Reading: Students are working on characters and their personalities. They are making predictions based on characters? past actions. Students have also analyzed the Town Ballots, and are learning to ask questions while reading in order to enhance comprehension.
Science: Motion, forces and machines is the current unit. Students will be learning to apply Newton's three laws of motion to daily activities. EVERY student is working at home on a science experiment for the fair on April 4.
Language Arts: Students are finishing up their play scripts. Students have learned playwriting and drama terminology, the rules of improvisation, and the six principles of acting. They had a quiz on these concepts in class on March 13 and 14. Next week they will start working in their groups, and will read each other's work, ultimately choosing the one script they want to produce. Shortly before vacation, the kids will present their plays to each other, and the best will be shared with the entire BMS population!
Sayewich Math: A/F&C/D — Both classes have finished working with box-and whisker plots and will begin plotting points in a Coordinate Plane (scatter plots). There will be a quiz and test before grades close on Wednesday, March 20.
B/E — The class has just completed working with negative and zero exponents and will explore scientific notation and recognizing patterns before a quiz and test.
St. Laurent Math: Algebra & Pre-Algebra — Students have started a project that will require them to explore the million-dollar question of professional salaries. They will need to create a rating system based on statistics the group has chosen and construct a spreadsheet to record ranking data. They will then be required to create a pay scale for the athletes.
A/F students are working on a statistics unit. They have studied the measures of central tendencies and are now looking at different types of graphs.
Social Studies: Classes are studying Colonial Expansion and the Age of Kings. Students will begin a unit on Revolution next week.
Band: Monday, March 18th, monthly practice charts are due for their 2 week check. Charts without a parent/guardian signature will not be accepted. Trimester 2 concert is Wednesday, March 20th, 7 PM at the town gym.
Music: Multiage students will be assigned parts and rehearsing Oliver Twist in class and watching the non-musical version of Oliver on video. The 6-8th grade will be finishing up with keyboarding and percussion with a review of what we have covered this semester. The chorus will be putting the finishing touches on music for the upcoming concert to be held on march 20th at 7 p.m.
FCS: The grade level students will be finishing FCS this week: 6th grade will finish their pillow projects; 7th grade students will finish their foods and nutrition unit; and 8th grade students will finish by preparing lunch. The 7th grade multi-age students will be working on breakfast nutrition and preparation. Multi-age mixed students will finish their discussion of ten ?new and different? careers and will start making a decision on their chosen career.
PHYS ED: The 6th — 8th grade core students will be completing their Post-Fitness Testing and comparing their results with their Pre-Fitness Testing. 7th Grade Multi-age students will be getting into a circuit-training unit. The 8th grade multi-age students will be getting into a volleyball unit. ?Stay Active, Stay Healthy?
ART: Students in M.A classes have their first quiz this week. Congratulations to the ?Bananas? for their victory over the ?Peop's? in basketball review. I? m sure neither team really need's the 5% bonus on the quiz that was up for grabs. 7th grade M.A. will be moving on to contour line drawing and the 6th will be working on collage designs. 6th graders in the G.L. classes will also be taking a quiz this week on ancient art. 7th graders here in the G.L. building have just finished some magnificent tessellations that will be on display in April for the open house/ exhibition night. 8th graders are working on some phenomenal self-portraits using grids and have also been studying the portraits of Chuck Close.
HEALTH: 7th and 8th grade will be presenting their ?Map of Life? project. 6th grade will be finishing DARE and continuing with their jogging program.
TECH ED: All multiage classes are progressing on their module work! Grade level classes are having their ?fun week? where students test their module projects! 6th grade students are testing towers and delta dart airplanes. 7th grade is testing bridges and racing mousetrap racers. 8th grade students are launching balloons and racing CO2 cars! An exciting week for sure!
Grade Level 6 News
Students in Mr. Davison's language arts classes have recently been exploring the world of etymology, or the study of word origins. Using the dictionary as their major resource, students worked on activities that matched words with countries, languages, people, and places. We will also be reading a play that connects with one of our stories in the Open Court reading program. Because of the teacher's workshop on Friday, there is no assigned spelling or vocabulary this week.
In math classes, students have been working on fractions, ratios, and proportions. This week, each student chose a picture to enlarge and make a proportional drawing of.
In science, students will be studying minerals. We will be observing our salt/sugar crystals using microscopes. Students will learn how to identify different types of minerals.
In social studies students should have submitted their slavery/Civil War scrapbook. We are very impressed with the overall quality of most of them, and will be using a rubric for evaluation/ grading. Students are continuing with their study of the Civil War. Students in Mr. Davison's class recently watched part of a video about the Underground Railroad.
Grade Level 7 News
In Mr. Harris? room this week, mathematics students began work on a ?Baseball Hall of Fame? research project. This project will require students to use their knowledge of statistics, percents, and ratios to justify entry into the Hall of Fame for the players Nolan Ryan, George Brett, and Robin Yount. The project involves a written report, charts, graphs, and a presentation. Guides went home this week with all students. In social studies, we continued our study of Ancient China,
Ms. Z's science students continue to work on their air and water pollution projects. We will need help transporting students to the elementary school on Wednesday (March 20th) and Thursday (March 21st) of next week. Be looking for letters home!! Thank you to Lifewise Community Project for their demonstration on groundwater. Social studies students continue to look at Ancient China.
Ms. Gutoski's classroom this week continued with sentence combining practice and the narrative poetry unit. Our poem for study was ?The Highwaymen? by Alfred Noyes. On Thursday, students received a poetry group project assignment. Students will choose from the three poems we've studied to orally present to the class. In social studies, we learned about the Shang Dynasty and Confucius. On Wednesday, we were treated to a slide show presentation by Mrs. Perry who shared about her trip to China!
The 7th grade social studies classes would like to thank our Librarian, Mrs. Perry, who shared her memories and slides of her trip to China with us. Thank you Mrs. Perry!
7th Grade Team Awards News
We are pleased to announce the selection of Krystin Kerekes and Kyle Davidson as February's Students of the Month! The 7th grade team based the selection on the following criteria: good manners, respect to others, best effort, good attitude, cooperation with others, patience and trustworthiness. Congratulations Krystin and Kyle!!!!!!
On the same day we awarded the Students of the Month certificates, we also awarded certificates to those students who earned a spot on the BMS Honor Roll. Congratulations to those students as well!
Grade Level 8 News
Language Arts students have been finishing up with the folktale unit. Hopefully?you've shared or revisited a folktale that has been in the family. Next up is a speech writing unit. Some of these final products will be shared at the end of the year celebration.
Science students finished gathering their weather information. This data will then have been organized and presented in a display. Our next unit will involve motion.
Math classes are learning how to graph inequalities and how to write equivalent ones. They will also be exploring the similarities and differences of equations and inequalities. Properties of inequalities will be used to solve them and they will be exploring real-life applications. Notebook organizational test is scheduled for March 21st.
Social studies classes are working on a time line of European explorers as we finish up Chapter 16. The test on European expansion is scheduled for Wednesday, March 20th.