“I’m a knitting machine,” student Andrea Van Bekkum exclaimed when asked about her new found skill. The St. Charles College Lifeskills class invited teacher Elizabeth Szilva’s mother, Betty Szilva in to teach the students the skill of knitting. “In conversation with my mother, I got the idea that knitting might be a great experience for the kids,” Szilva said. “It is a lost art – and can be a great way to work on the students’ fine motor skills, expand their socialization skills and also learn how to deal with frustration.” They then came up with a class project to create a “crazy quilt”. Each student works on their individual piece and then Mrs.(Betty) Szilva takes the finished pieces home and crochets them together. For those that can, the students sit around in a knitting circle and their teacher explains that this is also a great exercise in working on their conversation skills. For other in the class, different adaptions are made to allow them to participate in the knitting, for instance those that need arm support sit in front of a desk in order to better support their arms. Students who require even more assistance dictate their knitting instructions to the teacher or educational assistant working with them and the staff member carries out their knitting task. Mrs. (Betty) Szilva inspired some of the more reluctant boys to start knitting by telling them the story of famous Montreal Canadian goalie Jacques Plante who learned to knit from his mother and later used this skill to relax himself between games. The students are allowed to take their piece home to work on and have recruited help from their mothers and grandmothers. With a huge grin, student Brandon Brown laughed when asked about his new-found skills. “I like knittin’,” Brown replied, and continued on with his needles and wool, eager to continue on his project.
Category: Community
St. Mary Staff Gets “Pied”!!
Recently students from St. Mary Catholic School in Capreol participated in the annual Jump Rope/Hoops for Heart Campaign. Each year the energetic students have raised an incredible amount of money. This year was no exception as they brought in an amazing $1,408.30. In the past fourteen years, St. Mary School has raised $46,072.01. The boys and girls had lots of fun while displaying some very skilled skipping techniques and slam dunking. As always they are very grateful to the wonderful volunteers who give so generously of their time to help out in such a big way. The school is particularly thankful to Miss O’Reilly for co-ordinating this big event. As an added incentive teachers agreed to be ‘pied’ if fundraising goals were met. Each teacher was ‘pied’ by the top fundraiser in his or her class. Mrs. Waszczylo, Principal, was ‘pied’ by the top fundraiser in the school, grade 4 student, Britney Chevrier.
St. Benedict Guest Speaker Drives Home the Message of the Dangers of Drinking and Distracted Driving
Students at St. Benedict welcomed guest speaker Norbert Georget to their school on May 12th, 2010. Mr. Georget is a former Saskatoon area paramedic, who now travels throughout Canada and the United States to bring home the reality of the consequences of drinking and driving, distracted driving and using drugs before getting behind the wheel. Drawing on his personal experiences while he was a paramedic, Mr. Georget shared story after story of senseless tragedies to a silent audience. The students and staff were speechless when Mr. Georget’s message hit home as he displayed a body bag and begged the students to make choices that would ensure they not end up in one. At the end of the presentation, the students and staff responded with thunderous applause to thank Mr. Georget for sharing his experiences. Thanks to the sponsorship of the local Community Credit Unions, St. Benedict was pleased to host the afternoon presentation to the students, and later in the evening the school opened its doors to parents and other community members to listen to Mr. Georget’s important message.
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.
De-ba-jeh-mu-jig (Storytellers) Theatre Hits Home
The drizzly weather did not dampen the spirits of our Native Studies and Native Language students from St. Charles College and Marymount Academy, on their outing to Manitoulin Island. The students saw the play “The Indian Affairs” by Debajemujig Theatre, which has central themes of understanding Aboriginal People’s worldview and place in the social fabric of Canada. The students toured a few of the historical sites of Wikwemikong and had a lunch celebration at Zaawmiknaang Outdoor Eatery- owned and operated by Martina Osawamick, the grandmother and auntie of a few of our Native Studies & Language students. It was a wonderful learning experience and the students are hoping to return next year.
St. Francis Hosts Fun Fair
St. Francis held a Spring Fair on Thursday, May 6th in the evening. A great time was had by all who attended. All the feeder schools to St. Francis were invited as well. Estelle Scappatura allowed herself to be placed in our “St. Francis Jail” for a few minutes as part of the fun!! There were various games and activities to participate in.
St. James Hosts Family Barbecue for Catholic Education Week
Students, family members and staff gathered at St. James Catholic Elementary School in Lively on the evening of May 7 as the school hosted a family barbecue and celebration. In honour of Catholic Education Week, the night kicked off with a performance by the school choir (under the direction of teacher Tammy Lanci), and was followed by a short service that included a student presentation of the Virtues that are celebrated by all SCDSB schools. After grace, the crowd feasted on food that was donated by Perkins, and prepared by the Knights of Columbus. As well, the Catholic Women’s League supplied desserts for the gathering. “It is a great way to come together as a community,” Cara Soehner, Principal of the school said. “It also gives our students and their families the opportunity to meet each other socially and spend some time getting to know one another.”
St. Michael Students Release DVD
Ms. Smith’s Grade 2/3 class at St. Michael’s School invited parents into the classroom to view their newly released DVD entitled “Grade 2/3 Fractured Fairy Tales”. Each student wrote and illustrated their own Fractured Fairy Tale. Ms. Tina Timpano, the technology integration mentor, recorded the students reading their stories, as well as their illustrations. Students and parents spent the morning enjoying popcorn and the entertaining stories. Each parent left the popcorn party with their very own DVD to enjoy for years to come.
Munsch at St. Michael
The Grade 2/3 class at St. Michael Catholic Elementary School performed Robert Munsch plays for their parents during Catholic Education Week. The room was filled with laughter as the students performed five stage adaptions by Robert Munsch.
The students created their own props and dressed up as the characters. The art of narrative and timing enriched each of the five plays!!