January Lower Grades Intensives
Wednesday, January 22nd - January 24th
Dear BCS Lower Grades Families,
Beginning Wednesday, January 22nd through Friday, January 24th, lower grades students will have intensives while our upper grades students participate in PBATs.
Intensives are an EL Education structure that provides students an opportunity to immerse themselves in a topic and to explore it in detail. Students often go out of the building on fieldwork and with experts in the field.
Students had a vast array of choices to engage their intellect, creativity, inquisitiveness, and social-emotional skills.
Check in with your child to discuss learning highlights from their intensives. Also, please speak to them to see if they received a permission slip for their specific intensive.
Attendance during intensives week is mandatory and students will earn Habits of Scholarship grades.
6th Grade Intensives
Project Runway with Rytva. In this intensive, we will be look at some of the basics of textile and clothing design. We will use basic design books to sketch designs, then create linoleum block prints, take old clothes to cut up and re-create into new and unique designs to show off. We will also take a trip to FIT design museum in Chelsea.
In this intensive, we will be hiking through Clay Pits Ponds in Staten Island, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and along the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront - pausing to journal, solo, and reflect. This intensive is not for the faint of heart. We will be hiking, outside, in January. Dress in layers, leave your best shoes at home, and come for a walk outside!
If you want to try to complete an entire science experiment in a few days, then sign up for this intensive! You'll form a hypothesis related to Newtonian physics, and we will build plastic water bottle cars that are powered by the air from balloons.
Are you interested in architecture? Do you enjoy designing and building all sorts of things? In this intensive, we will go out and experience some of New York's best Public Spaces. We’ll visit plazas and play in parks. We’ll then come together to design our own ideal public spaces and build scale models of those spaces.
Students visit the ANHM to study the use of masks in cultures around the world, then create papier mache masks of their own and paint them.
Do you want some extra support to feel successful in the 2nd semester? In this intensive you will get that support to build your numeracy, literacy and writing skills.
7th Grade Intensives
Do you like to write, paint, create, and express yourself through words & imagery? Together we will learn to make our own books - used for journals or to house your own stories. We will also explore various painting and visual art techniques to create covers for our books. We will learn about the history of book-binding and the evolution of art and writing in early history. You will create your own book, hand-bound and designed!
Do you want to crush kingdoms and save your people? Do you like to be in rooms full of brilliance, focus, and determination? Are you someone who likes to learn new things - or - improve your strengths? Get ready to put all of this to practice when you pull up to the board and jump into the world of CHESS! Down with the King is designed for both brand new players and experts in the game. We will learn all about the game of chess including strategies, cracking “monster puzzles”, and playing the great game in school and out of the building in popular New York City gaming areas!
Deepen your understanding of science by studying physical and chemical changes in FOOD! In this intensive, we will conduct science labs involving cooking food to better understand states of matter, phase changes, energy, and chemistry. You will develop both your science and cooking skills!
Do you want to cook and enjoy Latin foods? Have you ever secretly want to Salsa dance? Then sign up for Loteria, where you will engage in a three day Latin experience. We will play games, enjoy food, and learn more about some of the traditions that Latin people engage in for fun.
Do you want to chill out after the end-of-semester busyness? In Namaste Away Stress, we will learn mindfulness techniques to relieve anger, stress, and worry. In addition to relaxing our mind, we will also engage in a daily yoga practice to stretch and challenge the physical body. In Namaste Away Stress, you will taste healthy foods, relax during guided meditation, attend a private class at a yoga studio, and learn about Indian culture & Buddhism.
Arts and crafts meets electronics? That’s Sew Electric! This intensive is going to be all about creating and exploring Electronic Textiles. E-Textiles are a combination of fabric and embedded electronics (like shirts that light up, stuffed animals that sing songs, or even Lady Gaga costumes that change shape). In this intensive, we will go over the basics of sewing and circuit design (including the fundamentals of electronics) and then you will design and hand-sew your own blinking cloth bookmark and light-up plush monster.
8th Grade Intensives
COOKING with Thomas. The focus of our cooking intensive is to dial in on concepts, techniques and tips that will help students transform any recipe or preparation into a healthy (most of the time), great tasting dish everyone will rave about! In addition, other aspects of healthy living will be covered and discussed. Whether you’re a novice in the kitchen or you’re an experienced young chef, we have something for every level. We’ll get you cooking with new ideas and tips that will inspire your own creativity. Cooking is a life skill that should be started at a young age. My young chef intensive course will teach age-appropriate kitchen skills ranging from reading a recipe and proper measuring techniques to knife skills and whipping egg whites. As young chefs, learning basic preparation and cooking skills can help you gain confidence and independence, learn and practice basic math and science, expand their palates, build creativity and have fun!
DIGITAL PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS with Charene. Are there social issues that you feel need to be addressed? Create a PSA, using ipads. PSAs are messages to the public with the objective of raising awareness and changing public attitudes and behavior towards a social issue. This is an opportunity to storyboard your ideas and bring them to life in a video that you have created. The videos usually will be from 45 seconds to a minute.