BMS Character Building Themes!

We kicked off this school year with monthly character building themes. Our goal is to incorporate lessons and activities through CREW, guidance and school wide events to teach and promote explicit character building skills. December's theme is all around empathy, which follows our first three months of school where we focused on kindness, courage and gratitude. As part of our November theme, we had a goal of spreading gratitude beyond our school community. We want to thank all our students and their families for their donations of canned pasta, we were blown away by the generosity and were excited to donate 625 cans of canned pasta to the Bath Area Food Bank. In addition, every student had the opportunity to mail out a postcard to someone they are grateful for, we flooded the post office by sending out over 300 postcards to friends, families and community members. We are excited to see what's in store for the rest of the school year.

What are learning targets?

• Teachers at BMS use Learning Targets to help students understand the purpose of each lesson and set goals for their work.

• Learning Targets are “I can” statements written in student-friendly language. They break down rigorous content and character standards into manageable chunks that students can achieve in a class period.

• Students track their progress on Learning Targets over time as they work towards mastery of long-term goals.

Sample learning targets observed in the last month at BMS:

• I can translate information between a table, a graph, and an equation

• I can use data to create a scale model of the planets using a 1:1 billion scale

• I can use transitional phrases to show shifts in time and place, and build suspense

What you need to know as a parent:

• A learning target should be posted in every classroom at BMS. You may ask teachers what learning targets they are working on in class at any time.

• Try asking your child, “What’s a learning target you are working on right now?” or “What’s a project you’ve done that met a learning target?”

• At Spring conferences, students will be presenting evidence of their progress on Learning Targets.

Want to learn more about why we use Learning Targets?