Haggerty Holler: October 10, 2025

Posted on 10/10/2025

Kindergarteners go Apple Picking!

On Friday, September 26th, the three Kindergarten classrooms went apple picking at Smolak Farm in North Andover, MA. There was one exciting moment after another, beginning with a ride on the big yellow school bus - a first for many! At the farm, they went on a tractor ride, picked apples, ate a cider donut, played in the farm playground, fed the farm animals, and had lunch!

Thanks to Friends of Haggerty for supporting our annual apple picking adventure! This trip also serves as a very interactive beginning to the student’s study of the Seasons. Thanks also to all the Kindergarten teachers and caregiver chaperones who helped make this trip run so smoothly.

How are Holidays like Halloween dealt with at Haggerty?

REMINDER: With Halloween quickly approaching, we wanted to send a reminder about our sweets and celebrations guidelines (as outlined in the Haggerty Guidebook).

Annual Holidays such as Halloween and Valentine’s Day
No candy, sweets, or food will be exchanged on Valentine’s Day (Easter, or other holidays). Out of respect for the many Haggerty families who do not celebrate Halloween, we will not have Halloween-activities. There will be no classroom activities that include holiday food.

Classroom Celebrations and Food
In an effort to create a healthy school environment for all students, some guidelines have been developed to help guide teachers and families in the consumption of food during school. These guidelines arrived out of concerns raised by parents after annual events (Valentine’s Day, Birthdays, end-of-year celebrations, etc) about what and how many sweets their children consume at school. Family members are not present at events to limit or control what their children are consuming. Additionally, the school had no standard expectation for sweets and celebrations, which resulted in some classrooms allowing food and other classrooms not, creating an inconsistent and mixed message for our students and families. Haggerty’s food policies are aligned with the school committee’s Health and Wellness policies, which can be found here.

Haggerty’s Annual International Potluck is Coming Next Thursday!

Thursday, October 16 | 6-7:30PM | Haggerty Gymnasium and Cafeteria
Our Haggerty International Potluck is next Thursday, October 16th from 6-7:30PM. A paper flier came home a couple weeks ago. Here is a digital form that includes some questions about helping with set-up, welcome table, and clean up. We could also use some helpers with those tasks. Thank you!

More Details

Time: The International Potluck is 6 to 7:30PM. Please enter through the Lawn Street Door and come down to the basement. The welcome table to make name tags and take a “passport” to use for the evening will be at the entrance to the cafeteria. Please don't enter the building before 6PM unless you are helping to set-up or are hosting a Country Display Table.

Supervision: This is a family event, so children must come with and be supervised by an adult. The event will only be in the gym and cafeteria, so make sure your children do not roam around the building. Please also ask your children not to run or play tag in the gymnasium, as the gym will be more like a free restaurant for the Potluck rather than the place they run.

Food: Please bring a dish of food to share (feeding around 10-12 people). Label your serving dish and serving utensils with your name. (Also sending in serving utensils to use are very helpful.) When you leave the potluck, please collect your dish and serving utensils. (Please include a label for the Dish with name or description of the food, the country it represents, and the ingredients.) All the food will go on very long rectangular tables in the gymnasium. I will print out little flags from the countries I know about from the forms to put near those dishes, so please don’t worry about bringing flags for the food table.

Country and Culture Display Tables: Families and students will visit tables representing different countries and cultures in the gym. We will provide passports for students, and they can get them stamped after they visit each table. We appreciate the time families and staff took to make these tables to share their culture. Please remind your children to be careful with the items these families bring from home to show them.

Here are the country tables we have so far (please let me know if you want to join any of them. I noted the ones that only have one or two families currently supporting.)

Ethiopia
South Korea
South Africa
Japan (want to join them? I can connect you)
Germany (want to join them? I can connect you)
Tunisia (want to join them? I can connect you)
India (want to join them? I can connect you)

If you would like to "host" a country table - please let me know (Lissa). We'd love to have a few more!

Music and Arts & Crafts: We will have an interactive musical performance from David Oke, whose culture is Yoruba - a vibrant ethnic culture from the southwest of Nigeria. This performance will be for about 30 minutes, and will include percussion instruments. We will also have a quieter art & crafts activity in the cafeteria.

Dress: Everyone is invited to wear traditional clothing to show their pride in their culture!

Thanks to all for helping to make this a wonderful community event! Please let me know if you have questions! Lissa

Library Corner By Brianna Mency

Grades 2 and 3 Library OrganizationStudents in Grades 2 and 3 are delving into how the library is organized, discovering its five distinct neighborhoods: Non-Fiction, Fiction (Chapter Books), E (Picture Books), ER (Early Readers), and Graphic Novels. Recently, they participated in the Call Number/Book Address Game, a fun activity where they practiced arranging call numbers in the correct order. This game not only reinforces the idea that every book has a specific place, but it also emphasizes the importance of returning books to their designated spots. Through this engaging activity, students are empowered to become independent library users.

Grade 4 Book BuzzesIn fourth grade, students have completed their Book Buzz scripts and are now crafting Google Slides to enhance their class presentations. A Book Buzz involves selecting a book they think others should explore, and writing about different elements like the content, characters, plot, setting, and favorite parts. They also express their appreciation for the illustrations, suggest which grades should read the book, and explain their reasons for recommending it. Some students have shown initiative by working independently after school to prepare their slide decks for the upcoming Haggerty School Assembly.

Music Corner

Update from Ms. Susie
Grade 4 has been working hard to learn the first movements of the intricate cooperative group activity called longsword dance for a performance in November at our Family Folk Dance night. They say the dance was created by fishermen in the north east of England some hundred of years ago. Grade 3 has discovered So-Mi-Do on the ukuleles in the old camp song, “There Were Three Jolly Fishermen”. Grade 4 students will receive their own recorders at the beginning of October. Everyone has had a good time playing maracas, shakers and practicing a great hand-percussion pattern to the songs of our Musicians of the Month, Sol Y Canto.

You can try it at home! Listen to "Ayúdame A Mirar" ~ Performed by Sol y Canto here.

~ Ms. Susie

Update from Mx. Irvin
The October Musician of the Month is Celia Cruz.

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1925, Celia Cruz grew up in an Afro-Cuban family surrounded by Cuban music. She grew up the eldest of 14 children in her house (siblings and cousins) and began singing around 10 months of age. She sang lullabies to the younger children and was often heard singing in the middle of the night.

Cruz first studied to be a literature teacher, and then attended Havana’s National Conservatory of Music. Cruz participated in a singing contest on a local radio station and won! Her prize was a cake. She went on to become the lead singer with the band Sonora Matancera, where she met her husband. Cruz was the group’s first black frontwoman, and stayed with the group for 15 years. She left in 1960 as a result of the Cuban revolution, settling in the United States. One of the first women singing salsa, Celia Cruz became known as the Queen of Salsa in the 1970s.

Listen to our Musician of the Month Spotify playlist here.

~ Mx. Irvin

Math Coach's Corner

Dear Caregivers,

You may have heard the phrase “universal screening” and wondered what it means. Universal screening means that ALL children take part in an assessment to identify students who might need more support. In math, we “screen” 3 times each year. Our preschool students use a task that assesses their understanding of counting. In Kindergarten, First and Second grades we use a number sense screener that includes a short interview. And in Third, Fourth, and Fifth grades we use iReady. We then meet with every teacher to think about the learning needs of all of our students.

Kindergarten through Fifth grade families will get a letter through Parent Square soon with information about their child’s performance on the screening tasks. On iReady, your student might be described as “approaching” their current grade. That is particularly common in the Fall, as the students have not yet learned the new grade’s content.

If you have questions about how to understand the report, feel free to reach out to me: [email protected].

Mathily Yours,
Nili Pearlmutter
Haggerty Math Coach

PE Corner By Coach Materazzo

Fourth graders recently completed a Cooperative Learning unit in Physical Education (PE). Here are some of our students participating in the Human Bridge challenge where teammates move parts of the bridge to support each other over the “hot lava.”

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Corner by Aline Kassabian

As we wrap up the month of September, students have worked together to create a set of values and agreements within their classroom communities that they believe are important to their learning and growth! Ask them about it at home!

Friends of Haggerty

Friends of Haggerty (FOH) - Open Meeting!
Wednesday, October 22 | 7 - 8PM | Zoom
Come and learn more about our non-profit organization Friends of Haggerty (501(c)3). FOH is run by a volunteer board of Caregivers and staff members. The mission of FOH is to raise funds to support initiatives that have been identified by the Haggerty community as valuable to the school. FOH funds are used to provide enrichment opportunities for every student at Haggerty. We hope you will come to learn more and ask questions. FOH is always recruiting new caregivers to the Board! Questions? Please ask Lissa.

CitySpourts

School gardens are back in session Hi everyone! As students and teachers shuffle back into the groove of being in school, CitySprouts looks forward to settling into another phenomenal year overflowing with curiosity and community with you. From the remarkable fall foliage to the spectacular supermoon, this autumn is a treasure trove of school garden memories waiting to be made.

In fact, an especially exciting celebration is here! Marking the continuation of our beloved connection with Boston and Cambridge, CitySprouts is commemorating our 25th year bringing hands-on science learning into school gardens. Our 25th trip around the sun would not be possible without our marvelous community, so we want to thank you by unwrapping a handful of gifts with you below.

Gift #1: New staff and TerraCorps members
Pictured left to right: Emaline, Hesper, and Stella

This year, CitySprouts is welcoming new Garden Educators (Dani Morgan, Felicia Hayes, and Isabelle Custer) and TerraCorps members (Emaline Relyea-Strawn and Hesper Khong). If you see them, don’t be shy and say hi! Each of them have pockets of knowledge to share and are exuberant about meeting you in our gardens. Eager to learn more about everyone? Read about them here and be on the lookout for our future spotlights!

Gift #2: CitySprouts gardens
On the topic of gardens, we want to see you in ours! Flush with vibrant yellow marigolds, verdant green basil, and more, CitySprouts’s flourishing gardens are still not complete without you. They can be places for creating art, slowing down, or simply basking in the warm sun. Take a peek at our CitySprouts Garden Map to find a garden in your neighborhood. If you would like to visit a garden while school is in session, please reach out to us at [email protected]!

While summer has allegedly ended, the CitySprouts’s community’s efforts throughout the past season continue to bear fruit. Check out our list below and see what you can identify when you stop by:

Collards
Corn
Cucamelons
Cucumbers
Peppers
Perennial herbs
Radish
Shiso
Sweet potatoes
Tokyo bekana
Pumpkins

Gift #3: Afterschool Green Team
A return of the school year and autumn brings about another season with CitySprouts’ stellar afterschool Green Team! We wrapped up a great summer at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. School, King Open School, and Orchard Gardens. After last year’s successful expansion of our partnerships, enrollment, and curriculum, we are building on that momentum by facilitating more garden experiments, recipes, and research projects for our middle school groups.

This school year we can be found at Henderson Upper Inclusion School, Orchard gardens, and the Cambridge Community Center. Highlights will include baking apple tarts and making 3 Sisters' Stew, testing soil nutrients, prepping gardens for the winter months, and much more. Have questions or want to learn more? Visit our website or email Youth Program Manager, Alex Frank at [email protected].

Gift #4: Connect with us
Keep up to date with CitySprouts news, events, volunteer opportunities, etc. on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn! Thank you for reading our newsletter— we look forward to seeing you in CitySprouts’s gardens!

Community Resources

Free Food Markets

All families are welcome to stop by our free, school-based food markets. They offer fresh fruits, vegetables, and pantry items. Free Food Markets are on select days. Please bring your own bags.

View upcoming dates and locations >>

Resources
Food, Nutrition, & Gardening

To kick off October, time to celebrate Harvest of the Month - Pears!
- Norah’s Nutrition Nook
  - Though the recommended amount of fiber per day is 25 grams for females and 38g for males, the average American consumes only about 10-15g per day. Incorporating fiber rich fruits, like pears, can help you reach that goal. One medium pear is about 6 grams of fiber!
  - Have you ever thought of how silky a pear can be, especially when it’s ripe? Historically, pears used to be nicknamed “butter fruit!” This was because of the flesh mimicking the smoothness of butter.
  - Recipes to try:
NOTE: There has been a recent recall on a Trader Joe’s Fettuccine Alfredo product due to Listeria contamination. Listeria infections can be especially concerning for older adults, individuals with suppressed immune function, those who are pregnant, and newborns. Please seek medical care if you are experiencing any Listeria symptoms.
NOTE: While the government is still shut down, many questions have risen about SNAP benefits. Currently, October benefits will not be impacted by the shutdown, and clients can expect to receive their benefits on their usual date. For more information, visit the DTA’s FAQ section on the shutdown.

Mind, Movement, & More

Registration for the Cambridge Preschool Program 2026-2027 is officially open! Note registration will be open only until November 14th, 2025. Visit the Office of Early Childhood for more information.
It’s that time of the year - CPHD’s Vaccine Clinics are open for the Fall! Flu and Covid-19 vaccines will be offered to all individuals aged 6 months and older, regardless of insurance status. We ask individuals to register prior to visiting one of our clinics, however walk-ins are accepted. See the attached flyer below for dates and locations.
Please reach out if there are any food, nutrition, or physical activity projects/ ideas you think the Cambridge in Motion team could help with and don't forget to follow our team on Instagram @CambMotion.

Upcoming Community Events

2025 Cambridge Public Health Flu and COVID-19 Vaccine Clinics
Multiple Dates and Times in October
The Cambridge Public Health Department (CPHD) is hosting public clinics for flu and COVID-19 vaccines to adults and children who live in Cambridge in October. CPHD clinics will offer flu vaccines for adults and children 6 months and older. Register for the vaccine clinics here. Appointments are encouraged. Bring your insurance card if you have one.

Celebrate Wildlife of Cambridge
Sunday, October 12 | 11AM
Do you want to be in a parade and celebrate our city's wildlife? Be a Red-winged Blackbird, a Purple Coneflower, or a giant Monarch caterpillar? The Honk! Parade is a family-friendly parade, featuring Brass Bands from all over the U.S., that starts in Davis Sq. Somerville and ends at Harvard Square, Cambridge. It is led by the mayors of both cities. Cambridge Wildlife invites CPS families to join our parade group that celebrates the wild animal species and the habitats of our city. The first group of Cambridge families formed this group back in 2012! We have many costumes, giant puppets, flags and banners for you and your family and friends to use when you march with us in the parade.

We welcome people on foot, on bikes, on scooters and on strollers to join us. Grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins are welcome, too! It's helpful but not required to sign up in advance to march or bike with us on Sunday, October 12, 11AM in the parade: https://tally.so/r/3xqbQE. We meet at the corner of Herbert and Day Streets, Somerville (Davis Square), at 11AM. March begins at 12PM and we are near the front of the parade this year.

Vampire Orienteering
Wednesday, October 29 | 6-8:30PM | Danehy Park (166 New Street)
Join us at Danehy Park for a night of Halloween fun! Teams will travel the park after dark, looking for checkpoints using a map - but keep an eye out for vampires trying to steal your points! Bring a flashlight, wear a costume if you want & the candy is on us! Pre-registration is required. Register by midnight 10/28.
Learn more here >>

Free Admission on Indigenous Peoples' Day
Monday, October 13 | 9AM-6PM | Harvard Museum of Natural History & Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology
Join us for Indigenous Peoples’ Day at the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. The Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and the Harvard Museum of Natural History are offering free admission all day. Learn more about the event online here.

Enroll today for Cambridge Youth Hockey Winter Season
Saturdays starting in December | Simoni Rink (155 Gore St.)
Multiple programs open for students to learn to skate, play hockey, and play for travel teams. Instruction for different levels and ages!
Learn more here >>

Community Art Center Block Party
Saturday, October 18 | 12 - 3PM | 125 Fawcett St. Cambridge
Free food, music, activities, and fun. Rain Date: October 19, 2025. View flyer >>

Family Opera presents WeedPatch
North Cambridge Family Opera Company has announced their spring 2026 production, WeedPatch. Casting auditions will be held from October 18 - 26 (everyone gets in), by appointment only. We encourage families to perform together and require kids under 10 to have a participating adult. To learn more about the audition process, please visit our online page here.
View flyer >>

Cambridge 26th Annual Family Literacy Fun Day
Saturday, November 1 | 10:20AM - 2PM | Cambridge City Hall
Celebrate National Family Literacy Month with us! Books are available in English and 26 other languages. Let's read and play together. Free event for Cambridge families with kids ages birth to 3rd grade.
View flyer >>

Haitian Affinity Group Meeting: Building Relationship Between Student, Family & School
Tuesday, October 21 | 6:30 - 8PM | Zoom
Register today at bit.ly/hag-oct25 to join us as we discuss back to school topics.
View flyer >>

Volunteers Needed – Help Cambridge Kids Sort Their Recycling and Food Waste!

The City of Cambridge is looking for volunteers to help our students learn to sort recycling and food waste after breakfast and lunch. This is a great opportunity to be in the schools! No experience necessary. This can be a long- or short-term commitment, but the most help is needed in September.

Questions? Contact [email protected] or call 617.349.4836.

In Our District and Community