The Bengal Blog: 3-15-2019

In 1899, the streets of New York City echoed with the voices of newsies. On every corner you saw them carrying the banner. Bringing you the news for a penny a pape. Poor orphans and runaways, the newsies were a ragged army without a leader, until one day all that changed...and that day is today. Best of luck to Melissa, Danielle, April, Bill and all of our students as they put on the production of Newsies today for our school, tonight and tomorrow afternoon and night!

Thanks to Todd for sharing this awesome math website.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

Thanks to Betty and Dr. LeBlanc who put on a parent night last night for our EL families. Taking extra steps to make sure all families feel welcome and connected to their schools is important and appreciated.

Check out this website for a free photoshop alternative you can use in your classroom.

https://www.photopea.com/

We have some testing going on next week. 5th grade will be taking the ISA on the 20th and the CogAT's on the 18th, 19th and 21st. 8th graders will be taking the ISA on March 19th. Thanks to all teachers involved for making this happen. Special thanks to Greg and Ellen for getting it ready.

Making learning stick. Read or listen.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/stick/

Big thanks to Tony, Frank and Tim for all of the extra work they have been putting in the last couple of weeks. We couldn't do it without you. Please let me know if there are any items around your classroom, outside the normal cleaning that needs to be completed. I will add it to the list for spring break.

On Tuesday some of our staff and community members met again to continue planning the Benjamin 175th Anniversary. More on this to come. Thanks to Lauren and Melissa for representing our staff.

Jessica's student engineers created straw bridges two weeks in a row to see if they could improve their design. Sometimes we learn the most from failure.

It can get a little nutty around here next week. Thanks in advance for being proactive with supervision in your classrooms, hallways and other unstructured areas. Your presence makes a difference!

70% of what is taught in the classroom the pupils already know! It’s so important to know where your learners are starting from. Imagine how much more engaged our learners would be if this was always the starting point

Thanks to everyone for having the BB 300 News Broadcast Link up and ready for your class. Listening and seeing the announcements are an important start to our day.

Thanks to Megan D and Alex for keeping up the Star Bengal Cafe with our core classroom. This experience gives those students a lot of pleasure while practicing important life skills.