The Cooper School Daily

We Have Had Some Overcast Weather, but Very Bright Classrooms!

We have been working hard this week in Middle School, learning a variety of insightful topics. We have recently been re-visiting the Peace Wheel, which has been a helpful tool for the students throughout the year. The students have been thoroughly inquisitive this week within the framework of their learning, as well as reaching beyond and thinking outside of the box. During the Middle School Meeting this week we covered how and when to speak out which the students were interested in and ready to use in their everyday lives.  

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

What’s happening in Social Studies?

Students have been working hard on their first ever DBQ! Students finished reviewing the documents and have started the process of writing their research papers! Social Studies has partnered up with ELA to take on the process of not only getting the content correct, but also to master the MLA formatting skills! 

Students will finish their papers next week. Once the papers have finished, we will move into our new unit. This unit focuses on society during the Industrial Revolution. We will be looking at the effects the revolution had on different groups of people. Students will start by looking at the vocabulary lessons. 

What’s happening in ELA?

This week, your eighth graders continued working on their literary essays. We worked on writing a thesis statement, reasons, supporting evidence, and MLA writing. Each student chose a short story from the book Flying Lessons to read and will be developing their literary essays from the story they chose. We did not work on grammar this week. I wanted to make sure the students understood the difference between similes, metaphors, and personification. We will work on grammar week 12 next week. I have also started a weekly “coupon” award program. Students can earn one coupon weekly for being responsible, resourceful, and respectful.  They are able to use the coupon for one free reading log day. 

Please do not forget to check your students’ signed papers on Monday.

What’s happening in Science?

This week, eighth graders finished up their waves study! They learned about fiber optic cables and how many of our modern communications are transferred through these tiny important cables in the matter of 1/100th of a second. They explored the difference between analog and digital waves, as well as how our cell phones transmit our conversations from our mouths to our friends’ ears. Next week, they will start their science fair investigations that they will work on for the next few weeks.

What’s happening in Math?

I hope everyone has enjoyed the shorter week! 8th graders have been taking this week to assess their knowledge of Functions (so far). They have been working on the mid-unit assessment which tests their understanding of function notation, reading a graph and a chart to find the average rate of change, and predicting future trends based on current data. As we move throughout the unit, they will be able to analyze domain and range, absolute value functions, and inverse functions. 

Important Dates:

  • February 20-21 – February Break (No School)