Bridport Community Newletter

Hello, BCS Community!

There are so many exciting things happening in the next two months! I can't wait to celebrate with our kids and teachers as we end an amazing school year. Theres a lot in this newsletter, so I'll keep this part short!

In this issue you'll see info about:

1. 1 School, 1 Book

2. Opportunities for parents to connect

3. Science experiments in our youngest grades

4. Upcoming Events

5. Yearbook Information

Thank you for your continued support and care of our students and staff,

Jenny

Please join us this week for a few different opportunities to connect:

• Wednesday April 16th 6-7:30 @ MUMS - Parent Conversation (Childcare provided)
• Friday April 18th 5:30-6:30 PM @ Shoreham - Open House!

This spring Bridport Central School will be working with local Middlebury artist Kate Gridley as our artist in residency. Our students will be learning the art of drawing from nature. Throughout our residency students will be going on 2 field trips to a nature trail to observe, interact, learn, and create art. The Otter Creek Audubon Society will also be supporting our residency field trips as they will have learning stations for students and their members will be sharing their knowledge. During the residency Kate will be coming to school to work directly with students 5 separate times to work on learning how to sketch, learn to draw from life, and create a piece of work based on nature. Our students will each create their own work of art as well as a culminating class mural on the last day. At the conclusion of the residency students will have their own sketchbook, art kit, and newly found skills to take home to continue practicing and exploring.

Dear Families,

We’re excited to share that after we return from April break, our school will be launching this year’s One School, One Book program! This special event brings our whole school community together to enjoy the same book — and this year, we’ll be reading A Boy Called Bat by Elana K. Arnold.

A Boy Called Bat is a heartwarming and thoughtful story about a young boy named Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed Bat), who sees the world a little differently. When his mom, a veterinarian, brings home a baby skunk, Bat is determined to prove he can care for it — and maybe even keep it. It’s a heartwarming tale about understanding, kindness, and finding your own way.

We can’t wait to kick off this shared reading experience after break. We encourage you to read along with your child at home and enjoy the conversations that come from sharing this story together. Look out for reading schedules, discussion questions, and fun activities coming home soon!

Happy reading!

This week, our 2nd grade students have been busy exploring the water cycle! We’ve been learning about the four main stages: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection. Through hands-on experiments and fun class activities, students investigated how water moves through the environment. It’s been a week full of discovery, curiosity, and science in action!

This week K/1 became engineers exploring sunlight. At the beginning of the week students tested various materials predicting if light could pass through it and recording their observations. They learned the terms transparent, translucent, and opaque to describe how light interacted with the materials.

Next they needed to work with partners to create a tree model to protect their frog from the warming effects of the sun, with just 4 post-it notes to be the leaves. Students needed to predict where their shadow would be projected on their paper and where to place their frog on the base for protection from the noon sun. Using a flashlight (the sun) in the noon position they traced the outline of their shade, noted if their frog was safe from the sun, and noted if their prediction was correct. Students then observed sunrise to sunset and noted if their frog remained protected.

Throughout the week K/1 learned how to carry out experiments using various controls, learning how to make predictions, and then recording their observations in a variety of ways. At the end of the week each student wrote about what they learned from our exploration of sunlight. A special thank you to VEEP (Vermont Energy Education Program) for the scholarship and kit of materials.

Tuesday 4/8- BCS Parent Meeting 7:30AM to 8:30 AM

Wednesday 4/9- Early Release

Wednesday 4/16- Combined Bridport/Shoreham Parent Meeting @ MUMS 6-7:30PM

Friday 4/18-5:30-6:30- Open House @ Shoreham School

Monday 4/21- Friday 4/26- April Vacation

Tuesday 4/29- First Day of Artist in Residency!

Wednesday 4/30- Relocation Drill (more info to come!)

Thursday 5/1- FOBCS Meeting 6:00-7:30PM

Friday 5/2- 5th grade Exhibition

When students Irene and Charles end up as partners for a poem-writing project, they slowly and bravely begin to explore how the issue of race affects their lives. Irene’s white perspective and Charles’s black perspective are inherent even when they begin by writing about a subject seemingly devoid of racial context—shoes. Their next topic, hair, opens a dialogue that includes the emotional effects of race-based conflicts at school.

Students at BCS will be exploring a few poems each week and exploring these complex themes.

Substitute teachers are crucial for our students, staff, staff, and schools! We are increasing our daily substitute teaching rate to $160/day for unlicensed subs and $200/day for licensed subs. This flat rate replaces our sliding rate of pay for subs depending on the number of days worked. To apply, email HR@acsdvt.org with subject: "Substitute Position". Or visit this listing.

Did you know Bridport School has an instagram!? Follow us- @bridportschoolvermont for pictures and videos :)