Sudbury Catholic District School Board

St. Anne Students Learn About Their Past

Learning about the past can be amazing, especially when you can relate to the people and events. That’s what the St. Anne Grade 5 students did by participating in the 2011 Historica Fair. The primary focus of the Fair was to encourage students to research their past and present the results of their efforts to the community at large.

There were 4 winning entries that will move on to the city wide judging taking place at Laurentian University. This year’s local historica theme winners dealt with heroic grandparents who were veterans of the Korean and Second World Wars, an uncle and local hockey hero, Andrew Brunette, and the history of Sudbury Secondary Highschool. Winners were judged on their research and presentation skills, as well as their oral and written reports. Congratulations to all Gr.5 students for their great efforts and participation in such a worthwhile fair. You have truly uncovered your history!

Students from St. Anne Take on the World in a Unique Math Competition

On March 1, 2011, the grade seven students at St. Anne Catholic Elementary School participated in World Math Day. The event involved students from all over the world playing againstt each other in real-time battles of mental arithmetic using the newly updated Live Mathletics game engine, their laptop computers, and accessing the internet in the classroom. Students were also able to access the site at home to practice. Students learned more about world time zones and discovered that at a certain times during the day they are more likely to play students from particular countries. This was a truly unique world event and a fantastic way to promote numeracy within the school and the students learned that Math is fun!

Poet and Pizza Day at St. Mark

Recently the children and parents of St. Mark School, had an opportunity to write poetry with their parents and guardians. All groups were introduced to the different types of poetry as children read some examples of well-know poems.
The group was taught what a cinquain poem is and then everyone was given an opportunity to write a cinquain.
Rebecca Reimer helped us with our understanding of free verse poetry and she gave everyone a chance to write a free verse poem.
Students and parents were given poetry packs to work with.
Pizza was also served to help nourish the minds and bodies of our authors.

Here is an example of a cinquain poem written by grade 4 student, Madison Reimer Roy and her mom:

Baby
Happy, small.
Kicking, small, waiting, sleeping.
Excited to come out.
Youngling.

Here’s some free verse written by kindergartener Zoey Cryderman and her dad:

Flowers,
From the garden,
They dance with me,
They wear rainbow dresses.

This poem was written by Haley Cornthwaite and her dad:
Water,
The flowing water,
It looks so peaceful,
It looks so blue.

Mrs. Kennedy (parents) remarked, she had a pleasant afternoon with her son and appreciated the uniqueness of the event.

The poets ended the afternoon by sharing some of their new pieces of writing in front of the group.

Sudbury Catholic Students “Blinding Us With Science”

Qualifying students from the Sudbury Catholic District School Board took part in this year’s annual Science Fair on March 2, 2011 in the gym of St. Francis School. Over the past few months students had been experimenting with their ideas and creativity to impress not only their teachers, but the judges and special guests who would make an appearance throughout the competition. Out of the hundreds of projects submitted, twenty were chosen to move on to the Regional Science Fair. Of the twenty, four were given special recognition as they were linked to the unique secondary programming at the Catholic Board’s four high schools. St. Benedict’s Specialist High Skills Major in the Environment allowed for Mia Pandolfo,a student from Marymount Academy, to be awarded the Environmental Sciences award with her project “Crank Remote”. Jasmine Ayotte and Emily Pasivirta were awarded the Innovational Technology award from Bishop Alexander Carter Secondary whose Specialist High Skills Major is in Technology. St. Anne’s Matthew Ingreselli won the Application of Physical Science to Everyday Lives award from Marymount Academy (with Advance Placement) for his “Dimple my ride” project. Tristan Harvey and Hanna Longe from St. John Elementary were awarded the Health and Wellness award linked to St. Charles College’s Specialist High Skills Major for their “ Dare to compare your toothbrush” project.
Todd Horn, a grade eight teacher from Pius XII Catholic Elementary School attended the event with his students and was excited to see the dedication and creativity of this year’s group of students. “ Seeing as how students will soon be transitioning into Secondary school, the science fair is an excellent opportunity for them to experiment and offers them the hands on experience,” Horn stated. “Science Fair is a really positive opportunity for students to create projects that are recognized and celebrated in the classroom, the school, board-wide and possibly even beyond.”
Marymount Academy Science teacher, Andrea Jebreen, echoed Horn’s comments regarding the calibre of projects at this year’s science fair “The collection of projects were so incredible that it made it very difficult to choose just twenty to go on to the next level,” Jebreen said. “It is evident that a lot of time and dedication went into each and every project and we are very proud of our students hard-work and creativity.”
The twenty finalist projects are set to attend the Regional Science Fair taking place on April 9-10 at Laurentian University.
A special thank you goes out to the Sudbury Catholic Science Fair Committee for their dedication and support throughout the planning. The team is comprised of SCDSB teachers Connie Ubriaco, Todd Horn, Andrea Jebreen, Donna Rose and Vice Principals Megan Murphy and Dennis Charlebois.

St. Benedict Junior Boys Basketball Team Wins NOSSA

After winning the City Championships, the St. Benedict Junior Boys Basketball Team was invited to play in the NOSSA tournament in Desbarats, Ontario. The team travelled to Central Algoma Secondary School where they were challenged by teams from North Bay, Sault Ste-Marie and Central Algoma. After a very successful season in Sudbury, the team was well prepared to take on these champions from the other northern Ontario districts. After defeating all three of these teams, the boys were awarded gold medals and were declared NOSSA champions. The NOSSA banner for Junior Boys Basketball was brought back to St. Benedict School for the first time in St. Ben’s history. Congratulations go out to the members and the coaches of this strong team.

Members of the team include: Graeme Rickards, Ben Pambianco, Michael Marcantognini, Romi Baki, Curtis Hancock, Zachary LaFramboise, Kurtis Clement, Spencer Romenco, Alex Vendramin, Daniel Eddy.

Coaches: Pat Faiella, Scott Hancock, Julian Rickards

An Unlikely Sports Activity for Elementary Students at Lunch Hour

Recently CBC reporter Erik White did a story for Morning North about the intramural goalball program at St. James Catholic Elementary School.

If you are interested in listening to the story simply go online and go to:
www.cbc.ca/morningnorth – go to past episodes – You will see a link entitled: “An unlikely sports activity for elementary students at lunch hour”. Click on the “Listen” icon.

Embracing Technology in Sudbury Catholic Early Learning Classrooms

With the launch of Full-Day Early Learning Kindergarten programs across Ontario this past fall, administration at the Sudbury Catholic felt it was important to link the Board’s commitment to technology to the new Early Learning Environments set up for the 4 and 5 year old students. As established by the Ministry of Education, the goals of the Full Day Early Learning program are to establish a strong foundation for the early years through a play-based learning environment as well as to improve a child’s prospect for success in school and beyond. Nicole Snow, Superintendent of School Effectiveness spearheaded an iPad pilot project for the Sudbury Catholic Early Learning classrooms. It was felt that the iPads in the classroom allow for the teachers and Early Childhood Educators to work together to set the students on a very positive trajectory for learning.
“This project has a two pronged approach with a focus on student learning as well as teacher/ECE efficacy,” Snow stated. “Not only will the students have an excellent opportunity to learn while playing – one of the six fundamental principals of the ELKP, the teachers and ECE’s will also have an important tool that helps track assessments, data and growth for each of the students.” Snow also explains that through the use of the iPads, the teachers and ECEs will have the opportunity to expose their students to a unique way to explore, discover and grow while being able to evaluate and assess the child’s progress.
Catherine McCullough, Director of Education for the Board strongly supports this project and feels that it is an exceptional opportunity for both the students as well as the staff. “This iPad pilot project allows our young students to develop curiosity, creativity and confidence through technology which speaks to the whole Early Learning philosophy of play-based learning,” McCullough stated. “I am proud that our Board supports our strategic commitment of living a culture of technology and this project is an outstanding example of putting the needs and successes of our students first.”
Each Sudbury Catholic Early Learning classroom will be equipped with a set of iPads, a MacBook, a printer and a digital camera as well as having access to wireless Internet. All of the ipads have been set up with numerous apps that will allow for maximum student learning as well as for teacher/ECE assessment purposes.
All Sudbury Catholic Early Learning Teachers and ECE’s were in-serviced on the iPads and will begin to implement them in their classes as early as March 2. For more information on this pilot program, please contact the Sudbury Catholic District School Board at (705) 673-5620.

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