back To School Night!

Week 2 Sept 10-14 Planning and Preparation

Upcoming Events:
Tuesday Sept 18 The Language of Math Vocab Quiz 1
                    tessellation       polygon     equilateral triangle
                    rhombus           hexagon    symmetry

Wednesday Sept 19 2-4 pm: 8th Grade Bake Sale Fundraiser for Beach Campout

Tuesday Sept 25 The Language of Math Vocab Quiz 2
                    axis of symmetry      transformation     translation
                    rotation            center of rotation        reflection

Thursday Sept 27 Back to School Night 5-8pm

Wed Oct 3 9:00am - Fri Oct 5 12 pm:  San Clemente State Beach Campout

Mission Beach Jetty

The all middle school beach trip to kick off the year was a fantastic success! Thank you to our 8th grade parents for chaperoning and to those who drove groups, dropped students off separately, donated food and ultimately contributed to such an exciting day! The purpose of this trip was to solidify our middle school community and we observed many students from different grades having a great time.

Baby Brittle Sea Star found hiding
from predators inside kelp 

Much of our learning this year will take place outside of the four walls of our classroom!  The 8^th grade will have many field trips this year that will enhance the projects and studies of our students by providing hands-on learning experiences as well opportunities for students to go places they may never have been. The field trips also help students continue to develop social skills, not only with each other, but also with other adults, students from other schools, and so on. The benefits of fieldtrips are innumerable, which is why Tony and I place particular importance on each student’s participation in these valuable experiences since we view them as a direct extension of our school day.

The following is the email sent to all 8^th grade parents concerning our next field trip: Our first project of the year will involve students in measuring and assessing the conditions of local beaches and reporting their findings. We are kicking off this project with a two night expedition to San Clemente State Beach.  We will leave the school on Wednesday, October 3rd after lunch and return to the school on Friday, October 5th at 12:00pm.
     The students are planning a supply list and a menu which we will send home and post on our blogs next week. We are looking for at least three male and three female chaperones who will stay with students at their various campsites. Parents, if you are able to chaperone, please click here.
     The cost of the trip, including gas money for the drivers, totals $20 per student. We will hold a bake sale on Wednesday, September 19, with the hope of raising most of the money then.
Students have already volunteered click here to see what your child volunteered to sell at the bake sale.

 Inside the classroom this week, students were introduced to study skills, notetaking, recording work and presenting work.  We started our somewhat permanent class schedule which includes morning meeting,  90 minutes of math/science and 90 minutes of humanities in the morning.  After lunch, we devote our afternoon to interdisciplinary projects and class meetings.

The students got back into the math mode after a long summer by investigating symmetry.  We learned new vocabulary words to help describe patterns and tessellations.  An important aspect of understanding mathematics is being able  to decipher the language of math. As with any language, fluency comes with practice and exposure to the vocabulary.  Students were guided through note taking and good practices for organizing information in order to access it later.  We set a date every Tuesday for vocabulary assessments and time every day in class for math practice.  Next week students will create tessellation to display in our classroom.

As an introduction to our year in science, students discussed the scientific method and how it is used not only in science but in all inquiry.  During one of our science activities this week, students were given mystery boxes. Each closed box had a marble and a divider inside.  Students were asked to describe the inside of the box as precisely as possible without opening the box.  It was interesting to watch as students worked in groups, discussing their reasoning and how they came to conclusions as to the design of their box.

I am loving this group of 8th graders!  They are eager to learn and I can tell will keep my learning along with them!

Sept 4- 7 What a great week!

Our first week together was so much fun!

Building a strong community is very important to Innovations Academy. I truly believe the best learning takes place in an environment where there is trust, security, collaboration, and fun.

We spent the first 4 days of school creating and practicing routines and guidelines. Because practice makes perfect, we will spend much time modeling effective habits and practicing consistency, time management and excellent work.

Our activities this week included team collaboration using the Marshmallow Challenge as a

jumping off point. For information and to watch a TED talk about the challenge check out www.marshmallowchallenge.com

We also played the Cup Game for morning meeting. Although we have a ways to go, our class performed the Cup Game in front of the whole school during Fridays All School Meeting. I am so impressed by their willingness to put themselves out there in front of the whole school.  I can tell we have a great group of eighth graders this year! Check out the video below to see a few of the students as they were practicing. We finished off the week by discussing excellent work, critique and expectations for completing assignments and projects. We are learning about critique through an activity where we are creating a beautiful group tessalation.  Photos in next post!

In my next blog post look forward to the math and science concepts we will be covering this year. Please feel free to contact me any time at lisa@innovationsacademy.org. I will get back to you within 24 hrs or you can always visit our classroom. If you would like to meet for a private discussion about your child, I will be happy to arrange an appointment with you.

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday September 11: Middle School Beach Day at South Mission Beach. Leaving at 9:30 and coming back to school at 3:30.

Thursday September 27: Back to School Night
Update on I.A. Sustainability Project: contact Beth@innovationsacademy.org for info.
A) We need help with Terracyle ( a program for our school to get funds and recycle more plastic). If you can help with logistics please contact our Sustainability Program Manager, Beth Foster.
B)We are also looking for families who are interested in Suzie's Farm Raiser boxes ($25 for a box full of local organic fruits and vegetables). If you would like to sign up please email Beth Foster at beth@innovationsacademy.org or sign up in the front office.
C) Please mark your calendars for Saturday, September 29th. Innovations will be hosting a worm composting workshop for Green Apple Service Day. Stay tuned for more information on this exciting project.