Black History Month Template

• Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) was a groundbreaking historian, author, and journalist, known as the "Father of Black History," who dedicated his life to studying and promoting the contributions of African Americans, leading to the establishment of Black History Month.
  
  
• Born to formerly enslaved parents, he overcame immense obstacles, working in coal mines to fund his education, eventually earning a PhD from Harvard, and founding the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) to ensure Black history was recognized and taught (Wikipedia)

The African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey is committed to sharing its educational resources with the community. At the heart of this effort is the Traveling Museum. They offer an entertaining and interactive experience for schools, community organizations, and companies that want to explore the depth of African American history with students.

The theme of the exhibit was 'A Time for Change'. This is one of the museum's most celebrated exhibits. It explores South Jersey's role in the civil rights movement, from local desegregation and anti-discrimination movements to iconic national events such as the 1964 Democratic National Convention protests in Atlantic City. All grade levels were able to participate

In the most recent Art project, students created realistic drawings of candy using colored pencils. Students focused on accurate shapes, strong value (light and dark), and realistic color by carefully observing their candy. Through layering and blending, students worked to make their drawings look three-dimensional and lifelike.

On February 6th Mr. O’Boyle and Ms. Weckstein took some of our art students on a field trip to William Paterson University to view some of our artwork in the Art Start show and tour the campus and its art facilities. We took a pit stop at the Great Falls in Paterson to view the (frozen!) waterfall.

Several of our students (& Ms. Weckstein!) had the opportunity to show their artwork at the Power Art Center Gallery at William Paterson University. Shout out to Emely Romero, Ariana Danoys-Marchant, Keidy Rodriguez, David Beria, Juan Loaiza and Natalia Bichara for their great showing! Special shout out to Ariana Danoys-Marchant for winning the "Best in Show" for the sculpture category!

Students are starting their new unit in learning another industry standard design software, Adobe Illustrator. Students have been honing and practicing their Adobe Illustrator skills by creating vector illustrations to understand basic tools, layers, and how to overall navigate the program. To test their current skills, students created a vector hamburger illustration featuring a side along with other illustrative techniques to enhance their burger creations.

After learning various techniques in After Effects, a powerful motion design software, students put their design and animation skills to the test by creating a moving advertisement for a product of their choice.

Thus far in this class, students have been learning about the elements of composition that separate simply taking a photograph from making an intentional decision to create meaning by centralizing the subject matter of their photograph. Alongside this, students have begun learning photo editing techniques in Adobe Photoshop. This week, students will begin taking photos using the Rule of Thirds compositional technique.

Students have begun this class by understanding how to illustrate whatever they choose by breaking down complex objects into simple shapes along with becoming introduced to how to illustrate in Adobe Photoshop. Students have been becoming more familiar with drawing using the digital tablets alongside using Photoshop through various drawing exercises thus far.

For February, we have been making paper flowers in the Makerspace. Pink was a popular color because of Valentine’s Day. We had a lot of fun creating flowers for loved ones. February is Library Lover’s month, so we curated and sent out a selection of Mrs. Hochgesang’s favorite books to share with everyone. Along with the theme of love, we were able to share blind date with a book once more, digital edition. We celebrated Black History month, and sent out Lunar New Year, Biography, Fantasy, and Sports book selections. Recently, a Ramadan / Eid al-Fitr book selection was created and shared with all as well. Next month, we focus on Women’s History Month, Irish - American and Greek - American Heritage, and other cool book genres and topics.

Ms. Kaur and Ms. Garcia recently celebrated Chinese New Year🎇with their Multicultural club. Members watched a video about the holiday, and then participated in a fun Chopstick Challenge!

This month, Drama Club has been hard at work to prepare for our spring musical, “Into the Woods.” We finished staging the entire piece, building the set, painting, creating props, altering costumes, preparing wigs, and holding rehearsals combining both staging for the actors with the pit band to accompany them. The Middle School Art Club made our Grimms’ Fairy Tales bookshelf for the Narrator’s corner during the show, we tried out our cardboard articulating Giant’s hand, and we hung all of the canopy for our woods as well. We are meeting this weekend to run through the lights, sound, and backstage set moving with our Stage Crew, and then we are moving headfirst into Tech week with Dress Rehearsals. This has been the most productive month we have had yet!

This Spring we delved "Into the Woods" to meet our beloved fairy tale characters from the Grimm's' Brothers stories such as Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel through Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. This classic musical theatre piece is composed by Stephen Sondheim with lyrics by James Lapine. The first half of our story begins and concludes with a "Happily Ever After," but the second half ends with a more dark and realistic take on the endings of each fairy tale story. By venturing 'into the woods' we find that no one is truly alone, and we should be careful with the things we wish for. "Into the Woods" is a Tony award musical and is one of the most memorable of Sondheim's oeuvres.

Parker Leong plays the role of the Narrator, Lucas Mejia and Annabella Riccardi will play as the kind Baker and his Wife, Chelsea Pena as sassy Little Red Riding Hood, Jared Clark as sweet Jack, Tsering Lama as the humble Cinderella, and Lola Hernandez as the misunderstood Witch. This 26 role cast was ready to sing, dance and act their hearts out, and were very excited to perform the first half of our show for the 4th - 6th graders from Steen Elementary and Bogota Middle School on March 5th.

• Atempa - 8th Gr. ELA - We are wrapping up the Romeo and Juliet unit. Students are going to write an essay on “Who’s to Blame?” for the deaths of the star-crossed lovers.

• Creative Writing 8 - Students have entered a “Winter Wonderland” poetry contest with the opportunity to become published writers.

• In honor of Black History Month, students turned informational texts into Blackout Poetry.

• Feliciano - We are working on world challenges in AP Spanish Language and Culture. Spanish II students will be starting direct object pronouns. In Spanish II honors we are working on comparisons and will be starting our vacation project soon!

• Jerman - English 2 students are reading The Great Gatsby and exploring the characters, symbols and themes of the novel.

• 10th grade AP Seminar students are preparing for their Team Multimedia Presentations.

• Garcia - Students explored the history and cultural origins of the piñata as part of a hands-on Spanish lesson. After learning the background, they practiced Spanish commands to explain the steps for making a piñata. The project ended with students creating their own colorful piñatas, combining language learning, culture, and creativity in a fun classroom experience.

• King - My 8th grade students enjoyed doing a Shakespeare scavenger hunt which was adapted and modified from Mrs. Atempa's original activity. They are now enjoying learning about Shakespeare's language and how syntax and vocabulary differed from modern English. Students are currently working on identifying vocabulary in the prologue.

• Corso - We just finished reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Dominican writer and Pulitzer Prize winner. To complement the concept of language we watched the Superbowl in order to deliberate use of Spanish in Diaz's fiction, challenging the idea of a single dominant American voice by comparing his novel to Bad Bunny centering his show on the Spanish Language. Some pretty interesting conversations came out of that. Senior honors are studying Toni Morrison and the use of multi-media in culture and the lack of representation among people of color that feeds into racism.

• Minieri - For the month of February, we wrapped up Of Mice and Men. After reading the novella and watching the movie, the overall consensus is to keep this text in my curriculum for next year! For a little Valentine's Day activity, we took a pause and reviewed parts of speech so we could play a game of Mad-Libs. Students went around the room and every student was able to come up with a funny, nonsense love letter to read in front of the class.

• Reyes - Since it's Black History Month, we are combining The Great Gatsby with the Harlem Renaissance: discussing important African American figures in history and their impact on American culture. Some of the figures we discuss are Langston Hughes and Claude McKay because of their remarkable poetry about the human spirit.

• Lavelle - Currently our class is working with Romeo and Juliet. The students are extremely excited about reading the play. We have started the prologue and so far they have been picking up the main points of the play. We are also reading it in old English! (then looking at the modern version)

In February, the Bogota Business Club focused on preparing

for our upcoming Ultimate Mock Interview Contest, which

will officially launch in March. We worked behind the scenes

to finalize details with a hiring manager from Trek Bicycle

Company and began planning how the event will run.

Club members reviewed what makes a strong resume,

discussed common interview mistakes, and practiced

answering typical interview questions. We also talked about

professional dress, body language, and how to stand out in a

competitive hiring process.

The contest will be announced schoolwide in early March,

and interested students will be invited to sign up. We’re

excited to bring this real-world experience to BHS and give

students the opportunity to showcase their professionalism

and communication skills.

More details coming soon!

It's a privilege to introduce someone whose character and integrity have left a lasting mark on our school. Our Unsung Hero from Bogota Jr./Sr. High School, David Beria, embodies what it means to lead by example. David is a rare talent whose technical skill is matched only by his heart. When he graduates, it will not just be a loss of a great student; it will take an army of students to replicate the sheer volume of work and the positive energy he brings to our school every day. David Beria is a once-in-a-generation student servant leader. While he will be deeply missed, the legacy he leaves behind in the form of thousands of captured memories and a culture of selfless service will remain at Bogota High School for years to come. David will be attending Montclair University in the Fall to study Information Technology. He will be honored at the Unsung Hero Award Ceremony on March 4th.

Congratulations 8th-grader Ry-L Jaquez, 9th-grader Rangel Soto, 10th-grader Daniel Kowah, 11th-grader Ryan Cuevas, and 12th grader Shaylie Tzep! Keep up the good work Buccaneers💜

Congratulations 8th-grader Aileen Medez, 9th-grader Anabella Riccardi, 10th-grader Paula Chele Soledispa, 11th-grader Xavier Chasi Criollo, and 12th-grader Matthew Carrat Espinal. Keep up the good work buccaneers💜

In this edition of our Smores newsletter, I'd like to highlight Mr. Sergy Camilo. Sergy graduated with the Class of 2007. After BHS, he went on to the University of Hartford in Connecticut to study Science. After graduating with his Bachelor of Science, Sergy returned to the metropolitan area to become an Engineer. He currently works with project managers and serves as the Deployment Engineer Lead for Acrisure Cyber Services in New York. Sergy Camilo, a genuine buccaneer! We are very proud of you sir💟.