Learning Updates for Week of May 24 to May 28

May 28, 2021

Fifth Graders Write, Perform Two-Voice Poems

In humanities class, students are finishing up the novel Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan. As one of their projects for this novel, students had to write a two-voice poem. A two-voice poem is a poem that is written from two different points of view on the same topic. Students wrote a poem of 20 or more lines that showed how Esperanza and another character responded to challenges. Some lines were spoken independently as individual characters and other lines were spoken together by both characters. Students worked with a partner to create a poem that used details from the text, figurative language, and descriptive language. In the end, students performed these poems with their partner in front of the class. The poems students wrote were filled with emotion and exemplified their knowledge that there are always different perspectives for every situation.

– Lindsay Fitzgerald, grade 5 teaching assistant

Second Graders Raise Nearly $3,000 for Gaining Ground

This spring, both second grade cohorts volunteered at Gaining Ground in Concord. Gaining Ground is a local nonprofit that grows and distributes 100 percent of its fresh produce to local hunger relief agencies. Last year alone, Gaining Ground grew and donated over 127,000 pounds of organic produce! The students pulled weeds, washed storage bins, and mulched beds as they helped the farmers in their work to fight food insecurity. The work at the farm was a culmination of a year-long service-learning project that linked work in our own BDS garden with fundraising, education, and community action. In April, the second graders collected pledges from relatives, friends, and neighbors for the number of pages read during a two-week period. The second graders are proud to announce now that they raised $2,937.80 to donate to Gaining Ground! We would like to thank everybody who supported the second graders by reading alongside them, making a pledge, or joining us on the farm.

– Nancy Fell and Sunny Lee, grade 2 teachers

Arts Update: Lessons in Coding for Fifth Graders

The fifth graders are learning how to code using the Circuit Playground Express. They used the infrared sensor to send and receive messages from each other. They later added conditional statements to make certain actions happen, such as turning on/off lights, and playing sounds based on the type of message sent. 

– Kurt Robinson, innovation and art teacher

BDS

December 1, 2023

This past summer, the classroom teachers in pre-kindergarten to grade 2 selected books for summer reading related to food and used that theme to start the year in their classrooms. Teachers then worked together across grades to connect this topic…

By Jennifer Friborg, French teacher and Model UN club advisor |

December 1, 2023

On Saturday, November 18, thirteen Belmont Day middle school students participated in a Model UN Conference at Northeastern University. These students were “delegates” of Brazil, Afghanistan, Albania, the Bahamas, Jamaica, New Zealand, Australia, and Chile. During the middle school clubs…

BDS

December 1, 2023

Seventh Grade Math Rounds Out A Lesson On Circles Students in seventh grade math are studying circles. This week, students explored different circle characteristics, specifically the relationship between a circle’s circumference and diameter. In order to explore this relationship, students…

By Kassie Bettinelli, music teacher |

November 17, 2023

In March of last year, a few students approached the music teaching team about the possibility of organizing a talent show. Knowing one hadn’t been scheduled for the spring, and that planning one for the future could be an awesome…
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