St. Francis students Makaylah Kruk in grade 5 (french immersion) and Jordon Pileggi in grade 6 (french immersion) took part in this year’s annual Fast Flowing Water Poster Contest. Both students submitted outstanding posters and walked away with fourth and fifth place finishes.
MaKaylah took fifth and wond a $100 Cineplex gift card and Jordan took fourth place and won a $150 iTunes gift card. Congratulations to both MaKaylah and Jordan!
Category: St. Francis School
“Score!” – Sudbury Catholic Receives Significant Funding to Support Music Programming
The grade 8 students at St. Benedict donned their coats and waited by the door for the vehicle from St. John’s Music in Toronto to arrived jammed packed with goods. Getting ready to unload their order, their teacher, Leanne Urso, couldn’t stop herself from grinning – “Its like Christmas!” exclaimed Urso. Both Urso and St. Anne’s vice principal, Joanne Comisso applied for some funding back in June to support the board’s music programming. Successful in their grant application, both staff members received word that the Sudbury Catholic Board would be receiving $20,000 worth of musical instruments and other music paraphernalia from MusiCounts. MusiCounts is a music education charity associated with the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, working towards keeping music alive in schools across Canada. This specific grant, called the Band Aid grant, speaks to their mission of ensuring that children in Canada have access to comprehensive music programs through their schools, regardless of socio-economic circumstances. On Friday, September 30, MusiCounts held a press conference to announce this year’s recipients of these grants nationwide, with the help of Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, as well as Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. A total of $600,000 was distributed to over 80 school communities across the country. Sudbury Catholic was the only recipient in Northeastern Ontario successful in their grant application.
Both Urso and Comisso conduct the elementary Sudbury Catholic concert band, which is comprised of grade 7 and 8 students from St. Anne, St. Raphael, Pius XII and St. Benedict. This band, which practices separately in their individual schools, come together on several occasions throughout the school year to perform as one. With the arrival of new instruments and music programming material, both Urso and Comisso were overjoyed with the success of their application. “We are both so passionate about music,” Comisso stated. “This arrival of instruments and materials is a huge, huge addition to our programming, and we are so fortunate.”
Barry MacDonald, Chair of the Board for Sudbury Catholic echoed Comisso’s comments. “ What an outstanding accomplishment for our Board. This substantial delivery of musical instruments etc., is a direct result of the hard work and dedication of our staff,” MacDonald stated. “The passion that drives our staff to offer our students more, directly impacts these students, and allows our staff to deliver above standard programming.”
Upcoming concert dates will be announced in the near future with the band performing in and around the city, with their brand new instruments.
SCDSB Junior Girls Handball Tournament Results
On March 4, teams from several Sudbury Catholic Elementary Schools took part in the Board’s Junior Girls Handball Tournament at St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School.
The results were as follows:
1st place – St. Francis
2nd place – St. David
3rd place – St. Paul
4th place – St. Raphael
Congratulations to all the participants and thank you to all of the coaches, teachers, parents and volunteers involved!
Wild About Reading At St. Francis
St. Francis Catholic Elementary School took the time to highlight literacy within the building on January 27 to celebrate Family Literacy Day. Students had the opportunity to read to others during the day emphasizing that reading is an important skill and reading everyday helps to improve student achievement.
Mrs. Healy’s Full Day Kindergarten program read the book “Where the Wild Things Are?”. They worked on a illustration based on the story, watched the film about the movie and re-told the story to each other. St. Francis students are WILD about reading!
Math and Engineering for Christmas at St. Francis
Math and engineering has been taking place in the classrooms at St. Francis Catholic Elementary School as students created ginerbread houses during the last days of school before the holidays.
Samaritan Purse Collection at St. Francis
During the last few weeks, the students at St. Francis School have been collecting items for the Samaritan Purse Organization. Items collected are going to be boxed and wrapped and delivered to children in need throughout the world, during the Christmas season. The students are happy to make the lives of those less fortunate a little brigher during the season of giving. It does not stop there as they are continuing to help others during the season of Advent by collecting non perishable food items for the Inner City Home.
Buster the Bus Visits St. Francis
Buster the Bus visited St. Francis to review bus safety rules when travelling on the bus recently. The students were excited to see Buster and review bus rules to keep students safe.
“Tasty” Learning at St. Francis
Students in some of the Grades 5 and 6 classes at St. Francis Catholic Elementary School had the opportunity recently to take part in a very “tasty” project. As part of the O.R.E.O. project, students all over the world collected data on how many cookies could be stacked. O.R.E.O. stands for Our Really Exciting Online Project and involves literacy and numeracy activities including data collection, scientific experimentation, and, of course, nutrition. Teachers Donna Rinaldi and Lyanne Marion felt it was a great way for the students to take part in some hands on learning. “The O.R.E.O. project encompasses a broad range of learning for our students,” Marion stated. “With oreos being the hands on activity tool, the classes were so excited to take part in all of the experimentation including stacking, research, and estimation.” As a treat, the grade 5 and 6 students enjoyed a big glass of milk with their cookies once all the hard work was done.
Parish Partners Supporting Early Learning at St. Francis
St. Francis students in one of the school’s new Early Learning classroom were treated to a special visit from Father Tony Man-Son-Hing on Thursday, September 15, 2011. Father Tony stopped by teacher Angele Lachance’s class to meet the new Early Learning students and to show support for the school’s newest registrants. Lorrie Petryna, principal of St. Francis was thrilled with the visit and joined with the students in welcoming Father Tony to their classroom. “It is always a pleasure to have our parish representatives celebrate learning with our students,” Petryna stated. “Father Tony, as well as Father Larry Rymes from Our Lady of Hope Parish are regular visitors to our school, and really support our teachers and students to help us strengthen our faith community.”