It has been so great to be back at The Cooper School and to hear about all of the students’ breaks! This week has been really good for getting everyone back into the routine and back on track with school work. We cannot wait for the rest of this year and to see how the middle schoolers continue to grow in their studies.  

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

What’s happening in Social Studies?

Welcome back! Students dove right back into their Industrialization Unit this week. Students were able to look beyond Great Britain and compared the Industrialization of Japan compared to Egypt. 

Next week, the students will begin their assessment on the unit, which is going to be in the form of a DBQ. This is a project based assessment that deals with primary and secondary source analysis. Students will be completing this in class over multiple days.

What’s happening in ELA?

Happy New Year! This week in ELA, your eighth graders were introduced to MLA Style which specifies guidelines for formatting manuscripts and citing sources (Purdue Owl). They were given resources to add to their writing notebooks about MLA, so please review the concepts with them. Your students will be learning about writing literary essays. Please ask them to share with you, “All Summer in a Day” because we had a long discussion on the negativity that comes from jealousy.  I will provide other short stories for your eighth graders to read and write about. Reading homework has also started this week. Students will be expected to read for 20 minutes each day and complete a reading log entry of their choice. They are allowed to read any fiction book. Please make sure their book is not nonfiction.  I will be checking their logs every day, collecting their logs on Fridays, and returning their logs and rubrics on Monday. Please sign their rubrics. Finally, we will begin working on grammar week eleven on Monday. Every Friday, your students will be introduced to figurative language and complete a brief quiz on their grammar concepts.

What’s happening in Science?

Eighth graders investigated color light waves and lasers this week! They experimented with lasers and mirrors to witness the reflection of waves off of specific mediums. They also worked with color filters to witness and contemplate how objects appear to have different colors. They used spectroscopes to test different sources of light to reveal what different spectra reveal.

What’s happening in Math?

HAPPY NEW YEAR! We have started this year fresh with a new unit, Functions. Functions are one of my favorite Algebra 1 concepts to teach. The ideas can seem abstract, but with some little tips and tricks, they can be simplified easily. The girls noted this week they felt as if they were reading code! I am excited about their enthusiasm to dive deeper into the unit and explore linear, quadratic, and exponential functions. 

Important Dates:

• January 9th: Field Trip to James Island County Park
• January 16th: MLK Day-no school