March 20, 2020
Dear Saint Paul School Community,

I am overwhelmed with the messages of support and pictures from all of you....keep them coming. I am doing my best to respond to each and every one but if I miss you please know I greatly appreciate seeing those smiling faces and kind words. 

I will continue with my daily emails home and we will be transitioning our Friday newsletter to Wednesday. There may be less content from me but we want you to have all of the other special happenings at Saint Paul School.

It looks to be a nice weekend so take some time to go outside! As I said this morning, I am looking forward to returning to my running regimen! 

Sincerely,
Principal
DAILY PRAYERS
Our teachers and staff are sharing thoughtful prayers and reflections via our social media sites to start our school days. We look forward to sharing with you and welcome your sharing as well.

In addition to these, a few of our instructors wanted to share the opportunity to pray a novena. 
NOVENA  is a form of worship consisting of special prayers or services on nine successive days.

Below is a copy of a Novena Prayer for the end to the current situation. This can be recited for nine consecutive days together with your family. Another online resource and prayers can be located by clicking on:  The Coronavirus Novena

IDEAS FOR HOME LEARNING
from our Academic Excellence and Support Center
and Ms. Amy Barnes
STEM IDEAS FOR HOME LEARNING

Play Dough Recipe
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 cups water
4 tablespoons coconut oil 
4 tablespoons cream of tartar  


Families/Moms and Dads- Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and cook over low heat. Stir frequently to avoid it sticking or burning. When it looks like playdough, it’s done! 
Store in airtight container. You can keep it in the fridge, it lasts for months! 

MATH
  • Meal Prep- help your families measure out ingredients for meal time.  
  • Floor Plan- Make a floor plan of your room and draw items to scale.  
  • Grocery Shopping Planning- help your family with grocery shopping by determining the budget and select items without going over.  
  • Practice math facts! math-drills.com 

OUTDOOR ADVENTURES 
  • Play Basketball- measure how many baskets you make out of 10- calculate your percentage accuracy!  
  • Nature Journaling- write about what you see, feel, hear outside.  
  • Photography- take pictures of birds, animals, insects, flowers, plants 

SCIENCE

ENGINEERING  
  • Build a Lego Sculpture 
  • Play Dough Sculptures 
READING SUPPORT FOR HOME LEARNING
Grades K-8 

When choosing a book - if a child cannot decode 5 or more words on a page- the book is too challenging for them.  

To practice fluency and expression - have your child read out loud and become the character.  Have them change their voice to match the character(s).  

Students should be reading 20 minutes or more a day, either with a parent or independently- to support reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary growth.  Have your child keep a log of what they have been reading. They can also keep a book journal. This will continue their writing skills and reinforce the comprehension skill.   

D.E.A.R Family Time (Drop Everything and READ!)  All members in the family- turn off all electronics and pick up a piece of literacy- book, magazine, newspaper, the Bible!  

Here is a list of reading comprehension questions for independent reading support.  
What was the main idea of the story?
Who were the characters? 
What was the setting? 
Tell me the details of the characters/setting.  
Is the story fiction or nonfiction? 
Make a general statement of you thoughts of the book.  
Compare/Contrast characters/settings
What was the problem/solution? 
Sequence of events.  

PHONICS  
  • Review letter names/sounds with your child
  • For students in grades 2 & 3 have your child tell you some decoding rules they have learned this year for decoding/encoding a word.  Example- blends, vowel teams, digraphs, open syllable, closed syllable 
  • Put on a spelling bee- review all of their spelling words from the year/or use the Dolch sight words from their grade.  https://sightwords.com/sight-words/dolch/  

Reading Websites for kids to practice their reading strategies 

Practice reading strategies- www.readingecb.org     

www.suessville.com   Dr.Seuss Games!  

ABC Ya! www.abcya.com  

www.funbrain.com (Math and Reading Games) 





Read, Write, Think and Reading Rockets - Resources for both teachers and parents  


IMPRESSIVE SCHOOLWORK
Grade 6
Grade 6 is reading Counting by 7s .
Mrs. Clark shared this great picture drawn by Zach Heidenreich. This is Zach's depiction of a memorable scene from this novel.
Grade 3
Here is an extension activity completed by Zach Anderson in Grade 3. He read and responded to a Scholastic News article online about animal adaptations and then even added an illustration of his invention. Awesome work Zach!

"The invention I would make would be a multiple armed backpack. The animal that I got my idea from would be an octopus and the backpack would have eight arms like an octopus. People would buy it because if they had a lot of things to do, they could use the OCTOPACK. You can have eight arms doing eight different things at the same time. You could type on a computer, brush your teeth, and brush your hair and play basketball, play with legos, pet your dog, paint a picture, and make your lunch all at the same time."   


PRINCIPAL'S CHALLENGE
During this time away from school, it is important for all of us to balance our body and mind. 
Each day Principal Fasano is challenging our students to take a break from their learning and see how many of her favorite childhood activities they can complete!
Below is a Principal Challenge Calendar with activities for all ages - what can you complete these next three weeks?
STORYTIME
Mrs. Mrs. Montgomery is so happy to share that she will be reading a book a day and uploading to the SPS digital classroom! We'll also be posting as many of these on our Facebook page.
Enjoy this break time and some of her favorite stories!
ADMISSIONS UPDATE

Saint Paul School will continue to process applications, render admissions decisions and respond to any inquiries.

During this time of school closure, tours will be postponed. We will plan to conduct screenings and Imagine Days for all prospective PS – Grade 8 applicants upon our return to school.  

We welcome you to contact us with interest and any inquiries by calling: (781) 749-2407 or email the Director of Enrollment, Jean Schnorr, at  jschnorr@spshingham.org
The Saint Paul School Gala & Auction has been rescheduled to next Fall:
Friday, October 16, 2020 

We are so grateful for the generous sponsors and donors supporting this event and those who have purchased tickets.  Our Gala Committee will be reaching out to you to confirm your interest in sustaining your support in this way and celebrating with us this Fall.  

If you have any questions, please call our Main Office at 781.749.2407
LEARNING IS FUN!
Keep sharing these great ideas and images of our students and families 
making the most of learning opportunities at home! 
Science Experiments!
Making Our Neighbors Smile!
Baking!
For more resources, ideas and school updates from Saint Paul School, watch us on: