Visitors, Parents, Benefactors, Students and Alumni

Welcome to Eighth Grade!

Click here for 8th Grade Curriculum...

Dear Parents and Students,

Grades 7 and 8 are departmentalized into an 8 period school day (including block periods) from 8:25am to 3pm daily. The curriculum includes: Religion, Language Arts and Literature, Science, Math, Social Studies, Physical Education and Electives including (but not limited to) Band, Drama, Study Skills, French and Art.

7th and 8th graders are challenged to participate in and provide school leadership.  They are actively involved in Community Outreach and Service Projects such as the Pierce County Hunger Walk, various food bank collections, Thanksgiving and Christmas Baskets and other service projects as needs arise. Students also have the opportunity in the 7th and 8th grade to run for positions in Student Council as the leaders for the younger students, in Safety Patrol, both before and after school.  They provide the school service as office monitors during lunch and they take on various other responsibilities in many all-school activities.

Seventh grade at St. Frances Cabrini School is the first year in which the students enter a departmentalized program.  Along with the eighth graders, the seventh grade has many leadership opportunities.  They are expected to be involved in community outreach and service projects such as the Pierce County Hunger Walk, various collections and school service activities.  They also have the opportunity to participate in Student Council as leaders for the younger students.

Welcome to Eighth Grade

This is a year full of challenges, excitement, growth, and emotional ups and downs, as students anticipate the transition from the familiar surroundings and routines of St. Frances Cabrini School, to the great unknown of high school. Students have many new opportunities for academic challenges, leadership, and service during their eighth grade year. In June, a remarkable group of poised, young men and women receive their diplomas, and parents and teachers marvel at how they have matured in such a short time.

Eighth Grade Class Field Trips

• Attend a theatrical production 
• Science field trip to Experience Music Project
• Spring overnight retreat to Raft Island

Eighth Grade Class Service Projects

• Participation in Pierce County Hunger Walk
• Serve dinner at Phoenix Housing homeless shelter
• Work at St. Vincent de Paul Center sorting donated items
• Serve Pizza every Thursday to the school  (This is a class fund raiser to cover the cost of class activities and field trips.)
• Create school yearbook in elective classes

Student Council:  Eighth graders run campaigns for student council offices in the fall.  Throughout the school year the officers work with class representatives on assemblies and school-wide service projects.  Some of the projects sponsored by Student Council include:

• Thanksgiving Food Drive to benefit local food bank
• Penny Challenge, which raised $1000 for St Vincent DePaul Society during a recent drive

As you can see, eighth grade is a year of excitement, learning, serving, and growing.  There is never a dull moment in eighth grade at St. Frances Cabrini School.

Characteristics of the Eighth Grade Student

• Physical Characteristics and Needs:  These young people are in puberty and the girls are about two years ahead of the boys.
• Emotional Characteristics and Needs:  Young people become more preoccupied with themselves rather than with the world outside.  Soon there will be more important decisions that will affect their lives. The choice of a high school, a girl/boy friend, whether to participate in a sport, or the clothes one wears will influence their relationship with others.
• Social Characteristics and Needs:   Personal relationships are a little more refined by this age.  Peer groups are still very influential.  Feelings are hurt more deeply when relationships are broken off because the young person sees this as a failure on his/her part.  Some eighth graders become less expressive of feelings because of this.
• Moral Characteristics and Needs:  There is a greater interest in knowing and experiencing the truth.
• Intellectual Characteristics and Needs:  The 8th grader is learning to use both inductive and deductive reasoning.  Adolescents are now able to learn more about themselves and their personal and human needs.  They are ready for a more mature approach to life, religion, and redemption.
• Faith Characteristics and Needs:  They are at a stage of rejecting the religion that they accepted unquestioningly on authority in the past.  Through the next few years they will be reevaluating and integrating a new set of values with which to direct their lives.  Helping them through this period of needed growth can make them receptive to a meaningful relationship with the person of Jesus.

Parent-Teacher Partnership

The partnership between home and school is vital to give the guidance, support, and nurturing that our maturing seventh and eighth graders need. We all want the students to experience personal and academic success – academic and personal.  The key to supporting students is through communication.

• Teachers post daily assignments prominently in the classroom. 
• Parents check the student’s assignment book to make sure that assignments are recorded every day. 
• Parents and teachers may write messages in the assignment book as one method of home-school communication.
• Teachers send home graded tests and parents sign all tests and send them back to school.
• After reading the teacher’s monthly newsletter, parents sign and return the clip-off section of the newsletter.  Comments are appreciated.
• The best ways to reach the teacher are by voicemail at school (253) 584-3850, or by sending a note to school with your student. The teacher will call you back within a reasonable time.
• Every Wednesday a family envelope comes home with school-wide communications.  You may also use this envelope to send notes to the teacher.
• The entire school holds Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences in the fall and in the spring. 
• Report cards are sent home at the end of each trimester and progress reports are sent home at each mid-term. 
• Parents or teachers may request conferences as needed at other times.

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