On Saturday, April 14th, St. David School hosted the 2012 Junior Chess Tournament. This event brought players, coaches, and families together from all corners of the city. After an intense round-robin, the results of the tournament were as follows:
1st Place: St. Theresa
2nd Place: St. Paul
3rd Place: St. David
Congratulations to all participants!
In April, we especially look forward to our role as stewards of the environment to protect our planet. Students and staff at St. Charles Catholic School in Chelmsford wish to thank VALE for their generous donation of seedlings.
The campaign was kicked off with the story “THE TREE” by author Dana Lyons. Each student was given a seedling to bring home to plant in honour of Earth day.
The St. Paul the Apostle Catholic School Council hosted a Family Pasta Night on Thursday April 19. The council members Angela Paris, Jennifer Whynott, Anastasia Rioux, Rikki Larcher, Lisa Wrights and Natasha Folino have provided families opportunities throughout this school year to come together with families from our school to play and socialize. There was a Pizza Night Open House in September, a Family Movie Night in December and now this Spaghetti Supper in April. Families enjoyed the opportunity to visit, enjoy good food and let their children play together in an after school setting. The co-chairs of the Council hope that this relaxed atmosphere will encourage parents to become comfortable and ultimately more involved in their children’s school and the Catholic School Council.
St. Charles Catholic School has had many Dearness Conservation initiatives this school year. Their focus in April is “stewardship”. Students and staff attended THE LORAX at Silver City. Upon their return, they all took a pledge to do their part to protect the environment and work towards a healtheir world for generations to come.
Jamayla Czaja from the grade 2/3 green team work with community volunteers from the Donovan Elm West Community Action Network to plant seedling for the Victory Park Garden. This is the second year that St. David’s students participate in this program. In celebration of Earth Day, St. David’s will be planting seeds for their school garden that they will share with Better Beginnings Better Futures and Aboriginal Best Start Hub.
As part of Earth Day activities, students in Eileen Harris’s Grade 2/3 class at St. Charles Catholic Elementary School in Chelmsford, learned about their carbon footprint. After reading a variety of books and researching ways to help reduce their use of resources, students came up with a number of activities that help lessen human impact upon the environment. Activities as simple as using clothes lines, using reusable shopping bags and riding their bicycles more often to more innovative and ambitious activities such as installing solar panels and roof top gardening were included. “Understanding our carbon footprint helps deepen our sensitivity to the Christian virtue of stewardship celebrated this month throughout Sudbury Catholic District School Board schools” said teacher Eileen Harris.
Several months ago, a group of three students in teacher Chantal Rancourt’s grade 5/6 class were inspired to make a difference in the world. All on their own, these grade 6 Immaculate Conception Catholic Elementary students decided that they wanted to start fundraising for the Ryan’s Well Foundation, which helps buy and build wells in countries where there is little access to clean water. In December they launched their own school fundraiser with the goal of raising $2000 to contribute to this foundation. After their first initial event, the girls – Abigail Morgan, Sydney Hall and Alexa Connors, had raised over $210 from the one day. Since then, they have had an additional $300 raised through more donations. On April 18th, 2012, the students organized a “fun day” fundraiser to secure more funds for their cause. “They have basically made all of the arrangements and plans all on their own,” teacher Chantal Rancourt stated. “These girls are amazing – they have done all the set up, organized all the events, and planned all the teams and team captains. I am so proud of their enthusiasm with this initiative!” Immaculate students were asked to bring in a toonie to take part in the fun day which included an obstacle course and a variety of sports and speed games. At the end of the day, their total had climbed to over $1650 – very close to their goal of $2000. The girls have one more event planned – a zumba fundraiser. When asked to comment about their inspirational efforts, the girls replied in unison “Inspiration is the key to the future!” The girls explained that this was their motto and they had decided to be inspiring and to spark inspiration in others. Their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed as a person from their community, after reading the initial story on their fundraiser, was so inspired by their determination, offered to help them reach their goal and would top up the remaining funds after their events were completed. Abigail, Syndey and Alexa were thrilled that they had inspired a stranger to get involved. All three have decided that this is just the beginning, and will continue to make positive changes in the future.
St. Benedict grade 7 students Lexis Costanzi and Kelsey Currie prepare by doing warm-up exercises before performing their poetry on stage for Toronto-based poet Tanya Neumeyer. Performance poetry is written especially for an audience. In this case, the students will be presenting their original creative writing pieces for their classmates. Recently, the students were inspired by Neumeyer’s spoken-word workshops in which she taught them performance skills such as stance, gesture and tone.
The Grade 4/5 class at St. David Catholic School recently participated in a day long tribute to the RMS Titanic. The students plotted the journey of the maiden voyage on maps, learned about sending messages through Morse code, and collaboratively worked on creating a model of the grand ship. Their teacher, Jennifer Gran said,” marking the 100th anniversary of the fateful voyage was an opportunity for the students to learn more about the science and history of the “unsinkable” Titanic.”
