BFMS Weekly Newsletter

March 4- Teacher Inservice - No School

March 5- Town Meeting Day - No School

March 13- Early Release @ 11:30

We hope everyone had a wonderful February break and are looking forward to the next few weeks before closing out trimester two!

Math

Students just completed their introduction to the relationship between fractions, multiplication, and division. To help get back into the swing of things at school, we took this week to review basic operations and strategies we could use to solve problems. We will soon be moving onto fraction multiplication and division.

Science

Students are starting to review the differences between weather and climate. As the weather begins to warm up, we will be spending more time outdoors exploring and making observations about topics we are covering. Students are encouraged to wear weather-appropriate attire on days where we will be going outside. Students will be notified of outdoor class time ahead of time.

We are also excited to start building up background knowledge about eclipses in preparation for the solar eclipse on April 8th. Students will be participating in multiple activities and lessons to prepare them for this exciting event!

ELA

Students have begun studying conjunctions as well as independent and dependent clauses in ELA. They have started reading Esperanza Rising as a whole class and have amazed me with some of their very insightful responses to what we have read so far. The class continues to work in the Rewards program as well.

The fifth grade has finished all their research on a person for Black History Month. Their hard work is displayed on a poster for everyone to see in the hallway. After reviewing the posters on display, students will report back to class with five to six facts about what they learned from their observations of their classmates' posters.

Hello families! The 6th grade team is embracing the eclipse event coming to our region on April 8th, 2024. Using our OWL (Outdoor Wilderness Learning) model, we will be outdoors with students at least once a week to learn about eclipses in general. This will include reading informational text, using technical vocabulary, making claims, citing evidence and reasoning, and answering and explaining. Students will then write mini-myths as though they are ancient people without the science to understand this natural phenomenon. Please explore this information from the State of Vermont with your students. Eclipse Information from Vermont State Government

Mr. Ferenc will continue his weekly OWL science days (usually Wednesday) but the team will also begin to incorporate an all-student OWL opportunity, hopefully weekly. Because students will be outside for 90-120 minutes on these days, we will try to pick the warmest weather day of the week. Please have your child bring appropriate clothing regardless. We will do whatever we can to notify students ahead of time so they know which day we will be outside.

We are going to be wrapping up our reading of the short story Code of Violence this week, and beginning to prepare for our short essay we will be writing. This essay will be focusing on key elements of reading and writing comprehension that we have been working on: main ideas, character details, and how to support answers using cited evidence in the text. Additionally, homework will be continuing this week with Pharah’s story, and next week, slips will be coming home with missing work from students for parents to initial and students to return.

Science

The 7th graders did great on their genetics quiz just before break - I am very proud of them all! We are going to take the solid knowledge base we have built and begin talking about mutations. How do mutations occur? How can mutations be beneficial? We will be looking at the plants and animals around us to explore this topic further.

Social Studies

We are beginning a new unit this week, talking about the War of 1812 and its significance in the build up to the conflicts that would arise and lead into the Civil War. Additionally, there will be team-teaching going on between seventh and eighth grade as we talk about the Industrial Revolution.

Students have been completing and emailing weekly reflections home on Thursdays. If you did not receive an email from your students, please review it with them in Google Classroom.

Math

Just prior to February break, students began solving one- and two-step algebra equations. For the next few weeks, they will continue to learn how to solve for a variable with multi-step equations that incorporate the distributive property along with determining if an equation has one, none or many solutions.

Science

Students will be learning about chemical reactions this week. We began working on vocabulary and definitions before break. Students will build on this knowledge by doing a computer activity that simulates chemical reactions. They will then follow this up with hands-on lab experiments involving different types of chemical reactions.

Social Studies

We are studying World War I and the Roaring 20s; the factors that led to the war, the flashpoint event, the use of trench warfare, and the first widespread use of chemical weapons. In looking at the 1920s, we’re studying the factors that led to the explosion in the U.S. stock market and what led to its eventual collapse. While studying this decade, we will be looking at historical differences in everyday items used in the past and what their equivalent is today.

We are starting our unit on argumentative writing in 8th grade ELA. This week we are learning about key differences between persuasive and argumentative writing, including counterclaims and rebuttals. We are also brainstorming essay topics. We will begin researching topics and drafting essays next week.

PE

As the weather is starting to turn nicer (hopefully!), we have completed our most recent unit. The two weeks prior to February break, we played Rec. Games which consisted of Ping Pong, Badminton, Cornhole, Pickleball, Ladder ball, and Basketball. This week we focused on Kickball and the different variations of the sport. Our next unit will be volleyball, which will start on March 6th.

Music

We are nearing the end of our terms so here is an update of what we will cover in our last few weeks before a new group of students start.

8th graders are working on listening to a variety of artists from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. We will look at artists like Elvis, the Beatles, Beach Boys, Queen, Motown music, and so much more!

7th graders are currently finishing their artists projects. This is a slideshow on an artist of their choice which will be shared Wednesday March 6th. Once we finish those, we will study the 5 major eras of classical music.

6th graders have been listening to the album "Calling all Dawns" which features music with different languages from around the world. We will continue this by studying Native American music as well as music from other countries.

5th graders have finished learning their instruments and families and have moved on to identifying pitches on treble staff. We will continue this work through the rest of the term and into next year.

Library

We are wrapping up Trimester 2 with our Lairbrary Book Project. Students have the option to work independently or with a partner using 1 or 2+ books that were recommended to them. You can find the project options on Google Classroom and also a hard copy was provided for each student. Students have until Friday, March 15th to complete their project. This project is designed to ignite the students creativity and love for reading!

Attached you will find the signups for Bellows Falls Little League. We had a great turn out of kids for signups last year and we would really like to keep this league going for years to come.

Thank you,

Tim Heidbink

Bellows Falls Junior League President

802-579-9566