Hello!
Just a reminder we do not have school on Friday the 17th or Monday the 20th.
Last week we had a very fun surprise–the Blackhawk mascot Tommy Hawk came for a pep rally to St Cletus!
Syria: Today the eighth grade NJHS hosted a prayer service for the devastating situation in Syria and Turkey. We will continue to keep those affected in our prayers! We also had a $1 dress down to support efforts in the area.
Lent: Next week we will celebrate Ash Wednesday and begin doing Stations of the Cross on Thursday afternoons @ 2pm in church. The eighth grade has been preparing the Living Stations of the Cross for Friday 1/24 @2pm. I have been leading them through this important event.
Math: I am excited to begin my favorite math discipline with the seventh graders–Algebra! It is challenging to begin a “new” concept as so many students may feel a bit unsure of themselves at first –that is normal. Please have them bring their questions–I am always willing to help – even on homework and if they have a question my guess is other students are questioning as well. I do need them to try though–Algebra requires a TON of independent practice. There are many different “types” of problems – there are many different strategies to solve. Here is where student higher order thinking takes place. They will have to analyze and decide the strategies!. They will need to perform mathematical operations in an organized manner. They will need to solve and check if there solutions is correct. I love Algebra!
To correctly solve problems we have learned several strategies already–Distributive Property when parenthesis, collecting like terms, and opposite operations. The #1 goal is always to solve for the variable (get x (variable) on one side, constant on the other).
The students are putting their integer operations to the test–keep practicing add/subt/multi/div of positive and negative numbers. You can know your strategies inside/out but if you make an error in calculations, the problem is wrong! (ugh) That is the challenge and I know the seventh grade is up for this challenge. Accuracy throughout each step is so important.
As always if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!