The Cooper School Daily

Just Laugh!

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?
Fifth Graders completed their illustrative maps of their own neighborhoods and presented them this week! They got dirty while investigating the properties of soil and why different soils exist in specific landscapes. Students also explored physical weathering of rocks during an abrasion lab. They will have an opportunity to chemically alter rocks next week as well as learn how to identify minerals. All of these experiences will lead them to their big National Parks project for the trimester, which will provide an opportunity to create their own scaled model of a National Park.


What’s up in ELA?

This week in grammar, Fifth Graders have been working on identifying nouns and pronouns. They’ve also reviewed capitalization and using correct punctuations. 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 reading notebooks 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 Math?

How many times can you calculate volume for length, width, and height? Well apparently, the 5th graders have just about reached their limit with it and are getting ready for their first assessment. They’re doing well with it, and I expect them all to wrap up this first unit strong. We’ll have a practice assessment before the long weekend to get familiar with it and give another look at how well we know the material. And we’ll spend a little time experimenting with the variations that can trip us up – rectangular prisms with chunks missing, 2 prisms put together in an odd way that we need to treat like 2 different objects. I wouldn’t be surprised if next week is the End-of-Unit Assessment – they’re ready for it!

What’s happening in Social Studies?
The Fifth Graders learned the basics of geography with focus on mapping and the environment around the world. We had a lot of fun towards the end of the week, making advertisements for the different climate regions!

Next week, the students will be diving deeper into the more common geography topics with biomes and ecosystems before being assessed on Thursday. This will allow me to see if the students are ready to start looking at people’s interaction with the world and then dive into the western hemisphere.

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