Principal's Weekly Newsletter

Dear Families,

Students, faculty, and chaperones are having a blast in New York! They return later on this evening, please keep them in your prayers and check out the photos below highlighting some of their experiences!

Mr. Nguyen and I enjoyed spending a lot of time with some of our middle school girls. Not only am I so proud of all their accomplishments but also how they have grown up to be such kind and compassionate role models!

Thank you for attending our last Coffee with the Principal of the school year. I always enjoy spending time with our incredible parents. Your ideas and contributions is what makes St. Mary's School so special!

Father Bobby just came back from the Holy Land and brought back crosses from Jerusalem for our students. Thank you Father for this special gift, students love them!

MAP testing will be held next week. Please make sure your children are well-rested!

We hope you can join us at next week's school-wide Mass on Thursday at 12:10.

Happy Mother's Day to all our wonderful mothers! (the picture on the right is of Grade 5's Mother's Day Project) I hope you have the best day for your families!

May 15th-19th

• MAP Testing

May 18th:

• School-wide Mass at 12:10 p.m

May 19th

• PreK and K1 Zoo Field Trip

May 24th

• Grades 2+3 Freedom Trail Field Trip

May 31st

• Spring Concert at 8:45 a.m
  

June 2nd

• International Family Festival
  

June 5th

• Field Day

June 7th

• Grade 8 Graduation and Convocation Mass

June 9th

• Band Concert at 8:30 a.m
  

June 16th

• Last Day of School

We have 0 Covid-19 cases to report this week.

The Covid-19 public health emergency ended yesterday. Parents who want their children to wear masks in school may continue to do so. Please continue to let me know if your student tests positive or was exposed to Covid. Students and staff who test positive for Covid-19 still have to isolate themselves away from school for 5 full days and wear a mask for a total of 10 days from the date they tested positive. Students and staff who are exposed to Covid need to wear a mask in school for a total of 10 days and test with a rapid home test on days 2,3 and 5 after their exposure. I have rapid home test kits available if you need them.

Allergies remain an issue with many of our students. Please make sure your student takes their allergy medication before school.

Enjoy your weekend

On Monday, St. Mary's had the honor of hosting Megan Adzima, Director of Allocations & Operations at the Catholic School Foundation. Megan was very impressed by how engaged and polite all of our students were. We enjoyed a very productive conversation with Mrs. Adzima regarding how St. Mary's and the Catholic Schools Foundation can deepen our partnership and support our families.

Middle School students are currently on their trip to New York City and our first overnight trip was a success! They had a jam-packed couple of days. Some of the places they visited included Central Park, Theatre District, Times Square, The 9/11 Memorial, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Old Custom's House, Federal Reserve Bank, Statue of Liberty, and Broadway! Thank you Father Jonathan for giving the students a special blessing before leaving.

Pre-K was hard at work studying and exploring different bugs this week! Pre-K has been observing caterpillars, learning about the life cycle of a butterfly, and the concept of metamorphosis. They are counting how many days until the caterpillars change into butterflies. They have participated in many fun bug related activities like stamping with bugs, painting with fly swatters, making symmetrical butterflies, acting out the butterfly life cycle in dramatic play, and making "mud" oobleck with worms!

This week k1 continues their unit on “things that grow”. They are making observations of their bean plants and learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. They also practiced drawing in Chinese calligraphy to go along with the book “The Ugly Vegetables”.

K1 is also learning about the artist Pablo Picasso. They made “silly face portraits “ and replicated his “bouquet of peace” artwork as their Mother’s Day cards - shhhh!!!

First graders went to the New England Aquarium this Friday! They have been working hard on writing non-fiction books about animals and were excited to see some of these ocean animals in real life! A lot of students enjoyed touching the stingrays, others enjoyed seeing the turtles, sharks and so much more!

Grade 2 learned about the power their words hold during a social-emotional exercise using the poem “Before You Speak, Think and Be Smart, It’s Hard to Fix a Wrinkled Heart.” Students saw the lasting impact their words can have on others and practiced using kind words with their friends and classmates.

In our current Bridges Unit, the third grade class are working with geometry. This week they were introduced to Geoboards, which are used for practicing making different types of shapes and their attributes! Vocabulary words they focused on during the activity was acute angles, congruent, parallel, pentagon, polygon, quadrilateral, rhombus, right angle and trapezoid. They students enjoy finding a new way to practice their math skills!

Grade 4 and their PreK Crapo buddies absolutely love spending time together. Both classrooms have been exploring seeds and plants so sharing a planting activity with grass seed was a great way for them to learn together.

Students in the 5th grade completed a STEM lab in which they were challenged to use their prior knowledge on circuits to complete a task presented to them through literacy. Students were read a story about a girl named Emily who was struggling to know when her sheep were in need of water. She needed to develop an alarm system that turned on when the sheep's water was low. Students were asked to create a circuit that was switched on when a water cup was emptied. Students had to create a schematic design, build their circuit plan, and use their engineering skills to fix any problems that arose. While students worked together you could hear the multiple vocabulary words they have learned throughout the unit including: closed circuit, conductor, parallel circuit, and energy source.

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/