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: 5th graders worked really hard to reach the end of their first draft of their pocket guides this week – they completed well-researched pages on their topics and began sourcing images from the library of congress and other archives to paste into their books! We also tested our unit 5 vocabulary on Wednesday, so ask about those grades at home.
Next week, 5th grade will collage and carefully transcribe pocket guides into the final miniature notebooks. We’ll have a read-a-thon to enjoy everyone’s published work! Unit 5 grammar will also begin next week.
Science: This week in Science, our 5th graders checked in on their wheat seed investigations, carefully recording data on shoot and root growth. When some seeds did not sprout, students engaged in thoughtful conversations about the importance of replicates in scientific studies and brainstormed possible reasons for different outcomes. They applied this learning by designing additional growth chambers, giving themselves more opportunities to observe and learn from the process.
Students then shifted their focus to the human body, investigating their own breathing and testing lung vital capacity. Through this exploration, they traced how oxygen travels from the air we breathe to the cells throughout our bodies, making meaningful connections between plant and human transport systems.
Next week, 5th grade will focus on the circulatory system and continue building their understanding of transport systems. Students will also assess their knowledge on Friday, January 23rd.
Social Studies: Another great week with our learning about the continent of Europe. We have moved into present day Europe and the creation of the European Union. They learned about how these nations cooperate with each other in order to be successful! Next week we will put this into practice as they get ready to participate in a mock EU meeting to solve an imaginary issue. This will let them see how the EU operates and is able to have unity in their ideas and functions as a collective.
Math: This week in math, 5th graders dove into decimal division – they’ve all mastered the standard algorithm for whole number division, which is the same for decimals just with a few extra steps! We also explored applications of decimals in the real world. Next week, we’ll review all of our decimal operations, and solve multi-step decimal problems involving multiple operations. We’ll take our test on Wednesday before diving into unit 6!
