Who doesn’t love to laugh? It feels so good to have a real, tummy aching laugh that makes you cry because it’s so funny. I am writing this while my kids are creating an i-movie about feeding our dog treats, but then speeding it up to sound like chipmunks, and their chuckles are so contagious that I am laughing while I am writing.

So, TCS middle is no exception…we love to laugh at school to make the most of our time together! Intellectual jokes seem to come around a few times a day, silly ones are more common, and of course, something ironic or unexpected occurs daily that always leads to a laugh. We laugh during presentations to help ease anxiety, on the playground while playing games, and during lunch while talking about things we did the night before.

The science of laughter is intriguing. If you are interested, according to a study found in Medical News Today, laughter is found to trigger the release of the “feel good hormones,” otherwise known as endorphins. Endorphins help to relieve pain and trigger feelings of pleasure. The hormone release induced by social laughter can actually form, reinforce, and maintain social bonds.
Thanks for sharing your kids with us! We wouldn’t want to have our endorphins released laughing anywhere else 😀

Cheers to week three!
-LD

Here’s a look at what is happening in each of the classes:

What’s happening in Science?
Seventh Graders presented their vacation advertisement billboards about the planets and satellites in our solar system. After learning about the planets’ and some of the satellites’ temperatures, surfaces, atmospheric gasses, and gravity, they were able to contemplate and differentiate which places could possibly support life. They also learned how to scale the solar system to fit the terrestrial planets in the classroom, gaining an understanding of how massive the sun is compared to the rest of the solar system. Next week they will learn about exoplanets and the goldilocks zone.

What’s up in Math?
In 7th Grade Math we’ve been continuing to work with Transformations: moving shapes by Translation, Rotation, and Reflection. We’ve learned sets of rules to help with creating the new points from the old points and then graphing them. All those x’s and y’s, and + and – signs get confusing, so we’re trying to be systematic and methodical about it all so we don’t overlook anything. It’s so easy to make a mistake along the way, and one of the big lessons is how to follow a process that minimizes the chances for mistakes. Not easy. We had one short assessment this week – our first of the year. Next week we’ll get out the tools – protractors, rulers, whatever we need, and learn to create perpendicular bisectors to find the point around which an object rotates. I know, right? Sounds like a blast!

What’s happening in ELA?
This week in grammar, Seventh Graders have been working on identifying various parts of speech along with prepositional phrases. They’ve also reviewed capitalization and using the correct punctuation. Your students are becoming quite proficient at using proofreader’s marks. Grammar assessments are given every Friday.

We also discussed reading log expectations this week. Please review with your child the Reading Log Rubric that can be found in their reading notebook. Finally, all reading notebooks with log activities are collected on Fridays and returned on Mondays (this upcoming week, logs will be returned on Tuesday because of the Labor Day holiday). Students should have four reading log journal entries completed for their Monday-Thursday readings. The only exception to this would be if Monday is a holiday.

What’s going on in Social Studies?
This week was an exciting week in the Seventh Grade. We started getting into content with Native Americans. Students worked together to teach their peers about different regional tribes and their characteristics!

Next week we will get deeper into the content with learning about the world during the time of American exploration and then get into the exploration itself. We will be doing multiple activities that focus on the silk road and early exploration. Students will then be assessed about Native Americans and early exploration on Friday!

Important Dates:
September 5th- Labor Day, no school
September 21st- Middle School Curriculum Night, 5:30-6:30