Eighth Grade

CURRICULUM

Art

• Develop an appreciation for art in its various mediums

Drama

• Develop memorization and performance skills at age appropriate levels with plays, poetry, and music

Language Arts

• Public speaking and listening skills
• Vocabulary (word derivations, pronounciation, definitions)
• Literature study and analysis
• Reasoning skills (fact vs opinion), relevant information, inferences, cause & effect, syllogism
• Deductive reasoning, following directions
• Proper sentence structure (fragments & run-ons, identifying subject & predicate)
• Building paragraphs (topic sentence, supporting details, ending sentence)
• Writing expository, descriptive and narrative essays (prewriting, writing, revising, proofreading, publishing)
• Writing stories, book reports and a research paper (with outline)
• Writer's resources (study strategies, using the dictionary & library, taking notes, outlining)
• Grammar (correct usage & mechanics, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, punctuation, capitalization, complex sentences)

Religion

• Students learn about their Christian life of love, the law of God, their human frailty in following that law, and the means that God gives them to follow his law especially through graces received in Holy Mass.
• Focus onn the study of salvation history, typology in the Passover Feast and the Last Supper
• Deeper understanding of the Eucharist and the study of the last things in light of God's mercy and our hope for heaven

Spanish

• Expanding vocabulary
• Cultures of Spanish speaking countries
• Developing conversational Spanish

Mathematics

• Measures
• Whole number operations, negative numbers
• Percents, fractions, decimals
• Mental arithmetic
• Mixed number operations
• Algebraic Equations
• Graphs
• Problem Solving
• Geometry
• Timed Mastery/Speed Drills
• Pre-algebra and algebra.  Some Geometry

Music

• Fundamentals of Music - Reading, Rhythm & Time
• Voice Control & Choir

Physical Education

• Team sports, calisthenics & skills development

Science

• Physical Science
• Earth Science

 History

• US History - Mesoamerica - Civil War, US Constitution
• Rise & Fall of the Roman Empire
• Middle Ages
• Renaissance
• Reformation