Grade Level News

6th Grade | 7th Grade | 8th Grade

6th Grade News:

The sixth grade teachers would like to thank students for all of their hard work during the first marking period.  As a reminder, the third marking period will begin on January 26th when students will switch between and science and social studies.  We would like to wish everyone to have safe and happy holidays in 2009.

Language Arts News:
We're starting a new marking period with a new unit: Research. Your child will be researching a career they may be interested in pursuing in the future. After your child does the research, he/she will be preparing a multimedia report. Students will be using PowerPoint and preparing their product in the computer lab.   We'll also be continuing to develop our skills and concepts for Unit 1 as the sixth grade Language Arts teachers rotate through Research.  After our Research unit, we'll be working on Unit 2, which revolves around Characterization.  We'll be reading both fiction and non-fiction as they analyze characters and bullies and their traits.  Students will also be writing a description of a person using character traits in their description.  They will also continue to develop their writing skills as they move through the writing process for this writing.  This will take us right up through Winter Break. 

Social Studies News:
Students have finished up their units on Prehistory, Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, and Ancient Greece.  Our current unit is Ancient Rome.  The week of December 7 - December 11th students are working on their research projects.  For the research projects, student need to research an ancient invention, write how it has evolved today, and predict what it will look like in the future.  The second marking period will end with units on Ancient Africa and the Middle Ages. Students will be switching from social studies to science on January 26th.

7th Grade News:

Check out our PVMS spirit! Ask your child to show you his/her fabulous, seventh grade t-shirt. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a…dinosaur? Yup, you guessed it! We just returned from our field trip to the Maryland Science Center where students dusted for fossils, created virtual automobiles, and took a three dimensional swim under the sea! Seventh grade is excited for our winter dance, on Thursday, December 10th! Put it on your calendar; we hope to see you there.

Language Arts: In Language arts, students have completed their first unit of study, Plot, Setting, and Conflict. During this unit, students read short stories, non-fiction selections, poetry, and drama. Next up is Unit 2: Character and Point of View. Students will explore the topics of characterization and the use of a narrator. Students will explore a variety of literary genres. Our first three selections all pertain to the Vietnam War which links to our seventh grade service-learning trip to the Perryville VA Hospital.

Science: We have completed Unit 1: Cells and Heredity. Students finished cell projects and family pedigrees. We have started Unit 2: Body systems and Interdependence. Each body system will be studied to see how it works with other body systems to perform life functions. Students will complete a Powerpoint or Comic Life presentation on an assigned body system. Unit 3: Ecology and Unit 3: Environmental Science will follow sometime after Thanksgiving.

Algebra: We have spent a good portion of the first marking period studying linear equations and will soon be moving onto inequalities. Once that is complete, we will be preparing for and taking our midterm exam before winter break.  I would like to encourage students to continue coming to study group on Thursdays, as well as using www.classzone.com for additional practice, games, and puzzles.

Course 2 and Pre-Algebra have completed units involving operations with fractions, decimals, and integers. Both classes are currently starting an Algebra unit where the students will be solving equations.

Social Studies: Students have completed Unit One: the Western Hemisphere, and Unit Two: Europe. As we enter the last semester of Social studies, we are blasting through the continent of Africa, and students will develop a full understanding of genocide (Apartheid, Rwanda, Sudan, etc.) and its impact on Africa today. Students will be enriched with understanding the responsibilities of a diplomat, where they are located, and the life of a child of a diplomat. We will develop pen pals with students who are living overseas as children of diplomats. PowerPoint research projects will be completed demonstrating a problem in Africa and their solution with sources to support their view. These power points will be submitted in a global competition for youth changing today’s problems for tomorrow’s world. Students will investigate the growing population of AIDS and the culture beliefs that have advanced the disease and what is being done to stop the spread. The exploitation of children soldiers and natural resources will be explored, along with many other issues before the Thanksgiving holiday.

8th Grade News:



In Algebra I the students are learning how to find the slope of a line, as well as writing linear equations. They will be introduced to three different forms of equations, and will need to determine the difference between the three.

In Ms. Layton's Ramp up and Geometry classes we all had a very successful first marking period. Every student has passed math for the first marking period, and Ms. Layton is looking forward to another marking period of the same hard work and dedication! Ramp Up students should continue to work hard on their homework as we finish unit 2 and move on to unit 3. Geometry students need to continue to study their theorems and postulates so they can be successful writing proofs as we move from unit 3 to unit 4.

In language arts, eighth graders are in the midst of unit two, which focuses on character and point of view. They will read several selections that help to answer our big question: What brings a character to life? In addition, students have begun tapping into their creative powers by developing an original character. The unit assessment will be given shortly after Thanksgiving break.

Congratulations are in order. The 8th grade students recently completed their Lewis & Clark Journal projects to conclude Unit Two of the U.S. History course. Students will continue to follow the presidential career of Thomas Jefferson and investigate the impact of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Following the Jefferson Era, Students will determine the cause and effects of the War of 1812 and acknowledge how the victory over the British crown elevated the United States to a world power. Finally, students will conclude the unit three with Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act and the embodiment of the ideas associated with Manifest Destiny.