7th Grade Camp Duncan Trip! What a blast! 7th graders did some Outdoor Ed at Camp Duncan and had an overnight in cabins.

7th Graders worked on their Data Project, building a "Picket Fence," that consists of how they spent their week in various categories we co-created.

6th Grade Gallery Walk

6th Graders reflected on their Partner Poster Project in a Gallery Walk as a class. They reflected on two aspects of their classmates' posters (mathematical accuracy, and communication thereof). They then reflected on what they would change about their own posters afterwards.

Math Circles at Decatur!

Students in the after-school Math program at Decatur, Math Circles, were involved in problem-solving with the "Last Man Standing" problem, where students stand in a row and have to work around constraints in order to accomplish the goal of getting the last person to stand.

6th Graders began a big project today in class. Solarize Your School is an initiative where students will design solar panels for their school using CAD software, calculate the energy offset created, and then refine their model over time. Once their model is refined and finalized, students will propose their plan to decision-makers in the community, and hopefully have solar panels in/on the building by 8th grade!

7th Grade Buddies!

7th Graders worked with their buddies on a goal-setting activity for the New Year, as this was their first experience together after winter break. So much fun!

8th Grade Review

8th graders collaborated on a review activity for Functions in the form of "2 Truths and a Lie."

6th Grade Circle Investigation

6th Graders worked on measuring the circumference and diameter of various circular object around the classroom. They input their measurements into a graph to examine the shape of our points and see if the relationship between the measurements is proportional or not (it is!). There is a proportional relationship between circumference and diameter, and the constant is Pi.

Students in 7th Grade worked with their 1st grade buddies on a Snowman Craft before Winter Break.

8th Graders met their Kindergarten buddies today, and helped them in creating a Thank You card for a teacher in their lives. So much fun!

8th Graders went on a field trip to the Wild Mile on the Chicago River (A floating garden and habitat on the river). Students participated in a tour of the boardwalk and overall space, followed by 3 station activities where they explore Macro invertebrates species as a reflection of pollution levels, examined plants and animals under the Microscopes and also made Seed Bombs that will disperse seeds of native plants further down river.

The 8th graders will bring this learning and exploration back into the classroom in order to design and build another floating garden / "Wild Mile" on a different section of the Chicago River.

Decatur held the annual Jogathon on Friday of this week. Picture above is our 8th Graders participating.

Jr High Helps out!

7th and 8th graders helped fill our new raised flower beds in the playground with fresh soil during Math and Science class.

Decatur is in the process of creating garden beds in the playground area, and the empty planters were delivered this week! And....If you get a school planters, they will need some soil to go with it.....so 7th and 8th grade students went outside to measure the volume of our new semi-cylinder planters using tools and formulas to calculate how many cubic yards of soil we need to order for filling the planters.

SY23-24 JHS Curriculum Night

The community was invited to hear from the Jr High teachers on Curriculum Night, Sept 12. This is a pdf of the slideshow we used which has lots of information about our classes, etc and what you can expect. Please reach out to your child's homeroom teacher if you have any questions or need further clarification.

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