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 Science?
Fifth graders explored the circulatory and respiratory system this week! They learned how our bodies transport nutrients to our bodies by modeling the four chamber heart pump system. They also explored what our blood is composed of and how our white blood cells help protect us from pathogens. Fifth graders also considered the importance of our breath and modeled the respiratory system. Don’t forget that we are heading to James Island County Park on Monday morning!

What’s up in ELA?

Happy New Year! This week in ELA, your fifth 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 in this unit. I will provide short stories for them 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 realistic fiction book. 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 going on in Math?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! We have started fresh in a new unit covering decimals and place value. Students have used unit squares in order to interpret and describe decimals to the thousandths. Students can use number lines in order to compare decimals to the thousandths. As we continue to move through the unit, we will look at operations with decimals, so that students will be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide with decimals to the thousandths.

What’s happening in Social Studies?
Welcome back! This week the students have been working diligently to prepare for their midterm! The students have reviewed all the way back to geography basics through South America.

Next week, students will be receiving the study guide that follows the assessment and reviewing one last time before their midterm on Thursday. Friday, the students will begin looking into Europe!


Important Dates:

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