Principal's Weekly Update

Dear St. Mary’s Families and Friends,

As we enter the season of Thanksgiving, we have much to be grateful for here at St. Mary’s! Our school has grown by two classrooms: infants and toddlers, and our students and faculty have been nationally recognized with the 2024 Blue Ribbon Award. It is important to continue to practice gratitude for these blessings and show charity through giving back. From Monday, November 18th through Friday, November 22nd, St. Mary’s School will support the Parish’s Annual Thanksgiving Basket Donations with our Thanksgiving Food Drive. Each grade is invited to bring a specific food item to school during arrival time. All donations will be collected in the Cafeteria. Thank you for your generosity!

A huge congratulations to our Chess Wizards!!! Please see this message from Sixth Grader Alex on her experience at the Chess Wizards Tournament last weekend at Our Lady’s Academy in Waltham:

“On Saturday November 9th myself and three other students played at a chess tournament. We each played four rounds at the tournament and each match was thirty minutes. At the end of each match the chess wizards gave us new opponents based on our own score. So as a team we got second place in the tournament.”

Our Chess Wizards Club was recently featured in the Boston Pilot’s “Forming the Future” article by Wes Cipolla. Please see the link here to read the article: https://thebostonpilot.com/article.php?ID=198417

Please join us on Monday, December 2, 2024 for the St. Mary's inaugural Winter Book Fair at the Brookline Booksmith in Coolidge Corner! From 5-7pm, the Brookline Booksmith will donate 20% of all sales to St. Mary's School. Stop by during this time to do some Christmas shopping for your family and friends! This event will feature the St. Mary's Children's Choir and a pay-what-you-like gift wrapping station for all your purchases.

Students in our Band and Music classes from PreK through Grade 8 have been diligently practicing their songs and instrumental pieces for the Christmas Concert and Pageant coming up on Friday, December 13th. Please encourage them to practice their performances at home. Band students may have more practices at school, please stay tuned for emails on when to bring in instruments in addition to Fridays. Thank you for supporting our musicians and singers!

Congratulations to our newly-elected Student Council! Middle School students ran for the offices of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Sixth Grade Representatives, Seventh Grade Representative, and Eighth Grade Representative. They wrote speeches and presented them before voting for their peers on Tuesday, November 5th. Thank you to our Student Council for taking these leadership positions!

This week we held a ribbon cutting ceremony in Conjunction with the Brookline Chamber of Commerce to inaugurate our Infant Toddler Program! This is such an exciting step for our school, and we are so proud of all of the members of our team who made this possible! We would like to give special thank you to everyone who celebrated with us, and who helped to make the opening of this program possible including: the Lynch Foundation, Sister Karen and Emmanuel College, our superintendent, Eileen McLaughlin, the Massachusetts Department of Early Childhood Education, Chris Martin and our school Board, and St. Mary’s faculty and staff. A special thank you to Father Jonathan for blessing the classrooms! We have officially made St. Mary’s history in our 125th year and we look forward to growing this program, inspiring young minds, and continuing to celebrate throughout this monumental year for our school!

This week students in all classrooms were able to get a closer look at the National Blue Ribbon Award Plaque and flag. They were got to hold both and take photos with their teachers. This is their award! Their hard work and accomplishments have now been nationally recognized and we are all so proud! Very soon the Plaque will be displayed prominently in our Main Office. Congratulations to all students and faculty on your dedication to academic excellence!

Miss Rachelle's Infant class started a Thanksgiving project this week! Practicing tummy time, motor skills, and material exploration, our infant students used finger paint in a plastic bag to create paintings. These paintings became the feathers of their turkey self-portraits!

Miss Tiffany's Toddler class went on a leaf exploration during a walk this week. Outside, they found a variety of leaves in different colors and shapes. They collected the leaves, and back in their classrooms students sorted the leaves by size into the categories "big" and "small." Students also participated in a leaf letter match with letters S-Z.

Miss Porcello's PreK class had an amazing time making pizza this week! They read Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza and then went over the steps for making pizza. Each student decorated a personalized apron to wear for the day, and then it was time to get cooking! The class went step by step, following the directions to make pizza. The students had so much fun spreading the sauce and sprinkling the cheese on their personal pizzas. There was much anticipation as the pizzas cooked in the oven. The final product was delicious! Great job, PreK chefs!

Students in Ms. Curley's class read Matthew & Tilly. They journaled all about what would make a friend happy if you had a disagreement with them. They had a beautiful reflection on friendship.

Grade 7 spent time reading outside in the warm weather last week with their K2 buddies!

The first graders learned primary color mixing in art class with Mr. Davey! Students blended red, yellow, and blue primary colors to create orange, purple, and green secondary colors. The students used straws to mix colors by blowing through them! Great work artists!

Second grade went on a field trip to the Brookline Public Library! They listened to Don’t Take Your Dragon to the Library and learned about all the resources the library has to offer including books, movies, video games, Chromebooks, games, and even baking or camping supplies! Students then took a tour of the children’s section and found books to check out.

Last week, students in Miss Kousidis' third grade class compared and contrasted Memorial Day And Veterans Day. Students practiced close reading of a passage about both holidays. They highlighted details in the text about Memorial Day, underlined details about Veterans Day, and circled details that were about both. Then, they took the details from the text and recorded them on a Venn Diagram to make comparisons. Great job, readers!

Students in 5th grade have been completing a colony simulation. They have had to load ships, deal with the hardships of sailing the seas and landing successfully, pick the right place to settle, and are now experiencing their first days surviving the harsh weather and other challenges colonists faced.

This week, middle school students wrote letters to Veterans to thank them for their service and sacrifice.

In 8th grade ELA with Miss Allen, students recently completed their argumentative court case essays on S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, taking on the role of either prosecutor or defense attorney for Johnny Cade and using textual evidence to support their arguments. They have since begun their new unit on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, where students explored the purpose of literature and completed activities on the novel’s background and author. They watched videos on Jim Crow laws, life during the Great Depression, and a short biography of Harper Lee before diving into the first few chapters. Their discussions have since focused on the significance of Scout, a six-year-old girl, as the first-person narrator, along with the novel's themes of education, prejudice, femininity, and growing up.

Over the past couple of weeks, the middle school students in French class with Monsieur Raymond have learned how to introduce themselves and others, wish someone a happy birthday, how to tell their age, ask others about their age and to count from 1 to 100 in French.

They have also learned lists of vocabulary needed for better communication skills. The subject and the possessive pronouns have been used during their oral discussions. The students are still practicing the French song Je dis Jesus! Be sure to come see their performance during the Christmas Concert on Friday, December 13th!

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/