The Cape St. Claire Gazette

Dear Cape St. Claire Families,

As we wrap up an incredible school year, I want to take a moment to thank you for your unwavering support, partnership, and involvement. Together, we’ve created a positive and enriching environment where our students have grown academically, socially, and emotionally. Your encouragement at home and engagement in school life have made a lasting impact—thank you!

As we reflect on the year and begin planning for the next, we would greatly appreciate your feedback on our math and reading programs. Your input helps us continue to grow and better serve our students. Please take a few minutes to complete our short survey by scanning the QR code below.

Finally, we wish you and your family a fun, relaxing, and safe summer! Enjoy this time to recharge, explore, and make special memories together. We look forward to welcoming everyone back in the fall for another exciting year of learning and growth.

With gratitude,

Tamara Kelly- Molock- Principal
Rochelle Barrett- Assistant Principal

The School Counselor’s Corner

Dear Families,

As we wrap up another wonderful school year, I want to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude for your support and partnership. It's been a joy to watch your children grow, learn, and thrive.

Summer is a time for rest, exploration, and fun. While it's important to take a break, it's also a great opportunity to continue nurturing our minds and hearts. Here are a few simple ways to keep the spirit of learning alive:

• Read Together: Pick out some fun books and read together. Reading not only strengthens skills but also sparks imagination and curiosity. Try taking turns reading a book out loud while on car trips.

• Stay Active: Whether it's playing outside, going for a walk, or trying a new sport, staying active helps keep our bodies and minds healthy.

• Express Yourself: Journaling, drawing, or talking about your day can help process feelings and maintain emotional well-being.

• Be Kind: Acts of kindness, big or small, make the world a brighter place.

Remember, summer is a time to recharge and enjoy life's simple pleasures. I look forward to seeing all the wonderful things your child will bring back to school in the fall.

Wishing you a joyful, restful, and safe summer!

~Mrs. Bachman, School Counselor

PBIS: Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports

We are off to a great start this school year! Students are excited about our Soaring Seagull of the Day initiative. It is great to see the smiling, proud faces of the students who earn them daily.

Children can earn individual recognition with a seagull feather for following the school rules. Classrooms can earn pompoms for their Class Respect Jar and group recognition. Classroom celebrations are occurring, and students remain excited about them. Our quarterly event will occur early next month; it is an extra recess, which is always a favorite event with our students.

The PBIS committee also oversees spirit days. We will have spirit days on the second Friday of every month. Here is a list of the spirit days for this school year!

· June 13th: Beach Day

We are excited to promote school spirit and positive behaviors through our PBIS program. Cape St. Claire is truly #TheFlockThatRocks!

Did you know that as many as one in three students in the country miss 10%, or about 18 days, of the school year? Let's work together to make sure all kids show up and participate every day possible. Being in school supports students' social, emotional, and physical well-being and provides students with opportunities to learn and reach for their dreams. Let's show up together and make daily attendance a habit.

Cape St. Claire Overall Year-To-Date Attendance (As of May 30, 2025) 95.5%

PreK 93.9%

Kindergarten 95.5%

1st Grade 95.4%

2nd Grade 95.2%

3rd Grade 95.7%

4th Grade 96.3%

5th Grade 95%

Parents and Guardians—If your student is late to school, please have them bring a note explaining their absence to the office. This can be from you or their medical professional if they were tardy due to an appointment. When they are absent, please submit an electronic attendance note through the Parent Portal, or you can write one.

Cultural Arts

Triple E: Global Studies

In the last few days of school we are wrapping up projects and reflecting on our learning in all grade levels. We are also excited to share that next year our class will shift from Triple E: Global Studies to Triple E: STEM. This simply means that we will be teaching STEM focused projects throughout all the grades. We look forward to seeing everyone again in August!

Mrs. Bathras and Mrs. Shattuck

tmbathras@aacps.org jshattuck@aacps.org 

Music:

The chorus, band, and string students did a great job at the spring concert. 

For the last two weeks in music students in PK through 5th will be wrapping up by reviewing the music concepts learned throughout the year. I am looking forward to seeing the students in August for more adventures in music. 

Ms. Harrison and Mrs. Abbott

Media: 

As we wind down this school year, we will begin talking about the Public Library's Summer Reading Program. Primary grades will continue our grade-level projects. Intermediate grades will be learning about how to care for local and ocean waters. We would appreciate any bottle caps and plastic recyclables for an upcoming project. Donations can be dropped off to the media center. Students will also utilize map skills on Google Earth for a dream vacation.

Mrs. Crocker and Mrs. Smith

Art:

Mrs. Morris’ Art Classes:

PK - Above and Below Gardens

K - Snorkel Portraits

1 - Roller Coaster Sculptures

2 - Spring Textured Animals

3 - Action Painted Llamas

4 - Coil Pots/ Koi Fish

5 - Clay Boomboxes

Ms. Howe’s Art Classes:

K - Transportation

1 - Kandinsky Inspired Music and Art

2 - Insect Sculptures

3 - Paper Sculpture Chameleons

4 - Clay Coil Pots

Mrs. Morris and Ms. Howe

P.E.:

Our field day event was a success! Thank you to all of the parent volunteers for their support during the event. It would not have been possible without your help.

It’s hard to believe that this school year is finishing up. We hope the students learned some new skills/concepts in order to have a healthy and active life. Best of luck to our current 5th graders as they move on to middle school next year. 

We hope everyone enjoys their summer break, and we look forward to seeing you next year. Thank you for your support!

Sincerely, 

Mr. Gillette and Mrs. Venturella

Pre-Kindergarten

June will be a month of review in Pre-K. This two-week unit entitled, “How We’ve Grown” offers children an opportunity to look back over the year and recognize how much they have grown, changed and developed. We will revisit some of our favorite books, games and activities and look forward to what comes next- Kindergarten! Our culminating activity will be a class book called, “What We Have Learned”. Everyone will contribute a page, and we will read this book together on the last day of class.

Kindergarten

Wow! What a wonderful year of fun and learning we have had in Kindergarten! Thank you for all of the support from our wonderful families. The end of the year has a lot of engaging activities to help kindergarteners review math and reading skills. We look forward to seeing you at the picnic.  Remember our field trip to Down’s Park is on Tuesday, June 3rd! Please keep working with your child over the summer to practice tricky words, continue reading, and practice addition and subtraction. Have a great summer!

1st Grade

It’s hard to believe the school year is coming to a close! Our first graders have grown so much academically, socially, and emotionally. They have blossomed into curious, confident learners ready for new adventures in second grade. We’re so proud of everything they’ve accomplished this year. Thank you, families, for your continued support and encouragement! 

This month, we’re exploring the lives of frontier explorers—brave individuals who helped shape our history! We'll read both fiction and nonfiction texts and practice responding to reading through writing. In spelling and phonics, we’re focusing on vowel teams: ai, ay, and oa. In grammar and writing, we’re working on: Using conjunctions (like and, but, because); Placing commas correctly in dates and lists; Checking for noun-verb agreement in sentences.

We're also finishing the book: Kay and Martez—a fun and meaningful read! Our writing focus includes writing instructional pieces, opinion writing, and sharing thoughts and supporting them with reasons.

In math, we’re learning about equal shares—dividing shapes and groups into fair, equal parts. We’re using hands-on activities to explore halves and fourths in a fun, engaging way.

We’re diving into a new unit on inventors and inventions! We’ll discover how creativity and problem-solving have helped people overcome everyday challenges. Your child will learn about real-world inventors and even brainstorm their invention ideas!

It’s amazing to see how far our first graders have come! They are confident readers, thoughtful writers, and curious thinkers. Let’s finish strong and keep the joy of learning going right into summer. Thank you for all you do to support your child’s growth—let’s make these last few weeks count!

2nd Grade

As we approach our final month of second grade, we will be learning about a lot of different topics to prepare for 3rd grade.  

In Knowledge, we will continue in Unit 11, Immigration, where we will learn about the United States being a country of immigrants.  Students will learn the biggest wave of immigration to the United States, which occurred between 1880 and 1920.  They will also learn why immigrants settled in particular cities and regions upon arrival.  Students will practice collecting and synthesizing by using note-taking tools such as charts and graphic organizers.  

In the Skills block, we will continue in our final unit, Unit 6, where students will apply all they have learned with grammar and spelling. We will focus on tricky spellings that are now a part of a spelling pattern we have discussed in prior units. We will continue reading in our decodable book called The War of 1812.  We will revisit what we have learned in our Knowledge unit and discuss many important vocabulary words to help us decode those words and understand their meaning. The students will be introduced to expository writing or report writing towards the end of the unit. 

During Math, we will continue in Unit 12: Geometric Shapes and Equal Shares. Students will classify shapes according to their attributes. This unit will help develop early fraction language for their work in Grade 3 and partition rectangles into rows and columns of equal-sized squares. This work is also foundational for developing multiplication and area concepts in Grade 3. We will also take our i-Ready Math final diagnostic during this month.

Lastly, in Science and Social Studies, the students will focus on the unit Fighting for a Cause, where we will learn about four ordinary people who stood up for what they believed in and who fought for a cause, even when faced with immeasurable odds. Students will learn how members of very powerful groups have often excluded members of other groups from exercising certain rights. We will write free verse poetry in which students will express their opinions.

We are looking forward to our class picnics coming up in the last weeks of school so we can celebrate the end of the school year and spend time together!

3rd Grade

It is hard to believe that we are down to only a few more weeks of school!  We have had a wonderful time getting to know you and your children this year, and we will certainly miss them when they move on to 4th grade!  The students worked very hard over the last couple of weeks to complete MCAP testing and show everything they learned this year.  We are so proud of them!

We are almost finished with our study of Colonial America in reading.  The students have enjoyed learning about how our country was founded and the background behind many of our state, city, and town names.  We will finish the year with a unit about ecology and how to protect our environment.  Students will also complete one more I-Ready reading diagnostic in June. 

We will end the year in math with a study of geometry.  Students will describe and analyze two-dimensional shapes, as well as draw shapes with specific attributes. They will also complete one more I-Ready math diagnostic in June.

We have almost completed our social studies lessons for the year and will turn our attention to science for the last couple of weeks.  Students will explore the concepts of air resistance, drag, momentum, etc., to engineer and test parachutes with various canopy shapes, suspension lines, and cargo.  We are hoping to have good weather so that we can spend a lot of time outside testing and refining our parachutes!

We hope that you have an amazing and restful summer break!  To prepare for fourth grade, please have your child read (or be read to) as much as possible this summer.  We also encourage practicing basic math facts (multiplication, addition, and subtraction) within 1,000 to improve fluency and accuracy.  

4th Grade

Math  

We will continue Unit 14, Geometric Figures. In this unit, the students will build on and formalize their understanding of geometric figures (points, lines, line segments, rays, angles) and shapes. Students will describe key features of 2D figures and use these key features to classify them in more complex ways. Students will use geometric vocabulary to describe lines of symmetry in 2D figures. 

Resources:

Unit 14 Family Letter

Social Studies 

We’ll dive into the Articles of Confederation and early American government.  As with our other topics this year, the curriculum includes various perspectives to discover how the Articles affected different groups of people.

Science 

The last science unit is often a favorite! We’re studying the engineering design process by designing and testing tsunami-proof houses.  We’ll study real-life examples of tsunami design, use a budget to choose materials, design a scale model prototype, and finally test how our designs fare in a “tsunami.”

CKLA  (Core Knowledge Language Arts)

Students will begin Unit 4, “Eureka, Student Inventor.” They will read a range of informational texts about inventors and  inventions. In addition to the readings, students analyze objects and situations in the world around them, identify problems, and create evidence-based solutions.  Students will write informational and opinion pieces.  

Resources:

Unit 4 Family Letter

5th Grade

Wow, June is already here.  The school year certainly flew by.  We would like to thank all that made our Six Flags field trip a success.  The little bit of rain we got didn’t dampen the fun our fifth graders had.  Many things are happening as we move closer to the end of the year.  First, our class picnic is scheduled for June 10th from 12:40 to 1:35. Our wonderful 5th grade PTO has organized a snowball truck for us and some fun games we can play during this time.  We will meet in the area under the trees directly outside our classrooms.  This should provide plenty of room and some shade in case the day is hot.  More information will be sent out closer to that date including what to expect if it rains.  Also, 5th Grade Promotion is scheduled for June 12th beginning at 2:30. This is a half day, so students will leave during the scheduled time for dismissal and will return to participate in the promotion.  We will prepare students so they will know what to expect.  There will be a limit on the number of people able to attend of four for each student.   As the school year winds down, please have a conversation about what expected behaviors in school look like.  Please remind students to remember the 4 Rs to help them navigate the remainder of the school year in a respectable and responsible way so they can obtain as much from their education as possible.  This will enable students to have a successful end to the school year while also preparing them for middle school.    Remember to utilize First in Math, which is available on the class links page until the end of July.  We highly suggest that students who have not mastered their multiplication facts practice this.  First in Math is a great site to help students with this.  Thank you for all your support this year.  Have a safe and wonderful summer. 

Cape Families - Please keep in mind that domestic pets, such as dogs and cats, are not permitted on school grounds. Thank you for working with us to keep all students safe!

When visiting the school, please remember to bring your government issued photo ID