Principal's Weekly Newsletter

Dear Families,

It has been quite an eventful week as we celebrated Valentine's Day, our 100th day of school, and kicked off our first Student Council meeting, whose members took the lead in walking and donating to our Community Refrigerator Drive. Thank you for your generous food donation to Brookline's Community Refrigerator. We will be making weekly trips with our students throughout the Lenten Season.

As part of the Boston Catholic Schools Office procedure, all Principals undergo an evaluation after completing their first year. Thank you to those who took a moment to fill out the survey, and if you have not, please do so when you get the chance!

I hope you have a safe and restful February Vacation and we look forward to seeing our students return!

I am happy to once again report that we had 0 Covid cases this week.

If you are looking for things to do around Boston check out this link.

boston-discovery-guide.com

For free or reduced-priced museum passes visit the Boston Public Library or the Public Library of Brookline websites for information.

Have a fun and safe winter break!

Thank you so much for participating in our Extended Day Program! You will be hearing from your child's homeroom teacher asking to fill out a regular dismissal schedule. This will help make our dismissal and EDP transition run smoother. Of course, we understand changes happen and you can still email the office with your classroom teacher to notify them of any daily changes in the regular schedule.

Email the office at info@stmarys-brookline.org with your homeroom teacher and if it concerns EDP or clubs, our Director of EDP ntiney@stmarys-brookline.org (Ms. Nicole Tiney).

February 20th-24th:

• No School- February Vacation

February 27th:

• March Matching Challenge begins

March 1st:

• Middle School Family Meeting (Field Trip Zoom)

March 8th:

• Parent Volunteer Council and Room Parent Meeting 8 am in Cafeteria and Zoom

March 10th:

• Admissions Open House 9 am

March 13th:

• Extra Band Day, Band students in K2-8 must bring their instruments

March 15th:

• Extra Band Day, Violins only in K2-8 must bring their instruments

March 16th:

• Pizza Thursday or Home Lunch, no Brookline Lunches Served

March 17th:

• No School - Pastor’s Day

PK/K1: February has been costume month in drama! We’ve designed costumes on paper, digitally, and even made special costume pieces (with the help of our second-grade friends as well)! Our Valentine’s story drama, “Be A Friend” (Salina Yoon) taught us about connecting with friends that communicate differently than we do, as well as about a type of performance called “miming”. To celebrate learning how to act and communicate with our whole bodies, and not just our speaking words, we made traditional mime masks!

K2/1st: We began our acting unit by using the story “Tacky the Penguin” (Helen Lester) to teach us about characters, character traits, and embodied actions. We’ve been busy discussing, designing, acting, writing, and creating character traits to describe what character traits make characters, our friends, our teachers, and even ourselves unique!

2nd-4th: We began our acting unit by diving into the 5 W’s of acting: who, where, what, why, and when. When we include our five w’s in performing, our characters can best communicate the stories that we want to tell! To celebrate Valentine’s week, students used their knowledge of the 5 W’s to perform original (and delicious) scenes inspired by the lines found on conversation candy hearts!

5-8th: Upper school students have been working in groups to research, rehearse, and facilitate drama games. This project, which culminated this week for middle school, and will end with 5th grade at the end of the month, gives us a chance to flex our public speaking, leadership, and ensemble-building skills!

K2 just completed their Spy Kids Unit in Music class. What? Spy Kids in Music? That's right! By learning musical vocabulary and building their musical gadget belt, they've been training to become conductors of the Grand Staff and save the world from losing music! Through exposure to classical music and disco lights, students have learned specialized music vocabulary. The work also has a focus on listening to the way we express ourselves through music contributing to music analysis in older grades. It may just be imagination play now, but it deepens their listening experience and eventually, they can pull those gadgets back out to make their own, creative, expressions. It's been fun to see them create their own games with the vocabulary as they reinforce what they've learned for themselves.

Here are some of our Conductors of the Grandstaff with their newly earned Music Batons!

Mr. Febesh, Mrs. Enrique, and Dr. Nadjarian met with the newly elected Student Council this week! They learned about different roles that are essential in conducting a meeting such as a scribe, secretary, timekeeper, and facilitator. They also learned how to vote, and they brought it forward to discuss at the next meeting. Later on in the week, several of the members carried donations to Brookline's Community Fridge. What great leaders leading by example!

Last year, St. Mary's partnered with Boston's Healthcare for the Homeless and attended Boston's Winter Walk. Thank you to those who marched and represented St. Mary's again this year. We are so proud of you! Also, a special thank you to families who donated to Boston's Healthcare for the Homeless Drive. Donations will be retrieved after the February vacation.

VOICES Boston was thrilled to introduce K-5th grade students to opera as a story-telling art through Boston Lyric Opera's Artist Classroom Visit: Opera 101, an interactive performance of Hansel & Gretel. Students learned how they bring the story of an opera to life through music, acting, and movement. In this dynamic, one-hour presentation, two professional singers, a pianist, and a teaching artist engaged audiences in this interactive introduction to opera.

K2- 4th grade completed donut sculptures in art this week with Ms. M. The sculptures were made using air dry clay, paint, glue, colored rice, and plastic sprinkles. Ask your student which flavor icing they chose for their donut! They look delicious!

Thank you to our musicians who participated in an extra Band session this week! We will again have an extra Band on March 13th and March 15th.

Ms. DeLuca took her basketball students to the Boston University vs. Holy Cross game on Wednesday evening. They all had a blast! Congratulations on B.U.'s win!

Miss Porcello's PreK class enjoyed a wonderful Valentine's Day Party with mini chocolate chip muffins, strawberries, and apple sauce!

Ms. Fragola's Grade 1 class made their very own Valentine's Day boxes, and love bugs for parent appreciation on Valentine's Day. They also participated in a math activity where students counted, sorted, and graphed candy conversation hearts.

Mrs. Palmer's Grade 5 class had snacks provided by classroom parents to celebrate Valentine's Day. They also played Valentine's Day Bingo and received prizes generously given by classroom parents. It was a joy to see the students giving notes and Valentines to each other!

Ms. Tiney and Ms. McAuliffe's Kindergarten classes had fun celebrating the 100th day of school! Students made crowns, and participated in 100-themed centers and exercises using mathematical strategies to count their way to 100. Some of the exercises included jumping jacks and windmill touching toes. They also surprised their students with 100 balloons and shared their 100th-day mystery bags with the class. They also ended the day with a 100 balloons celebration!

Ms. Fragola's Grade 1 class participated in a 100th Day STEM Center challenge in which students were tasked with building, counting, and sorting items that add up to 100. Some of the materials they used in this challenge were coins, Polydrons, unified cubes, and popsicle sticks.

Ms. Connors' and Ms. Cafferky's Grades 2+3 had a blast working together in completing a 100th Day Bingo Challenge incorporating exercising, engineering, math, science, and religion!

Mrs. Palmer's Grade 5 class celebrated the 100th day by making their names from 100 mats and calculating each letter as a fraction and a decimal. They also drew themselves at 100 years old in caricature form.

Thank you so much to our amazing parent volunteers, room parents, and staff who came together to create a memorable Carnival Breakfast for Lunch today! Students were treated to pancakes with syrup, orange slices, and a juice box or milk while listening to Mardi Gras music in the Cafeteria. Students also received crowns to wear! Special congratulations to Bethany, a parent volunteer, who found the baby Jesus in our King's Cake!

During the Number Corner segment of our Bridges curriculum, Grade 4 played a game called “Put It on the Line.” In this game, they practiced solving problems with fraction and decimal answers and placing them on a number line. Students added the answers together to then compare decimal totals and find the winner!

Fifth grade students have been researching debate topics that they will be later formally presenting to the class. Today they did a fishbowl where groups shared the information in a mini debate form. Students outside the fishbowl were asked to collect questions they had from the information they heard. These questions were then given to the fishbowl to research further during the next class.

In Mr. Febesh's Earth Science class with Grade 6, students researched different volcanoes and gave a presentation on them. As well, they produced models of their volcanoes and made them erupt in class!

Please find the links below to our social media pages. We have been constantly uploading posts and stories so if you are interested in seeing more of our day-to-day happenings, please follow us!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/st-mary-of-the-assumption-school

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stmaryschoolbrooklinema

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stmaryschoolbrookline/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stmarybrookline