Over the past year, Immaculate Conception teacher Tania Lacroix has given her students the amazing opportunity to be penpals with a true Canadian Olympian. The grade 1/2 class has been following the training and athletic performances of Kristina Groves, a Canadian long track speedskater who won both a silver and bronze medal at the 2010 Olympic Games. Approximately eight years ago, Lacroix had a friend that worked at the Calgary Training Centre and she asked if there were any athletes who would be willing to be penpals with her class. Groves volunteered and has been communicating with her classes ever since. Groves has connected with this year’s class since September through letters, and the hope was that she would be able to visit the class. During the Winter Olympics, Groves even held up a sign that had the name of the school on it for all of Canada to see. Due to scheduling conflicts, Groves was unable to come to Sudbury to visit the students but they came up with the next best thing. On Friday, June 10, the entire school gathered in the gym to take part in a a Skype call with Kristina in Calgary. The students were able to see and hear Kristina describe her races as a digital projector projected the video on the wall of the gym. Groves answered questions asked by the students in all of the different grades and even showed the group both her bronze and silver medals. It was evident that Groves was having as much fun with the call as the students in the gym as she commented on the great questions the kids were asking and smiled and laughed as the entire group clapped and screamed for her. Lacroix was happy that Groves was able to communicate one on one with the school and was pleased that they were able to finally connect live.
Category: Programs
Sudbury Catholic Schools’ Employees Ride the Big Bike for Heart & Stroke
Sudbury Catholic District School Board “Holy Rollers” staff took on the challenge of riding the “Big Bike” to raise funds for the Heart & Stroke Foundation. On Friday afternoon, 20 of the Board’s employees mounted the monster bike and peddled through the streets of downtown Sudbury during hot and muggy weather. Spirits were high on the bike as SCS members rattled their noisemakers and waved to everyone as the peddled past them. Cheered on and encouraged by pedestrians and motorists alike, the SCDSB staff did their best to complete the route in record time and raise more than $1,900 for the Heart & Stroke Foundation.
Encouraged by the turnout, the fun and the camaraderie, Sudbury Catholic Schools will be back again next year with even a more impressive group.
Congratulations all Award Recipients
It was a great night for Aboriginal students from St. Benedict CSS, Marymount Academy, and St. Charles College. Students from all three Catholic Secondary Schools walked away with awards ranging from excellence in athletics, extra-curricular involvement, academic achievement and cultural recognition. “It’s a wonderful way for the community to come together to support our students’ achievements” Shelly Frappier, Native Studies Teacher from St. Benedict CSS stated.
For the past six years, aboriginal students across the Sudbury area have been honoured for their accomplishments during the school year at the Aboriginal Secondary School Awards Banquet. The banquet honours achievements in a number of categories and encourages community, family and peers to come out and support our youth. “It makes me feel very proud when I see former students of mine up on stage being honoured for graduating secondary school” explained Verna Hardwick, Native Language Teacher at St. David and St. Raphael schools. Verna Hardwick and her Ojibwe language students sang the opening honour song, said the opening prayer in Ojibwe and closed the evening with a closing song.
Special thanks to the wonderful staff of the United Way and Gezhtoojig Employment and Training who sponsor this event, in conjunction with local school boards and community agencies.
Congratulations to all award winners and graduates!
International Day for Biodiversity: The Green Wave
Grade 8 students at St. Francis school participated in the 2010 Green Wave program. On May 21st 5 trees were planted in the name of biodiversity. The Green Wave is a global biodiversity campaign to educate youth about biodiversity. It will contribute to worldwide celebrations of the International Day for Biological Diversity (May 22). It also supports other national, international and global tree planting initiatives. In order to encourage as many school as possible to participate in the Wave, the Convention on Biodiversity invited groups to plant trees on May 21st, or May 22nd.
Pictures, maps and more information about the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Green Wave program can be found at [ http://greenwave.cbd.int/en/home ]http://greenwave.cbd.int/en/home.
St. John Hosts Floor Hockey Tournament
On Saturday May 29th, 2010, St. John School hosted a grade 5/6 co-ed Floor Hockey tournament at St. Charles College. The tournament was very well attended and all participants had a great time. Congratulations go out to the following teams who won – St. Christopher school won first place, St. James school won second place, and St. John school won third place. Thank you to all who attended.
St. David Holds Welcome to Kindergarten Event
New registrant Bella and her mother learned all about letters and numbers at St. David Catholic School’s annual Welcome to Kindergarten event. Parents and the future St. David’s graduating class of 2019 had the opportunity to take a school bus ride, read books together, make a craft and practice writing their names during this introduction to a day in the life of a JK student. Starting in September JK will be offered full time every day and new registrations are always accepted at any of the Sudbury Catholic District School Board’s elementary schools.
MMA Flag Football Teams Played Strong in Toronto Tournament
It was a great two days of football for the Marymount A and B teams on May 13 and 14 as they took part in the 2010 Danny Bob Invitational Girls Flag Football Tournament in Toronto. Despite the teams’ football season already being over in November, the girls ran a few practices at the beginning of May and headed to Toronto to take part in this tournament for the second year in a row. The Marymount A team included senior girls and the B team was comprised mostly of Grades 8, 9, and 10 girls. Twenty teams took part in the two days of football and other Sudbury teams included girls from Lasalle Secondary and Notre Dame College. At the end of the tournament, the Marymount A team finished strong and took home the Second place trophy. Danny Bob, organizer of the event was thrilled with the Marymount contingent and told the Regals’ coach, Matthew Wiecha that he was impressed with the strength of the A team and the spirit and work ethic of the B team. He also invited some of the Marymount players to join him for tournaments in Florida, the Domenican and other parts of the USA as he coaches a traveling girls flag football team that is made up of players from all over the province. Coach Matthew Wiecha was thrilled with the teams’ performances againstt all of the teams and is already looking forward to next year’s tournament.
St. Francis S.K’s Sing Ole
The French Immersion Senior Kindergarten class at St. Francis Catholic Elementary School recently participated in a group activity in which they learned the e sound. The students learned a song that incorporated this sound – the song “Ole ” As well, they reviewed the letter C and the letter H. In order to review all of these lessons, their teacher, Lise Mallette thought that they could pull all of these together by supporting a great Canadian Hockey team – the Montreal Canadians. The students also integrated, cutting, pasting writing, singing and drama by decorating Montreal Canadian headbands and then visiting a few classes to perform what they had learned.
Sudbury Catholic Students are Real “Ace of Cakes”!
TLC’s show “Ace of Cakes” has nothing on the students enroled in the Exploring Baking and Pastry Arts Dual Credit program at Cambrian College. Sudbury Catholic students Amber Walker (Marymount Academy, Grade 12) and Carlie Vautier (Marymount Academy, Grade 12) were able to show off their extreme baking skills recently as their class was commissioned to create a cake for retiring Cambrian Professor Rick Cooper. Cooper is the Coordinator of Art and Design Fundamentals program and is known for his passion for sailing and his love of bowties. The Dean’s office asked the bakers-in-training if they could produce a cake that paid tribute to Cooper. The end result was a cake entitled “The H.M.S. Bowtie” which was a stunning three tiered cake – each tier a different mouth-watering flavour.
Gaston Theriault, College Link Consultant for the Catholic School Board was amazed with the students’ final product. “What is astounding is that they do everything from scratch in this program,” Theriault said. “Nothing comes out of a box and everything is done on site.”
Kelleen Schonfeldt, Student Success Coordinator for the college spoke glowlngly about the program. “It is all about finding their passion,” Schonfeldt said. “It is so important that they take this great opportunity to find their own place in this program and by exploring the dual credit initiative, the students are able to do things outside of what they might not have considered otherwise.”
As people gathered around the cake to admire it from up close, student Carlie Vautier couldn’t help but smile proudly. “I have always been into cooking and baking,” Vautier said. “I looked into summer programs and found out about this program, applied and was accepted. Being in this program allowed me to see that my strengths are in baking and I do now think I have a future in this industry.” Vautier also spoke very highly of the staff at Cambrian and how supportive they have been throughout the term. “They really treat us like mature adults and give us a real college experience, especially Dual Credit Chef and Professor Lynne Van Beek. She is an amazing teacher and has really made it possible for us to be so successful.”
Many of the students have already found summer jobs in the industry. As well, many are considering registering for the second semester of the Baking and Pastry Arts program at Cambrian as their current program counts as semester one.