Happy Holidays!

On behalf of all of us at HBB we would like to wish the entire HBB Community a very Happy Holidays! Thank you for helping make HBB the best! We hope you all find time to rest and relax and we will see you all next year!

After School Programs
Please be on the lookout for the information regarding the after school enrichment program. The programs your child is attending, along with the calendar of meeting times and locations will be sent home today (Tuesday). Not every child got their first choice as demand was extremely high and sign ups were on a first come first serve basis. The after school programs will not run the week we get back! If you recently sent in a permission slip (within the past week) be on the look out as well as we had to send it back because all programs are full. Should you have any questions please give us a call.

Christmas Wishes
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated to help the Giving Tree Program this holiday season. The HBB community collected and delivered 4 over-flowing boxes of socks, toothbrushes & toothpaste. The St. Vincent de Paul program was truly appreciative of our efforts and were able to use the donations to help hundreds of local families!

2 More Days Till Break!

We had another great week here at HBB and we are very excited that there are only two more days until the holiday break!  Have a great weekend!

Bill Harley
Families from HBB and MKG were treated to another hilarious performance by singer/songwriter/author Bill Harley.  Bill was with us earlier in the year for an Author Study with grade 4 where he visited all the classes at that time.   This week he came back to entertain families from both schools and the performance was excellent.  Thank you to the PTA from both schools for organizing this great family event!

New Burkland's Best Gear
Not sure if you noticed but we have some staff and students sporting some great new Burkland's Best Gear......looks great!

Leadership
Congratulations to the Character Word of the Week Winners!

Wrapping up the week

Writing Challenge Due
Don't forget about the Where are You Headed Writing Challenge!  The day before the Holiday Break is the deadline to submit essays!  For more information about the Writing Challenge click on the right side of this page.

Make a Wish Foundation
Please help us raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation!  We are asking all students to write letters to Santa.  For every letter written to Santa Macy's will donate $1 to the Make a Wish Foundation in the name of Hailey Olson.  All letters will be delivered to Santa and you do not need a stamp, just a letter and an envelope.  We have a drop off box in the main lobby here at HBB.  The deadline is December 19th.

Thank you for supporting this worthwhile cause!

Golden Broom Award Winners
Congratulations to Mrs. Trottier's and Mrs. Kaufman's class for winning the Golden Broom Award!  Great job!

Character Word of the Week Winners
Congratulations to the winners this week!

MassPass Books

Attention all parents!!!

Please remember to return all MassPass Books if you are not purchasing or send in your check if you are purchasing. Remember we have prizes for the classes with the highest amount of participation.  Participation includes purchasing or returning books.  Please help us with this great fundraiser by sending the books back or purchasing!

Thank you!

Note about Report Cards and Winter Book Swap

After School Enrichment Program

At this point sign ups for the after school enrichment are closed.  Demand for the clubs was VERY high and we will do our best to make sure everyone gets their first choice but this may not always be possible.  We will be sending home information soon to all those who signed up!

Report Cards

With Report Cards coming soon we thought it might make sense to point out couple important changes regarding the report card, which will be coming home Friday December 12.

This year we made a slight change to the reporting category on the report cards. The scoring will be as follows.

4 - Demonstrating mastery of the standard

3 - Demonstrating significant progress toward the standard

2 - Demonstrating some progress

1 - Demonstrating minimal progress

Please understand that there is no correlation between our scoring of 1-4 and traditional grades such as A,B,C,D and F. Students are scored based on their ability related to each individual standard. For example, if the standard is “fluently adds and subtracts within 1000” a score of 4 would mean that the student has completely mastered that concept and all demands placed on the students related to that standard. They would be able to solve the algorithm, answer word problems and transfer their understanding of the concept to a variety of problems and situations.

A 3 would indicate that they are well on their way towards mastering that standard but have not quite mastered the concept. For example, maybe they continue to struggle transferring their understanding of the algorithm to word problems.

A 2 would indicate progress but the student may be struggling with multiple facets of the skill.

A 1 would indicate that the student is still pretty far from mastering the standard.

Please keep in mind that these standards indicate what should be mastered by the end of the year. At this point of the year you do not need to be overly concerned if your child does not score a 4.

Winter Book Swap