|
Inside Billings
June 5, 2025
| | 🎒 What's Happening at Billings? 📚 | | |
The last full week of school is nearly behind us, and next week will only be a few days long! This year has flown by, and though we're sad to see the kids go, we know they'll have an amazing summer!
Reminder to please have your student check out the Lost & Found before school ends, as we will not be keeping any of it over summer. Also, if you have any ELA books students used during the year such as When You Trap a Tiger, please return them by tomorrow.
| | |
Mike on the Mic 🎤
Thank you to everyone who joined us Monday afternoon to witness our 8th Grade Project presentations and for the Art Walk and Tiny Table music performances. It was awesome to hear 8th grade students speaking knowledgeably and confidently about their research and learning and 7th and 8th graders perform on the ukulele and sing in harmony.
We are so excited for our 8th graders to cap off their Billings journey with a mixture of fun and outdoor bonding on their graduation experience today! Everyone is eagerly preparing for our graduation ceremony on Tuesday night, centered around student showcases. During the ceremony, each student will present something meaningful to them. This can be a speech, a performance, a piece of art, a slideshow, or anything else, and it is a unique way to celebrate the beautiful mosaic of our graduates.
As we wrap up the end of this school year and prepare for the next, we will send an update to you with our schedule and core teaching assignments for next year by mid-July, if not sooner. Advisors and advisory groups will be shared in mid-August.
Of course, a reminder that the last day of school for 6th and 7th grade will be a half day noon dismissal on Wednesday, June 11.
Wishing you a restful and enjoyable summer,
Mike
| |
|
Upcoming Events: 📅
- 8th Grade Graduation: Tuesday, June 10, 6:00pm
- Last Day of School for 6th & 7th Grade: June 11, noon dismissal
- Summer Service & Social: July 12, 9:00am-12:00pm at North Acres Park
| | |
From the BFA:
Thank you for all the wonderful community connections this year! Wishing you all a joyful and restful summer!
No BFA Meeting This Friday
But please join us for the final Friday morning coffee of the year! Come grab a tasty cup of Shots & Sprockets coffee (Thank you, Mike Jenness!) and hang out for a bit before starting your workday.
Sign Up Now for Our Summer Service & Social
Join us at North Acres Park on Saturday, July 12, from 9am–12pm for a morning of service and connection! We’ll help clean up the park, and take time to catch up with friends (and make new ones!), play lawn games, and enjoy some tasty donuts. Drop by or stay the whole time. We’d love to see you! Click here to learn more and sign up.
Family Camping Trip in October 2025
The cabins are all taken, but there are still individual and group campsites available. Snag yours before they’re gone! We’ll be at nearby Dash Point State Park from October 3–5, 2025. Check out this link for details.
| | |
🎓 Deans on the Scene ✒️
Hello Families - I’m sorry to share that our yearbook shipment is delayed. We are working with the publisher to expedite processing and shipping, but they are unable to guarantee delivery before school ends. Once we receive our tracking information, we’ll have a better estimate of when we can expect delivery. If they arrive after school ends, we will email those families who purchased a yearbook so that they can make arrangements to pick them up in the front office. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
| | Mark your calendars! Our Annual Billings Pot-Luck Picnic is scheduled for Thursday, September 4th at Hamlin Park from 3:45 PM to 7:00 PM. | | 6th graders can’t believe how fast their first year of middle school flew by! It was so wonderful to see them proudly highlight their favorite assignments and experiences at last week’s conferences. We’re excited to wrap up the year with a final adventure to Discovery Park on June 10th. Please check your email for more information. The final half-day of school on June 11th will mark their official transition to 7th grade with meetings and activities organized by our 7th grade faculty. | | 7th grade has been enjoying some fun time in advisory this week. Today 7th graders played “Throw-Throw Burrito”, made art, and conducted some complex surgical procedures on their broccoli and croissant stuffies to make a croissant-broccoli hybrid. | | Thank you to the families of all grade levels who came out to see the 8th graders presenting their 8th Grade Projects on Monday! Students put so much time and effort into their projects and it means the world to us that our community showed up to support them. Please view the gallery below and if you took any pictures at this event, feel free to upload them as well. After all that hard work, 8th graders have earned a day of fun and excitement at Tukwila Family Fun Center. | | 6th graders are rounding out the Geology unit by learning all about fossils and relative dating of rocks. This week students were able to DIY their own mold and cast fossils using salt dough and glue. Students collected items from the Billing’s campus and made fossils of them. | |
In Math, 6th graders are closing the year with a deeper look at statistical concepts like mean, range, absolute deviation, and mean absolute deviation (MAD). We also learned how to play a pattern strategy game called Rummikub.
7th grade students are ending the year with a mock trial in ELA! After reading a dramatization of The Monkey’s Paw, students worked as prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, and jurors to determine what really happened in the story. Was magic determined to be real? Was the factory held liable? And what really happened to Herbert after making that wish? Ask your 7th grader for a trial recap!
8th grade students did a fantastic job of presenting their final projects to the school community on Monday. They selected key pieces from their final projects to include on their trifolds and presentations, and they prepared questions and talking points to engage visitors to their tables. We are all very proud of their good work and creativity.
| |
7th graders got the chance to belay each other in GO this week. Many 7th graders are well on their way to the five comprehensive belay practices required to become Billings Belay Certified!
7th and 8th graders celebrated the end of the school year with all-grade kickball games at Pinehurst Park during their final PE/GO periods.
We’ve been working on a lot of vocabulary review this week in Spanish! Students have had fun playing various review games. It has been really great to see all the vocabulary they’re able to use and what they’re able to remember from over the course of this year!
| | |
In celebration of the places we love to live, eat, shop, and play in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, The Seattle Times is presenting its annual Best in the PNW contest.
Voting will begin Monday, June 9th, so once it does be sure to go to their website and vote for us under Education > Middle School!
| |
KEY DATES:
Voting Opens: Monday, June 9
Voting Closes: Friday, June 27
Results Publish: Sunday, September 21
LEARN MORE
| | |
Check out these ParentMap articles:
For more support and resources surrounding the youth mental health crisis, screen time and social media, and the importance of play, visit ParentMap’s Antidote for the Anxious Generation page.
Speaker links
| | |
Executive Function Workout!
Join me (Greg: Director of The Learning Center at Billings) for a regular morning EF workout from 8:30am to 9:30am on Wednesdays. Developing EF, or Executive Function, requires the exercise of the brain in specific ways. Drop in on any Wednesday morning to share stories and explore strategies for strengthening our EF muscles and by extension, that of our students.
Think of EF (Executive Function) as the CEO of the brain, helping us improve our self-regulation and aid our ability to make both short and long-term plans that enhance our performance in many aspects of our life. At a middle school pragmatic level this includes things like: doing your nightly HW, working on long term projects, or doing chores around the house. This is not a class. This is an opportunity to share collective wisdom. While 30 plus years as a middle school educator has certainly allowed me to garner some wisdom, I am really a facilitator on Wednesday mornings. Regular attendance is not a prerequisite. I don't need advanced notice. Drop in as you are able.
We will be meeting in person in Mercury during advisory and the beginning of first period. If you do not want to attend in person and prefer Zoom, let me know and I will send you a recurring Zoom link. Masks are not required but can be provided upon request.
And if Wednesday mornings are not a viable option for you but you want to learn more, don't hesitate to e-mail me, and let's find time to chat 1-1.
| | |
Click the icons to follow us on Social Media!
Looking for old issues of iNews?
Visit the archive.
| | | | |
