Principal's Weekly Update

Dear Families,

What a beautiful November we have had so far! It has been heartwarming to see students and families carrying in food for our Thanksgiving Food Drive. Your generosity is greatly appreciated and serves as an excellent example of charity for your children. The Middle School students are looking forward to helping with the Food Drive on Monday!

I wish you all a restful Thanksgiving break and thank you again to our Room Parents and Parent Volunteer Council members for all their help this upcoming week! Don’t forget to come to get some cider and pick up an individual pie graciously donated by Table Talk Pies on Wednesday, November 23rd starting at 10:45 at the back entrance in the parking lot.

November 16th:

• Walk-Around-Wednesday

November 23rd:

• Thanksgiving Liturgy at 9:30 a.m. (PreK-8)

• Thanksgiving Reception at 10:45 a.m

• Early Dismissal at 11 a.m.

November 24th-25th:

• No School Thanksgiving Break

November 28th:

• K2-8 Report cards go home

• Parent-Teacher Conferences begin
  

December 4th:

• Christmas Tree Lighting-Scholastic Book Fair Launch at 4 p.m.

December 7th

• Coffee with the Principal at 8 a.m.

December 8th:

• Immaculate Conception Mass (PreK-8) 12:10 p.m.

December 9th:

• Admissions Open House/ Discovery Day

December 13th:

• School-wide Christmas Concert and Pageant at 8:45 a.m.

December 16th:

• Last Day of school before Christmas break
  
• EDP closes at 4:30 p.m.

December 17th-January 2nd

• Christmas Break

January 3rd:

• Welcome Back!

Please continue to monitor your student for Covid-19 and flu and cold symptoms. Please keep your child home if they are not feeling well or have a fever. Children must be fever free for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication before they can return to school. If your child has nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea they can not come to school. Children must stay home until they are symptom-free for 24 hours and can tolerate eating and drinking.

If your child has a rash of unknown origin please let me know. Children with rashes should be seen by a doctor and have a letter clearing them to return to school.

The weather is once again feeling like Boston in November!! It is very important that your student is dressed appropriately for outside recess. Students should have a warm coat, hat, and gloves. Please make sure that all items have their name or initials on them.

Update on Covid cases for November:

Week of 11/07: 1 case

Week of 11/14: 1 case

Week of 11/21: 1 case

If anyone would like free Covid-19 tests please let me know. I have some in my office. I can place them in your child's backpack or you can request them at the office. Please consider testing your child before visiting with family for Thanksgiving and returning to school after the holiday.

Enjoy your weekend,

Catherine Wu

1) The Fund for St. Mary's. Thank you to our families that have given towards our Annual Fund, The Fund for St. Mary's, after receiving our Fall mailer. We sincerely appreciate your generosity. If you work for a company that matches employee charitable contributions please contact Daniel Griffin, Director of Advancement, dgriffin@stmarys-brookline.org and he can assist you in arranging the matching gift.

2) Giving Tuesday, 11/29. St. Mary's Giving Tuesday Countdown has begun. If you have not already given to the Annual Fund, I encourage you to consider supporting the Fund for St. Mary's on Giving Tuesday.

1. Our application portal is now live! If you know of any families who are interested in enrolling for the 2023-2024 school year, please ask them to visit our application portal via the link on St. Mary's website:

St. Mary of the Assumption School - Admissions Online (renweb.com).

**Please note that we'll keep you posted regarding when the 2023-2024 re-enrollment packet will be available to complete.

2. We are hosting another Discovery Day on 12/9. Please spread the word! Attached is the link to share with any families that you know that may be interested in joining us. https://forms.gle/QrDU7H9UUWh1tPXQ9.

Our Director of EDP, Ms. Tiney, has been working hard to organize the after-school Winter Club offerings. Registration will open up at noon on Monday, November 28th. Winter Clubs will begin after Christmas Vacation. Similar to the Fall Trimester, families will receive an email beforehand with the offerings, the days they will meet, and a club description. Please remember that signing up for a club through the Google Form does not guarantee enrollment. That specific teacher will contact parents to confirm their child’s registration in the club. If needed, waitlists will be maintained. Thank you so much to our talented teachers for creating enriching opportunities for our students!

We are so excited for our Christmas Tree Lighting/Scholastic Book Fair launching event on December 5th at 4 p.m!

Students learned the meaning of Turkey (Pavo) and participated in different activities, such as singing and dancing. They also watched a story about thanksgiving (acción de gracias) in Spanish.

In Mrs. Creamer’s K1 class students created Thanksgiving placemats! In this multi step project, students practiced fine motor skills such as placing and gluing their turkeys and silverware. Students also mixed red and yellow primary colors to make orange handprints on the plate. They learned the sequencing activities of setting the table and using kind words and manners when eating together.

Mrs. Curley’s K1 class continued working on their Thanksgiving Stories. Students illustrate a page each day leading up to Thanksgiving. On this day, students created a Mayflower collage using cut paper shapes, glue and blue paint sticks for the ocean. Another table activity that Mrs. Curley introduced during centers was the Grocery Store Letter Search. Students flipped cards over with letters on one side and stamped the coordinating letter on the worksheet.

Grades K2 and 1 visited the Puppet Showplace Theatre in Brookline Village. They watched two shows, Sir George and the Dragon with the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Students learned all about puppets and had a blast being called up to the stage! They shared a lot of laughs!

Ms. Tiney and Ms. McAuliffe brought their classes together to taste-test salty, bitter, sour, and sweet foods as they continued their senses unit!

Students in Ms. Whitten's K2 Drama class read "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. They predicted what the storyline would be by analyzing the cover illustrations. One student even noticed the Caldecott Medal award! They stopped and acted to music at different moments in the narrative. Students moved around the room and pretended to be animals in the jungle to instrumental music as well. Ms. Whitten guessed which animal characters students chose. Students enacted different aspects of the setting including the trees! Additionally, students used their voices in learning about sound design in theatre arts. They created a soundscape of the ocean. Each student added a sound! It was wonderful to hear the different sounds, including waves, birds, bubbles, splashes and other ocean animals!

Students in Ms. Fragola's Grade 1 class made turkeys to display what they are thankful about this season! Mrs. Fragola also made a turkey to share why she is thankful for each of her students.

Our reading specialist, Ms. Soukas is working closely with our Grade 2 class (twice a week). This week she introduced book groups and will be focusing on character analysis and strategies for reading unfamiliar words!

The last couple of weeks we have been reading and talking about the five regions of the United States and their different environments. They were assigned into groups and a region and students brought recycling items from home that they are using to build their regions. The start today is amazing!

Fourth-grade students learned about the Beatitudes on Wednesday when Father Bobby came to present how the Beatitudes lead us to happiness. Students brainstormed three things that make them happy and realized all these are gifts from God. The word Beatitude comes from “happiness” or a state of utmost bliss. The Beatitudes were given to us by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. There are 8 Beatitudes. Jesus lived the Beatitudes perfectly in his life as a model for our lives.

Grade 5 threw Mr. Ferrari a surprise thank you party for all his commitment and hard work these past few months! Thank you for stepping up and taking on this role. You did amazing!

We are looking forward to having Mr. Ferrari transition into apprentice principal and welcoming Mrs. Palmer back from her maternity leave on Tuesday!

Students in middle school learned about personal hygiene from our Nursing Student, Molly, from BC

Madame Montagut's students played Battleship using the following phrases to describe their like/dislike for certain foods: j'adore, j'aime, je n'aime pas, and je deteste.

Grade 6 began learning about "La escuela" (the school). They played many vocabulary games about school supplies, subjects, time, and school schedules. They also played guessing games such as "What is in my suitcase?", GIMKIT, and "Torre de Cartas." Students built as many sentences as they could for having the tallest tower of cards.

Grades 7 and 8 had one-on-one with Ms. Noelia to review their performance and to get ready for their test on Wednesday. When students met with Ms. Noelia, they set goals by identifying their personal strengths and areas of improvement. On Thursday, students played a board game practicing conjugations. They also reviewed their test results and "played teacher" by picking a question of the test they got wrong and sharing it with the class, offering the correct answer so everybody could learn from each others' mistakes.

Ms. Noelia shared "It turns out that some of them had the same mistakes but different ways to explain why those were happening! This is how we approach success and areas of improvement, as a constant part of the journey of learning a new language!"

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