Having finished Curriculum Night, gotten into the thick of our first units of study, founded our clubs, and settled into our routines, back-to-school “to-dos” feel like they are finally complete. Back-to-school can feel like a whirlwind of crazy, but there has been something in the air at The Cooper School for the past several weeks that has made every day feel more exciting and adventurous than the day before. With students taking risks in their learning, engaging in meaningful conversations, and building intentional friendships, this first (almost) month of school has been anything but stressful. I have high expectations that every month at The Cooper School will feel as exciting and adventurous as this first month has been.
-AG
Math:
This week, we reviewed for and took our first math test. Next week, we’ll begin our second unit of study on slope, similarity, and scale. We’ll use this to create another series of transformations, dilations!
ELA:
7th grade writers revised and edited their argument essays this week until a publishable product was reached. We presented our essays to our peers in hopes that we could convince one another to try and benefit from new hobbies. In civil discourse, we discussed topics on neurodiversity and body image.
Next week, we will begin our first reading unit of the year in a novel study of Jack London’s Call of the Wild – beginning with a short story study of “White Fang” and background knowledge building on the novel’s history and subjects. Be sure to have your child’s novel sent to school with them by Monday. We will also transition into our first grammar unit of the year as we study sentence structure.
Social Studies:
We are getting ready for our first test next Tuesday which the seventh graders have been preparing for. A study guide went home this week and we will be reviewing together in class. They have all been working hard and have done a great job with North American culture groups and pre-colonization. Going into next week we will begin learning about central and South American culture groups.
Science:
Seventh graders learned more about the moon this week. They compared and contrasted lunar and solar eclipses. They also learned about different flying objects in space and their impacts on different surfaces. They experimented with different sized objects and speeds to observe how meteorites create craters on the moon. Next week, they will learn about the reasons for seasons and the surface on Mars.
Important Dates:
October 14 & 15: Fall Break- No School
October 31: Halloween Carnival (11:30 Dismissal)
