Mrs. O'Brien's Blog

I hope that all of the parents were able to enter the Science Lab to see some amazing experiments performed by our 7th and 8th grade students. Thank you to all of the students who came in to help. Many of the parents said compliments about the way that each of our students had explained the experiments during the time that they were performing them. Thank you again!!! This week, we kick off our Catholic Schools Week.

8th grade Science
The students have completed Ionic and Covalent Bonds, and we are finished with our Chapter. I handed back their last test on Covalent Bonds, and I had many high scores. The students have a Chapter 4 test on Wednesday. They knew about this since last week, so this should be no surprise. Our next chapter is on Chemical Reactions, which involve some equations. Time is moving quickly, and pretty soon we will finally begin Biology.

7th Grade Science
The students have completed the first section of Chapter 16. We are discussing Mitosis and Meiosis, so this chapter is pretty intense. I am taking time to explain things in detail. I am hoping to begin doing some daily questions to help the students prepare for the Terra Nova's. The Terra Nova's are the first week of March, so I like to review some topics with the students.

Here are the activities for Catholic Schools Week:
Monday-St. Rita's Band will be performing and "Crazy Sock Day"
Tuesday-7th and 8th graders will be watching a movie and "Backwards Day"
Wednesday- Special Lunch and "Sports Day"- students may wear jerseys over their uniforms
Thursday- Jesse White Tumblers will be here and "Crazy Hat Day"
Friday- we will be seeing a music concert in church

Have a great week!

7th Grade Science
We have finished up our chapter on the Seafloor. The students completed a small activity for this chapter, and this will be hanging up in the hallway for Open House. We are moving into Cellular Respiration. The students will be learning about plant cells and animal cells. We are also going to be finishing up our activity on the Ipads from last week. We worked on an assignment while using the Ipads, so the students will complete this too.

8th Grade Science
The students worked on Ionic Bonds last week, and they had a quiz. I went through the quiz because there were many errors made, and I wanted the students to understand the things that were incorrect. This took a great amount of our class period. We will be working on Covalent Bonds this week, which seems a little bit easier. The students will be having a quiz on the three Covalent Bond diagrams this Friday.

This Sunday is Open House. All parents and students are welcome! I will be in the Science Lab working on a couple of experiments, so please stop by if you have time. Mass starts at 10:00, and then Open House will follow. I have asked some of our Junior High students to assist me in the lab for the experiment. I will be meeting these students on Tuesday, right after school to discuss the experimentst that we will be working on.
Have a great week.

We are ready to begin our first full week since Christmas Breakl. It is hard to believe that half of our year is already over. The 8th graders have their high school entrance exam on Saturday. Good luck to all of the students.
8th Grade Science
The students will be completing a small Minilab on Electron Dot Diagrams. This was started on Friday, and will have to be completed by the end of class on Monday. On Tuesday, the students will have a small quiz on the original microscope, and then on Wednesday, the students will have a quiz on the history of the microscope and the compound microscope. I mentioned this to the students last week Thursday, so they all should be prepared. We will continue to work with chemical and ionic bonds. Over the break, I took a look at some of the biology books that the high schools currently use. I am planning on incorporating some of the information that would benefit our students into the curriculum, once we get past our current chapter and chemical equations.
7th Grade Science
Last Thursday, I handed back the lab write-up that the students had completed on Density Currents. Many students did well. While grading the labs, the one problem that I consistently found was spelling and grammar errors. Before this lab, I must have repeated many times to the students that they need to proofread any work that they will be turning into me, especially when it comes to lab write-ups. I know that when they enter high school, they will be writing labs out on a weekly basis. I want to make sure that they understand the importance of spelling, punctuation, and grammar while writing up their labs.
The students are learning about the Seafloor and specific organisms that make up the ocean. We will do an activity where the students will be able to look up information about a specific organism, plant, sea animal, crustacean, plankton, and other things found in the ocean. I am allowing the students to choose what they want to look up, however; there will be no doubles of any orgranism, plants, sea animal, crustacean, plankton, or any other things that we will be looking at. We will be making our own Seafloor, so the students will place the pictures and specific facts that they had researched on a blue piece of paper. I will be hanging this up for Open House. I know that March may seem far away, but that is the time when the students will be taking the Terra Nova's. I will be preparing the students by going over some topics that could possibly be covered on the Terra Nova'a in the next couple of weeks.

Christmas is arriving, and the kids are filled with excitement!!!! My homeroom is counting down the days until they are out of school for a nice and relaxing break.
8th Grade Science
For these couple of days, I am going to introduce the parts of a microscope. The students will be using microscopes in high school, so I feel that this will be a way for them to become more familiar it. For the two days that I will see them, we will be in the Science Lab going over the parts and functions of all microscopes. When they come back from the break, we will have a small test about the microscope. I know that some of the high schools have the microscope as part of their midterm.

7th Grade Science
Last Friday, we had shortened class periods because the Mother McAuley A Capella singers had a performance in the church. Due to the shortened periods, the students were unable to complete the Chapter 11 test. I am giving them time today to finish the test. Once we complete this, I will introduce our next chapter which is about the Seafloor. I have a creative, yet fun project to go along with this chapter.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2012.

Our 8th grade students have learned the entire Periodic Table of Elements. They will be put to the test on Wednesday, when they will be taking the final test on the entire table. The students have known about this for awhile, so I am sure that they will be ready. Since we will be finished with the Periodic Table, we will move into chemical bonds and compounds. I know that when the students begin their freshman science class, which is usually biology; they will be learning a great amount of material in one small section. I usually start introducing biology at the end of the year. This year, I have decided to start introducing some biology topics right after the Christmas Break. This way, the students can become famililar with the amount of information that they will aquiring during their freshman biology course, and to realize the amount of time a teacher will spend on certain sections of the chapter. I have spoken to a good amount of teachers from the different high schools. They have informed me that they usually spend 1 to 2 days per section, and then the test will be the same week that they had finished all of the sections, or the following Tuesday. I will do my best to help prepare the students for this course.

Our 7th graders have just completed Chapter 11-Ocean Motion. We have had many notes and questions for each of the sections in this chapter. On Friday, the students will have a test on Chapter 11. They will be able to use their note books for the test, however; I have
already explained to them that the test will be difficult and challenging, so they really need to read over the entire chapter to help prepare for the test. Some questions will not come from their
notes. I want to challenge them as best as possible, which is why I am going to make this test much more challenging. I am hoping to do one more activity/lab before the Christmas break, but will all depend on our schedule.

Reminders-the 7th and 8th grade students have their Christmas Music Concert on Tuesday, December 13th. All of the students need to be back at SJF between 6:00-6:15. They will be checked in, and once all of the students are here they will have a rehearsal before the concert. We will have a Music Concert in school on Tuesday, at 1:15. All of the students will wear their music attire to school. The boys have gym, so Mr. Schroeder is requesting that they wear their gym shoes. On Friday, December 16th, Mother McAuley High School's A Capella choir will be here performing for our students.

8th Grade Science
The 8th grade students have completed Chapter 3-the Periodic Table of Elements. We will begin our next section on Chemical Bonds. There will be equations for the students to memorize, so this chapter will be explained in great depth. I also know that for their freshman year of Biology, they will need to memorize certain chemical equations. A couple of reminders-on Tuesday of this week the students have their element test on the Lanthanide Series and on December 8th the test will be on the Actinide Series. On December 14th, they will have their final test on the entire Periodic Table of Elements. The students have been studying really hard for this test, so I know that they will be ready for it.
7th Grade Science
Last week, the students had completed a lab on Density Currents. It seemed like they really enjoyed working in the lab for this minilab. This week, we will be completing our last section of Chapter 11. It is section 11.3 Ocean Waves and Tides. The students will be taking notes and answering questions that go along with this section. We will finish up this section before the Christmas break. I am hoping that we will be able to work on one more activity for this Chapter.
The 7th graders will be having a small test on two diagrams from their book on Friday, December 8th. The diagrams are on pages 312 and 321 of their text book.Have a great week.

We are back from our little Thanksgiving break. I hope that everyone had a nice holiday. Now, the students will be counting down the days until the Christmas Break. I am sure the students cannot wait to have another couple of days off. Here is what will be occurring this week.

8th Grade Science
*This week, the students have many things happening in Science. Tuesday, Nov. 29th- the students will have a test on Elements 87-89; 104-112. Their study guide is also due for Chapter 3. On Thursday, Dec. 1st- the students will have a test on Chapter 3- The Periodic Table of Elements. Right before our Thanksgiving break, I explained all of the information that will be on the test. I recently added in some extra credit for the students. This is regarding information that we had read about in class. The students have all of the instructions in their assignment notebooks or regular notebooks on what is required for the extra credit. This will be due by Thursday, Dec. 1st, and I will not be taking any late papers. Some upcoming dates to remember are:
December 6th- Lanthanide Series Test
December 8th- Actinide Series Test
December 14h- Entire Test on the Periodic Table of Elements. For the test, the students will have to remember the abbreviation and atomic number. The students need to score a 77% or higher. If they do not receive a passing score, then they will have an opportunity to re-take the test.

7th Grade Science
This week, we are continuing on with Section 11.2-Ocean Currents. Right before the break, we took notes on this section. I will be going over the notes with the students, and we will read this section. There will be some vocabulary terms for the students to remember. This is one chapter that I really enjoy discussing because the students learn about surface currents and how they effect the ocean. We will also talk about an explorer named William Dampier. He wrote about the Gulf Stream currents in a book that had been published called, Discoveries on the Trade Winds. On Tuesday, the students will be able to model density currents using water and food coloring. This is going to be a small mini lab. It will help the students become more familiar with both density and surface currents.
Have a great week!

This week, we have two half days. On Monday, I will be seeing the 8th grade students. On Tuesday, I will be seeing the 7th grade students. Here is what will be coming up in the weeks ahead.
8th Grade Science
I will see the students on Monday. I will be checking in 39 note cards, and these are the final note cards that they will complete for . This will complete all of the note cards for the Periodic Table of Elements. The students will take the entire Periodic Table of Elements test right before Christmas Break. The students will receive information regarding the next couple of tests that they will be taking, which I will list below.
For the rest of the class period, I had gone over all of the notes for each section of Chapter 3. I had the students put some type of mark next to each key term or piece of information that they will have to look over for the test. They will be creating a study guide to help with their preparation of this test. I am constantly reminding them that this is their own study guide. It is up to them as to how they would like to create it, as long as it will be both beneficial and helpful while they are studying. Once we finish this, the students received the last questions for Section 3.3 Transition Elements.
Monday, November 28th- 6 questions on Section 3.3 are due.
Tuesday, November 29th- The study guide is to be completed, and will be checked in.
Also, the students will have an Element test on numbers
87 & 88; 104-112.
Thursday, December 1st- Test on Chapter 3.
*I am here in the morning if any student may need help, or would just like to go over their
study guides.

7th Grade Science
The students have started Chapter 11 Ocean Motion. We read this section last week, and the questions were given on this section. We will begin with the the second section on Tuesday, which is called, "Ocean Currents." This section is pretty detailed, so we will begin the notes, and discuss the vocabulary terms for this section. I am hoping to incoporate a lab or activity for this chapter.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday.

The 8th Graders will be taking the EXPLORE Test on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Our 8th Graders are very bright, and I believe that they will do well. GOOD LUCK!
8th Grade Science
Our schedule will have a couple of minor changes for Monday and Tuesday, but all of the groups will be on the same page by Friday. The students will be reading our last section which is on Transition Elements. Once again, we will learn about groups/families for the Periodic Table of Elements, so we will create another chart in class. The students will have a test on this chart on Friday. Also, the students will be having the Element Test on numbers 55-57, 72-86 on Thursday. The students have known about this test since last week, so they should be fully prepared.

7th Grade
We have finished up the Chapter on Erosional Forces. Last week Friday was our test on this chapter. We reviewed the tests in class, and I explained a couple of the sections that many of the students did not do so well on. Also, I told the students that we had gone over the directions together, so some of the errors should have not occurred. As I was grading their tests, I had noticed that the students did not take the time to read the questions carerfully, which caused them to write out some incorrect answers. Overall, this test was a challenge to many of the students, and I know that they tried their best. Our next chapter will be on Oceans.

Wednesday is our field trip to Mother McAuley High School to see the play "42nd Street."
Have a great week.

Our 1st Trimester ends this Friday! Any students who have been absent should talk to the Jr. High teachers about the specific assignments that they had missed. Another update for the 8th grade students is that they will be taking the EXPLORE Test on Monday, November 14th, and Tuesday, November 15th. In Science, I have been using a review from the ACT website. The students have copied the review questions in their science notebooks. Overall, I am hoping that the students will be calm and relax during the test. I know that it is easier for a teacher to tell a student to relax, when in reality it is harder to become relaxed if you are constantly thinking about the test and the questions that will be asked. We will work on some test anxiety strategies in case a student becomes nervous during the test. I have faith in all of our students, and I believe that they will do their best.

8th Grade Science
The students will take the test for Elements 37-54 on Tuesday, November 8th. Then, we will move into the next elements. It will be a little tricky because the students will have to remember elements 55-57, and then jump right into 72-86. I want to keep the actinide and lanthanide series separate. I asked the students to bring in some note cards for this week.
We have started Section 3.3 Transition Elements. The students started some of the notes and we will continue these this week. I had the students work on a chart for each group/family of elements. The students will have a test on these groups/families on Friday. We will continue to review the ACT website for help with preparation for the EXPLORE Test.

7th Grade Science
We have finished the Chapter on Erosional Forces. All groups will have their test on Friday. The students will have to create their own study guides. I have the format for preparing study guides on my blog, in case students need to refer back to it. This week in class, we will have a small review for preparation of the test. During our class periods, I had the students put stars next to some of the questions that they need to look at for preparation of this test. Students will have a Chapter Assessment to work on to finish up this chapter. I am here in the morning and after school in case anyone may need help. Our next chapter that we will move into is on Oceans. I am hoping to work with the Ipads to help with topics from this chapter.
*Reminders-Field Trip money is due on Friday, November 11th.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK!