Middle School Spanish Students Honor Hispanic Heritage Month
Hispanic Heritage Month is a national celebration to recognize the contribution of the Hispanic and Latinx communities to the United States. Middle school Spanish students at Belmont Day are showing joy and respect by honoring the language and culture of the Hispanic communities. In sixth grade, students learned the capitals, flags, and locations of the Spanish-speaking countries and researched some of the leaders in different industries. Seventh graders created a presentation and a bulletin board to inform and encourage the BDS community to attend the events happening in Boston area to celebrate the month. And our eighth grade Spanish students created colorful and creative displays with some facts about Hispanic Heritage Month. Check out those displays around the Barn!
– Ana Maria Restrepo, Spanish teacher
Latin Students Learn Concept of An ‘Inflected Language’
A main concept of students’ work in Latin is understanding the idea of Latin as an inflected language, i.e. a language in which the ending of a word determines its meaning and function, not its placement in the sentence as in English. This week in seventh grade Latin, students examined the relationship between verbs and pronouns while keeping the idea of inflected language in mind. Using manipulatives, a catchy song, and repeated practice, students are reviewing and learning personal verb endings, recognizing new pronouns, and identifying the verb as the subject even when the subject is not clearly stated in a sentence. We will then enhance our understanding of conjugating verbs and inflected language by intentionally shuffling the words, removing pronouns, and omitting subjects in Latin sentences to continue decoding meaning.
– Nicole Buck, Latin teacher
Fourth Graders Design, Build, and Then Hide Mysterious Creatures
This summer, rising fourth graders read Bob, a novel by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead, that tells the story of a mysterious green creature in a chicken suit. As we came back from summer vacation, students dove into creating their own ‘Bobs’, based on descriptions given in the novel. They used the engineering design process, new tools, and lots of communication and teamwork skills to ensure their Bobs were creatively finished on time! Students then hid their Bobs (with an attached QR code) around the school and collected data on how many times each Bob was found by the BDS faculty. We are analyzing the data in math class and are looking forward to the other engineering design projects we will have this year!
– Emily Crawford, fourth grade teacher
Lollipops and Rainbows in Fifth Grade Math
Fifth graders are practicing their factorization skills by creating posters that showcase different strategies for finding the factors of a given number. Utilizing either the “lollipop” or “rainbow” method, students used their multiplication skills to break numbers apart into their composite multiplication equations. These colorful posters help anchor these core concepts more deeply in students’ minds and serve as a resource for future factor problems.
– Patrick Murray, fifth grade teacher
