 HIGH SCHOOL High School Science has started the year off strong. Physics just finished a test on Newton's First Law and now move into Projectiles. Heads up! Biology explored Carrying Capacity with a 3-day activity trying to keep cups alive by feeding them beans while battling shelter, predators, and disease. Chemistry is figuring out the Periodic Table and made a wall diagram of an Argon atom replete with s & p orbitals shown! And Systems of the Human Body dissected a chicken wing and made their own wall diagram showing the interactions between muscles, tendons, and bones. We are also super excited for our 9th graders to see all this science in action during our three-day Fall experiential overnight to Camp SEA Lab starting on Monday. Woo-hoo! –Jay Huston, High School Science  Students were exploring elements in the main group of the periodic table. At the top is an electron configuration diagram and all the arrows are called an orbital diagram. In the bottom, right they are identifying the number of valence electrons and the number of energy levels. And finally in the bottom left, they are doing a Lewis dot diagram. These are four ways of looking at the same element, in this case Polonium. MIDDLE SCHOOL
Middle School students have been working on effective scientific observation skills and learning the difference between their observations, which are based on things they can see, touch, hear, and smell, versus an inference – something that is a conclusion based on observations. Students have done a little bit of microscope work, focusing on learning how to draw what they see while looking through a microscope at 20x magnification. We will continue to work on these foundational skills for the remainder of the first quarter. –Tasha Hudick, K-8 Science ELEMENTARY Elementary students are learning the basics of measuring, mixing, and following simple instructions in a science experiment. We’ve done some simple chemical reactions and explored two different types of slime! We are using our science toolkit, Our Senses, to talk about our experiments. –Tasha Hudick, K-8 Science  Student Government has gotten into a rhythm these last few weeks! The new members have quickly learned the ropes from the veteran members about the standard operating procedures for all of our sales. The members are energized, motivated, and working collaboratively to run our sales each week. Speaking of sales, we would like to thank SPA for providing such delicious treats for our first Bake Sale of the school year! We thank you and appreciate you!
This week in Student Government, discussions began about things we could purchase for the school with the funds that we get through our weekly Friday sales. This will be a process, but already, students are thinking deeply about ideas that can improve the experience of students at Stanbridge. One such idea under consideration is installing another microwave in the courtyard, as this year students have seen slightly longer lines to use the microwaves at lunchtime. Student Government is currently researching a variety of pizza places as we consider changing the location of where we get our pizza for our monthly Pizza Sale. Members are taking initiative and looking at the prices of different pizza places, as well as their quality, as we consider switching to a different restaurant. We will keep you updated as we continue to research and weigh our options. Our Student Government wants to hear from our students! This week we put our Suggestion Box back in the front office, where students from any division are welcome to write down ideas and suggestions that they would like Student Government to consider. Your input is taken seriously and is greatly appreciated! –Kenny Katz, Student Government Faculty Advisor  Social Learning is a school-wide program anchoring our work at Stanbridge. All students attend a class at least once weekly that focuses on a topic or skill related to self-regulation, relationship-building, and prosocial behaviors.
Based on the work of Michelle Garcia-Winner (Social Thinking) and Leah Kuypers (Zones of Regulations), Tricia, our speech therapist, and Mary and Emma, our counselors, create lessons that target each group's areas of need. High School students responded to a survey of their needs and requested more lessons about making friends, nurturing friendships, and starting conversations with people they do not know. They also asked for lessons on Executive Functioning skills, such as studying for tests and keeping themselves organized. Their other areas of interest included getting along with parents and dating and romance. Our first lessons will focus on friendship: how to make friends, be a good friend, and use who-what-when-where-why-and-how questions to start conversations with new people. The high schoolers will have opportunities to practice these skills when they go on experiential trips this month and next. – Mary Stadler, Director of Counseling  This past Tuesday, our Student Government (StuGov) gathered and convened our first session of the 2024-2025 school year! Our officers and representatives met for the first time as new members were introduced and welcomed into this year's StuGov. All of our officers and representatives came into our first meeting highly motivated and energized, ready to serve! During this first meeting, our team discussed norms and nominated peers whom they thought would be willing to serve as deputies for this school year. Deputies assist Student Government with Friday sales or other activities. Also discussed was the protocol surrounding how the first Snack Shack would be conducted. Thank you to the members who volunteered and facilitated today's Snack Shack. (See pictures below.) Please welcome this year's team as the elected student voice of Stanbridge:
Lunchtime Sales Next Friday, September 6, is our first Pizza Sale of the school year. If you would like your child to have a delicious pizza lunch from Pizza My Heart provided by Student Government, please complete the Pizza Form by this coming Wednesday. The form has information about drinks, salad, and types of pizza that will be sold during the sale. If your child is going to buy pizza during next week's Pizza Sale, parents must fill out the form no later than 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 4. During Friday's lunchtime sale, please have your child bring $5's and $1's to pay for their lunch. We are unable to adequately provide change if everyone brings a $20 bill. Your cooperation with this is much appreciated. If you have any questions about the upcoming Pizza Sale, please don't hesitate to reach out. We hope everyone has a wonderful three day weekend! – Kenny Katz, Student Government Faculty Advisor What it Feels Like to Give a Speech at Stanbridge-By Ian Mackenzie, Bulldog Blog creator, editor and Stanbridge’s go-to idea man  What's up Bulldogs? It's your blondest Bulldog Blogger Ian Mackenzie here. In this post, I'm going to tell you about the various speeches I’ve made across my time at Stanbridge, what it felt like to give them, and how you can improve your ability to speak to an audience. I am also going to explain how I soothed my anxiety and my stage fright. The capability to keep my emotions on stage took many hours of work for me. Now, I've gone over how I give speeches, and man, Ian sure talks a lot but what's the point?! I’m going to show you four lessons real soon, calm down Mr. exclamation point. Alright, Lesson One: Practice!! I cannot emphasize this enough. If you want to give a speech that people other than your parents will applaud, then review the words you’re going to say constantly. That means P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E. Don’t try to memorize the whole speech. Just don’t. Or if you are more experienced at giving speeches, you could have the paper in front of you for reference, but only look at it when you need the exact words from your speech. Lesson Two: Make sure you are slowing down and enunciate clearly. If you are like me, then you need to slow down that speedy mind of yours, as well as that tireless mouth. Don’t forget to check on that every once in a while when you're giving a longer speech. Lesson Three: if you stutter or say the wrong line, there are two ways to deal with it.
Stop the entire speech and say something like, “Sorry I messed up.” This shows the audience that you are less prepared or willing than you first let on. And finally, Lesson Four: Try to make as much eye contact as possible. If you look down at your paper too much, the audience will lose interest way faster. Simple as that. I hope this was helpful to you. Maybe you can apply some of these skills to your everyday life. Why not give it a shot? See you in the next post! -By Ian Mackenzie
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