Building BRAVES

BMS has had a great month of February! We ran a Spread the Love event where students did random acts of kindness for others. This was so awesome to see from our students! I would like to thank the Student Council members who wrote kind words and passed out delicious treats to our school staff and bus drivers! Students wrote notes of affirmation and encouragement and they were put on the lockers. Thank you to all the parents that attended our spring parent teacher conferences. We are in full swing for our fundraising efforts. We are raising money for new PR and weight room equipment along with funds to help celebrate the awesome students of BMS. We will be having Remedy Live come into school on March 14th to talk to our students. Please see the section below with more information on that program. We are starting the process of scheduling for next school year already. Your student will be asked to complete an online form to request the related arts courses they would like to take. We will do our best to ensure they get placed in those courses, but it just does not always work out. BMS will be having two sets of dress up weeks coming in March. Next week, March 4-8 we will be celebrating Read Across America and Dr. Suess's birthday with dress up days. The flyer is below. Then the week leading up to spring break we will be holding a disability awareness week. I cannot believe we are almost 3/4 of the way through the school year already! Time flies when you are doing what you love!

Weekly Reminders:

1. Math IXLs due on Tuesdays

1. Math bell-ringer quizzes on Fridays

1. Word stems quizzes on Wednesdays

1. Journals due Fridays

1. Social Studies map quizzes bi-weekly on Fridays

1. Read daily (next book summary due April 10)

Communication Reminders:

1. Check Canvas for absent work and directions to assignments

1. Weekly check PowerSchool

1. Check student agenda book (we update them daily)

1. Email with questions or concerns

What’s Happening:

1. Math: We are finishing a unit on equations & expressions and beginning a unit on rational numbers.

1. ELA: We just finished up a research writing project. The next project will be argumentative writing.

1. Reading: We just finished a novel study and are beginning a unit on theme using poetry.

1. Social Studies: We are beginning an economics unit.

1. Science: We are ending a unit on the earth, sun, & moon and beginning a unit on engineering.

Math news

Mr. Keller is guiding students through a Prealgebra unit. Students are learning basic Prealgebra skills to prepare them for 8th grade and for state testing in April. Just before Spring Break students will take a break from this challenging unit and spend time learning about probability and data analysis which will be an easy unit to complete just before Break.

Absent work

We would still like to remind parents that all assignments for their child(ren) are posted daily on students’ Canvas calendar. We see a lot of students who are absent not checking to see what they missed while they were gone. These missing assignments really hurt their grades. There is a way for a parent to have access to their child’s canvas calendar. This allows parents to help their child stay on top of their assignments. The following link will show you how to set this up:

Parent Canvas set up link

Thank you to all the parents that showed up to parent/teacher conferences this month. We had a great turnout and good discussions.

All kids have signed up for their high school courses for their freshman year. We are really trying to help the kids become independent learners and take accountability for their actions. We do have some students still struggling to acknowledge that the problem (academically, socially, or behaviorally) is them personally and not someone else. One huge struggle that we are dealing with in school is kids not using class time wisely. We give time to get work finished at school and try to avoid homework. However, some kids are wasting the time given at school and then not doing work at home. We are seeing many late or missing assignments from kids this semester. Please keep encouraging your child to finish out their middle school years on a strong note and to be trying their best. This will only help them out in high school.

In ELA, the students are working on their research project. The kids are researching an inventor and invention. They will be writing an essay and then do a PowerPoint presentation. This is a huge assignment. Please ask your child what they are researching and ask to see their essay thus far.

As always, please check Powerschool on a daily/weekly basis to see how your child is performing at school. As teachers, we update Powerschool weekly so that the students always know what their grade is in classes. If you have any questions about a class, please reach out to that teacher.

March 4-8: Dr. Suess Week: dress up days listed on the flyer

March 14th: Remedy Live coming to BMS

March 15th: St Patrick's Day fun :)

March 18th - March 21st Disability Awareness week

March 21st- 3rd quarter BRAVES Day!

March 22nd - March 29th: Spring Break

Remedy Live is a local program based that talks to students about mental health and their strengths. There will be an opt out form with more information coming home with your student. This is part of the Get Schooled Tour.