The French Immersion students visited the New Sudbury branch of the Sudbury Public Library for a French tour of the library recently.
The students, along with their teacher Sabrina Rocca took the Sudbury Transit and spent the morning reading French books and having French conversations with the Sudbury Public Library staff.
It’s just one of the ways French Immersion students can keep the learning authentic while outside the classroom.
The FI students integrated multiple subjects in the foods class at St. Charles College recently. They used French procedural writing to write and explain recipes as well as the particle theory for Science.
The grade seven students recorded baking recipes on the Ipads. They had to explain their work as they added and mixed ingredients. They were responsible for preheating the oven, preparing the recipe, timing the cooking, doing the dishes and cleaning up. They also had to explain the particle theory through the baking process.
The grade eight students then took the cakes, and had twenty minutes to create a cell. They were recorded and had to explain the parts of the cell they created.
Their teacher, Sabrina Rocca says it was a fun-filled afternoon with all kinds of learning – through written, kinaesthetic and oral language.
On January 27, the students from St. Francis Catholic Elementary School celebrated Literacy Day. Students in kindergarten to grade six were asked to donate gently used books from their home and trade them in for“new” books. The event was organized by Special Education Resource Teacher, Ms. Graziella Visentin who encourages the use of technology to assist with reading as well as the use of traditional hardcopy books to practice reading skills. The school cafeteria and gathering room had a wide variety of book titles on display for students to choose from. Students also donated English and French books. The book swap originally began between two primary classrooms and eventually grew to involve the whole school over the last few years due to its success. The book swap provided an excellent opportunity for students to exchange books within their school community, encourage the love of reading and recycle books. Students enjoyed selecting free books to take home for Literacy Day.
In 2015 eight universities in Ontario collaborated with the Ontario Catholic School Trustee Association (OCSTA) to create the OCSTA Certificate Course in Leadership & Good Governance. This is a 12-week online course that is provincial in scope but also includes local Catholic issues specific to a trustee’s own regional district. The course provides a trustee with many benefits such as developing a greater understanding and appreciation of the history of Catholic education in Ontario along with a greater understanding of the role of Catholic social teaching in our modern society. The leadership lessons of Pope Francis are also explored in the course. Topics include youth engagement in Catholic education, the role of the trustee as a public advocate for Catholic education, our support for Ontario First Nations, Metis and Inuit education and an examination of trends in Catholic education throughout Canada and the rest of the world.
Sudbury Catholic Trustee, Nancy Deni took part in this program. As part of the program, trustees are required to work on a practicum project that ideally could benefit their school board. Deni chose to focus on the home-school-parish triad relationship and ways that this triad can be strengthened. As part of her project, she sought and received feedback from parents, principals, priests and laypersons in the Church as she feels very strongly that the strength of this relationship is the key to keeping Catholic education alive and well in Ontario.
“I feel very privileged to be amongst the first cohort of trustees to complete the program,” Deni stated. “It was an eye-opening experience and I recommend the course to all trustees who want to be strong advocates for Catholic education in this province. This course really strengthened my belief that a Catholic education provides students with a really special and unique educational experience. We really do educate the mind, the body and the spirit in our schools.”
The St Paul dance club has come to an end for another season. The students worked very hard all year by learning new moves and dances culminating with them presenting their own dance creations on stage. Teacher Emily Power was very lucky to have 3 amazing grade 8 helpers that volunteered their time all year! Way to go St Paul dancers.
February 3rd marks the feast day for Saint Blaise of Sebaste. Blaise was a physician before becoming a Bishop and is believed to have cured a young boy from death as he had a fish bone stuck in his throat. This miracle martyred him and the ritual of throat blessings began.
Every year the students and staff at S.C.C. have the option to have their throats blessed to keep them safe from injury or disease. This year, the throat blessing fell on an ice day so staff was blessed. This was a first for our elementary 7/8 teachers who are new to the S.C.C. family.
On Friday January 18, 2016, Marymount Academy had the pleasure of spending some of their afternoon with special guest Lisa Marie Naponse. Their guest was introduced by two very confident young women, students Tyanna Soucy and Hailey Organ. These two ladies are currently representatives of the Aniisinaabe Cultural group here at Marymount Academy which is organized in collaboration with Carla Petahtegoose, the SCDSB Indigenous Education Support Worker. Lisa Marie is a self-taught singer and songwriter from Atikameksheng Anishinawbek. She shared her art and music which is a blend of blues, folk, and country. During her visit with Marymount she engaged the students in song and rhythm. Lisa shared with the students that as she was growing up, she was surrounded by music and creativity her mother and father played music and her sisters were pow wow dancers and craftswomen. Lisa speaks to people through music on indigenous life and her experiences as an Anishnawbe Kwe(Woman). Lisa quickly embraced the microphone community; which lead her to eventually co-founding an Indigenous Arts Collective that showcased Indigenous performances and art throughout the city of Ottawa. Today Lisa Marie has returned to her community and is working on new music and art. Finally, to finish off our assembly Hailey Organ kindly presented a gift on behalf of the Marymount staff and students.
St. Paul Catholic Elementary School Grade 2/3 students along with their parents or grandparents took part in Family Literacy Day activities inside the classroom recently. The parent turnout at the event was incredible! The students and parents rotated through three centres. The first station involved a read aloud of the amusing book entitled “The Book With No Pictures” and creating their own fancy bookmark. The second station had the students searching through non-fiction books for a fabulous fact about something of interest to them and then using the Pages app on the iPad to write about what they learned and to include an image. The third was a poetry centre where they worked together to create beautiful Cinquain poems. Parents and students had a great time reading and writing together.
Taking advantage of the sunny day, students in Holy Cross Catholic Elementary School’s grade 3/4 class had the opportunity to go for a snowshoeing adventure recently. Teacher Christina Lucciantonio said it was “a great way for the students to get some fresh air and enjoy the fresh powdery snow!”
