The Cape St. Claire Gazette

Dear Cape St. Claire Families,

Happy October! We are off to a wonderful start this school year, and I want to thank you for helping to make the first month such a success. Your partnership and support have already set a positive tone for the months ahead. It has been wonderful to see students engaged in learning in new and exciting ways.

We are excited to share that our school fundraiser will kick off on October 1st!  Raise Craze is an exciting spin on fundraising. Families and friends pledge monetary donations through the online platform. In exchange, our Seagulls will commit to performing acts of kindness for friends, family, and the community.  Raise Craze is awesome because it is connected to our continual focus on celebrating and encouraging acts of kindness. Even the smallest kind gesture can make a big difference in our school and community. We look forward to seeing the creative ways our students spread kindness throughout the month and the funds that will be raised to benefit our school and students. 

Later in October, we will hold our annual Halloween parade and parties. Specific details and schedules will be shared as we get closer to the date, so families can plan accordingly. Look for the information within the next two weeks. 

Thank you once again for helping us begin the year on such a strong note. Together, we are building a school community where every child feels supported, valued, and ready to grow.

Educationally Yours,

Tamara Kelly-Molock-Principal
Rochelle Barrett- Assistant Principal

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new Community Resources Landing Page, designed to support AACPS students and their families. This centralized webpage provides easy access to local and school-based services, including food assistance, housing support, mental health resources, and more. The page is organized by category and is available in multiple languages to ensure accessibility for all families. Community Resources Page

The School Counselor’s Corner

Food Drive:

The food drive has started! If every student brings in one can, we will have over 600 pounds of food! Please send in non-perishable food items by October 31. Please, no glass jars. 

Counseling Lessons:

My counseling lessons in October focus on Healthy Relationships (friendships) and Bullying Prevention. 

Kindergarteners will learn about being a good friend.

First Grade will learn how to use a “Bug and a Wish” to talk to someone who is bothering them.  It bugs me when you _______, I wish you would _______.  Example: It bugs me when you take my ball, I wish we could both play with it.

Second Grade will discuss standing tall when someone bothers you.  They will learn about how being mean can hurt someone else’s heart.  We will practice a Bug and a Wish and learn about “I” Messages.  I feel __________ when you _________ because _____________ I want _________.

Third Grade will discuss bystanders and practice things that bystanders can do to become upstanders, like taking the victim away from the situation, standing up to the bully, and telling a trusted adult.  We practiced new strategies called “Thank you!” and “Huh? What?”

Fourth Grade is investigating how to make an apology that is sincere.

Fifth grade will explore options for Middle School and bully prevention.

This link is to the Magnet School Information page.  If you want your child to apply, all the information is there. https://www.aacps.org/page/magnet-programs Here is a link to the Magnet School information nights. Information Night  

Volunteering:

Do you want to volunteer at Cape St. Claire? We have lots of opportunities for you to help in the building and at special events!  We need regular volunteers in the Media Center to help students learn sight words and math facts, and we need field trip chaperones!  All volunteers must have a background check and have attended our volunteer orientation.  We received a recent update from School Security, and they are now requiring that the volunteer orientation be completed every year.  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UI5_uJK03HdI1eAzzNLjuJRX_Hhb_xdmJnhjeMqPLng/edit?usp=sharing

If you would like me to make an appointment with me for your child, please let me know by calling me at 410-222-1685 or emailing me at hbachman@aacps.org.  Feel free to contact me about any social, emotional, or academic concerns you have for your student. 

~ Mrs. Bachman School Counselor

Welcome to a New School Year, Cape Families!

We are excited to begin another school year and look forward to many opportunities for parent and community involvement. As a reminder, all volunteers at AACPS schools are required to complete the annual Volunteer Orientation.

Please use the link below to access the orientation materials. After reviewing the slide deck and watching the Sexual Harassment and Child Abuse Training for Volunteers video, be sure to return to the slide deck to access the Google Form. Completing this form confirms your understanding of the training and video content.

If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to contact me. If you do not have access to a device to complete the orientation, you are welcome to visit the school building, where we will be happy to help.

We appreciate your support and look forward to a great year ahead!

~ Mrs. Bachman 

Cape St. Claire Volunteer Orientation 2025-26

Cape St. Claire Elementary Spirit Days!

• October 10th: Sports Day

• November 14th: Silly Sock Day

• December 12th: Wacky Sweater Day

• January 5th: Pajama Day

• February 13th: Wear Red, Pink, or Purple

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

• April 10th: Super Hero Day

• May 8th: Mismatch Day

• June 12: Beach Day

PBIS: Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports

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 September 25, 2025) 97.2%

PreK 100%

Kindergarten 97.1%

1st Grade 97.0%

2nd Grade 97.5%

3rd Grade 96.3%

4th Grade 96.9%

5th Grade 97.7%

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:

Intermediate art students have been exploring the power and possibilities of teamwork through creating a collaborative mural. We have also constructed sketchbooks that will remain in the art room for the duration of the year. These sketchbooks will serve as a place to plan and reflect on the creative challenges within our units of study.

As we move into October, intermediate students will begin diving into independent projects that explore the elements of art and principles of design. Primary students have already started their own independent projects, focusing on the foundational elements of line, shape, and color.

While exploring the art room, students are also practicing studio expectations and learning how to properly use and care for a variety of materials.

Mrs. Morris and Ms. Howe

Triple E: STEM

Our young engineers are off to an exciting start in our new Triple E: STEM classrooms! So far, they’ve learned all about the Engineering Design Process while building with Legos and have started work on our first projects of the year. If you’d like to learn more about our program, you can follow this link: https://www.aacps.org/page/college-and-career-readiness 

Current STEM Projects:

Pre-K, Habits of Mind (Pt 1)

K, Saving Norman

1, Senses in Nature

2, Playground Access

3, Zoo Habitats

4, Animal Bionics

5, Fair Flight

Our STEM classroom has received a grant to purchase a 3D printer from The Education Foundation of Anne Arundel County Public Schools! If you’d like to support our 3D printing projects, we’d love to receive donations of filament. Follow this link to check out what we’re looking for: Filament

Mrs. Bathras & Mrs. Shattuck

P.E.:

It was a fast-paced start to the school year in PE. All grades began the school year focusing on moving safely. Then, grades 3 - 5 completed a unit on soccer skills, while grades PK - 2nd focused on locomotor skills (walking, running, galloping, skipping, sliding, jumping, and hopping).

Please be mindful of what days your child has PE to ensure that they are wearing athletic shoes. Thank you for your support, and we are looking forward to another great month in October!

Mr. Gillette and Mrs. Venturella

Media: 

In the month of September, students became familiar with our new library center layout and routines. We have reviewed book care, our sections, and new bins in the center, as well as call numbers to locate books. As we move into October, students will focus on literature appreciation, inquiry, and digital citizenship. 

Mrs. Crocker and Mrs. Smith

General Music:

The students are having fun singing, playing instruments, and moving to music. Primary students are working on steady beats, simple rhythms, and high and low sounds. Intermediate students are working on rhythm patterns, note and rest names, and treble clef line and space note names. Fourth graders will be preparing for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra field trip on October 30th by discussing concert etiquette while watching a live performance and listening to/analyzing the music they will hear at the program. 

Ms. Harrison and Mrs. Rossell

Pre-Kindergarten

In Pre-K, we have been working hard to learn the school's routines. We continue to practice social skills and to study the 5 senses. As we enter October, we plan to learn about various environments, including those close to home and others less familiar, such as a coral reef.  We will learn about plants, animals, resources, and how to protect them.  We will count objects and compare/contrast shapes. We also plan to do lots of rhyming and listen for the beginning sounds of words.

Kindergarten

Our first month of school flew by! Kindergarteners are busy learning the rules, routines, and expectations for school.  Please make sure to send a daily snack with your child and check your child’s blue folder every day!

• Reading: In our skills units, we will be finishing up Unit 2 and starting Unit 3. Students will continue practicing blending sounds into words. In Unit 3, they will start to learn some letter sounds.  At this point, we do not focus on the name of the letter, but rather on how to connect the sound with the shape of the lowercase letter.  They will also practice the correct way to write the sound they hear. In Knowledge, we will be finishing up with Unit 2 and starting Unit 3: Stories.  They will identify story elements, including characters, setting, and plot, while retelling the main events of the story. They will also sequence the beginning, middle, and end of stories. 

• Math:  We have been discussing how math is all around us and looking for different places we see and use math every day.  Our new unit will focus on counting and representing numbers with groups of objects up to 10.   When you are at home or in the community, look for numbers, shapes, and groups of things to count and compare.  They are everywhere!

• Science/SS:  In science, we are starting Unit 2. In this unit, we will learn about the needs and parts of plants, and how they grow. Following this unit, we will move on to Social Studies Unit 3 Freedom (civics). In this unit, we will talk about words, such as compromise and democracy. We will learn how to be good citizens by taking turns and sharing. We will also learn how good citizens share ideas and make decisions that help everyone.

1st Grade

Our first graders had a fabulous first month of school! 

During October, our readers will be learning about body systems as well as different organs that are part of the body and the jobs they do. They will dive into informational writing and will learn to identify important information from texts. Students will also be introduced to themes in fairy tales and folktales through stories from different lands or countries. They will develop a strong foundation to understand and enjoy similar stories from different lands. As students listen to stories, they will also increase their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills.

First graders will enhance their letter and sound identification skills while working on segmenting and blending sounds to read and write words. They will study words with long vowels and identify proper and common nouns. 

During social studies and science, students will identify elements of the four seasons and determine how weather impacts the world. Students will discuss how their environment affects their lives and how they can protect their environment. As mathematicians, students are going to be exploring place value, comparing numbers, and adding two numbers within 20. 

We are looking forward to an exciting year!

2nd Grade

In second grade, the students will have a lot of fun and learning during the month of October.  

During the Knowledge Block, students will learn about the early civilizations in India and China, and how they were able to form due to the presence of mighty rivers.  We will be reinforcing the content through the informational/explanatory writing genre.  

During the Skills Block, students will continue to review spellings, practice reading one- and two-syllable words, and learn new tricky words.  We will begin contractions and provide their non-contracted equivalents. The new decodable for this unit is called “Bedtime Tales” and we will learn the use of quotation marks as we see them in the stories.  Lastly, the students will begin instruction in the writing process, with a focus on writing narratives.  

In Math, the students will review counting by 1s using a number chart and move into identifying patterns when skip counting by 5s, 10s, and 100s, which will then be used to solve problems. Students will identify patterns within even and odd numbers.

In Science/Social Studies, the students are learning about the qualities of a good leader and participating in group projects where they can practice leadership skills.

We are looking forward to a great month ahead!

3rd Grade

Third grade is off to a wonderful start!

In reading, we’ve been exploring classic tales while reviewing important story elements. Our in-depth study of Wind in the Willows has been a huge hit with students! In math, we have discussed what it means to be a mathematician and practiced a variety of addition and subtraction strategies.

In science, students have been investigating the forces that make objects move—such as push, pull, and gravity—through fun, hands-on activities. In social studies, we’ve focused on the four main disciplines: economics, civics, history, and geography.

We are looking forward to our upcoming field trip on 10/10/25 to the Baltimore Museum of Industry, where we will learn about Maryland's economic history!  Please be on the lookout for updates and notifications as we get closer to the trip.

As we move forward, we ask that families continue reinforcing the 4R expectations at Cape St. Claire: respect for self, respect for others, respect for learning, and respect for property. Your partnership and support are greatly appreciated as we work together to ensure a successful and rewarding school year.

4th Grade

Math 

In Unit 4, “Multiplication as Comparison,” students will explain multiplication equations using statements of comparison. They will understand the relationship between multiplication and division. Students will write and solve multiplicative comparison problems using multiplication and division equations with an unknown. 

In Unit 5, “Numbers and Patterns,” students will find factor pairs of whole numbers, identify numbers as prime or composite, and understand multiples of a number. Students will identify the rule of a pattern, generate new patterns, and analyze pattern features.

Resources:

Unit 4 Family Letter

Unit 5 Family Letter

Science 

We are studying topographic features of the Earth. Students will discover that since mountains, volcanoes, and earthquakes are all related to two tectonic plates being in contact with each other, it is not coincidental that they all occur in generally the same place.

Social Studies 

We will dive into colonialism and discuss specific early colonies in the Americas: Jamestown, Plymouth, St. Augustine, and St. Mary’s City.  We will discuss how colonialism affects how and where we live today.

CKLA  (Core Knowledge Language Arts)

Students will explore poetry. They will analyze the methods and devices used by poets, which will prepare them to read and interpret both formal and free verse poems. 

Resources:

Unit 3 Family Letter

5th Grade

Hello 5th Grade Families!

As we are wrapping up the first quarter of 5th grade in October, please make sure you have access to your student’s courses in Canvas and Rooms so you can stay up to date on grades and communication from teachers. Also, if you are hoping to chaperone for our Water Readiness or extended day field trips in the Spring, you will need to have a fingerprint-supported background check completed through AACPS. Please consider making an appointment (410-222-5045) and checking that off your list soon if you know you’ll want to be able to chaperone those trips! Finally, be sure to join the 5th Grade PTO Committee, if you have not already, so that you receive communication about exciting PTO-sponsored opportunities and events coming up for 5th graders. Click here to sign up!

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

Math:

So far this year, we have completed Unit 1 on recognizing ourselves as mathematicians and seeing math in the world around us, and Unit 2, which was all about finding the volume of rectangular prisms and composite figures. We are beginning to explore place value concepts related to decimals (including reading and writing, comparing, and rounding decimals) and will learn about adding and subtracting decimals before the end of the quarter, too, before we move into Unit 5 on multiplying multi-digit whole numbers.

Science:

We have been learning all about how energy moves throughout an ecosystem this quarter through our food web projects. Students have learned about producers, consumers (herbivores, carnivores, omnivores), and decomposers, and have even gotten to watch green onion plants grow hydroponically in our classrooms as we explore what plants need to make energy from the sun.

Social Studies:

So far in the first quarter, we have learned about the development of the American government. Students have analyzed the Articles of Confederation, the Preamble to the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and have learned about the three branches of government and their checks and balances. We will end the quarter with an environmental literacy project focused on reducing plastic bag usage and exploring laws and ordinances that already exist on the topic.

Knowledge:

Students read and wrote an assortment of personal narratives during our first unit of Knowledge in the first quarter. We are now entering our second unit, Early American Civilizations, in which students will compare and contrast the Aztec, Inca, and Maya civilizations and discover what contributed to their successes and eventual downfall. This unit includes more frequent take-home pages, so be on the lookout for those coming home as homework in your student’s agenda book and orange take-home folder. Towards the end of October, we will switch gears and begin our third unit of study on Poetry. Students will read and write different types of poems using a variety of literary and poetic devices.

Health:

Our health lessons in the first quarter focused on decision-making, goal setting, emotions, and communication. We do not have as many gradeable opportunities in Health as in other subjects, so make sure to remind your students to give their best effort on these assignments when they come up.

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!

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