GRADE 8 CURRICULUM *Sample Lesson Request Form at the Bottom of the Page*
Language Arts • Guided reading of literary classics of Shakespeare and Arthur Conan Doyle • improving comprehension and reading of authors: Hemingway, Frost, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Richard Wilbur, Saki, Plath, Keats, and Tennyson • Introduction to writing the five paragraph essay • Building spoken, reading and written vocabulary • Narrative, descriptive and explanatory writing • Proofreading • Story writing • Review of parts of speech
Math • Problem solving • Introduction to algebra, exponents and power • Review of variables, expressions, and equations • Explore solving division and multiplication equations and two step equations • Geometry • Graphs and statistics • Symmetry • Prime factorization • Rational numbers and decimals • Discussion of square roots, scientific notation, ratio, proportion and percent, and probability.
Science • Review of the scientific method • Design experiments • Physics • States of matter • The heat and motion connection • The study of the atom • The periodic table • Rational numbers and decimals • Discussion of organic and inorganic material • Solutions • Concentration • Acids and bases • Waves • Frequency and pitch • The optics of lenses • Electricity • Matter • Energy • Electricity • Nuclear sources of energy
Social Science • The responsibilities and privileges of citizenship • The history of America's government • National, state and local government's responsibilities to citizens • The political party system • Voting • Nominating candidates • Elections • How a bill becomes a law • How the Congress, courts and executive branch of the government work • How our economic system operates
Fine Arts • History of American home entertainment from the games and songs of the colonists to the computers and iPods of the twenty-first century • Frescos • The marches of John Phillip Sousa • The photography of Brady, Jackson, and Hine.