The Beckwith Chronicle

Dates to Remember
12/10 School Committee Meeting 6:30pm
12/12 BMS Band Concert (@DRRHS)
12/16 BMS Chorus Concert (@DRRHS)
12/17 Grade 8 Field Trip
12/19 PTSA Meeting at PRES
12/23-1/1 No School- Holiday Recess

Students of the Month
The following students were presented with Student of the Month Certificates for the month of October:
Gr. 8 – Delaney Hayden/Zachary Petzold
Gr. 7 – Emily Marquis/Patipan Sintorn
Gr. 6 – Molly House/Blaze Coogan
Gr. 5 – Katherine Silva/Benjamin Talbot
Related Arts –Ella Enos/Joshua Roulier

Historic Raiders Soccer Season
The Beckwith Raiders boys' soccer team just completed a historic season. The boys finished the season undefeated winning another Massasoit League title. Throughout the season, the team dominated their opponents scoring an amazing 68 goals while only surrendering 6 goals. The scoring difference is the best in the history of the school program. The high powered offense was a total team effort. The Raiders had sixteen different players score goals during this incredible season. The boys displayed a sharp passing game that led to many scoring opportunities. Like any great team, there was more than offense. The dominating defense controlled most of the games shutting down the opponents. If the opponents were able to get through the defense, our solid goal keepers did their job! This 2019 group will go down as one of the best teams in the history of the school. Players this year included: Dylan Andreozzi, Trey Brierly, Chayce Bryant, Sean Callaghan, Travis Chartier, Ethan Coyne, Liam Hannon, Ian Hoskins, Will Hoskins, Matty Suprenard, Tim Zibrida, Brayden Campos, Tiago Conceicao, Jonny Franco, AJ Gesner, TJ Levisee, Ben Miller, Ryan Moitoso, Brennan Silva, and James Dias. Coach Freeman would like to thank her boys for a wonderful season of dedication and teamwork!

Believers Participate in Jamboree
The Beckwith Believers Unified Club traveled to Case Middle School for their annual Bocce Jamboree. The players had a blast using their skills and even participated in the "WAVE" and some other cheers. Congratulations Believers! We are looking forward to a great basketball season!

Art at Dighton Art Festival
Congratulations to the following students whose artwork was selected to be displayed at the Fifteenth Annual Dighton Arts Festival on November 3! The Dighton Arts Festival is a celebration of music and art where local and regional artists display and sell their artwork.

Grade 5: Phoenix Machie, Samuel Pickford, Allison Mandeville, Addison Hoyle, Damien Landry, and Benjamin Talbot

Grade 6: Henry Murdock, Madeline Stchur, Riley Clement, Isabella Bouchard, Catherine Bredemeier, Madison Williams, Gracelin Iafrate, and Anders Nicholson

Grade 7: Skyla Perry, Olivia Visinho, Aubree Miller, Hailey McCracken, Christiano Arruda, Sophie DiRenzo, Ethan Antepenko, and Abigail Salwierz

Grade 8: Nevaeh Sullivan, Ashley Pellechio, Sydney Pestana, Ava Wasylow, Aidan LeBlanc, Jaylin Gaudreau, Eva Maloof, and Rowan Whittaker

Nurse’s Notes
To the parents of 6th grade students who will enter 7th grade in the year 2020-21:
The MA Department of Public Health regulations require incoming 7th grade students to have had the Tdap booster (Tetanus with pertussis component) and a 2nd Varicella vaccine (chicken pox) or be subject to exclusion from school. Also, a current physical exam from their pediatrician is required to be on file in the nurse's office for entrance into 7th grade. There will also be a new requirement set forth in the next school year for all 7th graders to have a meningococcal conjugate vaccine unless a religious or medical exemption applies.

For the general student population: Students who participate in inter-scholastic sports must provide a physical YEARLY in accordance with the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association regulations. If one is not received, the student will sit out of practice and/or games.

Library Databases Can Support Student Learning
It is tempting to think that all the information that we need we can find using Google or other search engines, but anyone can post information on the internet, so it is not always easy to find trustworthy information. That’s where library databases can be an invaluable resource for students because databases only include information from credible sources.

A library database is an indexed collection of articles from encyclopedias, reference books, magazines, academic journals, newspapers, and other sources that have been evaluated for accuracy and reliability. Using a library database can save students time because they do not have to evaluate whether or not the information they collect is reliable. Besides being trustworthy, many of our library databases have leveled content that is appropriate and accessible for middle school readers. One of the databases, Britannica School Middle, includes features that permit students to toggle to higher or lower reading levels, and all of the databases include a text-to-speech tool so that the content can be read aloud to students. None of this content is free, but federal and state funds support our school subscriptions to library databases.

How can students and their families access the library databases? Visit our Beckwith Library Webpage at https://bms.drregional.org/our_school/library___media_center (a link can be found by visiting the Beckwith Middle School Homepage, and then looking for the link, “Library/Media Center” under the heading “Our School.” Once there, select “Find Information”). Students at Beckwith are being taught how to access and use these databases in collaboratively taught lessons in our school library.

Beckwith Robotics Teams
The 2019-2020 FIRST LEGO League robotics season is underway and the Beckwith Robotics Teams have been selected. Beckwith’s Robotics Team Members are The City Sluggos: Evan Watts, Malakai Risotti, Jonah Hebda, Landon Paquette, Aidan Benjamin, Cyrus Duczkowski and Jack Swan and The City Croissants: Kylee Berwick, Riley Clement, Alex Verma, Anders Nicholson, Jaelyn Johnson, Chase Cooper and Connor Bessette.

This year’s theme is City Shaper and the students need to try and improve their local community. They are hard at work identifying a problem and coming up with an innovative solution; simultaneously they are designing, building and programming their robot. One team is comprised of 5 veterans with 2 rookies (the City Sluggos) and another team made entirely of 7 rookies (the City Croissants). The veteran team is helping the new team through the process by sharing their experiences and the lessons they have learned from years past.

Our teams will be competing at the qualifying tournament on Sunday Dec. 15th at the Gordon School in East Providence from 8am to 4 pm. It is free and open to the public after 12 noon. Come and cheer our teams on. The teams are hoping to qualify for the State Championship Tournament slated to be held in January. Every year the pressure on the teams builds since the past six teams have made it to States and this year’s teams want to keep that streak alive.

Coach Kenny would like you to join him in wishing these teams much success this year. Finally a special thank you to Mr. Jeffrey Greenberg who once again has volunteered to coach and we could not have competed this year without his help and support, thank you Coach Greenberg.

FIRST is an acronym: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology and has Dr. Woodie Flowers, a longtime FIRST Advisor said “Societies get the best of what they celebrate.” Let’s all celebrate what these future engineers and leaders are doing now.

Author Bill Harley Visits Beckwith Fifth Graders!
On Wednesday, November 20, 2019, Bill Harley, author of Night of the Spadefoot Toads and other novels, visited grade 5 students in the Beckwith library/media center. Students recently read Night of the Spadefoot Toads and were able to ask Mr. Harley specific questions about the setting, characters, and plot. Mr. Harley spoke about the writing process, working with editors and making revisions, and how he develops characters when writing novels. Students and teachers enjoyed Mr. Harley's engaging talk and thank the PTSA for funding this exciting presentation!

App Update (from smartsocial.com)

App Update- What is Snapchat?
• Snapchat is a popular photo, video, audio, and live messaging app
• The app is popular because of the private messaging feature that allows users to send private video, audio, or photos to one another
• Posts made on the app are called “Snaps”. Snaps can be sent to a user’s Story, to their friends in one-on-one chats, or to group chats
• Snapchat is known for its filters which create effects over photos or videos. The most popular filters change the user’s appearance
• The app is made up of these features: Snaps, Friends, Discover, Snap Map, and Streaks

Snaps: The home screen on Snapchat is a place where users can create content within the app and decide where it gets posted.
• Snapchat opens on the user’s camera so they can create Snaps in the moment (as opposed to using content from their camera roll)
• Snaps can be sent to a user’s Story (which will appear in the Discover tab), to their friends in one-on-one chats, or to group chats
• Text, doodles, stickers, filters, and links can be added to Snaps
• Snaps can also have a set time limit so they disappear after a certain amount of time

Snapchat Friends: Where users can chat with their friends one-on-one or in groups.
• From the home screen, users can swipe right to get to the Friends tab
• Users can chat one-on-one with friends or in group chats with up to 31 other users
• In the Friends tab, users can send: photos, videos, voice memos, Bitmojis (emojis that look like the user), content from their phone’s camera roll, or play games within Snapchat
• Content that is sent to friends can be set to disappear after a certain period of time or remain in the chat thread and they will receive a notification if their content has been screenshot by the receiver
• This tab is where users can see their Streaks
• Users can also make video or voice calls with their friends

Snapchat Streak: Posts that appear on a user’s profile and the Instagram home page for their followers.
• A Streak is given to users who have sent each other Snaps consistently for two days or more
• A fire emoji will appear next to a friend’s name along with a number. This indicates that you are on a Streak and the number indicates how many days the Streak has been going

Snapchat Discover: A place for user’s to watch their friends stories or see posts from recommended media outlets.
• From the home screen, users can swipe left to get to the Discover tab
• When a user posts to their Story, their post will appear in the Discover feed for their friends to see
• Stories disappear after 24 hours – which encourages users to log in every day so they don’t miss content from their friends
• The Discover tab is also a place where users can see content from media outlets
• The content on the Discover tab is not moderated and this is where students commonly see posts from content creators that is too mature for younger audiences
• Users can subscribe to content creators they like so their posts will always appear on the Discover tab

Snap Map: Using geolocation services, users can see what other Snapchat users in the area are posting.
• From the home screen on Snapchat, users can swipe down to get to the Snap Map feature
• Users can post a Status on the Snap Map so other users can see what they’re doing and where they are
• At Smart Social, we believe it’s important for parents to know about the Snap Map feature because there are several reports of predators using this feature to target and find minors
• On Snap Map users can choose to show their content to anyone on Snapchat, only their friends, only selected friends, or they can go into “Ghost Mode” (this is our recommendation for every student) so that no one can see their posts on a map
• There are spots on the Snap Map that look like heat spots – those spots indicate where a lot of Snapchat activity is taking place. Users can tap on these spots to see posts from that area

Why should parents care?
• The app is very popular with students – 54% of US teens report using Snapchat every day. 30% of users use the app because their parents do not
• There are several reports of predators using Snapchat (and the Snap Map feature) to target and solicit minors
• Teens and tweens tend to learn app updates faster than their parents which can lead to negative behavior because students feel that they can hide their behavior from their parents
• Due to its temporary nature, many teens might post riskier content on Snapchat than on other social networks
• Anyone with your child’s username can see their Snaps or send them direct messages
• Content in the Discover feed can be inappropriate for tweens and teens

What can parents do?
• Before giving your child access to an app, download it, spend some time using it, then determine if the app is safe for your family
• Always be on the apps your students use
• If your child is new to social media, create a cell phone and social media safety contract and have access to their usernames and passwords
• When your student has a solid understanding of their online footprint, then Snapchat can be used as a family in a fun and positive way
• If parents get involved and add their child on Snapchat, teens tend to keep their Snaps positive
• Have regular discussions with your children about Snapchat, know their usernames so you can monitor their activity, and encourage them to always talk to you if they experience anything uncomfortable online
• Remind your children that their online activity (even Snapchat posts that will disappear) can impact their reputation
• If your student is experiencing unusual behavior, consider contacting a school counselor or a private therapist. We suggest that every student who might be going through a hard time to work with a therapist

Principal’s Message
Beckwith Middle School - Living WRITEously

Dear Families,
This year we are focusing on the instruction of writing in all content areas- particularly explanatory writing. Our emphasis is for our students to write a clear, fully-developed central idea (claim), select and explain evidence and details that support the central idea, effectively organize their writing, and understand the purpose for writing. Writing instruction is completed through the writing process where teachers provide support and specific feedback to students. Students draft, revise, and re-draft to complete a final product. Students are assessed using on-demand writing assessments that require students to apply the knowledge of writing to answer a prompt.

We hope to teach students how to effectively communicate their ideas through writing by consistently stating a claim and supporting the claim with reasons and evidence. This advanced skill is required throughout students’ educational careers and beyond. Students use critical thinking to analyze texts or sources, synthesize information, and explain answers coherently. Our goal this year is to support students by providing instruction, practice, and feedback specific to criteria of explanatory writing. We also hope to give students an opportunity to demonstrate their writing skills in on-demand settings with minimal support. It is essential for students to apply the skills learned when presented with prompts on assessments and other authentic writing opportunities.

Teaching writing is more than presenting various genres in ELA class. It is necessary to teach writing skills in all classes since writing is an essential skill to effectively communicate thinking required in all content areas. Effective written communication skills learned now will hopefully enable our students to become valuable members when working as part of a group as well as when working independently to accomplish a goal.

Website: drregional.org