TBMS Weekly Newsletter - Issue 26-27.13

Dear Bromfield Middle School Families, 

It was wonderful to see so many parents and caregivers at Bromfield this afternoon and evening for teacher conferences! Thank you to everyone who took advantage of the opportunity to connect with our educators and learn more about your children's learning and progress at TBMS.

I also want to extend a special thank-you to our teachers for the thought, preparation, and care they put into these conversations. It was a very long day, and the vast majority of our teachers had schedules packed with conferences from beginning to end. I appreciate their dedication to our students and families. And finally, thank you to the Harvard PTO for providing dinner for our staff! The generosity was very much appreciated, especially on such a busy day.

We have another afternoon of conferences scheduled for next Thursday, November 19. Although online sign-ups have closed, families who would still like to schedule a conference are welcome to contact teachers directly.

I also want to reiterate some important information recently shared by our Athletic Director, Dave Boisvert, about the upcoming winter athletic season. Practices and tryouts begin Monday, November 30, and students must complete the registration process before participating. Registration closes this Saturday, November 14!

Families can register for winter athletics here.

Winter sports include boys and girls basketball, swimming and diving, and indoor track. Unfortunately, there are no winter athletic offerings for Grade 6 students.

Students interested in swimming and diving should be familiar with the swim strokes, but prior racing experience is not required.

The mandatory Parent/Athlete/Coaches Meeting will take place on Monday, December 7, at 7:00 PM in the Cronin Auditorium.

For questions about winter athletics, please contact Dave Boisvert at dboisvert@psharvard.org.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Bromfield Middle School Principal

Upcoming Events:

Upcoming Celebrations & Observances:

If you have an announcement, event, reminder, or other information you would like included in the newsletter, please email your request to mscarborough@psharvard.org. We’d love to help share your news with The Bromfield Middle School community!

In sixth-grade math, students have been exploring decimals and strengthening their skills in adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimal numbers. We have been working on building both accuracy and confidence as students apply these operations to a variety of problems.

Currently, students are putting their learning into action through a creative, hands-on project: designing and creating their own board games! As part of this project, students are incorporating decimal operations into the rules, challenges, and gameplay. This gives them an opportunity to apply their mathematical knowledge in a fun and meaningful way while also practicing problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration.

We are excited to see the games students create and the ways they demonstrate their understanding of decimals.

In Math, students recently wrapped up their Percent unit by completing the next phase of their Food Truck Project! They chose a truck, calculated bank loans using simple interest, took “orders” from classmates, and worked out tax, tips, and discounts. They also explored percent change and percent error to compare their predicted and actual sales. We’ve now kicked off a short two-week unit on rational numbers, where students are practicing operations with negative numbers before we dive into our upcoming algebra units on expressions and equations.

In flex, students have several academic days to help them finish late work and make sure they were all set for Term 1. This week we have also started our next Mastery and Enrichment rotations.  Thank you to everyone who has donated tissues!

The end of term 1 is upon us. Students should have checked in with teachers about late work and retakes and done these as needed. In science, students are delivering Energy Presentations in a “Jigsaw” style.  By the end of this, students should have a broad and deep knowledge of the myriad of ways we get and store energy for use in our electrified society.  The test for Unit #2 will be one of the first things we do in Term 2. 

In flex, we have continued working on the Project 351 food drive for Loaves and Fishes by making signs for the collection boxes. The students seem up to the task of collecting more weight of food this year than last, so send in your food please.

After completing our 3 lesson unit on Digital Footprint and Identity, 6th graders completed a project titled “Be the Author of Your Own Story.” Students worked hard at demonstrating their understanding of active and passive footprints, being the curator of their individual online presence, and discussing the responsibility we have as digital citizens as to how we represent ourselves and others online.  We are looking forward to moving towards a focus on evaluating sources online using the 5 W’s and lateral reading. In addition, students will continue using our research platform, NoodleTools, where they will learn how to cite books and websites.

In 7th grade Digital Literacy we’ve moved from our AI unit to the Technology and You Unit, which focuses on students’ values when it comes to technology in addition to being a safe and kind digital citizen. As part of this unit we’re reading and reflecting on The Amazing Generation, the young reader’s version of The Anxious Generation. 

During the first quarter of 8th Grade Digital Literacy, students explored eight important topics related to navigating today's digital world, including online safety, digital footprints, privacy, social media, and the ways technology influences our everyday lives. We are wrapping up the quarter with a presentation project in which students connected four real-world news stories to the topics we studied, mostly related to protecting ourselves in a digital world.  This can range from good old fashioned screen time limits, to what sort of personal identifiable information hackers tend to use. The presentations were excellent! Students did a wonderful job finding meaningful connections between what we learned in class and events happening around the world. It was great to see them apply their knowledge, think critically, and share their findings with their classmates.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, we will shift our focus toward evaluating media and news sources. Students will learn how to identify reliable information, recognize misinformation and bias, and determine whether the sources they encounter online can be trusted. In a world where information is constantly being shared, these are essential skills for becoming informed, responsible digital citizens. We look forward to building on the strong foundation established during our first quarter!

The link to the Monty Tech VIP Program has expired, but if your 7th or 8th grader is interested, please reach out directly to me at kfaulconer@psharvard.org and I can assist you with the process!  There are still a few slots available!!

Best,

Kim Faulconer - School Counselor

The PTO is a membership-based volunteer organization for HES and TBS. Our primary goals are to raise money to support the student experience, and create programs in support of our teachers, staff, and community, such as Teacher and Staff Appreciation. With the help of critical annual membership donations, we fund over $25K of teacher and staff-requested grants each school year, for stuff like $1K towards field trips for each grade, library books, scholarships, and much more.  Please consider joining or renewing your membership today!

The PTO supports the whole Harvard Public School community. Even when your children transition to TBMS and TBS, the PTO is still hard at work supporting them! From academic enrichment and classroom resources to student programs and special events, PTO-funded grants make a real impact at every grade level. We invite all school community members to be part of this work. Curious how PTO funds are used? Check out recently funded grants here. Ready to make a difference today? Join the PTO and help continue these valuable programs by becoming a member here. Want to get involved, or have questions? Email info@harvardpto.org

PJ pants can also be ordered using this link; some pre existing pants will be for sale at conferences.