Learning Previews - Grade 7 - October 2017

Learning Previews - Grade 7 - October 2017
Posted on 10/10/2017
ELA: Ms. Gonzalez


We have spent the last few weeks reading memoirs and and brainstorming memories of our own. Our young writers have now chosen a memory to write about and will choose a theme that comes from exploring their thoughts and feelings about it. We’ll be drafting, revising, and editing our memoirs independently and in response groups. By the end of October, we’ll be fine tuning our final drafts for publication and celebration. Stay tuned for how we plan to make our stories public!

To engage your writer in talking about their process, share some of your own memories around places you’ve been, songs you’ve loved, and stand out moments of your life that you feel like you will never forget, and explain the significance of those memories to you.

Math: Mr. Devlin

7th Grade Accelerated Math Pathways
Your student will begin their work by extending their understanding of the system of rational numbers. Students will explore the idea that between every pair of rational numbers, there is another rational number. A big idea is that real numbers are used to represent quantities, and can be located on an infinite number line. Students will need to draw number lines to scale with the correct interval. In this unit, students will use long division to write fractions as decimals and explore terminating and repeating decimals. Ask your student to explain rational numbers to you.

Your student will then move into operations with rational numbers. Some of the skills your student will practice are:
  • Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing integers
  • Finding the distance between two integers on a number line
  • Using the order of operations with integers
  • Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing rational numbers in fraction or decimal form
  • Solving real-world problems using operations with integers, fractions, and decimals
7th Grade On Grade Level
Your student is still engaged in our proportional relationship unit; learning about direct and inverse proportions with percent problems as well. Some of the skills your student will practice are:
  • Identifying direct and inverse proportion from a table, equation, or graph
  • Solving real-world direct and inverse proportion problems
  • Using graphs to interpret direct and inverse proportion
  • Creating proportions to solve percent problems

7th Grade Science: Mr. Mahoney

Science class continues our study of chemistry in the unit called “How can I make new stuff from old stuff?” We have finished out learning set about the properties of matter and are now starting to investigate chemical reactions. Students first explore the qualities of substances by planning and carrying out a number of investigations of chemical reactions. Through their investigations, students learn that a chemical reaction is a process in which old substances (reactants) interact to form new substances (products) with new properties. Students use models to further develop their understanding of the particulate nature of matter in the context of these chemical reactions, learning that new substances are the result of atoms in the old substances rearranging to form new molecules.

Social Studies: Ms. Motto

Students spend October learning about the religion of Islam. We begin with the geography of the Middle East and how the Middle East is defined. Students then move onto Muhammad and the teachings of Islam. Towards the end of the month, students will begin to work on their DBQs (Document Based Questions). They will work in class on their writing. This unit also connects to the first unit of the year, Identity. How does the Sunnah impact the daily life of Muslims? How does this connect to how Muslims see themselves and how society sees them? By the end of the unit, students will be able to answer three essential questions: What are the stories of Muhammad and how have they shaped Islam and the world? How can religion both unite and separate people? What makes for a strong historical argument?