Visual Arts Beginning and Advanced

Course Codes: MFA8519, MFA8520
Grades: 6-8
Length: One semester

Welcome to Visual Arts Beginning and Advanced! Visual Arts Beginning will spark your imagination while exploring and experimenting with drawing, painting, sculpture, and more in a supportive community of creative learners. Express, celebrate, and reflect on your unique perspective, ideas, culture, and feelings with individual and group projects while using the Elements of Art and Principals of Design. Visual Arts Advanced will grow your creativity and artistic skills by creating 2D and 3D projects that may involve drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, clay, and paper mâché. All students are welcome.

Ceramics Beginning and Advanced

Course Codes: MFA8403, MFA8404
Grades: 6-8
Length: One semester

Welcome to Ceramics Beginning and Advanced! In Ceramics Beginning, you will create a variety of projects using hand building techniques such as pinch, coil, slab, sculpting, and possibly how to “throw” clay on the pottery wheel. Experiment with different ways to add color and decoration to your projects which may include cups, plates, vases, pitchers, spoons, monsters, and more. Collaborate with others while managing the studio and caring for the materials, tools, and equipment. In Ceramics Advanced you’ll expand those skills by using your experiences and knowledge to celebrate and communicate your ideas, unique perspective, and culture through your art. All students are welcome.

Course Codes: MMA6858, MMA6860
Grades: 6
Length: Two semesters

Students will review fraction and decimal operations and use them to solve problems. They will learn long division, divide fractions by fractions, and extend their understanding to negative rational numbers and integers. Students will reason about absolute value, order rational numbers, and locate points in all quadrants of the coordinate plane. They will use variables, write expressions and equations, evaluate them, and solve equations and inequalities. Students will analyze ratios, unit rates, and proportional relationships. They will explore statistical questions, summarize data, and compute measures like mean, median, and variability. Students will calculate areas, surface areas, volumes, and draw polygons.

Course Codes: MMA6862, MMA6864
Grades: 7
Length: Two semesters

Students will understand the rational number system and recognize fractions, decimals, and percents as representations of rational numbers. They will operate on rational numbers and apply these skills to numerical and algebraic expressions. Students will solve single and multi-step ratio and proportionality problems, graph proportional relationships, and understand slope. They will tackle percent problems, including discounts and taxes, and solve scale drawing problems. Students will write and solve equations and inequalities. They will work with circles and three-dimensional figures, and solve problems involving area, surface area, and volume. They will compare data distributions, explore sampling, and evaluate probability models.

Course Codes: MMA3821, MMA3822
Grades: 7
Length: Two semesters

Students will understand the rational number system, recognizing fractions, decimals, and percents as representations of rational numbers. They will operate on rational numbers, explain rules for arithmetic with negatives, and solve equations involving rational numbers. Students will explore rational and irrational numbers, radicals, and integer exponents. They will solve ratio, proportionality, and percent problems, graph proportional relationships, and interpret slopes and y-intercepts. Students will compare data distributions, use random sampling, and evaluate probability models. They will apply the Pythagorean Theorem, solve surface area and volume problems for cones, cylinders, and spheres, and analyze two-dimensional figures using transformations, congruence, and similarity.

Course Codes: MMA6866, MMA6867
Grades: 8
Length: Two semesters

Students will deepen their understanding of the real number system, including rational and irrational numbers, radicals, and integer exponents. They will solve linear equations, interpret slopes and y-intercepts, and analyze proportional relationships. Students will understand functions as rules linking inputs and outputs, translate between function representations, and describe their relationships. They will solve systems of linear equations and use these to analyze problems. Students will learn the Pythagorean Theorem and its applications, solve volume problems for cones, cylinders, and spheres, and explore transformations, congruence, and similarity. They will analyze angles, triangles, and parallel line relationships.

Introductory Band

Course Codes: MFA8509, MFA8510
Grades: 6-8
Length: One or two semesters

Welcome to Introductory Band! This course is for students who want to learn a woodwind, brass, or percussion instrument such as flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, snare drum, and more. Come join a welcoming community committed to building lasting relationships where all learners succeed. You will learn instrumental technique, musicianship, and perform many styles of music. No previous experience necessary. All students are welcome.

Concert Choir

Course Codes: MFA8409, MFA8410
Grades: 7-8
Length: Two semesters

Expand your singing style in a supportive choral community! Concert Choir is an advanced, year-long course for students who have multiple years of choral experience. Students continue to develop their vocal and musicianship skills through performing engaging music from a variety of genres, cultures, and styles, while building lasting relationships with others through performing in school and community concerts and traveling to regional festivals.

Course Codes: MSC3007, MSC3105
Grades: 6
Length: Two semesters

Sixth grade science focuses on nine unit-storylines that begin by engaging learners in a puzzling, relevant scientific phenomenon or engineering problem. Students engage in science topics through authentic science practices including investigation, argumentation, and explanation. Students build foundational learning in core science ideas and apply this knowledge in two engineering design units. Units focus on body systems and cells including an engineering design application; thermal energy and molecular movement; variables that influence weather patterns; the impact of climate change and humans’ role in these changes with an engineering design project; and Earth-Moon-Sun systems.

Course Codes: MSC3038, MSC3108
Grades: 7
Length: Two semesters

Seventh grade science supports students’ learning progression through nine unit-storylines anchored in puzzling, relevant scientific phenomena or engineering problems. Students engage in science topics through authentic science practices including investigation, argumentation, and explanation. Students continue building upon core science ideas and the application of knowledge to engineering design. Units focus on plate movement and designing a tsunami warning system; explaining the rock cycle; phase change and designing low-cost portable incubators; conservation of matter and the rearrangement of atoms in chemical reactions; how populations affect each other in an ecosystem; and the movement of carbon through living and non-living systems.

Course Codes: MSC3042, MSC3109
Grades: 8
Length: Two semesters

Eighth grade science supports students’ learning progression through nine unit-storylines anchored in relevant scientific phenomena or engineering problems. Students continue engaging in authentic science practices and building upon core science ideas and applying knowledge to engineering design. Units focus on the relationship between force, velocity, and mass during collisions and design an emergency supply drop pod; the relationship between magnetic force, kinetic energy and potential energy; the interaction of light waves and matter; genetic variation and heredity; the process of natural selection and the design of antimalarial treatments that minimize drug resistance; and the evolution of species over time.

Course Codes: MSS7451, MSS7452
Grades: 6
Length: Two semesters

World History 6A and 6B is a yearlong course that enhances students’ understanding of the Earth and its peoples through the study of history, geography, politics, culture, and economic systems. Students explore major world regions and delve into ancient civilizations, analyzing their development and decline while considering cultural interactions. The course covers history to approximately 1450CE. Students will develop map skills, learn how history is constructed by archaeologists and historians, and understand the significance of primary and secondary sources, starting with the agricultural revolution and river civilizations.

Washington State History 7A and 7B

Course Codes: MSS9045, MSS9046
Grades: 7
Length: Two semesters

Washington State History 7A and 7B is a yearlong course that explores the tribal and colonial histories of Washington, focusing on civic and social responsibilities for the future. The course begins with the first peoples of the land, examining tribal homelands and the balance between indigenous and colonial land values. Students study migration, social justice, urbanization, and environmental interactions to develop agency and understanding of civics, economics, geography, and history. They will enhance social studies skills by analyzing historical and current events, conducting inquiry-based research, evaluating sources for credibility and bias, and understanding multiple perspectives on public issues.

Course Codes: MSS7459, MSS7460
Grades: 8
Length: Two semesters

In U.S. History, students gain a deeper, more abstract understanding of social studies concepts within the context of U.S. history and government from 1776 to 1877. The course covers significant ideas, issues, and events from the framing of the Constitution through Reconstruction. After examining the founding of the United States and the Constitution, students investigate the evolution of politics, society, culture, and economy in the nation. This exploration enhances their conceptual understandings in civics, geography, and economics, fostering critical thinking and a comprehensive grasp of the historical and governmental foundations of the United States.