Grade 8: every topic

Every topic a child covers in Grade 8 under the Canada · Alberta programme of studies, on the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol, as the app teaches it. 86 topics across 22 subjects: Explore, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Quantitative reasoning, Verbal reasoning, Exam technique, Brain teasers, Mathematics, English, Writing, French, Spanish, Reading, Art, Physical education, Health, Computing, Social studies, Music, Drama, Business studies.

This is the real list, not a summary. Each line is one topic in Light Learning, in the words of the Canada programme rather than reworded.

Reading

35 topics in Reading this year.

Comprehension and Response

• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
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• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.
• Read a text and respond to it, using evidence from the text to support an answer.

Art

8 topics in Art this year.

Drawing

• Looking properly and putting down what is actually there, which is a trainable skill and not a talent. Working at Grade 8: perspective, observational study.

Colour

• How colour actually behaves, which surprises most children and most adults. Working at Grade 8: colour and feeling.

Painting

• Paint as a material with its own rules, learned by using it rather than by being warned about it. Working at Grade 8: working from a study.

Printmaking and pattern

• Making the same mark many times, which is where pattern, repetition and a good deal of design begin. Working at Grade 8: pattern in other cultures.

Sculpture and making

• Working in three dimensions, which uses a different part of the head from drawing. Working at Grade 8: carving and casting, working to a brief.

Digital art and photography

• The tools most children will actually use, treated as art materials rather than as a treat. Working at Grade 8: editing honestly, drawing on a screen.

Looking at art

• Being able to say something true about somebody else’s work, which is half of every art curriculum and the half usually skipped. Working at Grade 8: why it was made, disagreeing about art.

Sketchbook and process

• The record of the work rather than the finished piece, which is what an art course is actually assessed on. Working at Grade 8: keeping a sketchbook, trying it three ways, annotating your work, finishing a piece.

Physical education

4 topics in Physical education this year.

Movement skills

• The movements every game is built from: running, jumping, throwing, catching and balance. At Grade 8: agility and reaction.

Fitness and the body

• What exercise actually does to the heart, the lungs and the muscles, and how to build it up safely. At Grade 8: warming up and cooling down, stamina and strength, muscles and joints, planning your own training.

Games and fair play

• How a game works, why the rules are there, and what makes somebody worth playing with. At Grade 8: playing by the rules, attacking and defending, tactics and set plays, winning and losing well, officiating a game yourself.

Safety and equipment

• The kit and the checks that stop an ordinary afternoon becoming an injury. At Grade 8: kit and footwear, common injuries, head injuries.

Health

4 topics in Health this year.

Keeping the body well

• Hygiene, sleep, teeth and skin: the small habits that prevent most of what goes wrong. At Grade 8: sleep, illness and immunity, growing and changing.

Food and nutrition

• What food does in the body. Nothing here calls a food good or bad, because that is how eating becomes a worry. At Grade 8: water and drinks, reading a label, allergies.

Feelings and wellbeing

• Naming feelings and knowing what helps. Nothing on this page diagnoses anybody. At Grade 8: naming feelings, calming down, worry, screens and comparison, asking for help.

Safety and first aid

• What to do when something goes wrong, in the order it should be done. At Grade 8: road and water safety, first aid: bleeding and burns, when somebody is unconscious, medicines.

Computing

4 topics in Computing this year.

Algorithms and programming

• Writing instructions exact enough for something with no judgement to follow them. At Grade 8: variables, debugging, breaking a problem up.

How computers work

• What is actually inside the machine, and how information is stored and moved about. At Grade 8: binary, networks and the internet, how a search engine works.

Online safety and citizenship

• Passwords, privacy, scams and behaviour. The part with the largest consequences outside school. At Grade 8: passwords, judging what you read, being decent online, what a free app costs.

Creating with technology

• Making something that works: a program, a document, a spreadsheet, an image. At Grade 8: spreadsheets, making a program, using other people’s work, making it usable by everybody.

Social studies

4 topics in Social studies this year.

History

• What happened, how anybody knows, and why two honest accounts can disagree. At Grade 8: cause and consequence, bias and interpretation.

Geography

• Where places are, what they are like, and why people live where they do. At Grade 8: latitude, longitude and time zones, rivers, coasts and landforms, people and places.

Citizenship and government

• How decisions get made for everybody, and what one person can do about them. At Grade 8: how a country is run, taxes and public services, having a say.

People, work and money

• How families and countries get what they need, and the choices scarcity forces. At Grade 8: buying, selling and trade, why prices change.

Mathematics

3 topics in Mathematics this year.

Patterns and Relations

• Solve linear equations, including those with brackets and with the variable on both sides.
• Describe a linear pattern with a rule, and use the rule to find any term.

Number

• Solve problems involving percentage increase, decrease and reverse percentages.

Music

3 topics in Music this year.

Beat, rhythm and pitch

• The parts every piece is made of, named so a child can say what they are hearing. At Grade 8: scales and octaves, syncopation.

Reading and writing music

• How sound is written down so somebody who has never heard it can play it. At Grade 8: the stave and clefs, time signatures, sharps, flats and keys.

Listening and traditions

• Hearing what is happening in a piece, from anywhere in the world. At Grade 8: verse, chorus and structure, improvising, music with pictures.

Drama

3 topics in Drama this year.

Voice and performing

• Being heard, understood and believed, which is a set of learnable techniques. At Grade 8: being heard, staying in character, when it goes wrong.

Character and script

• Building somebody who is not you, and reading the page they came from. At Grade 8: conflict and status, improvising, monologue and soliloquy.

Stagecraft

• Everything around the actor, and the people who run it. At Grade 8: light and sound, rehearsal, working backstage.

Business studies

3 topics in Business studies this year.

How a business works

• What a business is, who owns it, and why most of them close in the first two years. At Grade 8: types of business, costs, revenue and profit, break-even, customers and competition, cash flow.

Accounting

• Writing down what happened to the money so that somebody else can check it. At Grade 8: keeping records, assets, liabilities and equity, double entry, income statement and balance sheet.

Money, banking and enterprise

• Banking, credit, tax, and what it takes to start something of your own. At Grade 8: banking and cards, interest and inflation, budgeting and saving, tax, starting a business.

Quantitative reasoning

2 topics in Quantitative reasoning this year.

Reasoning · quantitative

• Find and apply the rule behind a numerical or figural pattern (CCAT-style reasoning; not an Alberta programme of studies outcome).
• Find and apply the rule behind a numerical or figural pattern (CCAT-style reasoning; not an Alberta programme of studies outcome).

Verbal reasoning

2 topics in Verbal reasoning this year.

Reasoning · verbal

• Reason about word meaning and relationships under time pressure (CCAT-style reasoning; not an Alberta programme of studies outcome).
• Reason about word meaning and relationships under time pressure (CCAT-style reasoning; not an Alberta programme of studies outcome).

Exam technique

2 topics in Exam technique this year.

Assessment readiness

• Prepare for and sit an examination without losing marks to panic.

Practice paper

• Sit a full practice paper for Grade 9 Provincial Achievement Test (Mathematics) under time.

Explore

1 topic in Explore this year.

Space

• Explain an orbit as continuous falling, and why weightlessness is not absence of gravity.

Physics

1 topic in Physics this year.

Heat and Temperature

• Describe energy transfer, and explain that energy is conserved as it changes form.

Chemistry

1 topic in Chemistry this year.

Matter and Chemical Change

• Distinguish physical from chemical change, and explain that mass is conserved in a chemical reaction.

Biology

1 topic in Biology this year.

Cells and Systems

• Explain how body systems work together to move materials to and from cells.

Brain teasers

1 topic in Brain teasers this year.

Puzzles and reasoning

• Work out an answer from the information given, using reasoning rather than recall.

English

1 topic in English this year.

Text Forms and Structures

• Identify figurative language and explain its effect on the reader.

Writing

1 topic in Writing this year.

Writing and Text Forms

• Write an organised informational text using headings, precise language and evidence.

French

1 topic in French this year.

French as a Second Language

• Understand and use familiar French words and phrases in everyday situations.

Spanish

1 topic in Spanish this year.

Spanish Language and Culture

• Understand and use familiar Spanish words and phrases in everyday situations.

Every grade in the Canada curriculum · All six curricula