Worried About Your Teen on Social Media? Here’s How to Help.

NY Times article: Worried About Your Teen on Social Media? Here’s How to Help.

For kids, developing a healthier relationship with Instagram and other platforms can be tricky.

• Don’t go from ‘zero to 100.’
• Set time limits.
• Help your teen understand and curate their feed.

Some good details in the article. It also mentions an organization called The Social Institute, whch "Provides a gamified, online learning platform that empowers students to navigate their social world — social media and technology — to fuel their health, happiness, and future success. By reinforcing character strengths like empathy, integrity, and teamwork and by showcasing their role models (from student leaders to U.S. Olympians), we use a relevant, positive approach to inspire students to make positive, high-character choices."

Beyoncé's "Move Your Body" video

I was looking for a "Monday Music" video and since Beyonce's in the news for all her Grammy noms, I dug into her videos and found this from 11 years ago.

You may well know about it, but if you don't, it's kinda awesome! She re-worked the words to an earlier song and made it into a video that was part of Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign. The video is shot at a middle school cafeteria.

Beyoncé's "Move Your Body" video for the NABEF's Let's Move! Flash Workout.
https://youtu.be/mYP4MgxDV2U


Beyonce's intro is here
https://youtu.be/H-E4smQc5J4

Get the full dance instructions here:
https://youtu.be/TimvpO7TZMA


Part 2 of instructions?
https://youtu.be/hDYN_KK-3_E

General & Science News sources

Here's a doc with some news sources that could be of interest - general news and science news.

Summer Camps & Activities in/near Beverly

I have a running list of summer camps and activities in and near Beverly
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvdrqERdBznYGgj-KQNFcF8T_w9aRAWspojkziItFCI/edit?usp=sharing

Four Tips for an Effective Interview: A StoryCorps Education Tool

 https://youtu.be/G70rR2vG5wY

The Rise of ‘Dr. Google:’ Youth and Online Health Information

Children & Screens event

Join us on Tuesday January 31 at 11:30 am ET for the next Ask The Experts webinar “The Rise of ‘Dr. Google:’ Youth and Online Health Information” as a panel of researchers and public health experts explore the trends and impacts of youth searching for health guidance on the internet.

childrenandscreens.com

Families Struggle as Pandemic Program Offering Free School Meals Ends

I saw this article today and thought you might find it interesting/insightful:
Families Struggle as Pandemic Program Offering Free School Meals Ends

Design Squad

I came across these videos on youtube when I was looking for something for. Cable Car Day (1/17) - there might be some good ones in here for you!

https://www.youtube.com/@DesignSquadGlobal

Design Squad is all about bringing creative ideas to life: dream it, build it, live it! Design Squad, a video series and website from PBS KIDS, empowers middle school kids to solve real-world problems and understand the impact of engineering in a global context. Our channel features our fun videos that feature kid engineers and hosts Deysi and Nate who draw on their experiences to dispel stereotypes about engineering and inspire kids to explore engineering.

French in Plain Sight

I stumbled across this video today when I was looking up some things about The Parisian Agency (on Netflix - if you haven't watched it I recommend it!)

FRENCH EXPRESSIONS FROM THE PARISIAN AGENCY

He shows clips from the show and sort of deconstructs them. The first couple are particularly of interest because it involves common ways to introduce yourself and refer to oldest/youngest members of a family. But I enjoyed other parts of it that might be too advanced for your students but you may just enjoy, and it looks like he's got other videos like this.

I like how it shows people using French in everyday situations with families and in more formal business settings.

Massachusetts Authors

Here's a list of some more recent books by Massachusetts authors and some info if I could find it about where they live

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mih9mee2_9RBrGNbVe2Qi9h63JrjLVJXiPEhg_GvMlE/edit?usp=sharing

There are a few middle grade books on here that I'll take a closer look at and will try to ID some others. That would be great if we could do an author event!

Online Databases for BMS Staff & Students

There are a lot of online databases you and your students can access free, as a Massachusetts school with a librarian. There is a link on the BMS website that I've updated, under Library Resources.

I am happy to work with you and. your students to understand how to access and use these high-quality resources that keep them from wandering the web when you want to get down to business! They all have some good affordances to track sources, read aloud text, filter by reading levels, etc etc.

A few I'd like to highlight are listed below. There are others we can access as well, so let me know what you need.

New for 2022-23

• Gale Interactive: Science - zoom, rotate, and explore interactive 3D models. View related reference articles and search Gale content. Includes biology, chemistry, earth science, anatomy and also 3D Printable models.
• PebbleGo - Elementary level information on animals and biographies. See a list of the biographies.
• Transparent Language - Language-learning tools for more than 100 languages

• General Resource Databases - Elementary Level
• Gale in Context: Elementary 
• Britannica School: Elementary
• Britannica Fundamentals
• PebbleGoGeneral Resource Databases - Middle School Level
• Gale in Context: Middle School
• Britannica School: Middle School
• I've also pulled out links to topic-specific databases for
• animals
• biographies
• careers
• current issues
• health
• music & popular culture
• science
• newspapers (Boston Globe, NY Times, and others)
• Spanish-language databases

Andrew Tate

Vox Explainer
https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/1/4/23539528/andrew-tate-arrest-jail-rape-human-trafficking

Another article from a few months ago about Andrew Tate

Teachers Warn That Misogynist Andrew Tate Has 'Radicalized' School-Age Boys

In Memphis, the Phonics Movement Comes to High School

In Memphis, the Phonics Movement Comes to High School - NY Times

Literacy lessons are embedded in every academic class. Even in biology.

Some interesting tidbits in here:

The program focuses on expanding vocabulary and giving teenagers reading strategies — such as decoding words — that build upon fundamentals taught in elementary school.

reform has largely centered on the early years, kindergarten through third grade, and millions of students have already progressed beyond those grades without getting the full support that they needed.

Nationwide, two in three eighth graders are not reading with proficiency

At the start of each academic class at Oakhaven, students spend 15 minutes or so learning vocabulary and pulling the words apart.

Literacy, though, is embedded in all academic classes. To boost comprehension, students learn about prefixes, root words and suffixes

Social Media Use Is Linked to Brain Changes in Teens, Research Finds

Social Media Use Is Linked to Brain Changes in Teens, Research Finds
Teens who frequently checked social media showed an increasing sensitivity to peer feedback, although the cause of the changes was not clear.

A few excerpts from the article:

A new study by neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina tries something new, conducting successive brain scans of middle schoolers between the ages of 12 and 15, a period of especially rapid brain development.

At around age 12, the students already showed distinct patterns of behavior. Habitual users reported checking their feeds 15 or more times a day; moderate users checked between one and 14 times; nonhabitual users checked less than once a day.

The results showed that “teens who grow up checking social media more often are becoming hypersensitive to feedback from their peers,” Dr. Telzer said.

it is unclear, authors said, whether the changes are beneficial or harmful. Social sensitivity could be adaptive, showing that the teenagers are learning to connect with others; or it could lead to social anxiety and depression if social needs are not met.

Civil Rights Lessons from Learning for Justice

 https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources

2023 Peace Corps Calendar

Lists many international holidays and celebrations. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u34HKSd6Cv9Hbs6ILHgOZYxj-NOg_Hg8/view?usp=drive_link

Holiday Word Searches

 I have a bunch of holiday word searches that you can print out in this folder

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kFaB6tDG8Qf_LmsUW6H-BzrwDovYWNMC?usp=sharing

Alix

Totenberg-Ames Stradivarius

 You may know about this, but if you don't, it's a good story

https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/11/15/totenberg-strad-violin-longy-school-rare-instrument-true-crime

Learning Network: 100-Word Personal Narrative Contest

From The NY Times Learning Network:

Can you tell a meaningful and interesting true story from your life in just 100 words? That’s the challenge we posed to teenagers this fall with our 100-Word Personal Narrative Contest, a storytelling form popularized by Modern Love’s Tiny Love Stories series.

The answer, we discovered, was a resounding yes. Students from all over the world — 12,448 of them — answered our call with 100-word stories about moments from their lives big and small, funny and heartwarming, ordinary and extraordinary. From those thousands of submissions, our judges selected 82 finalists — 13 winners, 23 runners-up and 46 honorable mentions.

We hope you will take the time to read the winning essays. These miniature memoirs captured our judges’ hearts round after round and showed us how, sometimes, all you need is a few sentences to tell a compelling story.

Website about Periods

I know the health teachers have been doing puberty talks with the grade 5 kids recently. I wanted to be sure you knew about this resource that I made a couple of years ago that may be particularly helpful for the girls (and curious boys!) as part of a menstrual equity grant I did with Jodi Elder - https://periods.beverlyschools.org/