Black History Month is a time to celebrate the contributions of African Americans to our society, reflect on the past, and honor the continued fight for equality.

Check out this Swordfight taken from English III in a classic performance of Macbeth!

It's important to dress the part when reading Sophocles' Oedipus Rex

"We are continuing our Winter theme into January displaying books with snow, mountains, and cold weather as themes or settings. Both fiction and nonfiction books are available, and some are written in Spanish as well. In our Makerspace, we have started learning how to crochet and knit. This has become a popular event, and many students are learning how to crochet their own projects.

Our book of the month is "Truly Devious" by Maureen Johnson, and our January author calendar features birthdays from many literary greats such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack London, Edgar Allen Poe, and Lewis Carroll."

"This month, students learned how to take portraits using lighting equipment and DSLR cameras to take self-portraits and portraits of each other. Students then developed their Adobe Photoshop editing skills by editing (1) photo of themselves and including images/symbols that represent them and integrating it into the edit using filters + layers in a unique and creative way.

This month, students focused on the design process of designing a tour t-shirt based on their favorite band/music artist. Students developed mood-boards for inspiration, sketched their ideas, then designed a front and back for their t-shirts, then developed a mock up for their t-shirt designs. At the end of the project, students had the opportunity to bring their designs to life by printing on the design they created on their own t-shirt using heat transfer paper and a heat press.

-Ms. Weckstein

Ms. Van Tine’s Geometry classes recently participated in a Similar Triangle Scavenger Hunt! Students solved problems and then hunted around the classroom – behind the SmartBoard, in the doorway, and even on the pencil sharpener – looking for the next problem to solve, based on the answer they got.

• Students are ½ way through their Romeo and Juliet unit. They started by conducting research on William Shakespeare and created “Will’s Quill” with some fun facts about the playwright. They also created color-coded masquerade masks to represent a specific character from Act 1. After that, they modernized the famous “Balcony Scene” from Act 2 by turning it into a text message conversation on Google Slides with modern day slang/emojis. Recently, students practiced choosing strong evidence to support their claims by reading about the zodiac signs and identifying which sign is applicable to a character of their choice. Then they found evidence from the play to support their claim.
• Students chose one word for 2025 and created a new year’s resolution banner to hang in our classroom.

11th grade honors is watching parts of a recorded session from Harvard University in order to prep them for a counter argument paper on Affirmative Action. It's pretty fun! We are also reading Shakespeare in costume, and the kids are really getting into character.

• Ms. King's 8th grade class has enjoyed reading Romeo and Juliet. We have read acts 1 & 2 of an adapted version. Some students are really enjoying getting into character and request to read specific character parts.
• Ms. Reyes just wrapped up '12 Angry Men' in December, and are now past part 1 of Fahrenheit 451. They have been discussing censorship, especially in relation to the latest ban on TikTok. The students have also learned about the Library of Alexandria, and how the destruction of irreplaceable books, plays and art, affects future generations of scholars.

We have begun learning our 'Legend of Zelda' concert suite featuring music from the massively popular video game franchise of the same title. I have written a 10 minute wind symphony specifically tailored to our band’s strengths and featuring many student soloists. Pit band for the musical has added three students, Niko Grimaldi, Andrew Wu and Juan Donado. Additionally, family members of Grimaldi and Wu will be performing with us.

-Mr. Abraham

Did you know that our Jr. BACSA club is planning on bringing Teen Dating Violence Awareness to BHS? On February 10, students will be writing positive messages on pieces of decorated paper to be hung up for students to see. All students will have an opportunity to create their own positive message to display.

In this edition of S'mores Buccaneer Alumni Corner, we want to recognize our very own Mr. Patrick Rochford! Mr. Rochford graduated with the Class of 2009. Being a buccaneer student wasn't enough so he came back to Bogota in 2016 as an Elementary teacher at STEEN and then to BHS in 2018 to become our Videography teacher and our Cross Country and Track coach. Mr. Rochford plays a crucial role at our school as the 'go-to' when it comes to filming all of our special moments and providing students with a great morning show every day to keep buccaneers informed. Thank you Mr. Rochford for everything you do, we appreciate you!💟