School Apparel Now Available for Pre-Order!
St. Mary’s School is proud to announce its pre-order sales of spirit apparel! We have long-sleeved tee shirts in both youth ($20) and adult ($25) sizes and long-sleeved hooded sweatshirts with pockets in youth ($30) and adult ($35) sizes. These items are not school uniforms from Lands End. They are school spirit apparel for families and friends of St. Mary’s to proudly show off their school pride! To pre-order, please email Patricia Salic, our Director of Advancement at psalic@stmarys-brookline.org
A Message from Fr. Jonathan to the St. Mary's School Community
Help us fill the bin!
Cardinal Seán recently wrote to all parishes of the Archdiocese asking for help in addressing the needs of more than 7,000 immigrant families who have come to Massachusetts, and are living in state sponsored shelters (approximately 20,000 individuals). By the end of this week the expectation is that 7,500 families will be with us, and there is a great need for warm winter clothing for them.
In light of this, we have asked for a St. Vincent de Paul bin to be added to the parking lot at St. Mary’s, as there is already one at the St. Lawrence parking lot. In addition to winter clothing, other items can also be donated, such as diapers, toothbrushes (adult and child size), toothpaste, soap, deodorant, mouthwash, etc. Cardinal Seán offers this invitation in the spirit of Pope Francis who has asked us as Catholics to watch the “peripheries” of society where suffering is located. Please note that all donations need to be picked up on November 18th, so we have a few weeks to fill the bin!
After School Clubs Spotlight
Puppet Club
Students in Ms. Schneiders' Puppet Club read the "Paper Bag Princess" story, students assembled a paper bag princess puppet in which they will be acting out the story with.
Voices Boston
This week, Voices Boston Club practiced their vocal techniques using Solfege. When they sang, the beautiful voices of the children resonated through into halls!
World Languages Spotlight
French: Bonjour! Our French students have been learning so much lately thanks to Monsieur Raymond. Grades 3-5 students this week have been learning the parts of the body and tested their knowledge by playing a game similar to Simon Says. Meanwhile, our middle schoolers are building on their conversational understanding by learning the vocabulary of the various parts of a classroom. Younger students have also been learning all about members of the family! Some content vocabulary words included: la famille (family, la mère (mother), le père (father), le frère (brother), la sœur (sister), la grand-père (grandfather), and la grande-mère (grandmother). Merci Monsieur Raymond!
Spanish: Ms. Annie and Ms. Torres have had an exciting week in Spanish Class! With our PreK-Grade 2 students, Ms. Annie has been helping them build the foundations of Spanish with incredible music skills. Ms. Annie uses her musical talent to help the children learn various concepts in a memorable way - with song. In the music class pictured below, the students learned the vocabulary for different emotions pictured on the small pumpkins by singing a song together. Just one day in Ms. Annie’s class will impress you. In Sra. Torres' third grade Spanish class students learned about the ñ sound. They viewed a video highlighting this Spanish sound then wrote vocabulary words using the ña, ñe, ñi, ño, and ñu blended sounds, such as niña, leña, muñeco, and año. Students verbally repeated their vocabulary together. They learned the special name of the curly line above the n: tilde or, in Spanish, a virgulilla. Buen trabajo, alumnos!
PreK
K1
This week in Ms. Schneiders' class, students reflected on all the wonderful freedoms we have in America and gave thanks to all the Veterans who have sacrificed so much for our freedom. They painted Poppies today as a show of support for our armed forces community. Poppies are a sign of remembrance and hope for a peaceful future for all of us, especially our children.
Grade 1
Grade 1 is nearing the end of our second unit in the Bridges curriculum and the students are using a quilt to practice skip counting by 5's. After finishing their individual quilt squares, they will line up the quilt in rows of 5. As they were building it, they made observations about the patterns they were seeing, predictions about how many rows they would need for the whole class, and analyzed the patterns of 5 that they noticed. Later in the week, used the class quilt again to make the connection between patterns of 5 the students observed on the quilt while working with a hundreds chart to identify those numbers. Ms. Reitnour's students will be counting masters in no time!
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Ms. DeLuca's students put on their geotechnical engineering hats this week to use their knowledge of the layers of the earth to prevent damage to structures during earthquakes. Students used a model site with potential layers of soil, sand, clay, and bedrock to take and analyze a core sample. Based on the layers discovered in their core sample, students predicted and tested the necessary depth of a pier foundation to anchor a model building during an earthquake.
Field Trip to Nature's Classroom!
On Monday, our middle school left for a 3-day trip to Nature's Classroom in Maine. The field trip started with team-building games and a fun walk exploring the forest. The next day, the children were taught that not all leaves and berries are edible. They were able to taste winterberry. Winterberry is what you taste in wintergreen gum! Even the berry is edible. The students were also tasked to build a shelter in the woods, and you can see the tipi-like creation they came up with below! The hands-on experiences were abundant during this field trip, so even the middle schoolers may be sore all over, they have been raving about the trip since their return.
