Placentino School News & Updates

• Friday, December 20 - Whole-School Pajama Day!
• Monday, December 23 - Tuesday, December 31 - No School - Winter Break

• Wednesday, January 1 - No School - Winter Break
• Friday, January 17 - Teacher PD Day - No School for Students
• Monday, January 20 - No School - Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• Thursday, January 23 - Elementary PTO Meeting @ 11:00am in the Miller Multipurpose Room
• Monday, January 27 - Incoming Preschool Information Night
• Tuesday, January 28 - Preschool Registration Begins

*Please note: all of these dates and more can be found on the Placentino Family Google Calendar.*

Our students have been working incredibly hard to earn whole-class CARE cards this month in the cafeteria, Unified Arts, and the hallways. For every 5 whole-class CARE cards earned, they also earned a penguin to display in the atrium.

Our goal was to hang 135 penguins, and as of this afternoon, the students have already earned and displayed 129 penguins! We’re confident they’ll meet their goal by tomorrow.

To celebrate their hard work and achievement, the entire school will enjoy a Pajama Day on Friday, December 20th. Great job, everyone, for showing CARE and working together as a community!

The HHS National Honor Society (NHS) are raising money for the local Holiday Dreams Foundation. As a thank you for donating, the members of NHS will wrap all of your holiday gifts for you! They will have wrapping paper available, but if you have special wrapping paper you would like us to use, feel free to bring that with you. Donations will be collected at the event and they can take cash or checks only. (Please make checks payable to The Town of Holliston)

When: Thursday, December 19th from 6:30pm-9:30pm

Where: Holliston High School Cafeteria

All proceeds will go to support the great work our local Holiday Dreams Foundation does not only during the holiday season but all year long.

As the school year has progressed our car pickup and walker pickups have become more efficient and timely. We kindly ask that you are at school by 3:30pm to pick up your child(ren).

A friendly reminder that PK-2 early dismissals must occur prior to 2:45pm. Due to the complexity of our dismissal process and in order to ensure the safety of our students, we are unable to accommodate any early dismissals between 2:45 and 3:20pm.

During the month of December teachers and students in preschool and kindergarten will engage in a read aloud of My Food, Your Food by Lisa Bullard. It's food week in Manuel's class. Each student tells about something special his or her family eats. Manuel learns that families have different food traditions. Some eat noodles with chopsticks. Others use a fork. Some families eat flat bread. Others eat puffy bread. What kind of food will Manuel share with his class? Join him to find out how deliciously different and alike food can be.

Conversation Starters:

• Does your family have a favorite dinner?
• What parts of the world does your family come from? Do they like to eat any special foods from those places?
• Do you help your family cook meals? What food would you like to learn how to make?

During the month of December teachers and students in first and second grade will engage in a read aloud of Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena. Every Sunday after church, CJ and his Nana take the bus to its last stop on Market Street. This Sunday, CJ begins to ask some questions: why they have to wait in the rain, why they always make this trip while his friends get to play, why his friends’ parents have cars while he and Nana take the bus. Nana responds by giving CJ different ways of look at his surroundings, turning what he saw as “lesser” into something more beautiful than what he had wished for. Along the way Nana shows CJ the joy in helping and appreciating the people around them. At the end of the book, you find out that they have arrived at a soup kitchen to help serve a meal.

Conversation Starters:

• Why is CJ upset at the beginning?
• How does his mood change throughout the book?
• Nana helps CJ see that there is beauty everywhere we look. Where are some places you find beauty in your school? Your neighborhood?
• CJ and Nana volunteer at a soup kitchen on Sundays – they help cook and serve food to people. Can anyone tell about a time when you helped someone do something? How did you feel?” “Why do you think the author decided to write this book?”

The December lunch menu can be translated, please click the image below.

The January lunch menu can be translated, please click the image below.