Goodbye Joanne, Welcome Eileen!
We are sad to say our Math Coach, Joanne Cleary will be retiring at the end of this year.  She has been an invaluable part of this community for many years. In fact, she has been involved in the Tobin School in one way or another since 1997! As much as we will miss her, we are meanwhile excited to introduce our NEW Math Coach, Ms. Eileen Gagnon, to the Tobin Family starting this coming Fall. Eileen Gagnon brings her years of experience and passion for education to the position of Math Coach at the Tobin Montessori School. She has worked as a classroom teacher in grades 1, 4, and 6; a math coach at both the school and district level; and an adjunct faculty member in the graduate program at Lesley University, teaching teachers how to teach math.

Photo: Outgoing Math Coach, Joanne Cleary (right) introduces incoming Math Coach, Eileen Gagnon (left) during April's SAC Meeting.

Cubs Corner Play Structure
A HUGE thank you to the Boes family for donating a play structure to Cubs Corner! Can't you tell the kids love it! If you have outside toys you would like to donate, just bring them to the office!

Meet Our New Member of the Office Staff: LUCKY!
Have you met Lucky yet? Get to know our new office mate with this Q&A! Read more >>  



Mathematics You Can Touch
Yesterday, our phenomenal Math Club Leaders, Robert and Anna, led the Tobin Math Club on a field trip to the Mathematics You Can Touch traveling exhibit currently at the Goethe Institute in Back Bay. The exhibit offered beautiful, hands-on material that allowed the children to visually and sensorally think and learn about exponential functions, geometrics, combinatorics, axial symmetry, estimations, inequations, frequency, probability, sequencing, integration, and more. After nearly two hours of problem solving and challenging one another, the Goethe Institute presented each guest with a bag filled with material and games to continue math-learning at home. Beyond how Montessori-esque all of the exhibit materials were (the time there flew by and could have easily continued longer), the children greatly benefited from the space and resources to explore several of the concepts Anna and Robert have been teaching throughout the year. In fact, many of the materials would be great to bring into our classrooms!  We’re extremely grateful to Anna and Robert for spearheading the club this year. What a phenomenal privilege and opportunity it has been for our school and students to have access to their knowledge and experience.



PARCC Testing Comes to Tobin
PARCC testing is coming to Tobin! In fact, it will begin right after April Break. PARCC stands for the “Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers,” and is a whole new way of testing students’ ability to use skills learned in class and apply them to “real world problems.” In case you missed our April SAC Meeting, our Coaches walked us through the new PARCC testing in great detail, answering many questions and sharing examples.  

Did you know? There are lots of ways to guide our children to look at real world situations to help them work through problems. Want to know more?  
1)  Check out our coaches' amazing Power Point presentation next to the SAC Minutes on our school website.
2)  Check out PARCC online at parcconline.org.
3)  For further questions you can ask your child's teacher, Jaime or any of our amazing coaches:
Math Coach: Joanne Cleary, [email protected] 
Incoming Math Coach: Eileen Gagnon, [email protected] 
Literacy Coach: Heather Colby, [email protected] 
Curriculum Coach: Erin Gutierrez, [email protected] 

On Monday after April break, we will celebrate the kick off of assessments. Please prepare to make sure your students are well nourished and get extra sleep during this time. Thank you!

Photo: Math Coach Joanne Cleary explains the Math section of PARCC during April's SAC Meeting.