April has begun with gusto! We have a number of exciting events happening. Yesterday, the fourth graders traveled to the Tsongas Center in Lowell to extend their social studies, science, and language arts studies of the Lowell Mills. They will take another field trip on the 23rd of April to Sturbridge Village in support of their social studies work. The fifth graders will go to the Worcester Art Museum on April 11th to enrich and extend their art and social studies curricula. The students in Kindergarten through third grade will be presenting their musical play The Emperor's New Clothes on Thursday, April 17th at 7:00 pm and Friday, April 18th at 9:15 a.m. The third graders play the leads, while the first and second graders lend their voices to the chorus and their movements to the stage, and the Kindergartners have a cameo performance.

Tucked into the middle of April is Patriots' Day on the 21st and a Professional Day for our faculty on the 22nd, giving a long weekend to students. This occurs at the beginning of public school vacation week. We did not have a formal Bring a Friend to School day this year, as we have sometimes done in February, during that public school vacation week. I apologize for the lack of clarity about the dropping of this day.ÂAlthough we love to show off our school, we have found this day to be distracting and it limits what we can actually get done. For some of our classes, the additional students coming in for the day simply overflows the space and overfills classes, particularly the specials. However, we always welcome visitors to school on an individual basis if those arrangements are worked out in advance and numbers allow.  Please contact me if you have any questions.

We will have school-wide celebrations of Applewild on Friday, April 25th and Saturday, April 26th. Community service continues with visits to the Highlands and Head Start and a visit to Applewild by our ARC friends in the works. Our annual Community Reading Day, organized again by Kathie Grzewinski, will bring community members from the Fitchburg area in to read to our Marshall Building students on April 23rd. We are bringing in Historical Perspectives for Children on April 29th to give a one-man show depicting Abe Lincoln's life, enriching our understanding of our country's history and also illustrating the facets of leadership and character that Mr. Lincoln exemplified.

April is a busy, busy month, filled with more than exciting events. Spring sports begin, the basketball hoops come out of storage, books will be read, math problems solved, projects created, discoveries made, and friendships will continue to form and grow. We will be traveling at warp speed: get ready to blast off!

Tally Lent
Lower School Head