AACPS Cell Phone Policy

Students at Cape St. Claire and all AACPS elementary and middle schools must have their phones off or on silent mode and out of sight throughout the school day, including at lunch and in hallways during transitions between classes.

We would also like to encourage students' smart watches to be set to “school mode”, if possible. It is not required, but it would assist in our efforts.

Smartwatches should be in school mode and on silent mode during the school day. This includes riding to and from school on the bus.  If you need to deliver a message to your child, we ask that you call the school directly at 410-222-1685. Additionally, in the event of illness, our school health staff will contact parents and guardians. Please support optimal learning by reminding your students that texting during school hours on cell phones and smartwatches is prohibited. 

Thank you for your cooperation and partnership. 

Cape St. Claire Elementary Spirit Days

• March 13th: Dress like an animal or animal print

• April 10th: Super Hero Day

• May 8th: Mismatch Day

• June 12: Beach Day

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 School Year-To-Date Attendance (As of February 27th) 95.9%

PreK 96.2%

Kindergarten 95.2%

1st Grade 95.9%

2nd Grade 95.8%

3rd Grade 95.9%

4th Grade 95.8%

5th Grade 96.6%

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

Art:

Be on the lookout for Art To Remember fliers to come home during the first week of March! These fliers will let you know how you can access your child’s individual work of art and order a keepsake with their artwork printed on it! A portion of all proceeds will be returned to our art classroom to help cover the cost of supplies. Visit the link below to see all of the beautiful creations made by our students at CSCES!

https://arttoremember.com/artshow/44B27F

Mrs. Morris’ Art Classes:

PK - March Lions

K - Shape Landscapes

1 - Rousseau’s Jungles

2 - Geckos

3 - Origami Owls

4 - Pop Art Ring Pops

5 - Shibori Hand Stitched Pillows

Ms. Howe’s Art Classes:

K - Alma Thomas Paintings/Collages

1 - Gee’s Bend Shape Paper Quilts

2 - Keith Haring Winter Olympics

3 - Color Family Quilt Collages

4 - Emoji Agamograph

5 - Contour Line Self-Portraits

Mrs. Morris and Ms. Howe

Triple E: STEM

We are now solidly into third-quarter projects. See the chart below for the project title your student is working on. 

Pre-K - Habits of Mind (Pt 2)

K - Wind Systems

1 - Whirligigs

2 - Pinball Wizard

3 - Poplar Island Problem

4 - Rooted in Survival

5 - EcoAdvocates

We are also looking forward to STEAM Night on March 18th! Our 5th graders will have original Operation Games on display. 1st-grade students will have working whirligigs to showcase, and 2nd graders may have pinball games up and running. Join us at this awesome event to see the amazing creativity and engineering of our Cape students!

In the last quarter, 5th graders 3D printed the game pieces for their Operation games. You can check them out at STEAM Night! If you’d like to support our 3D printing projects, we’d love to receive donations of filament. Thank you so much to all of the parents who have purchased filament for us so far! 

Follow this link to check out what we’re looking for: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1IAR6HRB5UWOV?ref_=wl_share

Mrs. Bathras & Mrs. Shattuck

P.E.:

February was a great month in PE. Jump rope was our focus for the beginning of the month. The students learned a variety of skills with the short ropes and long ropes. In the middle of the month, all grades participated in a mini unit focusing on winter olympic themed activities. 

At the end of February, all students participated in heart-healthy activities to conclude our Kids Heart Challenge. By participating in the Kids Heart Challenge, our students learned how to keep their hearts, bodies, and brains healthy while helping kids with special hearts live longer, healthier lives. It's a fun and meaningful way for our students to learn lifelong habits of health and helping others, while supporting and earning rewards for our school. There was an optional fundraiser for the American Heart Association that was a part of the Kids Heart Challenge. As a school, we raised over $2,000 for the American Heart Association! Thank you to all of the families that supported this great cause. It typically takes 4-6 weeks for the thank-youThe  gifts to arrive at our school.

We are looking forward to a great month in March. Thank you for all of your support.

Mr. Gillette and Mrs. Venturella

Media: 

5th and 4th grade will be wrapping up our video projects. 

3rd grade will begin a debate project using digital media. 

Primary grades will utilize technology infused lessons as well as wrapping up some projects from second quarter.

Book Fair is here! The fair will be available March 2nd-6th. Be sure to look into eWallet for a convenient way for your child to spend at the fair.

Mrs. Crocker and Mrs. Smith

General Music:

PK, K, and 1st are working on melodic contour, long and short sounds, dynamics, rest, and steady beat to different tempos by singing, moving, and playing instruments.

Second-grade students will be going to Maryland Hall to watch a performance with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra on March 19th.

Second grade focuses on the four instrument families, notation, melodic contour through singing, moving, and playing instruments.

Third grade is performing songs on the soprano recorder with the notes B, A, and G by reading the treble clef and using the correct fingering.

Fourth grade is working on “Recorder Karate” and earning ribbons for each song they perform correctly. They are reading the treble clef notes while playing the recorder.

Fifth grade is focusing on reading and performing chords on the ukulele, and learning about different music styles and periods.

Ms. Harrison and Mrs. Rossell

Pre-Kindergarten

Hi Families! Happy March!

We are having so much fun with our Museum Unit in Pre-K! Coming up in March, we will share our collections from home with each other as we begin to make a classroom museum.

In Letters and Sounds, we are starting a new skill of changing the initial sound in a word to a new sound. For example, changing the /c/ in cat to an /h/ and we get hat! We are also continuing to learn our letters with the help of our class puppet, Lila Letter. In the past few weeks we have focused on K, U, I and J.

We have been busy building lots of patterns. We have been especially enjoying making patterns with clapping, which is something fun to try at home. (fast clap, slow clap, slow clap and repeat).

We will be learning more about castles, dragons, and fairytales in the second half of our unit. 

Ask your child about trapezoids and rhombuses, our two new latest shapes. We have also been learning about the special rhombus- a square!

Kindergarten

We are ready to March into springtime in Kindergarten!  Thank you for all of the parent support in working with your child at home.  Look for the permission slip for our next field trip to come home this month.  We are excited to go to the theatre in April. 

Language Arts: In Skills, we will be finishing up Unit 7 and Unit 8.  Unit 8 focuses on a lot of double letter spellings (ex. 'mm', 'nn').  Students will also start a new, decodable reader.  We continue to work on pointing while decoding text, reading tricky words effectively, reading phrases and sentences, and will also review rhyming words in this unit. Please continue to read and reinforce these skills at home. We also begin to work a lot more on writing.  In Knowledge, we will be finishing up our Kings and Queens unit with a fun celebration in the first week of March. Our next unit in Knowledge will be Seasons and Weather.  

Math:  We have just finished a unit on adding numbers and breaking down numbers up to 10.  Students have been drawing pictures, using objects, and writing equations to show different combinations that make 10.  Our next unit will focus on counting up to and combining 10 and "some more" to make numbers 11-15.  We will use counters, tens frames, pictures, and write equations to show how we can build or break apart these numbers.  You can have fun practicing at home with any small household items, snacks, or paper/crayons.  Counting out a group of objects from 11-15, then make 2 groups to show how you can break it apart with 10 and some more.  (IE.  10 + 3 = 13,  14 = 10 + 4.)  Please continue counting up to 100 without skipping over any numbers.

Science/Social Studies: During the beginning of March, we will be finishing up our Social Studies History Unit by talking about changes we see around us and why it's important to learn about how things change. Following this unit, we will spend time on our Sense of Wonder unit by talking about what it means to be inquisitive and how asking/answering questions helps us to learn new things.  We will then continue with our History Unit by comparing different objects, tools, toys, and technology from the past to the present. 

1st Grade

First grade students are ready to welcome spring in March and to continue their Top Dog Reader competition. Students have been aiming to read 100 or more books during the months of February and March. We are thrilled to see so many students excited to read! Please have your child turn in their reading logs by Tuesday, April 7th, 2026.

The first grade mathematicians will be adding within 100 during March. They will use mental math, place value blocks, number charts and number lines to solve equations using one and two digit numbers. 

During our science and social studies blocks we will be exploring the importance of sound and how we can create various sounds. Students will determine how sound travels, the relationship between volume and vibrations and how different sounds make them feel.

During our Knowledge block, students will continue to learn about astronomy and then we will begin our new unit, which is  about the history of the earth. Students will study the geographical features of the earth’s surface and learn about the inside of the earth and characteristics of its various layers. We will gain an understanding about the shape of the earth, the North and South Poles, and the equator. Students will discover how occurrences such as volcanoes and geysers give information about the layers of the earth. 

In Literacy Skills, we will continue to apply decoding strategies when reading one and two syllable words. Students will be expanding on their knowledge of letters and sounds by learning about spelling alternatives for consonant sounds (/ch/ spelled “ch” and “tch”). They will also be formally introduced to how to form plural endings by adding -s or -es. Students will begin a new decodable text called Kate’s Book. It follows a Navajo girl named Kate who has various adventures during her summer vacation and eventually writes a book about them. Students will then participate in the writing process by writing  a letter to Kate, expressing their personal opinion about their favorite parts of her book.

As we head into March, here are a few important reminders. As the weather allows, students will begin having outdoor recess again. Please be sure to send your child to school with a jacket appropriate for the daily weather conditions. 

First grade teachers are also asking that students do not bring toys to school. Toys can become a distraction during the school day and may also get lost or damaged. Teachers provide activities for indoor recess; however, if your child chooses to bring something for indoor recess time, please ensure it fits inside a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and can be stored in their locker until that time.

Finally, students use Chromebooks regularly in the classroom, so please check in with your child to make sure they have a working pair of headphones at school.

Thank you for your continued support and patience!

2nd Grade

March brings a lot of fun and learning in all subjects!  We also have our first field trip coming up this month!

In Knowledge, we will be wrapping up our unit, Westward Expansion. Next, they will move into the new unit, “Insects”. They will be introduced to the largest group of animals on Earth and learn the characteristics of insects.  They will look at their life cycles, how insects can be categorized as solitary or social, and how they are viewed as both harmful and helpful.

During Skills, we will begin our new unit. In unit 5, the students will be introduced to spelling alternatives for vowel sounds. They will start a new decodable book called “Sir Gus” and learn about the serendipitous undertakings of Sir Gus, one of King Alfred’s knights. Throughout the unit, they will practice narrative writing and rewriting the ending of a story.  

In the Math block, we will continue Unit 8 Money and Time, where students learn to count money and to tell and write time on an analog and digital clock to the nearest five minutes, while employing the skill of skip counting by 5s, 10s, and 25s.  Next, we will move into Unit 9, strategies to add 3-digit numbers. 

During Science, the students will begin the new unit, “We are storytellers”.  Students are going to investigate five different Native American Nations throughout the Storyteller Unit while focusing on the environment/habitat of different regions around the United States.

Looking forward to warmer weather and all the exciting activities ahead!

3rd Grade

The third graders continue to work hard and make wonderful progress! Everyone has shown flexibility and maintained a positive attitude despite the winter weather and illnesses that have come our way. Our Valentine’s Day parties were fantastic, and we are so grateful for the volunteers and generous donations that made them so special.

In literacy, we are wrapping up our astronomy unit. Students have learned many fascinating facts about our solar system and have been practicing how to take notes while reading informational texts. Next, we will begin learning about the early explorers of North America. Students will keep exploration logs for Christopher Columbus, Juan Ponce de León, and Hernando de Soto as they form an opinion about who they believe was the most successful explorer.

In math, we are learning about equivalent fractions before returning to division. Students will use fact families to strengthen their understanding of the relationship between multiplication and division. Please continue practicing multiplication facts at home.

In science, we are studying animal adaptations and group behaviors. In social studies, students are learning how to interpret evidence and use it to make thoughtful claims about the past.

We truly appreciate the continued support you provide at home—it makes a meaningful difference in your child’s growth and success!

4th Grade

Math  

In Unit 10, students will be adding and subtracting mixed numbers. In Unit 11, students will use visual fraction models to multiply whole numbers by unit fractions and non-unit fractions. Students will solve word problems involving the multiplication of a fraction and a whole number. In Unit 12, students will begin by exploring and adding fractions with denominators of 10 and 100. Students will rewrite fractions with denominators of 10 and 100 using decimal notation, and then compare two decimals using visual models and by reasoning about their size.

Resources:

Math Unit Letters are linked below:

Unit 9 Family Letter

Unit 10 Family Letter

Unit 11 Family Letter

Social Studies 

Fourth grade will continue their exploration into the American Revolution, which will continue the rest of the school year.  In March, our focus will be on the Declaration of Independence.  A fantastic family field trip opportunity exists just a few hops away in D.C. - the original Declaration of Independence is displayed in the National Archives museum.

Science 

In science, we are learning about Energy. We will be completing lessons on electricity in which the students will connect a circuit and figure out how to make a buzzer and switch work. Then we will be working on the impact energy has when two objects collide. 

CKLA  (Core Knowledge Language Arts)

We will begin Unit 7, which encompasses the causes, major figures, and consequences of the American Revolution, as well as what significant ideas and values were at the heart of the revolution.

Resources:

CKLA Unit Letter is linked below:

Unit 7 Family Letter

5th Grade

Hello 5th Grade Families,

Thank you for all of your support this winter as we have navigated snow days, delays, and virtual learning! We appreciate everyone’s flexibility and patience. We are looking forward to more outdoor recesses and exciting events coming up for 5th grade as we finish up third quarter, so please be sure you are checking the weekly folder that comes home and regularly monitoring Canvas and Rooms for important messages from the school. If you are hoping to chaperone for an upcoming field trip, you will need to have a fingerprint supported background check completed through AACPS (call 410-222-5045 to make an appointment). Please do this ASAP if you are planning to volunteer for any upcoming field trips so that you are cleared in time. Expect field trip permission slips to begin coming home this month for our trips in April and May!

Our spring assessments are coming up for 5th grade. Your students will take the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment (MISA) on March 2, 3, 4, and 6. The Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) for Math and Reading/Writing will occur in April and May. To best set your students up for success on these assessments, please ensure they are arriving to school on time feeling well-rested and having been fed.

See below for updates about what we are learning this month:

Math:

This month, we will complete Unit 10 on fraction multiplication. Students will build on prior knowledge and make use of manipulatives and a variety of problem-solving strategies in order to develop a strong understanding of this skill. Please continue to encourage your student to complete their assigned homework or an i-Ready Math lesson each night.

Science/Social Studies:

Students will continue to explore matter this month in Science. They will investigate properties of matter, conservation of matter, and learn more about mixtures and solutions. Students will also take MISA this month, which will assess their understanding of Science concepts learned about in grades 3-5 (testing on March 2, 3, 4, and 6). In Social Studies, we will wrap-up Theme 3: The Challenges of American Economic, Political, and Civic Life. This unit explores American history from 1865-1910, with a focus on Maryland during this time period.  

Knowledge:

This month, we will finish our unit on William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The kids have been enjoying the content and nature of this unique unit so far and will have a field trip in mid-April to see this show performed. In mid-March, we will transition into our next unit on Native Americans, where students will learn more about how Native Americans were intricately connected to their landscape as well as how Native American cultures and their relationship with the land were shaped by policies and events in America during the 1800s. Please continue to encourage students to complete their homework each night- it will continue to vary, with the assignment being either reading for 20 minutes or completing a take-home page from the curriculum.  

Thank you, families, for your continued support at home!

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!

Upcoming Important Dates

Tuesday, March 17, 2-hour early dismissal  Project Unity Day

Friday, March 20, Schools & Central Offices closed, Eid al-Fitr

Friday, March 27, Schools closed for all students, Teacher work day

Monday, March 30 - Monday, April 6, Schools & Central Offices closed, Easter/Spring Break

School Hours

8:00 am to 2:25 pm Doors open at 7:45 am

931 Blue Ridge Drive Annapolis, MD 21409

Phone: 410-222-1685

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