District Updates
•Over the summer science teachers Cristina Caruso and Gabby Strasser ran a program on Climate Change Resilience in Chelsea. Rising fifth graders in the program learned about how climate change impacts the city and focused on the heat island effect that drastically impacts the temperature in urban areas. During the two-week program, students took a trip around Chelsea to observe the impacts of heat on the city, took a trip to The Greenway in Boston to see how green space is being used to in surrounding cites to mitigate heat, read parts of ‘It’s Your World’ by Chelsea Clinton and ‘What is Climate Change’ by Gail Herman, and they developed projects designed to educate others on ways to increase climate change resiliency in Chelsea. Afterwards some of the students presented their projects to their peers and to parents and staff at the Back to School Celebration.
Berkowitz School
•The Berkowitz School had a great opening two weeks. On Friday, it held the first school-wide assembly. Students learned about core values of Respect, Responsibility, Empathy, and Determination. Ms. Malik, Ms. Kelleher, and their students helped teach how parts of the brain do different things. They also led the first school-wide “mindful moment.” Lastly, students learned about the online store where they can design their own Berkowitz School apparel. The store can be found at BerkowitzSpiritWear.com
Hooks School
•The Hooks School had super-motivated 4th Graders who rocked summer reading. Teachers look forward to seeing them continue to flourish this year.
Kelly School
•Our 2nd grade team gives kids a choice of how they want to be greeted each morning. Ms. Gilligan’s students let her know if they’d like to start the day with a hug, high-five, fist-bump, handshake, or a friendly “hello.”
•Students and teachers have quickly dove right into reading: Ms. Madden’s 2nd graders got into “read to self” time with a twist: They each get to whisper-read with a small stuffed animal that’s eager to listen.
•Fourth-grade teachers invited Kelly scholars to “dine” on some new “flavors” of books by hosting a Book Tasting Event the first week of school. Students “tasted” books from a variety of different genres and made a list of titles, series, and genres they’d like to devour more of.
Clark Avenue Middle
•CAMS welcomed families back to school with the annual Potluck dinner. It was great to see familiar faces and welcome new families. Also, Mr. Thomas introduced fifth graders to the many instruments they can learn this year in music.
Wright Middle School
5th Grade artists at WSTA got their hands messy this week in art class with some paste painting fun.