8th Grade Worksheets & Activities

Welcome to our 8th grade worksheets! As eighth grade learners prepare for the first year of high school, they polish the skills they have and enjoy learning experiences that offer a different kind of flexibility than they are likely to face in high school.

Eighth graders require developed skills in informative and argument style writing, confident reading skills across genres, and skills in presentation and discussion. They are also asked to synthesize more often by gathering ideas and finding the connections. The demands of this age, across content areas, depend heavily on well-rounded literacy skills. Beyond this, these learners will likely be looking to the future and need to fine-tune their skills in executive functioning.

Dreaming Inside the Box: The Art of Joseph Cornell

When you think of the vast amount and variety of art created throughout history, you might also think that the people who created those works of art must have spent years as students in art school or as apprentices to other artists. You may even see them as members of…

A New Language

The first day Mohamed went to a delicatessen in his new neighborhood, he realized that he really wasn’t in Tunisia anymore. He looked up at the menu board, which had nothing but sandwiches on it, and wondered how he was going to figure out what all of these weird names…

Through the Foothills with a Flock of Sheep

In 1869, naturalist John Muir was hired by a California sheep owner to accompany the flock and shepherds to a summer pasture in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Muir recorded his adventure in his diary which was published in 1911. This passage is from the beginning of the trip. —————————————————— June…

Primary Source: The 1900 Galveston Hurricane

The 1900 Great Galveston Hurricane made landfall on September 8, 1900. At that time, Galveston was the third largest city in Texas with an estimated population of 40,000 people. It was an important city on the Gulf of Mexico. By the time the storm passed, the hurricane and the resulting…

Primary Source: The Wright Brothers Fly

Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright are credited with building and flying the first powered airplane. The first flights took place December 17, 1903 in North Carolina. Below is an article about the historic moment from  The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 7, 1904. —————————                                                                   FLYING MACHINE                                                                  HAS COME AT LAST…

Young Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (c. 1818-1895) was born into slavery in Maryland. As an adult, he escaped into freedom. He became a writer, orator and advocate for the abolition of slavery. In 1845, 16 years before the start of the Civil War, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick…

The Line-Gang

Here come the line-gang pioneering by. They throw a forest down less cut than broken. They plant dead trees for living, and the dead They string together with a living thread. They string an instrument against the sky Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken Will run as hushed as…

Jane and Cousin John

Jane Eyre is the story of a young orphan girl from childhood to adulthood. At the beginning of the story, Jane is 10 years old. Her uncle and his family have cared for her since her parents died a few years earlier. In this passage, the uncle has died, and…

The Creature’s Beginning

Victor Frankenstein is an 19th century European scientist who dreams of bringing to life a non-living being. He works tirelessly to create a beautiful human being. As this passage begins, Victor has finally reached his goal, or so he thinks. This passage is Victor’s recollection of the event. —————————– It…

Wilma Rudolph, Olympic Star

Wilma Rudolph was born in Tennessee in 1940. She was the twentieth of twenty-two children in a poor but loving African American family. Because she was born two months early, the doctor doubted she would live. She survived but was ill with a variety of sicknesses throughout her childhood. After…