Principal's Weekly Newsletter

• Spring MAPS Testing (Grades K2-8)
  

As Mother’s Day approaches, we would like to invite all mothers, mother figures, grandmothers, godmothers, and other special women in our students’ lives to join us for a Mother’s Day Tea. This special event will take place on Tuesday, May 5th at 8:15 a.m. in the Parish Lower Hall.

Please see the attached invitation for additional details. We kindly ask that you RSVP using the QR code on the invitation or by visiting the following link.

The St. Mary's Yearbook is coming soon! The Yearbook will include photos/memories for every grade level and is available for purchase! Use the link below to purchase an official yearbook. A form was sent home if you prefer a handwritten process. Yearbook orders are due today!

Fr. Jonathan and Fr. David led our First Communicants and their families in a retreat this week. To begin the retreat, Fr. Jonathan taught students how to make unleavened bread and explained its significance in the celebration of the Eucharist. Students then worked alongside their parents to create their First Communion banners. Parents also had the opportunity to share memories of their own First Communions and discuss what it means to receive the Eucharist for the first time. After the activities, students attended church for rehearsal. Please keep our second grade communicants in your prayers as they prepare for this important sacrament.

Students at St. Mary of the Assumption School were treated to a joyful and inspiring musical visit from talented musicians of New England Conservatory and their Christian jazz gospel ensemble, Good News Collective. The group captivated students with creative arrangements of beloved songs, including “Jesus Loves Me,” inviting everyone to sing along and participate in the performance. The visit was both entertaining and educational, as students also had the opportunity to ask thoughtful questions and learn about the musicians’ craft, practice, and passion for sharing music. It was a memorable experience filled with faith, fellowship, and joyful music-making.

Fifth grade students in Ms. Charmaine’s Library Class presented their literary works this week. Students shared poetry, fables, short stories and illustrated “About Me” book covers. Their choice and voice shined through their work. Ms. Charmaine asked the students questions about their pieces. Excellent work, Grade 5!

Mrs. Porcello's PreK students have been learning about light and shadows. They invited their 5th grade buddies to read shadow book stories with them using flashlights. The 5th grade surprised them with glow stick bracelets to celebrate their learning of light.

Our K2 scientists are learning all about rain and the season of spring! Their rain cloud experiment showed them how clouds fill up with water and make it rain! Students loved watching the colorful “raindrops” fall from the clouds and discovering how weather works through hands-on learning. This exciting activity helped them explore the water cycle while building their observation and prediction skills. 🌧☔️

The first grade class has spent the month of April learning about Colonial New England in social studies. This week, they welcomed in a special guest from the Historic Pierce House in Dorchester. Students compared modern day times to colonial times, and matched reproduced artifacts to current ones of similar use. It was a great activity!

Second grade students have begun working on persuasive writing! They are brainstorming topics they feel strongly about and learning how to support their opinions with reasons and details. Over the next few weeks, students will draft, edit, revise, and publish their writing pieces while building confidence and strengthening their writing skills.

Our third graders are officially becoming expert authors! Over the past few weeks, they’ve been hard at work researching and drafting strong body paragraphs for their expert topic books. Now, they’re shifting their focus to writing engaging introductions, hooking their readers, clearly introducing their topic, and setting the stage for all the information to come.

It’s been exciting to see students organize their ideas into clear paragraphs, stay focused on their topics, and really think about how to teach their reader. We’re so proud of the effort, growth, and confidence they’re showing in their writing!

4th Grade has been working diligently on their "About Me" Booklets in our Informational reading and writing unit. They drafted, edited, and completed a final draft of their "Life Story". Students then compiled a booklet containing their writing, a family tree, neighborhood map, and photo section to demonstrate all of the growth they have experienced in their lives. Today students demonstrate their knowledge of different text features as well as the creativity they used to create their booklets. Students presented their work to the class using this as an opportunity to connect with their peers and practice their presentation skills.

Students in 5th grade are continuing their learning on ecosystems by studying how humans pollute them. Students were split into groups to learn and create informational posters on how acid rain, fertilizer, and road salt upset our local ecosystems. They will be presenting their posters to the class next week.

As part of their ongoing unit on human organ systems, 7th graders learned about nutrients and the digestive system. They learned the names and functions of the structures that make up the digestive tract, and they built a model using ribbon to show its total length as well as the length of each individual structure. They were amazed that this pathway, which is over seven meters long, is able to fit inside each of us.

In 8th-grade Algebra 1, students have recently been exploring quadratic functions and equations. Departing from linear equations, quadratic equations can have multiple solutions requiring a variety of tools to solve. Students have practiced factoring polynomials and using the zero-product rule to find the x-intercepts of their functions.

We were honored to welcome United States Navy Veteran Christine Cugini, Director of Veterans Services for the City of Quincy, Massachusetts: an especially notable distinction as she is the first female veteran to hold this position! Christine Cugini came to us as a contact of our Board of Specified Jurisdiction Member and true partner to St. Mary’s school, Kitty Boles. Kitty was Christine’s 3rd grade teacher! Christine recently spoke with our Middle School students as part of her speaker series during Ms. Kfoury’s Leadership Seminar Class. We are excited that she will be returning to present to students in grades 3 through 5 in the coming weeks. In preparation for her visit, our teachers helped students thoughtfully generate questions, all of which Cugini took the time to answer with care and depth. She was knowledgeable, kind, and engaging, offering students meaningful insight into what it truly means to serve in our military. Christine Cugini grew up in Brookline and was a parishioner of St. Mary’s Parish. She served in the Gulf War in the 1990s,and she spoke with the students about her time on the USS Yellowstone and what it was like to be among the first group of women in an active combat zone. From describing daily life (what service members eat and wear) to sharing details about life aboard a ship, her hard work, and the wide range of services provided. She also shared what led her to work with military veterans now in the hospital setting. We are deeply grateful to Christine Cugini and Kitty Boles for sharing her time, perspective, and service with our school community!

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