Junior High

Newsletter

General Information

Welcome to the Junior High Newsletter. Please feel free to contact any of your child’s teachers. Below is the list of emails with subject area:

[email protected] – Geography/US History

[email protected] – 7th Grade Literature and Language Arts

[email protected] – Math

[email protected] – Religion 

[email protected] – 8th Grade Literature and Language Arts

[email protected] – Science

[email protected] – 8th Grade Washington, D.C. Program Leader

Please go on Blackbaud weekly to view your child’s grade. 

Junior High News and Notes

Hi Junior High Parents!

October is busy! Field trips, conferences, and recruitment visits! Next week the Jr. High students will have a wonderful opportunity to attend the High School Recruitment meetings. Each high school in the Archdiocese will be sending a representative and a group of students to talk to each 7th and 8th grade about the schools that they attend. The recruitment meetings will be held in the afternoon on Tuesday, October 6th and Wednesday, October 7th. The schedule is as follows:

October 6th – Boys will meet with Creighton Prep and Mt. Michael during the afternoon. The girls will meet with Duchesne, Mercy, and Marian.

October 7th – All students will attend and listen to Omaha Gross, Omaha Skutt, and Roncalli. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Please see below for updates from each class.

Sincerely,

Kate Lichtas on behalf of the junior high team

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Important Dates:

October 6th and 7th – High School Visits

October 8th – 6th, 7th, and 8th Grade Grand-panther Mass

October 9th – No School for Staff Inservice

October 20th – 8th Grade Field Trip to Boystown

October 21st – 7th Grade Field Trip to Marian High School for Marian’s production of Anastasia.

October 25th – School Fundraiser at Creighton Prep.

October 29th – Parent-Teacher Conferences 9:00 – 1:00 and 2:00 – 7:00.

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7th Grade Science – Mrs. Simmons

Seventh grade students have wrapped up their work learning to read the periodic table and begun our new unit on physical and chemical changes. Students completed quiz corrections, finished their element trading card projects, and then shifted into studying atoms, matter, and evidence of change.

7th Grade Religion – Mr. McFarlin

How do we know God loves us? This is a central question to our continuing studies on the Blessed Trinity. We’ll be exploring the truth that God has created us in love, Jesus is the greatest sign of God’s love, and we have the Holy Spirit to guide us.

7th Grade Math – Mrs. Lichtas

We’ve started algebra! 7th grade math is working on two-step equations with integers. Advanced 7th grade is also working on two-step equations but with the addition of squares, square roots, and absolute value. The students are doing a great job of solving for the variable using inverse operations.

7th Grade Geography – Mr. Carreon

Over the past two weeks, the 7th grade has concluded the unit on weather and climate. A test was given on these subjects, plus natural resources. Now we have moved on to the next unit which is culture. The culture unit is always a lot of fun, even the homework is fun. Please review your child’s grades on Blackbaud. Please have your child ask about opportunities to increase their grades with corrections.

7th Grade English – Mrs. Jaros

The students have been hard at work over the last few weeks working on the standard covering determining meaning of unknown words.  We will continue to work on this standard throughout the year using the information we practiced this week.

7th Grade Literature and Reading – Mrs. Jaros & Mrs. Noon

Students are finishing up their first novel of the year.  Both had a surprising climax that left us entertained and intrigued to learn more.

8th Grade Religion – Mr. McFarlin

How do I make moral decisions? Students have been learning about how our choices form habits which form our conscience and character. We have the responsibility to form our conscience in a way that honors God and others. Additionally, students have been learning about the nature of social sin and how it contributes to unjust systems and structures.

8th Grade English – Ms. Mollner

Students did a wonderful job presenting their assigned vocabulary words and taking their Unit 1 vocabulary quiz last week. This week, we had a successful re-teach and redo of our mastery assignment about nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, and have been making strides with identifying parts of a sentence alongside this instruction. This upcoming week will continue to expand our understanding of sentence parts, which will lead into types of sentences, phrases, and clauses.

8th Grade Literature and Reading – Ms. Mollner

In Ms. Mollner’s literature class, students are almost finished with their reading of select excerpts from Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas. Students have been making palpable real-world extensions and realizations about the uniqueness of humanity and the responsibilities that come with using artificial intelligence. They have also demonstrated successful practice and application with determining and appealing to an intended audience through word choice, allusions, and purpose for writing. This coming week, students will finish reading and begin their summative project. There will be an option to write an essay or create a more visual ‘mind map’ to demonstrate mastery of the content we covered in class and through homework.

8th Grade History – Mr. Carreon

The unit on the creation of the constitution is finished. We finished the unit with a test that was a Google Forms test. Please review your child’s grades on Blackbaud. There are opportunities for corrections for students who received below an 80% on a test or any assignment. Our next unit, which goes over the three branches of government and the bill of rights is a great unit. This unit focuses a lot on the powers of each branch, but also on the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is a class favorite as we explore the basic rights of every American. There are a lot of questions, but also it is a lot of fun.

8th Grade Science – Mrs. Simmons

Eighth grade students completed our forces unit and began a new unit focused on energy transfer. This week, students used the Energy Skate Park simulation, interpreted graphs, compared patterns in energy changes, identified systems, and began building the skills they will need to make predictions and explain energy transfer using evidence.

8th Grade Algebra 1 – Mrs. Lichtas/Mrs. Fleming

Ms. Lichtas: All students just finished a unit on solving equations. Students were challenged to solve two-step algebraic equations with fractions, decimals, and absolute value as well as multi-step algebraic equations. Advanced algebra students were challenged with multi-step absolute value equations as well as fundamental counting theory (ask them about factorials!). Next, all classes start a project on using Scientific Notation to solve real- and fantasy-world problems.

Mrs. Fleming: We are midway through our unit on rational and irrational numbers. We spent a lot of time in the first half of the unit tackling fraction operations. We will spend the second half of the unit on absolute value, rational and irrational square roots and positive/negative exponents. Our Unit 2 test will be coming up soon, but students will have plenty of review beforehand.