Dear Families,

What a busy week! Congrats to our K2-8 students who completed their MAPs tests this week! Great work in Math, Reading, and Language Usage (grades 2-8). Today you will receive your child's Trimester 3 progress reports as well. We are in the final weeks of school and each day will be full with assessments, projects and lessons so please be sure to continue to bring your student to school and on time.

In the coming weeks we will be highlighting our graduating 8th grade students. Today they kicked off their last month of school with a walking Pilgrimage to visit churches in Brookline and Boston, including the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Thank you Mr. Antonacci, Ms. Allen and Mr. Suriawinata for preparing and accompanying our grade 8 students on this special experience!

Best wishes to Mrs. Patricia Salic as she prepares for a new adventure with her family abroad! Thank you for your guidance in advancement and development! You will be missed at St. Mary's!

Next week we will be celebrating our teachers and Nurse Catherine Wu for Teacher and School Nurse Appreciation Week. Please join us in honoring our dedicated staff and school nurse. We are so blessed to have them at St. Mary's! Special recognition to Mrs. Shannon Sterge (Grade 2 Teacher), Ms. Noel Kousidis (Grade 3 Teacher) and Ms. Julia Whitten (Grades Pre-K-8 Theater Arts Teacher) who are graduating this month with their Masters degrees. Congratulations and thank you!

I wish you all a restful weekend!

May 7th

• World Language Celebration (Grades 3-8): 1:45 p.m.

May 9th

• School Mass: Ascension of the Lord: 12:10 p.m. (PreK - Grade 8)

May 10th

• Family: The First School Talk & Discussion (Session 4): 8 a.m. in the cafeteria

May 11th

• First Communion Mass: 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

May 13th

• Crowning of Mary Procession: 8 a.m. (PreK - Grade 8)

May 17th

• No School (PreK - Grade 8): Professional Development Day for Staff

May 21st

• Spring Concert (PreK - Grade 8): 8:45 a.m. - 9:45 a.m. in School Auditorium

May 27th

• No School (PreK - Grade 8): Memorial Day

May 31st

• International Family Festival: 4:30 - 6 p.m.
• EDP ends at 4:30 p.m. (Dismissal at Harvard St.)

June 3rd

• Field Day
• No EDP
• Trimester 3 Grades Close (K2 - Grade 8)

June 4th

• Rain Date for International Family Festival: 4:30 - 6 p.m.

June 5th

• Commencement Mass for 8th Grade Students: 10 - 11 a.m.
• Reception to follow for students and their families
• Report Cards Released for Grade 8 only

June 7th

• Paul Effman Band Concert: 8:30 - 9:15 a.m.

June 10th

• Science Fair (Grades 6-7)

June 13th

• Report Cards Released (PreK - Grade 8)
• Social Studies Fair (Grades 3-7)
• Last day of EDP (Ends at 6 p.m.)

June 14th

• Last Day of School and Early Dismissal at 11 a.m. (PreK - Grade 7)
• No EDP

The Department of Public Health is warning people that tick season is starting early this year and is likely going to be an active one. Please keep the following information in mind as the weather gets warmer and we spend more time outdoors. The following information is from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health:

Ticks are tiny bugs most likely found in shady, damp, brushy, wooded, or grassy areas (especially in tall grass), including your own backyard.

Different kinds of ticks feed on the blood of mammals (including people, dogs, cats, deer, and mice), birds, or reptiles (snakes and turtles, for example). In Massachusetts, certain kinds of ticks can bite you and spread diseases like Lyme disease, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, tularemia, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Borrelia miyamotoi, and Powassan virus.

One of the most important things you can do is check yourself for ticks once a day. Favorite places ticks like to go on your body include areas between the toes, back of the knees, groin, armpits, and neck, along the hairline, and behind the ears. Remember to check your children and pets, too. Remove any attached ticks as soon as possible.

• Check yourself, your children, and your pets for ticks after coming inside:

• Inside and behind the ears

• Along your hairline

• Back of your neck

• Armpits

• Groin

• Legs

• Behind your knees

• Between your toes

• Ticks are tiny, so look for new "freckles"

• If you find a tick attached to your skin, don't panic. Use a pair of fine point tweezers to grip the tick as close to the skin as possible and pull straight out with steady pressure.
  

• You should not apply kerosene, petroleum jelly, nail polish, or a hot match tip to remove the tick. These measures are not effective and may result in injury.

• Circle the calendar date and note where on the body the tick was removed. You may want to save the tick for identification.

• Your physician may choose to treat you following a deer tick bite. Notify your health care provider if you have been bitten by a deer tick or if you develop a rash or other signs of illness following a tick bite

• Talk to your doctor if you develop a rash where you were bitten or experience symptoms such as fever, headache, fatigue, or sore and aching muscles.

• When going outside to an area likely to have ticks:

• Stick to main pathways and the center of trails when hiking.

• Wear a light-colored, long-sleeved shirt with long pants and tuck your pants into your socks. This may be difficult to do when the weather is hot, but it will help keep ticks away from your skin and make it easier to spot a tick on your clothing.

• Use bug repellents. Repellents that contain DEET can be used on your exposed skin. Permethrin is a product that can be used on your clothes. Always follow the product instructions and use repellents with no more than 30-35% DEET on adults and 10-15% DEET on children. Never use insect repellents on infants. See our fact sheet on Tick Repellents.

• Talk to your veterinarian about the best ways to protect your pets and livestock from ticks

Congratulations to our 15 hand-selected students who performed at the 5th Annual Southern Massachusetts Catholic School Honor Band Concert. They rehearsed for over 12 hours in preparation for the concert, and the music showed! Thank you to Jen Hawes for conducting the wonderful concert and preparing our students so well! See the video below for the 30 minute recap.

"Hello Families! We are three weeks away from our Spring concert, and our students are ready and excited! As a staff, we could not be more proud of the work each grade has put in to make this concert a success. Below is some information regarding the Spring Concert:

When: Tuesday, May 21st at 8:45 a.m.

Where: St. Mary's school auditorium

Tonight! Join the parish for a very fun family event.

With the change in weather, PreK students are learning all about springtime! They learned about growing flowers, plants, and bugs. So fun! They also enjoyed the warmer weather and the sunshine!

K1 classes read the Three Billy Goats Gruff, a tale about clever goats making their way past a mean troll to the lush hilltop meadow across the bridge. Then they did arts and crafts to deepen their understanding of this story. Their bridges were very impressive!

This week, students in Miss Tiney and Miss McAuliffe’s classes practiced their reading, rhyming, and punctuation during a storybook. To practice their math skills, students worked on single-digit subtraction and addition using a number line. Students grabbed a key with a problem on it and tested their knowledge by seeing if it fit into the correct lock!

Each year the Boston Red Sox host STEM Education Days, where they welcome thousands of students and their educators to the ballpark. Our Grades 1-3 classes enjoyed a morning of STEM Education prior to the 1:35 p.m. Red Sox game. This year, students were able to learn from the Boston 25 Weather Team! Thank you to our teachers and to the staff at the Boston Red Sox for hosting such an incredible event for our students!

Grade 4 students started a unit on nonfiction text structures this week. After learning about each of the text structures (description, cause and effect, problem and solution, sequence, and compare and contrast), students had the chance to look for key words in examples of each of the text structure types. All of the eight passages students read were about onions, and they quickly realized how different the information presented about a topic can be based on the structure of the text!

5th grade has been reading, “A Night Divided,” by Jennifer A. Nielsen. The text is historical fiction and describes the life of a young girl, Gerta, and how her family was divided when the Berlin Wall was built. As a class, students are having deep conversations about what life was like on both the West and East side of the wall.

Below is a glimpse of the middle school experience at St. Mary's. To see more, reach out to Ms. Allen (gallen@stmarys-brookline.org) to be included in the Middle School Newsletter mailing list!

To raise money for their end-of-year adventure trip, the 8th grade students worked diligently to prepare for a 3-day bake sale after school. The work and creativity they put into the bake sale were just as impressive as the taste of the delicious treats! Thank you to all who generously supported their efforts!

As their year is coming to a close, the Grade 8 class joined Mr. Suriawinata, Miss Allen, Mr. Antonacci, Fr. Jonathan, and Fr. Bobby for a pilgrimage around Boston! During this spirit-filled day, students were given an opportunity to reflect on their experiences at St. Mary's, allowing gratitude to fill their hearts. Students also received talks on making a good transition from middle school to high school.

6th grade students competing in "Coordinate Plane Battleship."

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/