2055 Hanging Rock Rd Boiling Springs SC 29316 bsisonline.com 578-2884 cheryl.roach@spartanburg2.k12.sc.us			October 10, 2007 Volume 2 Issue 9 Our on-line newsletter Tammy Greer, Principal
5^th grade Student Council: We will be collecting change for our first service project- a penny drive for the Upstate Family Resource Center.  Please bring in any loose change each morning for the next 2 weeks.  Your homeroom rep. will collect it in a jar.   The 5^th grade homeroom that collects the most money will win soft drinks at lunch.  If your jars get too full you may turn your money in on Fridays.  100 hall to 206 and 200 hall to 210.  Happy Penny Collecting!  May the BEST homeroom win!!! 5^th grade Math – Order of Operations Sci - Separating mixtures through filtration, sifting, magnetic attraction, evaporation, chromatography, and floatation.   LA – characteristics of all types of fiction, especially folk tale SS – Westward Expansion 6^th grade Math – graphs Sci – Air pressure/weather SS – Egypt LA – Non-fiction, cause/ effect; legends and tall tales	Odyssey of the Mind Mrs. Strickland and Mrs. Slater are looking for extremely creative individuals who are not afraid to show off their creativity by participating in Odyssey of the Mind.  If this is you, stop by Room 401 or 107 to get an application today.  All applications are due Friday, October 19^th. Anyone interested in a section of the paper dedicated to learning web-sites?	We all forget at times that a school, in many senses, is a large business. Meetings, changes, growth, goals, plans…. The list goes on. One goal at BSIS is to constantly grow to be the best. With 1200+ students, that may take longer than ideal, but remember, we continually work to perfect that goal.	Our district has given us access to a superb on-line learning tool that can be used at school or at home. Odyssey is a self-directed program designed to teach and reinforce learning. Each student has access to this program on-line. This can be accessed with 3 pieces of information: User Name, Password, and School. These are name, lunch number and school. (ex. Jane Doe, 1234, bsis) Students have been trained or are in the process of being trained to access this. Positive results will be seen, both in class grades and on PACT scores. We highly encourage all to take advantage of this. Please let us know ASAP if you have any difficulties so we can resolve these problems and make this a positive experience for you and your child! Tiger Traits: Constantly improve in good times and bad.
	If you are interested in being our "PTO Volunteer Coordinator" for this year, contact me. This involves calling volunteers to help at functions through the year. You will be given names and contact information, a calendar of events and how many volunteers are needed.  This job can be done from home, and will require a few hours a week during event months.  If interested, please contact me as soon as possible. Thanks! April Barnes PTO President april.barnes@bcitelecom.com or 431-8130.	The Down to Earth Guide to Global Warming - Are you doing your part? Tip 3: No Idle Rule – if your car idles for more than 30 seconds it produces more greenhouse gases than restarting your car. Be aware of all the places you idle while you wait for someone.
The reading department will continue to read about hurricanes this week. If you have pictures, books, or anything pertaining to hurricanes, feel free to share with your class. The 100 BC nine weeks reward party is coming up soon! Keep reading above and beyond your target goal so you can join in the fun!	Adam could win a maximum of $800. Jameica B. Hill knew our answer to the math question last week! This week: Tania’s math book and science book are open on her desk. She sees that the even page number showing in the science book is half the even page number showing in the math book and that the sum of the four visible page numbers is 926. What page numbers are showing in her math book? Great trials seem to be necessary preparation for great duties.		Upcoming Events: Oct 26 – no school Oct 25 – 7:15 am parent meeting for anyone interested. PLEASE RSVP! Oct 29 & 30 Parent-Teacher conferences 3:30-7:00 School Lunch Week 10-16 World Food Day

Adam has won a contest that includes a chance to win money. A box is filled with $100, $50, $20 and $5 bills. Adam will be blindfolded and allowed to draw bills, one at a time till he has drawn 5 bills of the same denomination. What is the largest possible amount he can win? The best Adam could do is $800 by drawing 4 $5, 4 $20, 4 $50 and 5 $100 before he has to stop drawing. The least he could win is $25 by drawing 5 $5 the first time.

Secrets of Straight-A Students

Education experts and students reveal the secrets of maintaining high grades.

By Edwin Kiester, Jr., and Sally Valente Kiester

From Reader's Digest

September 1992

5 More Secrets

· Clean up your act. Neat papers are likely to get higher grades than sloppy ones. "The student who turns in a neat paper," says Professor Olney, "is already on the way to an A. It's like being served a cheeseburger. No matter how good it really is, you can't believe it tastes good if it's presented on a messy plate."

· Speak up. "If I don't understand the principle my teacher is explaining in economics, I ask him to repeat it," says Christopher Campbell. Class participation goes beyond merely asking questions, though. It's a matter of showing intellectual curiosity.

In a lecture on capitalism and socialism, for example, Melendres asked the teacher how the Chinese economy could be both socialist and market-driven, without incurring some of the problems that befell the former Soviet Union. "I don't want to memorize information for tests only," says Melendres. "Better grades come from better understanding."

· Study together. The value of hitting the books together was demonstrated in an experiment at the University of California at Berkeley. While a graduate student there, Uri Treisman observed a freshman calculus class in which Asian-Americans, on average, scored higher than other minority students from similar academic backgrounds. Treisman found that the Asian-Americans discussed homework problems together, tried different approaches and explained their solutions to one another.

The others, by contrast, studied alone, spent most of their time reading and rereading the text, and tried the same approach time after time even if it was unsuccessful. On the basis of his findings, Treisman suggested teaching group-study methods in the course. Once that was done, the groups performed equally well.

· Test yourself. As part of her note-taking, Domenica Roman highlights points she thinks may be covered during exams. Later she frames tentative test questions based on those points and gives herself a written examination before test day. "If I can't answer the question satisfactorily, I go back and review," she says.

Experts confirm what Roman has figured out for herself. Students who make up possible test questions often find many of the same questions on the real exam and thus score higher.

· Do more than you're asked. If her math teacher assigns five problems, Christi Anderson does ten. If the world-history teacher assigns eight pages of reading, she reads 12. "Part of learning is practicing," says Anderson. "And the more you practice, the more you learn."

The most important "secret" of the super-achievers is not so secret. For almost all straight-A students, the contribution of their parents was crucial. From infancy, the parents imbued them with a love for learning. They set high standards for their kids, and held them to those standards. They encouraged their sons and daughters in their studies but did not do the work for them. In short, the parents impressed the lessons of responsibility on their kids, and the kids delivered.