A day filled with excitement and the anticipation of receiving cards from your classmates who like you is a big deal to Noah Legault. Noah is a student in the English E.L.K.P. classroom at St. Anne School in Hanmer. Noah transferred to the Valley school within the Sudbury Catholic System just before Christmas. Making new friends can be hard. He told his teacher, “I like my friends”. From the looks of the smile on his face as he opens his Valentine cards, Noah has had no problem working his way into the hearts of his classmates. His special messages tell him that his friends “like him too”! Noah has not only joined the St. Anne Angels, but he has joined the list of someone who can be and who is a very, very special Valentine!
Month: February 2012
Marymount Girls and St. Benedict Boys City and NOSSA Champs Once Again!
The Level 1 Girl’s and Boy’s Alpine Ski Teams at Marymount Academy and St. Benedict’s have once again qualified for OFSAA. This is the second year in a row that the two teams have earned top honours at both championships. Going into the season, both teams knew that they had the potential to be the dominant teams on the hill and the results of both race days definitely proved just that. At the SDSSAA level, Kate Palkovits found her best challenge from her own team as Danielle Burla edged Kate out of top spot in the Giant Slalom. The girls traded first and second positions in both races with Kate just squeaking out the first place overall combined times. Mackenzie Webber finished fifth overall and these three outstanding finishes earned Marymount the overall team title. On the boys side, it was Spencer Dailey and Zack Filipov trading second place finishes in both races with Spencer just edging out Zack in the overall combined times. Adam Goegan’s fourth and sixth place finishes were enough to earn St. Ben’s their city championship. At the NOSSA level, Kate Palkovits backed up her results from the previous week by walking away with first place finishes in the Slalom, Giant Slalom earning the overall combined NOSSA champion title. Danielle Burla and Mackenzie Webber finished fifth and sixth overall and once again, this was enough to crown the Marymount team NOSSA champs. For the boys, it was a bit closer at the NOSSA level. Spencer Dailey finished fourth overall and Adam Goegan finished sixth overall. Zack Filipov’s seventh and eighth place finishes were enough to give St. Ben’s the overall team title for the boys. The club trained Level 2 skiers from both schools also made a name for themselves. Lauren Kyle earned top honours at NOSSA and will represent the association at OFSAA as the top Level 2 female qualifier. This will be Lauren’s first OFSAA experience and she looks to continue making a name for herself on the slopes. McKenna Urso from Marymount also made an impression finishing sixth overall among the Level 2 skiers as a grade nine student.
The five top skiers for both Level 1 teams will travel together to the OFSAA Championships to be held at Blue Mountain February 26th – 28th. Marymount’s team will consist of Kate Palkovits, Danielle Burla, Mackenzie Webber, Kelsey Roy, and Lyndsay Greasley. The St. Benedict’s team will consist of Spencer Dailey, Adam Goegan, Zack Filipov, Tyler Provencal, and Ryan Bell. Marymount will be looking to improve on their 7th place overall finish in the province from last year.
It All Adds Up To The 100th Day Of School At St. Anne
The students of St. Anne School in Hanmer have been celebrating their 100th day of school in a number of different ways. Teachers within both the Primary and Junior sections decided to have their students rotate from classroom to classroom to allow the children to participate in all kinds of activities that added up to 100. The primary wing had games such as stringing 100 fruit loops, sticking 100 stickers to a crown, racing to pick up 100 pennies, and repeating ten exercises ten times. The junior wing recognized all numbers to 100 as they played Bingo, rolled dice and counted on a 100 chart, played an auction game on the Smartboard with money up to $100.00, and tried to create 100 movements to different styles of music. Both the students and their teachers within the Sudbury Catholic System agreed that there are more than 100 reasons why the number 100 can be pretty exciting!
Sixth Place Finish for St. Charles College Improv Team
SCC’s Improv team competed at the 2012 Sudbury Regional Improv Games Thursday, February 8th and placed 3rd in the preliminary rounds. This qualified them for the Wild Card Round on Saturday, February 10th. After a very talented showing, the team placed 2nd and, unfortunately, missed the finals and placed 6th overall in the tournament. Team members are veterans ETHAN ROY, ALISON SMITH, and COLIN LAGACE and new this year are SHELDON DAOUST, BLAIRE MICHAUD, COLE THOMPSON, SEAN LYNOTT, MARC GREENE, and BEN CORTOLEZZIS. Most of these students have had roles in past SCC drama productions. Team Coaches Nancy Daoust and Angela Hodgins are extremely proud of the team performance and their dedication. We are already looking forward to next year’s Improv season.
Celebrating Pierre the Penguin’s “Hatch Day” on February 16th
Students in the French Immersion JK and SK class at St. Charles Catholic Elementary school dove into the story of a lovable African penguin that resides at the California Academy of Sciences’ aquarium. The children first enjoyed the book “Pierre the Penguin” by Jean Marzollo which tells the true story of Pierre’s unique experience. Alarmed when Pierre lost most of his feathers, an ingenious biologist designed a little wetsuit for Pierre which allowed him to swim in the cold pool with his fellow penguins. His feathers regrew shortly thereafter. Through this story, students learned about compassion to all, including animals.In the afternoon, the students watched the celebration of Pierre’s “Hatch Day” (birthday) on a live stream from a webcam at the aquarium in California. Pierre turned 29 on this day! Teacher Michelle Robinson said: “Pierre’s live “Hatch Day” celebration on the Internet offered a great opportunity to use technology for a literacy activity – and the children loved watching the penguins swim and eat fish!”
Primary Students Try To Defy Gravity At St. Anne School
Walking and being able to stand tall are activities the students at St. Anne School participate in everyday. A recent outing to Centennial Arena made doing so just a bit harder for some of the primary students within the Sudbury Catholic Board.
Armed with their skates, helmets, and a lot of padding from their winter snowsuits, classes from the Hanmer school took to the ice with their classmates and family members. During the next hour, some children practiced the basics of trying to stand and move on skates while a few more daring students moved from one end of the rink to the other. Who knew that trying to move on skates could be so tricky? All in all, the students enjoyed the physical activity and the pride that comes from knowing they were mastering the art of defying gravity. “Do we have to leave?” Those were the words that even the youngest children were asking. Their teacher’s responses, “We’ll be back!”
Friendship is flourishing at St. Bernadette Catholic School
During the month of February all the Sudbury Catholic Schools are celebrating the virtue of Compassion and at St. Bernadette they extended this theme on Valentine’s Day with their Fete de L’amitie (Friendship Feast). Every year the grade 5 and 6 students take on a leadership role and organize a series of fun-filled activities from obstacle courses to bowling and floor hockey for the JK and SK students to enjoy. Each student in the school is given a red heart-shaped lollypop to symbolize the love and friendship we have and show to all of our classmates and friends at school. One lucky boy and girl in each class gets to act as le roi et la reine (the king and queen) and they wear their special crowns for the entire day.
JK students at St. Bernadette French Immersion school, Kiley Laforest and Caleb Woods are le roi and la reine for the Fete de L’amitie (Friendship Feast) held every year on St. Valentine’s Day.
Cards “Think Pink … or Red” on Valentine’s Day
Students at St. Charles College got decked out in red and pink this Valentine’s Day. The school held its second annual pink or red dress down day to support breast cancer. Students paid two dollars to dress down. All money raised will go to supporting the Breast Cancer Foundation’s Sudbury chapter for the purchase of new equipment. Almost 600 dollars was raised at the one-day event. This year, all high schools in the Sudbury area were asked to take part in the fundraising event.
Bags for Beds at St. Charles Elementary
The Dearness Conservation team at St. Charles Catholic Elementary Catholic school challenged their students to bring in milk ‘bags for beds’ and they did – “We can’t believe that the school collected over 2000 milk bags” says Rolande Nault, Club 50 Azilda member, ‘this will definitely make life a lot more comfortable for children and their families, especially those children in the Mariam Centre Orphanage and Outpatient Care in Haiti’.
The ladies at Club 50 Azilda take milk bags, cut them into strips, tie them together and then roll them up into balls just like yarn, then crochet or knit them into finished mats. These mats are very useful in keeping out parasites and can be used as beds for surgeries as they can be washed for the next patient. They become very soft in the heat and are also waterproof. ‘The ladies do an outstanding job creating these mats and then ensuring that that are shipped to Haiti’ says Ms. Giroux, teacher and Dearness Conservation Team member at St. Charles Catholic Elementary School. “This challenge had our students ‘think locally and act globally’ a quote that is said many times to our students to instill lifelong responsible citizenship. This challenge was a great opportunity to partner with a community organization, teach students the importance of reusing materials and teaching them the importance of giving back”.