Weekly News

Monday, October 4

• Volleyball games

Tuesday, October 5

• XC Meet @ BVSW

Wednesday, October 6

• Volleyball games

Thursday, October 7

• Football game "Under the Lights" 6 pm @ BVSW

***Athletic calendars are located at the end of this document***

At the end of each quarter, most courses in Canvas will conclude and will no longer be visible on the Canvas app. A concluded course is only visible through the Canvas website, by selecting All Courses on the Courses tab and scrolling down to the “Past Enrollments” section. Courses for this quarter will conclude on October 14th, 11:59pm. Report cards will be generated and available on ParentVUE at the end of the school day, October 22nd after 4pm. Each new quarter, teachers will publish a Canvas course for the new quarter. As courses are published, students and families will again be able to see current courses on the Canvas app and Canvas website. For Canvas parent resources, visit www.bluevalleyk12.org/canvas.

*CANVAS TIP: Be sure you have downloaded the latest version of the Canvas Parent App (download in iTunes and Google Play).

8th Grade Girls Basketball – Any 8th grade girl who is interested in participating in Basketball this Fall will need to have these attached forms completed prior to participation. If your student participated in a sport this fall (Cross Country, Volleyball, Football or Cheer) they would not need to complete these forms again. Girls Basketball season begins October 25th and will run up to the week before Winter Break. Boys Basketball season begins after Winter Break. Stay tuned for information about that season.

All cast and crew have been invited to a Canvas course called ABMS ROCK OF AGES. Please encourage them to click "accept course" on their dashboard. This contains EVERYTHING for the show. It has calendars for cast and crew, optional tshirt links, all of the information for families that I emailed out this week, and costuming ideas (complete with cheesy 80s pictures!).

REHEARSAL CALENDARS for Sept. 20-Oct. 8 have gone home with students. Another copy can be found on the Canvas Rock of Ages group.

OPTIONAL tshirt/hoodie orders can be placed at this website until Oct. 3:

https://mccwebstores.com/5452/shop/home

Please be working on costumes for cast members. See the Canvas page and Mrs. Vail's costuming email for ideas.

***We are able to provide SCHOLARSHIP for students who may need it. We can cover tickets, costuming, t-shirt, and any other expense. Please contact Kim Vail at KSVail@bluevalleyk12.org. No questions asked.

Students were introduced to student council opportunities during FLEX classes Thursday and Friday. The students were instructed to fill out the google form through this link: Student Council Application

The attached flyer will give parents details about meeting time and location.

The Future Timberwolves Wrestling Club begins in October. See the attached form below for details and enrollment.

Did you know that ABMS PTO relies on PTO membership and Invest donations to fund the majority of their activities throughout the year? Funds from these two sources replace "fun runs" and door to door sales which other schools rely on to fund their school activities.

Proceeds raised through the PTO membership and Invest donations get used to to grant college scholarships to ABMS alumni, hold Wolverine Activity Nights for our ABMS students, host Family Fun night events for our families, host appreciation events for our teachers and staff, celebrate 8th grade graduation, fund special classroom needs for our teachers, and so much more!!

Please click on the QR code link above to purchase your PTO membership and to donate to Invest. In addition, all PTO members will receive a ABMS directory and window decal to promote their ABMS school pride! Thank you in advance for your support of ABMS!

ABMS Football Under the Lights is Thursday Oct. 7 @ 6 pm, AT Blue Valley Southwest High School. **NOTE THE LOCATION CHANGE** We need concessions volunteers! Please sign up:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090c44abac23aafc1-abms4

Save the Date…

Wolverine Night October 29,2021

Musical November 3-5th

Book Fair will be during the musical. More details to follow.

WE ARE NOW ON INSTAGRAM! CHECK US OUT AT abmspto. Be sure to LIKE our page on FACEBOOK (ABMS PTO) and FOLLOW us on TWITTER ( @AbmsPto).

Here is an example of just one place where your dollars were put to good use to award grants for teachers in the 2020-2021 school year! Please invest in ABMS!!

ELA:

ELA students read the short story, “The Circuit’ and analyzed theme. Students made connections to the conflict in the story and how the main character is disappointed with what is happening in his life as a result of this conflict. We learn a lot from themes in stories, books, poems, musicals, plays, and even movies and TV shows. The theme (moral/life lesson that the author wants us to learn) can apply to our real life experiences. It is exciting to see our students make this connection.

Math:

Math classes finished our Geometry Unit this week with a test. All test scores will be up to date in the gradebook by tomorrow afternoon. We will start Unit 2 – Extending the Number Line on Monday. This unit looks at numbers to the right AND left of zero and how we compare, order, and use them in the real world.

Science:

We will continue scale of the solar system by evaluating several models and the later part of the week we will learn more about gravity.

Social Studies:

We continued our Empires simulation this week. Ask your student how their clan is doing in the simulation. Are they getting many resources along the way? Are they getting in many battles? There are 2 Important dates are coming up: Oct. 4: City-State Level Tasks/Projects are due. Oct 6: Fertile Crescent Fact Sheet Quiz #3 (Over questions 21-30)

ELA:

We have been hard at work here in ELA this week! We just finished up our Informative Papers that were about how humans impacted the world. Students learned how to apply their knowledge about citing quotes and researching topics. Papers were completed Wednesday this week! Our next unit, which will bring us to the end of the first quarter (wow!!), will be reading the novel, "The Watsons go to Birmingham-1963". We are so proud of the 7th graders’ hard work!

Integrated Math:

Next week we will be applying our rules for integers operations to fraction operation problems. We will end the week with a Unit 1 Assessment.

Advanced Math:

Next week we will expand our knowledge of the real number system by talking about irrational numbers and how they compare to rational numbers. Students will learn how to convert repeating decimals into fractions to prove they are rational.

Science:

It was eyeball dissection week! Hopefully there was some fascinated buzz at your home as your kids talked about cutting open and observing the parts and functions of a sheep eye! We learned how the eye works, how the brain needs to interpret what the eye sees, and differences in eyes between a few species (sheep vs humans vs dogs vs mantis shrimp). This is definitely one of the more memorable activities we do during the year- ask your student what their biggest “ah, ha!” moment was!

Coming up soon we’ll be doing MORE fun labs, such as looking at pond water under the microscope (single-celled organisms and algae!) and a Battle of the Bacteria. It’s always a fun competition to see who can grow the greatest variety of bacterial colonies in a petri dish!

Social Studies:

We presented our travel itineraries to our “clients” this week and made postcards to represent the regions we “traveled.” Your kids did a wonderful job! The first half of next week we’ll review and assess over the five themes of geography. At the end of the week, we’ll review map features and map reading skills before working our way into a unit on Physical Geography. This next unit covers how land and water features affect climate and where people choose to live!

Band:

After school practice on Wednesday from 3-4.

Choir:

Congratulations to all the seventh and eighth grade choir students on two outstanding festival performances! The Bass Clef Fest last Thursday and the Treble Clef Fest on Tuesday were truly memorable experiences and you represented ABMS well!!

7th Choir:

After school rehearsal October 7 until 4pm in the commons. No uniforms. Please have a ride home at 4pm.

Choir:

Congratulations to all the seventh and eighth grade choir students on two outstanding festival performances! The Bass Clef Fest last Thursday and the Treble Clef Fest on Tuesday were truly memorable experiences and you represented ABMS well!!

8th Choir:

After school rehearsal October 7 until 4pm in the commons. No uniforms. Please have a ride home at 4pm.

Farris Science:

Bring your Save the Penguin Project supplies.

Thanks so much for a great response to our conferences this week! Our entire staff loves to share the success stories of our kids and work together with families to provide opportunities for growth. Thank you for partnering in the learning process for your kids.

Thank you, also, to our fantastic PTO for providing our teachers with snacks on Wednesday night and lunch on Thursday during conferences. It’s so nice to know that we don’t have to jump in the car and run somewhere to quickly grab a bite so we can be back in time for our next conference! Thank you for taking care of our team and giving them some down time to enjoy lunch and take care of themselves.

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Colburn shared some information about the latest trends in social media apps. One of the apps he highlighted was TikTok and the latest trend of vandalizing school property and posting pictures of it.

This week, a list was published on TikTok with similar challenges for each month of the school year. As you might expect, these are not positive, leadership-forward challenges. Instead, they promote physical acts of harassment, vandalism, and inappropriate behavior that are more than pranks; they are criminal behavior.

It’s disappointing that a platform that could be used for positivity is promoting negative behavior, and worse, some of our kids are making choices to follow these challenges. We work hard to promote positive choices and positive outcomes at ABMS.

Nearly every time we speak with students about poor choices they have made, they say, “We were just kidding around,” or “It was just a joke.” Most times, kids think these answers will just erase their actions or make them okay, but they don’t.

When faced with possible disciplinary action, our approach begins with the opportunity to help students learn from their mistakes. Our kids’ brains are still developing; however, they are old enough to know right from wrong. It is wrong to tear a soap dispenser off a wall and spray soap all over the bathroom, and there are consequences for that.

As I understand it, the October TikTok challenge encourages kids to slap a staff member on the backside, and the challenges only get more invasive as the year goes on. It is wrong to slap anyone on the backside, and there are consequences for that.

We are asking our families to partner with us by talking your kids about being socially responsible and kind. Part of what makes ABMS a special school community is our students’ and families’ love and care for one another and their school. These challenges aren’t funny.

ABMS is a great place, and I am confident that by working together we can eliminate this issue. Thank you for partnering with us to provide the best learning environment for students, teachers and staff.

Sincerely,

Diana Tate, Principal

Email: AubryBendMiddle@bluevalleyk12.org
Website: www.bluevalleyk12.org/ABM
Location: 12501 West 175th Street, Overland Park, KS, USA
Phone: 913-624-2300
Facebook: facebook.com/Smore
Twitter: @smorenewsletter