GATEWAY Newsletter BIS Oct 2024
Some thoughts for the starting school year
BIS October 2024 Newsletter
GATEWAY (Gifted and Talented Education With All Youth) Mission:
To support all students through talent development and to identify, challenge, and encourage academically advanced and creative learners.
Special Announcement - All Tier 3 Students
This winter, BPS will have a two-week vacation at the end of December into January. During this time, all students in Tier 3 GATEWAY classes at BIS are required to read one of four books listed below. Students read through summaries of many books and chose these as their top 4 most-interesting books. It is incredibly important for students to read outside of school time to increase their vocabulary, improve critical-thinking skills, develop contexts for learning, and to deepen empathy and imagination. Reading is also a proven stress-reducer! Books are available at any Cape Cod/CLAMS library, and Mrs. Andrews wrote a grant to purchase copies for students.
Grade 6 book choices:
- Attack of the Black Rectangles by A.S. King
- Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead, Neurocomic by Hana Ros and Matteo Farinella
- The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat
Grade 7 book choices:
- We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, Maus by Art Spiegelman
- Otherworld by Jason Siegel
- She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
From the Desk of Mrs. Andrews
Tier 3 Advanced Math
Grade 6
Unit 1 is wrapping up soon! 6th graders started off Tier 3 GATEWAY Math with the Pythagorean Theorem, an 8th grade math standard! After discovering and practicing “a squared plus b squared equals c squared,” students are applying the formula to a coordinate grid and determining the lengths needed to fence a property and the cost of said fence.
Grade 7
Seventh graders in Tier 3 GATEWAY Math are getting a taste of Algebra 1 this unit. They are exploring radicals and square roots. We are simplifying radicals and operating with them. It is challenging work to apply what they know about factors and multiples to a new algebraic situation, but students are discovering how important it is to take their time, organize their work, and to ask questions. We have played lots of games to make learning exciting, and soon students will choose how they will show what they learned– I look forward to sending home their final project illustrating the amazing work they are doing this term!
Tier 3 Advanced STEM
Grade 6
Do you believe in the “5 Second Rule”, which states that if food is accidentally dropped and lands on the floor it's still okay to eat as long as you pick it up within 5 seconds? This fall, we put it to the test! Sixth graders in Tier 3 GATEWAY STEM performed a lab experiment using the Scientific Method– they researched bacteria and viruses before writing a hypothesis about the “5 Second Rule.” They worked in teams to collect samples and inoculate Petri dishes, incubate them and watch bacteria, yeast and mold grow before their eyes! Students will finish their lab by writing a lab report, including a presentation of their evidence and reasoning. It’s been gross but so cool!
Grade 7
Students in our Tier 3 GATEWAY STEM classes are exploring water quality and engineering ways to reuse greywater (ask your child what this means!). We are using a Museum of Science curriculum called “Testing the Waters: Engineering a Water Reuse Process”, and tailoring it to fit the particular needs of the Cape Cod ecosystem. At the end of October, we are venturing to Barnstable High School to visit the $1.2 million state-of-the-art Environmental Science and Technology lab for a tour conducted by BHS 11th graders.
Tier 2 Math and Science - Google Classroom
Has your child engaged with the Tier 2 Google Classrooms yet? Each month, new enrichment activities are uploaded onto the Math and Science classrooms to excite and challenge your child. If they complete 2 activities in one month, they can claim a prize from Mrs. Andrews’ prize box! Tier 2 Science students will soon get the opportunity to participate in a hybrid project– they will meet with Mrs. Andrews during lunch to inoculate Petri dishes with bacteria, and later document its growth and changes in the Google Classroom.
From the Desk of Mrs. Contrino
Tiers 2 and 3 ELA Google Classroom
Grade 6 and Grade 7
Our Advanced ELA students have fine-tuned the stories they have written and submitted them for the Fourteenth Annual Advanced ELA GATEWAY Creepy Story Contest!
Each year our imaginative young authors in both grades 6 and 7 concoct an original story that they hope will tantalize and terrify the judges enough to vote for their tiny tale of terror. Who are the judges, you may ask? Our 6th graders read and vote on their favorite 7th grade stories, while the 7th graders read and vote for their favorite 6th grade stories. The whole activity concludes with the best session of peer-editing advice a young writer could ever hope for, with all of the ELA GATEWAY students offering up their helpful feedback on each story, along with a yes or no vote that will determine the winners for each grade level. Stay tuned - winners will be posted in our next GATEWAY Newsletter!
Tier 3 Advanced ELA
Grade 6 and Grade 7
Our 6th Grade Tier 3 Advanced ELA students are reading the wonderfully magical novel, The Graveyard Book, a gothic fantasy written by Neil Gaiman, while our 7th Grade Tier 3 Advanced ELA students are studying a contemporary realistic fiction novel, Trouble, by Gary D. Schmidt.
There will be more information about these two incredible novels in our next GATEWAY Newsletter, but as always, I encourage you to ask your student to tell you about the novel they are reading whenever you get the chance. Talking with your students about the novel they are reading will provide parents and guardians an excellent opportunity to have a great conversation about something other than getting kids to clean their room, or do their homework, etc. Coincidentally, it is also a very effective way to check in and find out if they actually ARE getting their reading homework done!
Tier 3 Future Problem Solving
Grade 6
The 6th grade FPS classes are brimming with excitement as we have begun to learn about the 6 Step Problem Solving Process. So far, we have learned a bit about all the things we need to do leading up to Step One, such as
dividing up a research packet amongst a team and reading/annotating the topic research article summaries
understanding the different categories used to diversify our thinking
learning what a Future Scene is, and how we analyze it
Over the next few weeks, the 6th graders will be using the background knowledge they have gained from the research packet, along with their assigned categories, to discover various problems within the future scene that we will use to do Step One - Write 16 Challenges in the proper format.
Grade 7
We are proud to announce that BIS has TEN 7th grade FPS Teams competing within the middle division (grades 7-9) of the Massachusetts Future Problem Solving 2024-2025 competition season! The first topic of the year is Food Security.
The teams have been hard at work preparing for their first-ever Practice Problem, which will take place in the BIS Library on Thursday, October 24.
During Practice Problem #1, all teams will use the knowledge they gained from studying the research packet about Food Security to analyze a Future Scene, and complete the following:
- Step One - Use critical thinking skills to discover 16 relevant and diverse Challenges mined from the Future Scene
- Step Two - Identify and develop an Underlying Problem (UP) that will have the greatest positive impact if it is well solved
- Step Three - Use creative thinking skills to devise 16 innovative, futuristic, and plausible solutions for the Underlying Problem
Best of Luck to all of our competitive Barnstable Future Problem Solving Teams in Grades 7 - 12! Let’s Go RedHawks!