Dear Holy Cross Families,

I hope you have all been enjoying the recent beautiful Spring weather!  We have certainly loved seeing students creating sidewalk chalk art during recess again and I have noticed that many teachers are starting to once again take classes outside for the occasional outdoor class or morning meeting.

In this third week of March, I would like to continue focusing on the four pillars of Holy Cross School: Faith, Knowledge, Language, and Culture.  This week’s focus: Language.  One thing that sets Holy Cross apart from other schools in our area is our rich diversity.  The introduction of the Immersion Program four years ago helped highlight the importance of linguistic diversity as well as a purposeful focus on language development in both tracks.  Teachers in both tracks understand the importance of developing language skills in students’ first languages as well as introducing and practicing second languages on a regular basis.  A few ways in which we have seen our pillar of Language come to life within the past few months include: 

• Including both English and Spanish in our school-wide daily announcements and in many of our school-wide Masses  

• Learning how to greet one another in different languages during Morning Meetings

• 8th grade students using new technology to dive deeper into grammar studies

• Kindergarten and 1st grade students applying phonics rules when reading and writing

• 2nd graders discovering cognates in Spanish and English, appreciating similarities between languages and realizing that knowing one language helps learn another

• Immersion students writing funny stories that demonstrate how they are able to grasp a sense of humor in a second language       

• Students in many different grades writing Math stories, purposefully practicing a combination of content-specific Math vocabulary as well as story-telling.

• Kindergarten students using vocabulary picture cards to support language development in writing and reading in both tracks.

This Friday, March 26th will be an eLearning day.  In nearly every grade, Fridays are usually dedicated to going to Mass, working on “Specials” such as Music and Art projects, and also assessing student learning through activities such as individual check-ins, spelling tests, quizzes, etc.  For this reason, Friday’s eLearning day might look a little different from the eLearning days we have had in the past.  Your child’s teacher should communicate details with you about expectations for this Friday.   

Don’t forget that Friday, March 26th is an eLearning day for all students.

Have a great week!

Annie Borjas
Principal

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