What's Happening in the Eighth Grade?

Welcome to 8th grade ELA! My name is Cheri Omernick and this is my first year teaching at the GET Middle School, and the 29th year of my teaching career. I'm looking forward to a fantastic year!

The year has been amazing. It's been a joy to see the students grow as readers and writers!

STAR Testing: Wednesday, January 8

Unit 2 Assessment on Theme and Academic Vocabulary: January 13-14

Materials are on the StudySync app and in a StudySync workbook that is provided.

Language Arts

Unit 3: No Risk, No Reward

Essential Question: Why do we take chances?
Genre Focus: Informational Text
Extended Writing Project: Argumentative and Informative

Several excerpts and the novel Call of The Wild by Jack London will be studied.

Unit 2: Past and Present is almost complete. The novel Outsiders by S.E.Hinton as well as poetry and several excerpts were read and analyzed.

Grammar is an important part or becoming a better reader and writer. Writing improvement is a focus for Term 3. Sentence structure, word choice, and fluency work will be implemented during Core classes and Target Time.

Beyond the Classroom: ELA

Math

We are officially through September. Welcome to October!

We are finishing up:

Unit 1 (Rigid Transformations/congruence).

Our assessment is taking place on October 2nd.

What can I GUARENTEE I know from Unit 1

Rigid Transformations (Translations, Rotations, Reflections)
Congruent Figures
Properties of Parallel Lines

Unit 2 Topics

Scaling/Dilations
Similarity of Polygons
Slope

The units were reordered to align with learning goals for 8th grade. HERE is the link that takes you to the family version of our online book.

Beyond the Classroom: Math

Social Studies

In April, students will be learning about Americans moving west in search of adventure, opportunity, and riches. These dangerous journeys will be investigated through analysis of maps, primary sources, and secondary sources. Students will also participate in an Oregon Trail simulation. Lastly, students will continue practicing the development of argumentative short answer responses. All of these skills are also a focus in the Forward Test this month.

*The Western Exploration Test will be on Wed., April 9th- A review sheet will be given in class and posted on schoology.

Questions to ask your student-

How did you do on the Oregon Trail?

Do you think you would have explored and traveled West?

updated: 4/3/2025

Beyond the Classroom: Social Studies

Science

We are in our 3rd unit, Atoms & Chemical Reactions, that introduces students to Chemistry basics.

Topic 1 has concluded and we have ventured into Topic 2 - Chemical Reactions.

Reminder, within each unit there are Topics which are equatable to "chapters" in a unit. Atoms & Chemical Reactions has 2 Topics:

Atoms & the Periodic Table
Chemical Reactions

Essential Questions for each Topic:

How do atoms combine to form extended structures?
How do you know when a chemical reaction has occurred?

As we look ahead to the Spring season, take note that the Science Forward Test (state test) is scheduled for Thursday, April 3rd, 2025. This is also the date for the History Forward Test.

Beyond the Classroom: Science