We have made it through our first full week of school. Your middle schoolers have been wonderful. Here are some tips for meeting the physical needs of your middle schooler from a blog written by Suzie Dalien:

“Boys and girls in this age range benefit greatly from significant physical activity. It can be an organized sport or something you’ve committed to doing regularly as a family.

The more activity, the better. Challenge your child to push their limits. The exercise boosts the “happy” chemicals in their brains, helps them sleep well, and provides a daily sense of accomplishment.

Speaking of sleep, a good night’s sleep is hard to come by for middle schoolers. They are growing, their brains are working overtime and they are trying to keep up with their friends (socially and academically). According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, kids this age need 9-12 hours of sleep each night.

Here are our tips on a bedtime routine.

That can be tough to do with homework, after-school activities, and social life. Help them out by setting a regular bedtime that allows for at least 8 hours of sleep. You might also want to limit screen time in the hour or two before bedtime.”

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

What’s happening in Social Studies?

It was a fun week with the Eighth Graders as they were challenged to think creatively about class expectations and learning more about each other! On Friday, we were able to touch on content as we began to learn about why stories of the past are important before diving into World History. 

Next week, we will have some practice with the first unit’s vocabulary as the Eighth Graders will take on the role of teacher. The students will be grouped and given a set of vocabulary terms to learn and master before teaching those terms to their peers. By the end of the week, the students will be ready to take on Unit 1: The World in 1750. 

What’s happening in ELA?

Eighth Graders have had a successful first week of ELA. They have all selected a realistic fiction book to read. They have also completed Week 1 Grammar activities. Your students have learned four new vocabulary words and have identified nouns, pronouns, prepositional phrases, and articles. They have also identified when a number should be written out as a word. Eighth Graders are also able to use grammar correcting symbols in their writings. Finally, they have been taught how to log their reading by actually writing about their reading. Students will turn in their reading logs every Friday. Their reading logs will be assessed and returned to them on Mondays. Finally, every Friday they will have a grammar quiz covering the concepts they practiced that week.

What’s happening in Science?

This week, Eighth Graders opened the “mystery boxes” they have been waiting to open for FOUR YEARS! They are starting the Middle School tradition of making “mystery boxes” for the 5th grade class who will guess what is inside using their senses. The “mystery boxes” introduce the nature and process of science by showing students that science is uncertain and that scientists base their conclusions on available evidence. By not being able to open them (for FOUR years) they experience that science does not prove or conclude and that it is always a work in progress.

Eighth Grade also delved into their first study…Gravity! They explored speed by comparing and calculating walking speeds using time and distance. They will continue to investigate collisions and acceleration next week. Their project for this trimeter will be constructing a Rube Goldberg machine. If you have any interest in donating old toys such as marble runs or magnatiles, please let me know!

What’s happening in Math?

In Algebra we’ve been having fun learning about the different ways to display data, and how we can learn something different from each method. We have been making and interpreting dot plots, histograms, and box & whisker plots to compare what we can determine from each type of display. Next week we’ll be learning how to measure the variability in the data, especially by using Mean Average Deviation, and the Big 5 statistical measures.

Important Dates:

September 2: Field Trip to Wild Ropes (6th and 8th grade)

September 5th: Labor Day- NO SCHOOL

September 21: Middle School Curriculum Night (5:30-6:30)