St Mary Star of the Sea Catholic School

St. Mary Star of the Sea School

Curriculum Newsletter ~ December 2008

Dear Parents,

The past month has been very busy here at St. Mary’s.  We’ve offered an Open House to prospective parents, had Rainforest Reptiles entertain and educate our students PK-8^th grade, journeyed to the Museum of Science on a field trip, enjoyed an incredibly successful auction, marveled at our ‘Principal of the Day’ and ended our month with a wonderful Thanksgiving service hosted by our 8^th grade.

Father Barnes recently received some data from the Archdiocese regarding the Terra Nova testing we complete yearly. Over the last two years, St. Mary’s has not only outscored national norms which includes both private and public schools, we’ve also outscored the Archdiocese in many areas.  I am pleased to provide you with the results below.

A couple of parents have inquired about the temperature outlines for recess and morning arrival time.  Many of my colleagues and I use 20 degrees as our ‘barometer.’  If the temperature plus wind chill is 20 or above, we go outside.  I typically use Yahoo’s weather as my determinant.  They offer a ‘feels like’ temperature that includes wind chill. 

As Christmas time approaches I want to herald two special occasions coming up on our calendar.  Our first is our annual Christmas Concert, hosted by Dr. Pearlmutter.  This year we are having the performance in the church.  I am really looking forward to witnessing this much talked about event.  The second is the Children’s Holy Hour which is scheduled for December 19^th.  Folks will share pizza here at the school, then process over to the church for the candlelit ceremony.  Flyers will follow with specific times and dates.

Finally, on behalf of our staff and the entire student body, I wish each of you a Blessed Christmas season replete with family, friends and our Lord’s presence.

God Bless,

Kevin Cushman

Pre-K  News

3 Year Old Class

November certainly has been a very busy month in the three year old classroom. Our learning has centered on why we celebrate Thanksgiving and what being thankful means. The children have learned that people called Pilgrims sailed over on a large ship named the Mayflower. As a group project this month the children "built" the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock out of a large cardboard boxes and have taken turns sailing to a new land. We also have talked about how thankful we should be for all the wonderful things we have that the Pilgrims did not have - grocery stores, stoves, microwaves and DVD's to name just a few.
       Our November letters of the week were: L- for leaves,T -for Turkey, Tissue, Triangles and P- for Pilgrims, Pies and Pumpkins. For our monthly Sink or Float science activity we used a pumpkin and a pinecone - both of these items floated. We observed that a pinecone that is open floats in the water and as it gets wet it closes up tightly, when it is removed from the water and allowed to dry it opens up again  we had to do this several times. Many various activities were worked on through out the month - "Do-A-Dot" dobbers to spell out the word P-I-E on a pie shape, stamps and ink pads were used to spell A-C-O-R-N on a window decorating project and we matched letter tiles to Fall words such as leaves, squirrels, acorns and more. Parents were given their first homework assignment this month, they were asked to write down what their family does to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. As homework was returned each was read and the children were amazed that a lot them celebrate the same way. Almost all eat turkey, watch the parade on TV and spend time with their families - the children were surprised to learn that Ms. Sandy and I also do this. Ms Sandy and I are thankful for our healthy families and for having your children in our class.

4 Year Old Class

 November has been a very busy month in our class. We started the month with the changing of the

seasons with fall leaves. We made many colored leaves using tissue paper and colored torn paper. We made a scarecrow for our corn field. (paper corn colored with Q-tip painting).  We all picked a name for the scarecrow, then voted on the favorite of the names. We are learning about

Thanksgiving. We built a Tepee using a sheet, draped it over 3 poles and decorated it with our hand prints. Outside our tepee is a turkey roasting on an open fire. The 4 year old class pretend to be Native Americans while the 3 year old class are the pilgrims coming to visit us on the Mayflower. We did the

letters S-seeds squirrel scarecrow, P-pumpkin patch pie and T-turkey,

teepee ,Thanksgiving. Our large Tree of Thanks with all our things we are thankful for, hangs in our hall way outside our classroom door for all to see.

Kindergarten News        

             Kindergarten is so much fun!!!  We made another class book about something we can do “Just Like My Classmates”.  Our new theme in Language class is “foods”.  “On Top of Spaghetti” is a fun book we read and sang together.  Most of the children chose mac and cheese as their

favorite food.  Children really enjoy working in centers.  They rotate between a language / writing

activity, such  as making little books, a math activity where we made button numbers, a theme

related  art activity, guided reading  with the teacher and computers, where the children are working on letter recognition.

       Mrs. Adams taught us all about the piranha fish  and showed us a model from the oceans of Brazil.  Temperature and thermometers are our focus in science along with the use of wind flags to observe and record the wind.

        After reading a book about the bush Olympics, the class made a paper hat to attend the event.  The children talked about all that they are thankful for at this time of year and always.  Our senses are helping us notice all that God made to make our world beautiful.  In art we made some great turkeys and learned a turkey poem.  In preparation for Thanksgiving,  our Grade 4 friends and  the class made Native American vests from paper bags.  Thank you Mrs. B. and

Grade 4!

       We look forward to the Christmas season and are learning the real meaning of

the day.

Grade 1 News

November went by so quickly in First Grade.  Did you know that the different times of the Catholic Church year are called its seasons?  Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Ordinary Time are the seasons of the Church year or Liturgical year.  Each season has a special color too. Advent and Lent are purple, Christmas and Easter are white and Ordinary Time is green.

 We welcomed Marine Cadets from the Beverly High School Junior ROTC Program to be the color guard for our Veterans Day Prayer Service with the Third Graders.  Student Council President William McAuliffe, did a great job as master of ceremonies. We were proud to honor the men and women who have served our country.

 As First Graders we work very hard! We have been observing the moon at night and recording seasonal changes. Do you know you can see the moon in the daytime too?  For math we are writing number sentences to solve problems, adding with 3, 4, and 5 numbers, solving problems with pattern blocks, and counting by 2s to100.  Estimating the circumference of our three pumpkins with yarn is challenging.  Only 5 guesses were just right, so far.

Liam’s grand father Mr. Peter Creighton shared his stamp collection skills with us and gave us each a stamp collection book with real stamps from the 50 states, which we are learning about.  Now we are collecting stamps. When he visits us again, we hope to have lots of stamps to show him in our books. When Mr. Crichton visits us in the spring, we hope to have lots of stamps to show him in our stamp collection books.

We are reading so many wonderful stories in our reading groups.  Some of our favorite authors are: Crosby Bonsall, Marc Brown, Mem Fox, Tara Gomi, Syd Hoff, Ron Maris, Jen Marzolla, and Audrey Wood.   We like discussing the beginning, middle and end of each story with our group.  Sometimes we create different endings. We finished reading Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary.

 Each member of our class entered a Jan Brett contest and we won a copy of her new book GINGERBREAD FRIENDS for our classroom.  We look forward to using it in our “author study” early next year!

 First Grade Favorites; Songs; November, We Gather Together.   Activities:  Writing our individual books of Thanks, dice races, center games, drawing, reading Ramona and Her Father.

 Pax!

Grade 2 Curriculum News

          November has been a busy month in the Second grade!  Students have really gotten into the routines of the classroom and are becoming increasingly independent, self-directed learners.  In Reading while two groups of students are with a teacher (Mrs. Cunningham or Ms. Alboth) doing Guided Reading, other students are following the “Menu” to complete their phonics, grammar, spelling, and listening center activities.  Guided Reading provides students with small group reading instruction which focuses on literal comprehension, word work, word attack strategies, and vocabulary skills.  When students finish the “Main Course,” they love going to “Dessert” where they can play verb charades, word magnets, Halloween Phonics Bingo, or Long Vowel Jeopardy on the computer.  In Writing students completed their Haunted House stories and two friendly letters.  Students wrote to Mr. Cushman and were pleasantly surprised when they had a reply the following day. The second letter was to the Sisters of Notre Dame in Ipswich with a Thanksgiving card.  We plan to write Christmas cards and poems.

     In preparation for Thanksgiving and to conclude the Colonial/Wampanoag unit students had the opportunity to make cranberry sauce, corn bread, apple crisp, and butter with the assistance of five wonderful parents.  We completed the reading aloud of Thanksgiving on Thursday, The Pilgrim’s First Year,  Molly’s Pilgrim, and Tapenum’s Day.  Students made long houses, to represent the homes the Wampanoag used over the winter, with the extra help of Nurse Mary DiVincenzo.  Next we will explore the rain forests’ culture, geography, animals, and its importance to our world’s climate.  This is a multidisciplinary unit which connects Social Studies, Science,

and Reading.

In Science students completed the Balancing and Weighing Kit with a final activity of balancing and weighing four different foods.  We will progress to the Changes kit for the second trimester. Students will also learn about animal habitats during read aloud, reading, computers, and on the Smartboard.

          Math has been fun this past month as students counted up money (play of course), made purchases, used a cash register, and money counting cards. The focus has now shifted to addition of double digit numbers, place value, and basic facts. Students will learn multiple approaches to adding of larger numbers from hands-on to number decomposing to traditional regrouping.   On the Smartboard students have enjoyed the Rags to Riches money challenge.  Some students even won 1 million dollars!

          In Religion we have completed the first four chapters of Faith First.  The focus was on the Trinity, Creation, God is our Father, and Noah’s Arc.  Students also enjoy the weekly Gospel magazine especially reading the Gospel as a play.  We look forward to reading the Nativity play in December.  Students will be encouraged to find ways to make gifts and give to others this Advent season.  Have a Merry Christmas!

 Grade 3 Curriculum News

I am so very proud of the third grade class and how well they know how to follow the weekly routine.  Book reports were passed in on Nov. 24^th.  Each student read their report to the class as classmates listened and wrote down comments.   On Nov. 10^th, the third and first grade hosted the Veteran’s Day Prayer Service.  They did a terrific job!  On Nov. 6, Caileigh’s mom, Mrs. Cunningham, did an exciting religious art project with the class about the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is symbolized by a dove and flames of fire.  Students love practicing for the Christmas concert and playing their recorders.  They sound so beautiful!

          Math has been challenging with regrouping in subtraction.  Now the class will be learning about time, data, and graphs.  Math will be fun while students gather data to plot on all types of graphs.

The class loves Stone Fox.  There is so much to do with the book now that they have finished reading it.  Each student has created a Willy Web that focuses on the characteristic of the main character Willy.  Students also enjoyed studying the cause and effect of different events in the story.  Coming up in December students will learn about winter holidays around the world.  Reading is so much fun!

This third grade class loves to write!  Student published three writing pieces this month.  Students are beginning to master modifying nouns.  Next, they will learn how to add similes and metaphors to their writing.   It’s so exciting to have our principal, Mr. Cushman, come into the classroom help students become better writers! 

Plant growth and developments has come to an end, however, there are still spider plant cuttings under the growth light in the classroom and students took home seeds they harvested on their own.  Soon each student will be taking home a spider plant.  Students will be learning about different types of animals such as fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians and their characteristics.

Map skills are being covered weekly.  Students are getting really good at cardinal directions, distance, and reading community maps. Coming up soon students will study the globe. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Grade 4 News  

Mrs. Boudreault has the heads of the fourth graders spinning much like a planet that rotates on its axis, with all the knowledge and work they partake in each day.  They just completed a unit on the Solar System and did projects that were out of this world.  Each student was assigned a planet or a constellation and then presented a visual aid, a 2-3 minute talk, and a 5 paragraph paper on said celestial body.  Then they hopped on a train and went to the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science.  They had open spaces to explore the museum and learn about the stars and planets that around us in the Milky Way Galaxy.  It was a great way to culminate a very interesting and exciting unit in Science.  Next they will learn how everything matters as they delve into the three states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. 

 In Language Arts they have been perfecting their writing with several new writing assignments.  The main focus has been topic and concluding sentences, as well as incorporating stimulating and engaging adjectives in their writing.  They have recently written three paragraph essays about each of the following topics:  Comparing and Contrasting Charlotte’s Web, the Book vs. the Movie; Our Trip to the Museum of Science, and Thanksgiving.  The students used graphic organizers, wrote rough drafts, edited with a friend, then with Mrs. B. or Miss Alboth, and then created final drafts.  Their writing is improving dramatically.  They will continue to study the use of adjectives over the next week or so and will then move on to verbs.  They love to use the Smart Board to help reinforce the many concepts of English Grammar through web-site games and some Mrs. B. has made herself.

 The students finished the beautiful tale of friendship, Charlotte’s Web, recently and also viewed the cartoon version of the movie.  They felt like they were at the movies when watching the film on the Smart Board.  In Reading, the students are perfecting taking reflective notes while reading.  They utilize their book logs each night as they read the saga of a boy vs. his teacher and the power of the English language in Frindle by Andrew Clements. They are enjoying this account of a very intelligent and inventive child, Nick, but have been warned not to try his antics in Mrs. B’s room unless they want her to become Mrs. Granger.  They will work on pulling out the major story elements, comprehension, and comparing text to self and other texts.  In their book logs they have already found relationships between this book and others we have read this year, as well as to life as fourth graders.

We continue to learn about how to live our lives as true Christians in our Religious studies.  We have covered the parables of Jesus as our shepherd and the Corporal Works of Mercy to help emphasize how we can carry out Christ’s work today. To help us better understand our Religion text we are working hard at note taking using a template created by Mrs. B. and Mrs. Nichols.  The students are prompted with the use of the Smart Board to properly take notes and then must record their study time each night in their study logs. The fourth graders will help to lead the first floor in Advent reflections each week, be on the look out for our life size Advent Wreathe in the hallway.  There will be a lot of emphasis on how Advent is our time to wait, not just for presents, but for God’s one true and beautiful present to us: his son, Jesus Christ.

As their knowledge grows this year, so to does their comfort level with traveling upstairs to see Mrs. Nichols each day.  The fourth graders have really got into the routine of switching classes,andtheir organization skills, with the aid of their “best friends” (the accordion folders), have really helped them to become rather astute learners. 

In Math they have been really getting down their multiplication and division facts and practicing.  To help understand these processes Mrs. Nichols held a “math lab” on arrays.  Each child came up with a problem and his/her partner created an array with blocks, and then they switched.  This lab is a great way to apply and see the importance of the strategies being taught in class.  They continue their practical application of knowledge in their Social Studies lessons as well.  They have been learning about the different customs and ways of life throughout the United States.  The customs of our government and election process have also been discussed and reinforced through the use of new magazines.  To help with their application of reading skills in the content area they read a story about John F. Kennedy, and use a graphic organizer for recording the facts and interesting facets of his life.

Greetings from Grade 5 at Saint Mary's School.....
 

Our Social Studies activities have evolved around exploring the explorers.

Each child was assigned an explorer.  They were to assume the role of that explorer and understand where the exploration took place.  Further they were to question why their explorer was motivated to investigate this unknown part of the world.  Each student will do a power point presentation to explain the history of his or her explorer to the class.

     Scholastic News continues to be an important source for current events.The most recent editions have closely followed the elections and the issues critical to voters and the candidates.  The recent concern about our economy is one such issue that our students will follow in Scholastic News.

     Our current events studies, in addition to our investigation into exploration. creates interesting aspects for our map skills as we identify new world and old world locations around the globe.

          Science class continues to concentrate on the human body.  We finished our unit on cells and have turned our attention to the skeletal system.  You may want to ask you student about Tito.  He is a life size skeleton affording us the ability to observe the framework of our body and to assist us in identifying various bones.  Most recently we have progressed to the circulatory system and had a very intriguing lab class that involved learning how to take a reading of the pulse and to further observe how exercise will elevate those readings.  Student pulse rates were measured while sitting, climbing stairs and even doing jumping jacks.  The information was noted at each stage and the different pulse rates where plotted on a chart.

          Our Faith First curriculum in religion concentrates on the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.  Currently students are examining the significance of the Stations of the Cross.  They are being asked to write their reflections on several assigned stations.  In addition our class is actively engaged in planning and rehearsing for the Advent Prayer Service, which will take place on Dec 10^th.

          Our math is focusing on more complicated division skills including 3 digit divisors and divisions with decimals.  In addition we are working on estimation techniques and enhancing problem solving ability.  Some of our work is conceptual in an effort to create algebraic thinking.

          All the students are very much engrossed in our language arts current reading assignment, THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY by Sheila Burnford. Students constantly work to enhance their writing skills and we are expanding our vocabulary list of adjectives and verbs.  A recent writing assignment involved the origins of Halloween.  This assignment also required using the research tools they are learning.  We are not forgetting our Thanksgiving holiday, as the students have been busy creating informational acrostics associated with the event.

6^th Grade News

     The end of the first term is fast approaching, and with it we will usher in Advent, the season of waiting and expectation . The second floor bustles with activity each day, as the students make their way from class to class. They have been meeting the many challenges of  their lessons, reading, writing, presenting, and questioning. I think that we would all agree that the time so far has passed too quickly!

    The Social Studies classes have covered much ground this month. Sixth graders have just completed a lesson about the beginnings of Judaism, and were pleasantly surprised that they were familiar, from Religion lessons, with much of the chapter. We will now proceed east to the Indus River Valley, for a look at another major civilization which developed around an important river. Seventh graders are learning about colonial history,in part by investigating how colonial children lived. Eighth graders are exploring

the Reconstruction era. They capped off their study of the Civil War with a chilly but enjoyable trip to the Beverly Historical Society.  Mr. Brown, the curator, explained the contribution Beverly’s citizens made to the war effort, both on the battlefield and  ‘behind the lines.’

      During Middle School Art classes, we recently discussed how many famous artists have painted and sculpted self-portraits, including Paul Gaugin. After reading a bit about Gaugin’s life and looking at some of his self portraits, the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade students are creating symbolic self-portraits. To that end, last week they spent some time thinking about how to express their personalities and interests through pictures they will draw and/or cut from magazines.

     In Religion classes students are reading about the connection between the Old Testament, the New Testament, and our faith lives today. They continue to read Bible stories, meet Old Testament prophets, and learn about the holy people of the Church such as St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. Students are also applying their writing skills to essays in Religion. These exercises have lent themselves to some very thoughtful reflections. The 6^th graders are also preparing an Advent prayer service along with the 5^th Grade, and we hope that this service will help students in all grades to better prepare for the coming of the Christ Child.

Mathematicians & Scientific Explorers on the Second Floor 

Grades 6, 7 & 8

 With the advent of the holiday season, the faithful scientist and mathematicians of St Mary’s Middle School have much to be joyful about.  Long gone are the days of late fall, the study of method and the theories of prediction have been replaced with studies of density and cellular division.

 In the Eighth Grade, matter, it seems, is all that matters. Building on the solid foundations of Charles’s and Boyle’s Laws, our intrepid eighth grade theorists are going to spend the holiday season immersed in the changing states of matter. Mathematically, there is little to see in the distance but more and more linear equations and their variable permutations though there are hints of a geometric application in the future. Supplementary, or Complementary, our eighth graders will have the angles covered.

 In the Seventh Grade, the cellular structure now old hat, we move from diffusion and osmosis to meiosis and mitosis. Cellular division, in all it’s spindle fiber glory, should be our nuclear focus before the holidays. Ms Adams has joyfully taken to the role of our lab’s Jolly Saint Nick, with goody bags of interesting and exciting labs that investigate cellular division.

Mathematically, we started the season with divisibility rules and move on to the fascinating relationship between decimals fractions and percents. Along the way, we’ll touch base with prime factors, greatest common factors, rations and percents.

 In the Sixth Grade, we’ve made the great jump into cellular biology. Our eggs are flush with vinegar, are spuds have squishy, and are raisins are re-hydrated. We are ready for the plants.

Before that though, we must master meiosis and mitosis, the phases and the divisions that make up growth and change. Mathematically, we start the month with Rene DeCartes and his Cartesian Plane. Then, we get into the minutia of decimals and percents, graphing these on single planes in either direction. We’ll order decimals into line, and round them into shape, all before the New Year.

Literature & Language Arts News ~ Grades 6, 7 & 8

The past two weeks have witnessed a hiatus from our spelling/vocabulary work in order to

concentrate on grammar.  Never again will the proper use of I or me, she or her, they or them and all other pronouns present a problem to eighth grade students. In my dreams I would like to think this is the case. Only future compositions will prove the point. Be on the lookout when writing

assignments are due. In literature, we have pursued the theme of mystery while reading about the

scientific discoveries of George Washington Carver and another story revolving around the

phenomenon of sleep. November also found students deeply involved in the production of our Christmas play. We anxiously look forward to the re-enactment of this solemn event. Of course,

we cannot overlook the time and effort devoted to our Culturama project. It will be here before

we know it.  But, will we be ready for the big event? Lastly, each student has been absorbed in a

biography to fulfill their November book report requirement.

 Grade 7 has also sacrificed the pursuit of new spelling/vocabulary words in order to master the challenge of pronoun usage. Look forward to the correct pronoun in every sentence and paragraph in all future assignments. It may be a dream, but a noble one indeed. In the world of literature, the seventh grade has pursued the themes of ‘insights’ (how characters learn about themselves) and ‘goals’ (special talents and interests helping set lifetime goals). Many parents and grandparents have shared their personal experiences as young students this month while being interviewed for an

assignment relating to these themes. Culturama has kept students busy as they complete

bibliography cards and final outlines. Lastly, ‘mysteries’ will unravel as seventh grade sleuths

successfully scrutinize solutions in this month’s book report selection.

      The sixth grade has worked hard to complete the task of understanding the cases of nouns: nominative, possessive and objective. We are wrapping up the objective case as we close the month of November. It has been more of a challenge than expected. However, we are committed to victory and we will not fail! Success will be evident in the writing assignments completed during the past week. Our principal, Mr. Cushman, shared his teaching skills with the class and the result was a ‘special’ writing assignment which focused on ‘A Special Gift.’ Everyone had to be especially creative and work hard to utilize figurative language in their final product. In literature, we became familiar with the history of plays returning to their roots in ancient Greece. We then propelled ourselves to the present by reading a modern screenplay by the renowned author, Rod Serling. The class not only enjoyed reading the play (each taking on a different role) but also experienced a video of an original Twilight Zone episode. The best part of this experience was the awareness of  the deeper messages offered by Serling within the script. The fantasy elements offered entertainment; the themes required far more imagination. Finally, we concluded our examination of the play by writing an additional act by using our creative energy to match that of Mr. Serling. I hope we have not broken any copyright laws in the process. With our attention fixed in the Twilight Zone, it is only natural (or maybe unnatural) that the genre for the November book report is science fiction/fantasy.

Science Corner

          The lab has been quite busy this month with classes from the second floor. Both the sixth and seventh grades have experimented with the concepts of diffusion and osmosis. For the latter, students used artificial membranes, cornstarch, and iodine potassium iodide to actually witness what entered, what left, and what was unable to move due to the selectivity of the cell membranes. Indication of movement was the reaction of iodine potassium iodide with cornstarch, which produced a purply-black color when present. Potato slices were put in both plain and salty water in order to “feel” the osmotic flow. Raisins were placed in water to see if wrinkles could be removed via osmotic pressure.( It works, by the way! Perhaps those of us with wrinkles should keep our faces submerged in water all night long……on the other hand, that might not be too feasible!)

Eggshells were removed using vinegar, and the raw egg was observed to swell. When placed in vegetable oil, the egg became considerably smaller as its membrane permitted water to leave. Students played “Cello,” unlike the musical instrument, as a review for testing out of the cell unit.

The fifth grade is currently studying human body systems. Marty Adams-DeSimone, Mrs. Adams’s sister, instructed the children about the skeletal system, using the school’s skeleton as her model. She also told the students about the different kinds of muscles, after which followed a chicken wing lab during which the children saw how opposing muscles worked. They then placed one of their chicken bones into vinegar, waited several days, then felt how pliable their bones had become due to the removal of both calcium and phosphorus. Marty began the circulatory system by explaining the various arteries, veins, chambers, valves, and lung-loop involved in a healthy heart. The children were given different roles of the heart-lung circulation to play, and they enacted how a red blood cell travels in order to become oxygenated and then how it reaches body cells for the critical oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange. The fifth grade finished their unit on circulation by doing a lab involving pulse-taking in a stationary position, a standing position, doing jumping jacks, and climbing two sets of stairs. They compared the pulses of both boys and girls to see if there were differences, and also compared the pulse rates of athletic versus non-athletic children. Nurse Mary visited their class and discussed the role of the lymphatic system and how it interacts with the circulatory system. Nurse Mary traced Mia Ciavola’s body on brown paper, and then labeled the positions of, as well as the names of, the major lymph glands. She explained what wonderful defenses our bodies have against invading bacteria and viruses.

Grade eight has been using both irregular and regular shaped objects to calculate their density. Once they understood that it was an object’s density that determined whether that object floated or sank in water, they then began constructing very sophisticated and colorful density columns. They have been given a picture of a five-layered density column in which various objects are suspended based upon their individual densities. The group with the most accurate column will win one of Mr. O’Connell’s famous prizes. (I wonder what that could be???)

Computer Lab

The children have been very busy in computer lab during November. Kindergarten began working with “Reader Rabbit Kindergarten”.  This software helps the children learn simple reading and math skills.  Grade 1 continues to learn to keyboarding.  They are very comfortable with home row.  We will now start working on different reaches for each key.  After each lesson the children continue to work on the website “Dance Mat”.  In December first grade will create a Christmas card in Publisher.  Mrs. O’Donnell will create a template and the children will add pictures and text.

          Grade 2 typed their final publishing about “A Special Day”.  Using the data from the M&M graphing they counted during Halloween they added the data to a pre-made graph made by Mrs. O’Donnell on Excel.  The children entered the labels and the data.  The graph would be created as they entered the data.  They could see how their graph was related to the graphing they did by hand in class with Mrs. Cunningham.  In Publisher the children created a sign.  The sign gave hints to “Their Favorite Room”.  Mrs. Cunningham will use the sign as part of their latest writing

assignment.

          Grades 4 and 5- 8 are working on Publisher projects that will be completed the first or second week of December.  Grade 4 is creating a State Brochure. They were assigned a state and they research things such as state capital, state governor, state symbols, flag, industry, agriculture, recreation and attractions, etc.  This information is being added to a six page brochure about the state.

          Grade 6 created a brochure for Ancient Egypt. They are studying Ancient Egypt in Social Studies.  They brochure invites someone to travel back in time to Ancient Egypt.  The brochure contains various topics such mummifying, etc.   Grade 7 created a brochure for the 13 colonies.  These assignments correlated with what the children are studying in Social Studies.  Grade 8 is studying the civil war and they created a Civil War Newsletters.

          Most student computer assignments are displayed in the hallways. In your in the building please take a look at how creative the children are.  All classes will create Christmas cards and Concert invitations in Publisher in December.

          Grade 5 is studying Explorers.  Mrs. Nichols and Mrs. O’Donnell created an assignment about Explorers.  Each child is assigned an Explorer to research. They research during library period.   They will create a Power Point Presentation to present to the class the week before. Grade 5 will create a Christmas card in Publisher in December and work on a Colonies brochure in January.

January will have the children creating Power Point presentations.  Grade 1 & 2 will create a presentation in Kid Pix.  Grades 3 – 8 will use Microsoft Power Point for various presentations.  Eighth grade will begin working on their Graduation Power Point presentation.  Each child will create a presentation of their schools year grades K-8.  The class will then work on one presentation that will be shown at the 8^th grade banquet in June.

¯Music Notes ¯

Recorder classes have learned five notes - G, A, B, C, and D.  This enables the children to play a variety of folk and popular songs from their book.  They are also beginning to play other songs which Dr. Pearlmutter is writing out for them.  With an additional note of low D, they are even learning to play "Immaculate Mary."   Classes are finalizing their song preparations for the Christmas show and teachers are adding additional supplements to the class songs, including other songs and poems.  The chorus is perfecting four attractive and meaningful songs which will be included in the show.  The program, "Let Heaven and Nature Sing," will be held on Tuesday evening, December 16 at 7:00 p.m. in the church.  A carol sing-along with conclude the program.

Upcoming Events ...

¶  December 10th—Advent Prayer Service @ 1:45pm

¶  December 16th—Christmas Concert ~ 7pm at St. Mary’s Church

¶  December 19th—Pre K Sing-a-long @ 9:30am

¶  December 19th—Children’s Holy Hour beginning at 5pm at SMS with Pizza

            followed by a candlelight procession to the church at 6pm for Holy Hour.

¶  Christmas Vacation ~ December 20th—January 4th, 2009

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