Black Team Quarter 1 Newsletter

November 16, 2017

Math Notes

Each month, two students will be chosen as the Black Team’s Star Students. These students exemplify the “Scofield Strives” character traits. Congratulations to the following students:September Star StudentsTyler Tanaka VizcarrondoSerena SweeneyOctober Star StudentsFernando Hernandez MesinasErin CaseyCongratulations and keep up the good work!

This year we started off working with negative numbers. During this time, we discussed how negative numbers impact our everyday lives such as noticing temperature changes, learning how to balance a check book, about financial debt, and how to move above and below sea level. Although these numbers may be negative, they’ll have a positive impact on your child’s education!

The past few months my classes have been learning about ratios and proportions. At this time, we are discussing real life applications of ratios and proportions when converting measurements in recipes and calculating distances such as converting inches to feet to yards and cups to pints to quarts to pounds.

Soon, classes will be learning about percentages. In the future, students will apply their learning to problems such as adding the percent of sales tax to their final bills, finding the appropriate amount to tip a server at a restaurant, and learning how the economy uses markups and commission to determine prices of goods. Just make sure to double check their work if

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tax return!

To further support learning at home, please feel free to ask questions relating to our past, present, and future units. You could have students practice determining temperature changes as the winters weather continues and have students practice working with money and debt using their allowance. In addition, you could ask students to help in the kitchen when cooking dinner by having them double or reduce the serving size and calculating the distance between home and different activities. Finally, to prepare students for our upcoming unit, have conversations about saving money for presents by using sales in stores, show them how to tip a server 15%, 18% or 20%, and discuss how companies markup their goods to make a profit.

Thank you for your continued support!

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What’s New in Ancient History?We started off 7th Grade by taking a quick refresher course in geography. These activities allowed the students to plot locations on a grid and navigate to different corners of the globe.

We then travelled way back in time to the first civilization of Mesopotamia. We learned about how Ancient Mesopotamians adapted from being nomads to forming the first city-states based on irrigation, farming and the first written language of cuneiform. We then discussed, in depth, the first complete set of laws, Hammurabi’s Code, which was made up of 282 laws! This was the students’ first DBQ (document-based question) of 7th Grade.

After Hammurabi and Mesopotamia, we started learning about the three major religions of the world. We just completed learning about how both Judaism and Christianity originated and spread. We made ancient scrolls focusing on the major figures of Judaism and we read parables that reinforced the need to live by the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated and treat everyone you meet with kindness and respect.

We started learning about the religion of Islam and how it started this week. We will be looking deeply at how it spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula, Africa, Asia and parts of Europe. After Islam, we will start talking about the Israel/Palestine Conflict.

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The students have been incredibly busy this quarter! We began the year with a new approach to vocabulary - Latin and Greek roots. If you ask them, they will probably say it's terrible, but I secretly think they love it! As of right now, they have been introduced to forty-five different prefixes, roots and suffixes, and it's only going to grow from here. 

In Writing, the students have been working very hard on their organization of constructed responses; their progress has been wonderful! Moving forward, they will continue to work on these, and after the Thanksgiving holiday we will be moving into argument writing.

In Reading, we have just completed The Pearl, by John Steinbeck. This is an amazing, yet tragic story that I am sure they would love to share with you. Be on the look-out for the final project. The students will be creating an original book jacket for the novel. This is due on Tuesday, November 21st. 

If there are any questions or concerns moving forward, please do not hesitate to contact me!

LA Times Science InvestigationsWelcome to 7th grade! In quarter one we discussed the scientific method and the qualities of a good experiment. We learned about Pellagra and then transitioned to Human Body Systems. We explored the digestive system where we learned how breakdown and surface area affect rates of digestion. We discovered the how ligaments, tendons and bones work together in the skeletal system through a hands-on dissection of a chicken wing! We also had a chance to examine the respiratory system and circulatory system and we learned how the two systems work together to create the cardiovascular system. The students have been having fun checking pulses and learning the names of the organs in each system (go ahead -ask them!). Looking forward to quarter two, students will be completing their first lab report called "Feel the Beat." We will begin to move on to our next unit which is Cells. Here we will study how cells are the building blocks of life and examine the differences between plant and animal cells, Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic cells and work on mastering our microscope skills.  

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Totally TechnicalIn technology class during the first quarter we had four major assignments.  We began by building a word cloud (in Wordle) and moving it into Adobe Photoshop for editing and producing a product for their later-in-the quarter portfolios.  The images were based upon twenty words or phrases to describe themselves.  They edited and improved this piece from a basic jpeg image into a layered piece suitable for portfolio.  

We proceeded to do as follow-up with Scratch programming.  Students worked in teams to produce a working game that they programmed using a guide to get them started.  They were left to create the final coding pieces on their own.  They took notes on what they accomplished and found technical definitions.  This was a 200 point major assignment!  

The third project was their personal e-portfolio which included artifacts from each of their classes.  There were eight slides built in either Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides.  We will work on this throughout the year and place this into the Naviance accounts at the end of the school year.  Stay tuned!

Finally, we worked on a video editing until using Adobe Premiere.  This was our first go-round using this program and the results were quite good.  I wanted students to have another experience with the possibility of considering an edited video into their Exhibitions in the 8th grade.

The Black Team will be in art for the entire second quarter and we will come back to alternating between technology and art class in the third quarter.  More technological quests await!

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