This week’s TMS report features what’s happening in the 7th grade core classes.

ELA with Mrs. Lilly: You may have heard of haiku poems or even sonnets, but have you ever read black out poetry pieces before? A blackout poem is created when a poet(student) takes a marker to an already established text. Our TMS 7th grade students were asked to leave ten words or more unstruck to leave behind a visual poem which creates a mood and theme that may not have been intended with the original text. These pieces will be shown at the STEAM night on March 18th. Robert Frost wrote, “I never started a poem whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.” Initially, many students had moaned at the announcement of a poetry project; however, in the end most elected to do more than one poetry piece.

Math with Mrs. Waldie: After a unit on algebra, we are now exploring circles, the magic of Pi, how circles are like parallelograms and other cool stuff “around” circles. We will then move into the fascinating world of 3 dimensional shapes, calculating surface area and volume. This is a very visual and hands-on unit that most students enjoy. Among the activities in the Geometry Unit is the designing and building of a prototype Fish Tank. Those will be on display for the Student-Led Conferences coming up at the end of April. We are looking forward to seeing students present their work to their families at those conferences.

Science with Mrs. Proulx: Algae are photosynthetic organisms that make their own food using photosynthesis! This past week 7th grade students have been working on a lab all about algae! Our classroom was chosen to participate in the Algae Academy lab. In this lab students learned all about what algae is and why it is important to the planet. Then, students got the opportunity to grow their own algae in the classroom. They measured the biomass of the algae early in the week and then measured it again at the end of the week to see if their biomass increased or decreased. They used secchi sticks to figure out the biomass of their algae and graphed their results. Students are also diligently working on their science fair projects that they will be presenting on March 19!

Social Studies with Mr. Cobb: In seventh grade Social Studies, the students have recently learned about Maine’s entry into the union as a free state. Learning about symbolism, they recreated the State Seal and Motto to represent what Maine is to them. It is interesting to see how they view this state. They then looked at the Constitution of Maine and discovered a multitude of changes when they compared and contrasted the 1820 edition to the 2013 edition. The students are currently learning about the American Civil War and how Maine and the Bethel area contributed to its success.They have learned about the recruiting tactics and enticements used to get men to join the military services during the war. For this section of the unit, they created advertising posters using figurative and descriptive language. Their objective was to promote a non-profit organization with a single page flyer, then write about the reasons they chose the words and symbols used on it. These next few months will pass quickly as we explore
more of the history of this great state.

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