Principal's Message
We had an excellent five day school week on the heels of Spring Break. After our week to recharge, I definitely feel a renewed energy among our students and staff. I know it is hard to believe, but our third marking period ends today. As we begin our final quarter of the school year, report cards for MP3 will be available in the OnCourse Parent Portal next Friday.
This past Wednesday, we had the chance to host the folks from the Rutgers University Center for Metropolitan Studies to discuss our Math achievement for their Promising Practices Project. I had the opportunity to speak with them about our approach to teaching and learning Math, and was joined by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Johnson, Assistant Superintendent of Schools Mrs. Rodriguez-Gomez, Supervisor of Math and Science Ms. D'acunto, Vice Principal Mrs. Della Fave, fifth grade teacher Mrs. Sogulizzo, and second grade teacher Mrs. Gardiner. We had a wonderful conversation spanning about two hours, and I was so appreciative of the positive feedback shared by the team from Rutgers. Our school community is a very special place and indeed deserves to be celebrated.
Speaking of celebrations, I am hopeful that we will be able to that in the very near future by receiving the designation as a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. The team from BRSE will be at Brandt to visit and see what we do during an instructional day this Tuesday. In addition to accompanying me around the building on classroom walkthroughs, they will host a few focus groups for community members, students, and staff. We are looking forward to this visit and are eager to show another group our vibrant and thriving learning community.
Please make sure you check out the flyers featured below my principal's message. There are a lot of events on the horizon that will allow for opportunities for the community to come together and do a bit of fundraising here and there. The Brandt and Connors PTO are scheduling a joint karaoke event on May 1st. All 5 of our district school PTOs are sponsoring a golf outing in June, and registration for that event will open this Monday. Our good friends from the Hoboken High School Student Center are in the midst of a Lego drive through May 5th. You can donate Legos to us at the main entrance each morning if you'd like to participate.
With the end of the year fast approaching, Ms. Picone is in the midst of finalizing our 2023/2024 Memory Book. There is a flyer from her below for our 5th Grade families with information on how to submit a baby picture and congratulatory message for inclusion in the Memory Book. If you have any questions, please email samantha.picone@hoboken.k12.nj.us.
April is most definitely a jam-packed month. In addition to the endeavors I've mentioned already, our annual Scholastic Book Fair is set to take place from 4/23 - 4/26. You can find more information in the flyer below. As the Book Fair is a PTO-sponsored endeavor, please email BrandtParents@gmail.com if you have any questions.
Don't forget our upcoming NJSLA schedule as well:
May 6th - May 10th - 3rd and 4th Grade.
May 13th - May 21st - 5th Grade.
Kindly remember that is your child is enrolled in the Passport to Learning after school program and you are going to pick them up at regular dismissal time (3:00 PM), you must email your child's homeroom teacher and let them know. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.
Best of luck to our first graders on Monday when they perform their theatre showcase!
As always, I hope you enjoy our grade level and subject area updates.
For this week's Playlist, I went with three of my favorite 90s alternative songs, as that era is currently shuffling through my Spotify account...
Have a great weekend and stay safe!
- Mr. Bartlett
Kindergarten
This week in ELA, students focused on the letters J and Q and learned new sight words here and me. In Math, students are learning how to decompose 6 with two different addends. Students continue to work in academic centers to practice reading and writing daily. During Social Studies, we discussed what a Solar eclipse is and the students completed various activities.
Keep up the great work using IXL and RAZ kids at home!
First Grade
In ELA, students read and talked about different ways to sort, classify, and categorize things. Students read and wrote words with /ar/ as they were introduced to he "Bossy R". Students worked on expanding their sentences using joining words and, but, and or.
In Math, students finished Unit 6 collecting, representing, describing, and interpreting data. Students started Unit 7 and will focus on skip counting by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s. They discussed and recorded strategies for counting and combining things that come in groups of 2.
Students learned about eclipses in preparation for the solar eclipse in our area. They learned that the ring around the moon is called The Corona and how an eclipse occurs.
They also had their last Theater rehearsal before their show next week!
Second Grade
This week we also have been discussing Autism Acceptance Month. In reading, we are taking notes on famous people who have autism and learning their accomplishments to write a small biography of all the facts we learned using our nonfiction text features skills to seek the information.
In writing we are finishing up our realistic fiction stories to publish and gearing up for our opinion writing unit. Students were motivated to develop stories that taught lessons and brought characters to life.
In math we are finishing up our measurement unit by understanding nonstandard and standard units of measurement and how we can use them in our everyday lives.
Third Grade
This week in language arts, our third graders began reading Charlotte’s Web. Students focused on strengthening reading comprehension skills they have been practicing all year long, including asking and answering questions, making predictions, summarizing, and determining importance. Students have also been busy writing their own poetry. So far, students have written odes, haikus, acrostic poems, diamantes, and limericks - among many others.
Our third grade mathematicians are developing strategies to solve more complex multiplication facts. Students are focusing on breaking these problems up into multiplication facts that are already know, then finding the sum of the products. This is known as the distributive property of multiplication. Other skills we are working on are multiplying one-digit numbers with multiples of ten, as well as relating multiplication and division problems to solve unknown facts.
In social studies, students are discovering more about the history of New Jersey. Students are learning about the geography of our state, as well as its climate and natural resources. Moreover, students are researching how New Jersey Native American tribes, such as the Lenni Lenape, used these attributes and resources in their daily lives.
Fourth Grade
Fourth grade is back from Spring break and busier than ever! In ELA students are finishing up their novel Wonder and beginning their next novel study Who Let the Gods Out? During this unit students will dive deep into the text and analyze the characters, settings, and themes throughout the novel. Students will learn about Greek mythology throughout the course of the unit. In writing, students are working on creating narrative essays about a multitude of topics. Students are working with the structure of a narrative to add details, dialogue, and point of view to their pieces.
For math, we have been diving into revisiting multiplication strategies to solve multistep word problems posed with whole numbers and having whole number answers using the four operations. Students are representing these problems using equations with a letter standing for the unknown. They are assessing the answers with mental computation and estimation strategies including rounding. They have been multiplying four digit whole numbers with one and two digit numbers using strategies based on place value. Students have to illustrate and explain the calculation using arrays, equations and area models.
This week students talked about the solar eclipse! We read and discussed what eclipses are and how they affect us. Soon Students will begin to learn about how the United States started to expand. We will dive into westward expansion and the Oregon Trail.
Fifth Grade
In ELA this week, students started reading their next book, Chasing Lincoln’s Killer. As we prepare for this novel study, there is important background knowledge for students to research and discuss. The students completed a pre-reading investigation regarding the historical context and events that this text is based on.
In math, the students finished working with multiplying and dividing fractions and decimals as well as completing metric conversions. The students took their assessment for Unit 7: Races, Arrays, and Grids. Also, the students are reviewing and refining their skills in preparation for the NJSLA next month.
In Social Studies, the students began a new unit about what life was like after the Civil War. We discussed Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The students also read about Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws.
Finally, the students witnessed the Great North American Eclipse on Monday! This was a spectacular scientific event known as a total solar eclipse. The students were given special glasses to safely observe this phenomenon in the sky.
The Counselor's Corner
Congratulations to Ms. Picone's kindergarten class for winning the March Madness Bracket by having the South Carolina team in our challenge. The staff and students had another great experience this year by following the Women's NCAA basketball bracket. Students engaged in different research lessons to learn about the colleges/universities they were assigned.
They also did a great job with the sneaker design contest. Our winner of the sneaker design contest is 5th grade student Mallory Pasquenza!
Email: jhosbach@hoboken.k12.nj.us
Art
This week in Art, students began working on brand new projects each inspired by museum visits they had the opportunity to experience on our Hoboken Public Education Foundation-sponsored field trips.
Kindergarten and First Grade classes are learning how to draw butterfly-inspired by insects they saw at the Children’s Museum. Second Grade is learning about Mosaics and creating their own Mosaic tile. Third Grade is creating a galaxy painting inspired by their trip to the planetarium. Fourth Grade is using their chrome books to design their own Vintage style NYC poster. Fifth Grade is creating Dream Catchers inspired by their trip to the Newark Museum.
We are so excited to create all these beautiful projects and looking forward to seeing the outcome of each and everyone of them.
Music
This week our young musicians in band and orchestra have continued to rehearse their songs for their upcoming spring concert. Both 4th grade and 5th grade band have worked specifically on musical details and melodies in our song "Folk Song Mash-Up", but we are also preparing a new song called "Saints Go Marching In".
The strings have also worked on their medley song, and 5th graders specifically have started working on their arrangement of "Simple Gifts".
In music class, the students continued to review notes on their recorders, as well as music theory knowledge like dynamics and rhythm through the use of fun games and videos that keeps them focused while actively participating in music-making.
Science
Kindergarten
This week Mother Nature gave us some interesting lessons to include in our classroom routine. We talked about last week's earthquake and shared our experiences with each other. Then on Monday we enjoyed the sight of a total solar eclipse. We watched a digital lesson from Scolastic.com and played their online game, "Space Concentration." To finish out our week we returned to our studies of plants and animals and took some time to read some books in our mini science library.
First Grade
This was an exciting week in first grade science. As all of you know, we had a solar eclipse on Monday! This was super exciting because when all was said and done Hoboken had a 90% totality. For this experience we were able to discuss some true facts about the big event; including it being the first total solar eclipse in 7 years. Also, some noticed strange colors in the sky, such as vivid rainbows, and even some stars. We also discussed listening to not only people's reactions to things, but nature's surroundings as well. It is said that animals tend to react, such as birds chirping and stopping when the wind blows and when the eclipse passes overhead.
Second Grade
It was a very busy week in second grade science! This week students went back to a previously discussed topic of properties of matter but approached it in a new way. In order to prepare for their upcoming project, students worked together to test the hardness, flexibility, and strength of various kitchen utensils in order to see if they would be helpful in a device that can help students spread seeds across a field. The students enjoyed getting to analyze various wooden spoons, metal strainers and plastic spatulas and then rating them of how much of each property they were. Students have already been trying to apply what they are learning now to plans they will use in their upcoming project next week.
Third Grade
This week in 3rd grade science, students began their next unit of the year: Organisms and their Environment. Students started off by focusing on how plants react to their environment. The way plants grow is based on where their habitat is as well as the resources they receive. Students then began to analyze animal adaptations, and how an adaptation is the way an animal interacts and reacts within their individual environments. Students then watched a generation genius video diving deeper into animal adaptations!
Fourth Grade
This week in fourth grade science we had discussions on a few different topics! We began by learning about the exciting solar eclipse that occurred on Monday afternoon, and also learned about the earthquake that occurred on Friday over spring break. We will be learning more about this in our next unit on natural hazards and resources. We continued the week by starting our new unit, Changing of Earths Surface. We began reviewing vocab and learning a little bit about how Earths natural formations have been formed overtime. On Thursday we also had our last zoom meeting with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation and each class was able to name a real whale! Although the week was a bit of a whirlwind, we had a lot of amazing discussions!
Fifth Grade
On Monday, April 8th, all classes learned about the solar eclipse! Students learned how to determine the different parts of solar eclipses, some dangers of solar eclipses, as well as how to stay safe during a solar eclipse. Students were very excited to receive their special, protective glasses as well.
Over the next few weeks, fifth grade science classes will be preparing for the upcoming NJSLA Science assessment which they will take at the end of May. The computer-based assessment measures student proficiency based on the New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Science. Questions will cover topics in the following categories: Earth Science, Life Science, Physical Science, as well as critiquing, investigating and sensemaking practices. Students will participate in fun and friendly review games and activities as we cover important science subject matter.
In addition, fifth grade science classes will begin a new PLTW unit titled, “Infection Detection”. Some topics that will be covered in the unit include how sickness is passed from person to person. Students will also test and analyze the effectiveness of different hand washing methods. Students will also explore the body’s defenses and diagram how the body fights invasion from germs.
Nurse's Nook
Yearly health screenings are a New Jersey state requirement and are completed by school nurses in every school in every district. If a physical is submitted yearly by your child's primary care physician, your child may not need to be screened that school year. A notice will be sent home of any deviations from the recommended standards and you will be asked to follow up with your child's physician. All screenings are done in private and students are called in one by one. These values are confidential and students are advised to not compare with other students in their class.
Did you know that March is National Nutrition Month? We Can! (Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity
& Nutrition) is a national education program designed to give parents and communities a way to help children learn to eat nutritious foods. As parents, you can do a lot to help your children learn healthy eating habits and maintain a healthy weight. Involving them in meal preparation and cooking can motivate them to try new foods – and is a good way to spend time together as a family!
Hopefully we are nearing the end of cold and flu season! And although Spring brings warmer weather, it also brings allergies. It is important to stay healthy and distinguish allergies from a more serious illness and controlling allergies to keep asthma at bay. I have listed several symptoms, triggers and treatment tips below:
Symptoms and Common Triggers include:
Itchy skin Pollen
Watery eyes Grass
Runny nose Mold
Cough Pet dander
Congestion Dust Mites
Post-nasal drainage Cockroaches
Sneezing
Treatment tips:
Avoid allergens and keep house clean and free of pests
Wash hands often, cover mouth when sneezing or coughing
Change clothes when coming in from playing outdoors
Use over the counter antihistamines and decongestions as directed
Keep air filters changed and use air purifiers
Allergy testing and treatment by a doctor
Take all medications for asthma already prescribed by your doctor to keep asthma under
control
For our youngest learners, accidents happen... Please send a change of clothes to school for your child just in case!
Any questions or concerns please feel free to reach out to nurse Cassandra via phone 201-356-3757 or email cnuovo@hoboken.k12.nj.us
