Every January when we return from Winter Break, students and staff both begin thinking of a word they want to define their year. We kicked this off in our Middle School Meeting last week, and we thought of a few questions to help guide us towards our words. We considered:
- What’s important to me and what do I value?
- What do I need more of this year?
- What do I need less of this year?
- Does this word feel grounding or overwhelming to me?
We then spent an afternoon in our advisories brainstorming words. Watching the Cooper middle schoolers set their intentions for the year is one of my favorite parts of the school year. Here are some examples of middle schoolers’ words from last week:
- Refined – “I want to push myself to get better at the things I love to do.”
- Resourceful – “I want to reuse things more, but I also want to use the tools around me when I need help.”
- Committed – “I want to be more committed and intentional about giving more attention and effort to the things I care about.”
- Brilliance – “I want to value the education I get here at Cooper”.
- Mindset – “I want to be less negative and look on the brighter side of things.”
- Self Aware – “I want to be more intentional about the things I say and do, and slow down to notice how I’m feeling and reacting to things around me.”
Hopefully these few examples will inspire your intentions for 2026!
-Allison Gold
Upcoming Dates:
- January 19 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day (No School)
- January 23 – Progress Reports
- January 23 – 7th + 8th PE – Ice Skating
- February 13 – Valentine’s Day Bake Sale and Bingo (1:30pm)
- February 16-17 – February Break (No School)
- Please fill out this form for James Island County Parks. We will be doing PE there starting in February!
ELA: 8th grade writers completed first drafts of literary essays this week in conjunction with annotating 8th and 9th grade exemplary essays. We dug deep to understand what constitutes a high level or “honors” essay as we reach for high school expectations. Students tested vocabulary on Thursday and grades can be found in their take home folders.
Next week, 8th grade will rewrite and edit their essays for publication. We will also begin unit 5 of grammar.
Science: This week in Science, our 8th graders continued investigating communication waves, building on their understanding of total internal reflection. Students explored the limitations of fiber-optic communication by testing how much a cable could bend before total internal reflection was lost, leading to thoughtful conversations about the engineering constraints of modern communication systems. Students then applied their learning in a creative and collaborative challenge, using Morse code and lasers to send secret messages to classmates. Next week we will wrap up our waves unit by learning about sound waves and AM/FM radios!
Students also assessed their understanding of light waves this week—be sure to ask them about how they did!
Social Studies: Eighth grade has finished our work on European revolutions and the rise of WW1. They did a great job connecting the fall of Empires across the world to the rise of new nations being formed. Their test will be next Thursday. All notes, reading and anything else is on google classroom. Notes and study guides have also been printed off for students to use as well.
Math: This week in math, 8th grade mathematicians began their 6th unit of study – coordinate geometry – connecting our previously mastered skills involving rigid transformations to our 7th grade pre-algebra knowledge to analyze transformations on a coordinate plane! Next week, we’ll dive into the basics of quadratics to help us understand more about circles and parabolas as part of coordinate geometry.
