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Building Better Bulldogs Activities

  • May 31, 2023 Panorama Social/Emotional Well-Being Survey  

    Not everyone will be taking the survey.  If you have permission, your Social Studies teacher will have your name listed and you will be able to log in using your student ID number.  (This is also the password you use to log in for school and your lunch PIN.)  This will take about 15 minutes.  

    1. Click on the following link to access the social-emotional survey:  https://surveys.panoramaed.com/wtps/login
    2. Use your student ID number (password) as your access code.
    3. Complete all the questions truthfully.  The answers are used to help our student population in the future.

    Alternate activities:

     If you cannot access the site using your student ID number, you may not have parent permission to complete.  Your teacher may provide something for you to work on or you can do one of the following activities.  Please work on these quietly.  

    Results Listed Here for the Spring 2023 Survey

    April 25-May 2023 ADL/No Place for Hate Lesson Plan:  Bully Stoppers Program and the NJ Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights
    Click the following link as a reflection activity for the lesson:  Anti Bullying Bill of Rights Reflection
    *Please note the reflection activity in the lesson plan is not working properly.
    Throughout the school year, we have been concentrating on eliminating harmful words from our vocabulary and being agents of change.  This month, we focus on the legislation in New Jersey about Anti-Bullying and how to help eliminate bullying from schools

    Click here for the lesson plan: Bullystoppers/Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights

    • This lesson will be divided into several phases.  First, the faculty will be retrained on the legislation.  Then, on April 25, the students in grades 6 and 7 will watch the Bullystoppers program.  During the week of May 15th, students in all grades will work in their study halls to learn about how they can support the initiatives for the Anti-bullying bill of rights.
    • Here is the link that provides the reflection questions for the end of the discussion.  Reflection on Discussion Questions.
    • In order to view the survey, please consider using your child's laptop as the survey is only for students with WTPS accounts.
    • As always, if you have any questions or seek clarification on this lesson, please reach out to Mr. D'Ostilio

    Student Responses to Group Discussions about the NJ Anti Bullying Bill of Rights

    March 21, 2023:  Learning About Kindness from the Family of a Holocaust Survivor

    JEFF ZEIGER RECOUNTS FATHER’S SURVIVAL OF HOLOCAUST

    ZeigerThe powerful story that Jeff Zeiger recounted to Bunker Hill Middle School eighth-grade students on March 21st, at the request of ELA teacher Patty Bernhardt who arranged the visit, is the stuff of movies.  Thankfully, this one had a happy ending.

    The son of Jewish Holocaust survivor Shelley Zeiger, Jeff Zeiger told of his father’s family survival during the darkest days of the Nazi occupation, when Zeiger, then 7 years old, his older brother, his parents, Sonya and Irving Zeiger, and two young unaccompanied girls from the village were hidden from the Nazi soldiers by a Christian farmer named Anton Suchinsky. Suchinsky, who was unable to read or write and who lived alone just outside of Zborov, in the Ukraine, worked with the family to dig out a bunker by using spoons and hid the Zeiger family and the two girls for 18 months beneath the earth in a six-foot by eight-foot by four-foot hole.

    “In 1942, those six people lay like a deck of cards in that hole, basically in a carved out grave, beneath the root cellar, for 18 months,” Zeiger said in sharing his personal history related to the extermination of six million Jews during this period. “Anton kept them alive by using a three-bucket system, lowering water in one bucket, food scraps in a another and using the third bucket to dispose of their waste. When the Soviet soldiers finally rescued them, there were no other Jewish families who had survived in the area. They were in really bad shape, looked like skeletons, and suffered from leeches and terrible sun poisoning when they were removed from the bunker. They spent the next five years moving throughout Europe through displaced persons camps, which were managed by the Red Cross.”

    Eventually, the Ziegers journeyed to America by boat for two weeks with 1,300 Jews, and entered Ellis Island on December 22, 1949, with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Irving Zeiger opened a grocery store in Newark, NJ, and began sending monthly packages of food and clothing to Suchinsky. Because Suchinsky could not read or write, he acknowledged each of the gifts by sending back an envelope with a hand-drawn flower. In the 1960’s the letters stopped coming, and unable to locate him, the Zeigers assumed that Suchinsky had died. Until 1987, when on a business trip to Moscow, Zeiger met a man who had heard of Anton’s story of generosity and re-connected the pair.  In May of 1988, the Zeiger family reunited in Zborov with Anton, who was now recognized as a local hero for risking his own life to save the lives of the Jews. Anton even visited America in November of 1991 and explained his willingness to help, “I knew they wanted to be alive.  We all want to live, That instinct isn’t Jewish or Christian, it’s human.”

    Zeiger, who tells his family’s and Anton Suchinsky’s remarkable story in schools three to four times a month, emphasized the importance of human kindness and empathy to his Bunker Hill audience.

    “Anton was a little guy, but his spirit and his heart were huge, and he lived to be 98 years old,” Zeiger said.  “We can all learn so much from him. First, do not make fun of somebody because they are different. Second, if you do good in life, the good will come back to you. And thirdly, ask yourself what can one person do?  One person can do a lot.  In the family of those six people who fought to live in a six-foot by eight-foot by four-foot hole for 18 months, 70 people are alive today because of what one man did.”

    February 17-24, 2023 ADL/No Place for Hate Lesson Plan:  Learning from Changemakers
    In December we focused on the impact of our words.  This month, we focus on how we can commit to being changemakers ... to see how ordinary people grow to do extraordinary things and how one can stand up for injustice and bias.  It just requires perseverence and a belief in your own purpose, despite how others may cast doubts.

    Click here for the lesson plan: Learning from Changemakers

    • 7th and 8th graders will view the movie Rise throughout the day on February 17 (shortened day).  Whereas, 6th graders will view the film Hidden Figures.  
    • The following week, the science teachers will go over a discussion about what was learned in the film in terms of themes.  These questions are in the lesson plan.  Following a class discussion, students will reflect on the discussion and respond expressing what they learned from the discussion.  
    • Here is the link for that provides the reflection questions for the end of the discussion.  Reflection on Discussion Questions
    • As always if you have any questions or seek clarification on this lesson, please reach out to Mr. D'Ostilio

    Student Responses to Reflection Questions Rise and Hidden Figures

    Fulfillment and Sample Data No Place for Hate "Learning from Changemakers"

    December 14-23, 2022 ADL/No Place for Hate Lesson Plan:  Intent v ImpactDue to the rise in racial and antisemitic jokes and stereotypes, the Anti Defamation League out of Philadelphia has worked to help refine one of our No Place for Hate lessons to focus on Intent v Impact.  

    Click here for the lesson plan:  Intent v Impact

    • As you will notice throughout the lesson plan, the lesson plan provides numerous options to meet the learning objectives based on the readiness of the class.
    • This will be conducted one day in a students' math class and will be guided by the math teacher who has met with Mr. D'Ostilio about the responsibilities for the lesson and benefitted from the training from NJHeart.

    Fulfillment and sample data of No Place for Hate:  Intent v Impact Activity

     

    December 6, 2022 Panorama Social/Emotional Well-Being Survey  

    Not everyone will be taking the survey.  If you have permission, your Social Studies teacher will have your name listed and you will be able to log in using your student ID number.  (This is also the password you use to log in for school and your lunch PIN.)  This will take about 15 minutes.  

    1. Click on the following link to access the social-emotional survey:  https://surveys.panoramaed.com/wtps/login
    2. Use your student ID number (password) as your access code.
    3. Complete all the questions truthfully.  The answers are used to help our student population in the future.

    Alternate activities:

     If you cannot access the site using your student ID number, you may not have parent permission to complete.  Your teacher may provide something for you to work on or you can do one of the following activities.  Please work on these quietly.  

    Results Listed Here for the Fall 2022 Panorama Survey

    November 9, 2022:  Team Up Veteran's Day Tribute

    Click on the group photo to access the photo gallery.

    group

     

    November 9, 2022:  Assembly/Discussion on Eliminating Racially Biased Rhetoric in Schools.

    Students focused on ways to move forward and eliminate racially charged jokes and microagressions in school.  Click here to see letter sent home to parents.

     

    October 25, 2022:  Halloween Pumpkin Contest. 

    Vote for your favorite staff pumpkin.  Click here to vote.

     

    October 24-28, 2022:  Red Ribbon Week/Violence Prevention Week

    Throughout the week, the students will participate in activities as they reflect on ways to stay drug free in their lives and free of violence.

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    Red Ribbon Week Lesson Plan:  Click here

    Reflection Prompt:  Click here

    October 3-7, 2022:  Week of Respect

    Throughout the week, the students will participate in activities that promote respect of self, respect of others, and respect to the school environment

     

     

     

     

    September 23, 2022:  What it Means to Be a Bulldog.  Part I

    7th and 8th Grade Building Better Bulldog Activity 

     

     

     

     

    September 19, 2022:  The Perils of Sexting and Online Harassment

    7th Grade Building Better Bulldog Activity

     https://mobile.twitter.com/Official_BHMS/status/1571952441356349440

    July 5, 2022:  Spring 2022 Panorama Social/Emotional Wellbeing Survey RESULTS

     Click the below to access Spring 2022 Survey Results

    Results Link