Electives: 7th & 8th Grade

**Class availability is subject to change**

8th Grade Electives

Leadership: The course prepares students with knowledge and skills in the areas of career development and academic planning and computer skill application.

Spanish I-Full Year Elective (High School Credit): This course is designed for true beginners to learn Spanish. Basic pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and culture are emphasized throughout the course. Cultural aspects that reflect characteristics of day-to-day living, family, and home life are taught in the target language through music, cartoons, games, mini-dramas, audio-visuals, and dialogues illustrating relevant situations.

Library Aid (application process): Students in this class will become familiar with classification of books, card catalog, indexes, and various reference sources through assignment in the Library Manual. Their duties will include assistance in accessing and processing new books, shelving and mending books, filing periodicals, using a computerized cataloging system, and maintaining library records. These students will also assist other students and teachers with their needs.

Office Aid (application process): Students in this class will become familiar with office policies and procedures.  Their duties will include front desk assistance with students and parents, answering in house calls, running errands for office personnel, delivering student belongs left by parents, organizing the compassion closet and lost and found, and perform all other duties deemed necessary by office staff.  Students should be able to follow directions, work independently, be respectful, hard-working, have great attendance, and minimal tardies.  A mandatory skill is confidentiality.

Advanced Art (application process): This course builds upon artistic skills introduced in 7th grade to create a foundation for future study in art. The elements and principles of art are fully introduced.

Computer Science Discovery (Year Long Elective): Computer Science Discoveries is a full-year introductory computer science survey course for students in Grades 6-8. The course takes a wide lens on computer science by covering topics such as programming, physical computing, HTML/CSS, and data. Students are empowered to create authentic artifacts and engage with CS as a medium for creativity, communication, problem solving, and fun.

We Build It Better: The We Build It Better program lays a foundation for students to understand the process of developing a new product and equipping them with the skills to design and create an innovative solution to a real-world industry-based challenge. Is the program engineering, manufacturing, computer science? It is ALL of that and more! We Build It Better is an all-inclusive 18-week, industry-designed educator-developed, curricular experience that engages middle school students in a work-like STEAM environment.

Agriscience: Agriscience elective will work to learn about soil composition, composting, plant growth, and so much more! They will take part in growing and planting various items. 

Boys Chorus (7th and 8th grade) All Year: This course is designed especially for young men interested in exploring choral music from a wide variety of cultures and time periods through study and performance. By creating, performing, and responding, students will develop basic vocal skills and sight-reading techniques.

Chorus (7th and 8th grade) All Year: This course is designed for students to explore choral music from a wide variety of cultures and time periods through study and performance. By creating, performing, and responding, students will develop basic vocal skills and sight-reading techniques.

Gifted (7th and 8th grade) All Year: The Gifted Explorations elective course offers 5 hours of weekly accelerated and challenging curriculum that is designed to offer identified gifted students an opportunity to investigate specific units of study.  The interdisciplinary curriculum of each unit of study will emphasize higher-level abstract thinking and problem-solving skills.  Instructional strategies that may be incorporated into the curriculum include Socratic Questioning and Seminars, simulations, problem-based learning, independent study, and service learning.

Band (7th and 8th grade) All Year: Beginning in the sixth grade, students develop in areas of responsibility, self-discipline, social skills, confidence, leadership and dependability.  Being in band will give students a sense of accomplishment and pride. In addition, students will develop musical skills, which will enrich their lives.  Band is a wonderful opportunity to make and interact with friends with similar interests.  All band students will be carefully screened and should, with practice and effort; achieve success on his or her instrument.  The amount of practice and effort on the student’s part will directly reflect upon their degree of success.  Parental support and encouragement are vital not only to the student’s musical success now; but will also affect their appreciation of music for the rest of their lives.

If your child is in the beginning stages of band, the emphasis is on learning the fundamentals of music and the basic skills required to play an instrument.  Mastery of these fundamental skills will lead to further development of higher-level skills, which will enable students to achieve great things in our band program.

The more advanced students will continue to perfect skills while learning new and more challenging aspects of music and music performance.  There is a greater emphasis placed on ensemble performance at this level.  Healthy competition is a larger part of this class as well. Instrumentation needs of the ensemble, the individual’s attitude, conduct, playing ability, and existing openings in this ensemble will determine membership.