BAMS NEWS
February 2018
A MESSAGE FROM PRINCIPAL LYMAN
Dear BAMS families,
I am pleased to report that we held our first parent meeting of the year in January. Junie Pereira has been hired as a parent liaison to help recruit parental involvement at BAMS. Junie is a special-education teacher and is working hard to find ways to help parents be more connected with the school. He will be working closely with Mr. Daughton and I to improve our collaboration with parents. Please consider attending the next meeting. In our January meeting, Jane Baker presented an informative session for parents regarding Internet safety and their children. Our next meeting is at 6PM on Thursday, February 8 in the BAMS downstairs conference room.
We hope you will attend the Annual Meeting on February 13th at 7 PM in the BUHS gymnasium. Registered voters will vote on the BUHS operating budget for the 2018-2019 school year.
There have been a variety of recent events that have been successful. Team Taurus and Team Draco both visited and skated at the Nelson Withington Rink in Brattleboro. The students had a great time and we are appreciative of the opportunity provided by the Brattleboro Recreation Department.
The following students went to Springfield HS on Friday and Saturday to be a part of the All-District Music Festival. They auditioned successfully back in January and they have been working for the last few weeks preparing music to play with 50-60 of their peers in the Honors Concert Band. Congratulations!
- Amar Vargas (clarinet)
- Brianna Colburn (clarinet)
- Aisha Pierce (bass clarinet)
- Lauren Carpenter (bari sax)
- Ben Berkson-Harvey (trombone)
- Violett LaCroix (timpani/percussion)
Kate Burt our BEAMS Director and her team of BEAMS folks have submitted the paperwork to apply for a new, 5-year 21st-century grant. She has worked tirelessly this year to prepare the grant application. The application process is extremely competitive and requires many hours of work to prepare. Anyone who knows Ms. Burt understands how hard she has worked to finish this huge project and we cannot thank her enough.
Thank you for your continued support of BAMS and for your active involvement in your child's/children's education.
Sincerely,
Keith Lyman- Principal
TEAM DRACO NEWS
In Draco Social Studies we are continuing our exploration of the United States Constitution. It is one of our more important units so we will be doing multiple projects, and will have multiple assessments, on the background, content, and application of the Constitution to our lives. This topic makes up a large portion of our Civics Proficiency and we will be engaged in these activities for much of the third quarter.
Dragon Science
The Electromagnetic Force is one of the least appreciated aspects of the world around us. Students are working to understand charges and forces that are related to atoms, molecules, and our everyday lives. Students are conducting a series of activities designed to help them see and understand this force. The concepts that we are covering at this time will be used frequently for the next two units. Please ask them to describe and explain what they have been doing and learning. Posted below are a few pictures of students experimenting in class.
Students in Draco math classes have been very busy! At the end of the 3rd quarter, students finished the unit on the Pythagorean Theorem with a unit test and project. Students demonstrated their knowledge of identifying and approximating rational and irrational numbers and the application of the Pythagorean Theorem. The next topic of investigation in math is exponential functions. Students will investigate population growth and decay in mold, temperature, and snakes!
Draco English is investigating grit: what it is, why it is important, and how to get more of it. We have finished Unbroken, the true story of Olympian and prisoner of War, Louie Zamparini, and have moved on to the grit research of Angela Lee Duckworth. Our study will result in a persuasive essay. As we continue our reading and writing instruction, we will also continue our study of sentence types, essential to comprehending and creating expository text.
TEAM LEO NEWS
Leo Science:
We are currently in the middle an astronomy unit. After we complete scaling the solar system to fit to the size of a football field, students will create a model to help explain moon phases and eclipses. Our last stop along our voyage through our solar system will be our sun, where we will begin our investigations into the electromagnetic spectrum. We will discover the different properties of waves and how these properties help to define different waves along the electromagnetic spectrum. We will also investigate simple visible waves found in water, and invisible waves like radio, microwaves, light and x-rays.
Students are manipulating the fabric of space/time in this demonstration designed to model the relationship between mass, gravity and their effect on objects in motion in space.
Math:
Students have recently taken the “Looking for Pythagoras” unit test. This was the first of two. As we progress into the third quarter, students will discover how to convert all rational numbers to their fractional equivalents and learn about various special right triangles. These special right triangles exist based on their side length and angle relationships.
Following “Looking for Pythagoras”, we will begin a unit called “Growing, Growing, Growing…”. This unit focuses on exponents, exponential growth and decay, and scientific notation applications.
English: We have just begun our newest unit around the book The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This will be our first time at BAMS reading this book, so we as a class are very excited for the conversations that will be sparked by this incredible novel! Students have been given a topic to research that will tie into a Socratic seminar, led by the students. This will culminate in a major writing project meant to tie all of these big concepts together around identity and social justice.
Social Studies:
In Quarter 3, we will study American Government, including the three branches, the Constitution, and Town Meeting. We will focus on the way government systems work together and the rights of each level of government. We will also take an in-depth look at the Bill of Rights. Students will complete a project on Town Meeting and receive extra credit if they attend their Town Meeting!
TEAM TAURUS NEWS
Mathematics classes are investigating the connections among Ratios, Rates, Percents and Proportions as they apply them to problems in the real world. Students will be preparing to finish the unit next week. In the new unit, classes will connect similarity with proportions, and they will investigate similarity with area and scaling, both increasing and reducing.
In science, students will conclude the energy unit with looking at the nature of light and the electromagnetic spectrum. After this students will begin studying astronomy.
Social studies classes have just finished a unit on early humans, looking at life in the Paleolithic Era (the Stone Age). Students will next be investigating the rise of river valley civilizations, and studying Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. The students will be learning about basic economic concepts and the beginnings of governmental systems.
Taurus English students have begun reading The Misfits by James Howe. Students will explore the novel through class and small group discussions and a variety of writing assignments, culminating in a final project. Students will also continue their study of grammar by building on their understanding of subject and predicate. They will begin to look at phrases and clauses, along with transition words and phrases, in order to improve their sentence complexity and variety.
At Taurus Team Town Meetings, teachers present Taurus Bull’s Eye Awards in order to recognize the positive things students do. The following students have recently received Bull’s Eye Awards for their contributions to Team Taurus: Ingrid Iselin, Vivi Li, and Dorien Phillips.
TEAM CANIS MAJOR NEWS
In social studies, we are starting early civilizations and collective learning. Students have been studying geography and learning why people settle in different areas of the world and how the environment impacts life. Now, we will learn how people started farming and how farming helped cities and civilizations grow. We will be using bighistoryproject.com often in the second semester for resources.
In math, we have recently begun a new unit called “Accentuate the Negative,” which focuses on operations with positive and negative integers and rational numbers. Students have been using models such as playing cards, number lines, and chip boards to develop their understanding of how positive and negative numbers interact in addition and subtraction problems. Once students have a basic idea of how these models work, they should be able to formalize the process of addition and subtraction through the concept of absolute value so that a model is not needed in all cases. We will then extend addition and subtraction to multiplication and division of integers, as well as order of operations.
In English language arts, Canis Major students are in the midst of reading the book The Misfits by James Howe. While studying this novel, we are focusing on using reading “signposts” to analyze the text. Specifically, students will be paying close attention to characters and their internal and external conflicts. This book allows us to have conversations about controversial issues such as name calling, students’ rights, and the benefits of taking healthy risks. As you may have noticed, there will occasionally be at-home reading for this novel. When reading is assigned for homework, students can go to Google Classroom to access the audiobook. If they use the audiobook, they should be following along in their book at the same time in order to increase comprehension and vocabulary acquisition.
Students in Canis Major science have been learning about the structure of atoms by experimenting with charges. Here are some picture of students experimenting with charges. Like charges repel and opposite charges attract.
Students had to demonstrate their understanding of charges by completing a variety of “Charge Challenges” such as getting a straw to stick different places and getting a can to move across their table.They even got them to stick to me.
This week we will be beginning our element project in which each student will research an element so that we can create a giant Periodic Table in our classroom. Students will create an element card for their element and a model. This will help us better understand how elements are similar and different and how they combine to form mixtures, molecules and compounds.
BAMS 2017-2018 YEARBOOK
Yearbooks are now on sale online. There are an assortment of packages and extras that can be purchased. Students will be bringing home the form with all the information. If you have any questions please call Ms Thereault at 802-451-3971.
BAMS WEBSITE AND FACEBOOK PAGE
Please friend us on Facebook or check out our website to keep up with the latest news at BAMS. Any changes to events scheduled at BAMS, sporting events, extra curricular activities or last minute changes of any kind will be posted on our Facebook page and the BAMS website. You can find us on Facebook here and our BAMS website here.
IMPORTANT DATES
To view the BAMS calendar, click here.
Monday, February 5- 7-8 pm, BUHS #6 Board Meeting, Cusick Conference Room
Tuesday, February 6- 6:30-8 pm, BAMS Jazz Band Rehearsal
Tuesday, February 6- 6:30 pm, BUHS Parent Orientation for 8th grade parents, BUHS MPR
Thursday, February 8- BAMS Core Parent Meeting, BAMS Downstairs Conference Room
Monday, February 12- 6:30-7:30 pm, Vernon Parent Orientation, Vernon School Library
Tuesday, February 13- 6:30- 8 pm, BAMS Jazz Band Rehearsal
Tuesday, February 13- 7:00 pm, BUHS #6 Annual Meeting, BUHS Gymnasium
Thursday, February 15- 6:30-7:30 pm, Snow Date for Vernon Parent Orientation, Vernon School Library
Monday, February 19- 23, No School- Winter Recess
Tuesday, February 27- 6:30-8 pm, BAMS Jazz Band Rehearsal