Descriptions of the Reporting Categories Grade 8

The following descriptions outline what your child should know and be able to do at this grade level.

Numbers and Operations

This topic includes skills related to operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Students must be able to use these operations and understand how they relate to each other. Students must also grasp an overall understanding of numbers, including ways of representing numbers and relationships among numbers and number systems. Finally, students must be able to make reasonably accurate estimates.

Encourage your child to look for integers, fractions, and decimals in familiar places. For example, your child can practice working with percents in everyday situations involving sales tax, discounts, and tips. Whenever your child accompanies you to the store, have her estimate the amount of tax that will be added. Your child can also help you determine the amount that a waiter should be tipped.

Measurement

This topic includes the basics of measurement, like finding distances using the customary and metric measurement systems and measuring and comparing angles. As students progress through this topic, they must apply the appropriate tools and techniques, and formulas to determine measurements.

When opportunities arise in your home to think about perimeter, area, and volume, ask your child to get involved. For example, if you want to frame a picture, what information do you need? The size of the picture matters, but what aspect of size? The area or perimeter? And should the measurement of the frame be exactly the same size as the picture? When making orange juice from concentrate, can your child help you determine what size of pitcher to use?

Geometry

This topic includes skills related to shapes. Students must identify and classify two- and three-dimensional shapes. Students must also use the characteristics of these figures in problem solving situations. As they progress through this topic, students will also apply the rules of congruence, correspondence, and similarity to solve problems.

Part of understanding geometry is knowing how figures change when rotated, reflected, or translated. A good way to discover these relationships is by tracing a pattern in different ways on a piece of paper. Make a pattern out of cardboard or heavy paper and trace it onto a piece of paper. Turn it a quarter turn to the right and trace again. Slide it over to another position and trace a third time. Then flip it over and trace one last time. Have your child look at how the figure changes with each adjustment, and label each new image with "reflection," "translation," or "rotation."

Algebraic Concepts

This topic requires students to demonstrate an understanding of patterns, relations, and functions. Students must use numbers, symbols, words, tables, and graphs to represent mathematical situations. Students must also be able to describe or use models to represent mathematical situations.

Play the simple game "Who am I?" Here's an example. "Five more than I am is 17. Who am I?" (The answer is 12.) Your child will need to work backwards to answer this question. You can make the game more difficult as you play it. A more difficult version is the following: Seven more than half of me is 13. Who am I? When your child gives an answer, make sure he or she puts it back into the original statement to check that it works.

Data Analysis and Probability

This topic requires students to use data to solve problems. Students will construct and read bar and line graphs. As they progress through this topic they will use more advanced data displays, like box-and-whisker plots and scatter plots. Students must make inferences and predictions based on data. Finally, they must understand and apply basic concepts of probability.

Ask your child to look at a graph in a newspaper or magazine and describe the information that is presented. How are the stated conclusions supported by the evidence in the graph? Sometimes conclusions are made that are not particularly evident in the data display. Encourage your child to be critical of these situations and to decide what reasonable conclusions can be drawn.