On Monday March 29th at 1pm the St. Andrew School junior students participated in the School Junior Spelling Bee. Fourteen brave souls participated in the competition in order to find the one student who would represent St. Andrew School at the CPCO semifinal and hopefully the final Spelling Bee. Pictured are Sydney Sheppard (winner) Hannah Smith (2nd runner up) and Sidney Smith (1st runner up) with the three judges, Mrs. Vervega, Mr. Dagonstino and Mr. Gautheir. Congratulations to all of the participants and the SCDSB wishes Sydney every success in her next level of competition!
Category: Staff
Aboriginal Dancing and Drumming at Pius
Pius XII students, staff and families from Minnow Lake Best Start and Maple Tree Preschool participated in their first Aboriginal Dance and Drum workshop on Tuesday, March 23rd in the Pius XII School gym. Fancy shawl and jingle dancers, Rosemarie Erb, Tracy Recollet, Chelsea Recollet and Kiana Manitowabi, wore their beautiful regalia and danced to the beat of the drummers. A special prairie chicken dance was performed by Hayden Shears-Recollet. The lead drummers, DJ MacGregor and Brad Robinson, were accompanied by four student drummers, Dawson Baptiste, Joey Manitowabi, Karaka Osawamick and Isaiah Hunt from the Native Studies class at St. Charles College. All together at the big drum, they aligned their drum beat with the heart beat of mother earth. Students had the opportunity to dance with the dancers to the beautiful songs of life. After the dancing and drumming in the gym, dancers visited the JK , SK and Minnow Lake Best Start classes and created their own paper doll regalia with sparkles, beads, feathers and jingles.
St. Raphael Students Connecting With Students in Equador
At St. Raphael Catholic Elementary School, Mrs. Lucciantonio’s Gr. 2/3 class and Miss Filice’s Gr. 3/4 class have been involved with the International Friendship Project in Ecuador. They are working with Jan and David Buley who are two professors from the School of Education at Laurentian University. The students have become penpals with the students in Ecuador so that they can share the wonderful things about our community and knowledge of Canada, and learn a great deal about the community and customs of Ecuador. They have also been collecting Crayola Art Supplies to send to them as this spring Jan and David will be going to Ecuador and will be bringing 10 Laurentian Education students with them to provide an arts camp for 250 students. Both of the St. Raphael teachers feel this is an excellent opportunity for their students to learn about different cultures as well as the importance of building compassionate relationships.
St. Ben’s Students Celebrate Multicultural Day
Students from the Lifeskills class at St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School were thrilled to be able to share their projects on March 11 during their Multicultural Day celebration. All of the students were asked to pick a country and then use books from the library and find information on the internet to help them put together a project for their geography assignment. Some of the countries picked included Cuba, South Africa, Mexico and Ireland. The presentation of the projects was the first part of the day’s celebration and then the students played games, listened to music from different countries, and enjoyed different foods from around the world. Pam Colasimone, the Lifeskills teacher was very proud of the work that the students had produced. “ The students have worked for the last six weeks on these projects.” said Colasimone. “ They thoroughly enjoyed learning about the countries they selected as well as learning about the other countries that were presented today. It was a fantastic project for the students and they had a lot of fun in the process!”
St. Theresa Students “Zumba for Haiti”
Students from St. Theresa Catholic Elementary School had the opportunity to try something new and exciting on Wednesday, March 10, 2010. All of the classes had a chance to experience the exciting new exercise called Zumba which is a Latin inspired fitness class with a hip-hop flavour. The students had been trying to figure out something different for them to do to raise money for the people of Haiti and the idea of bringing in donations of any amount for a chance to try Zumba was the one idea that everyone agreed was the best. Zumba instructor Lori Mitchell from Lori Mitchell Fitness visited the school and had all of the classes join her in the gym to try some of the different Zumba moves. Maria DeMarco, Principal of the school enjoyed watching the students take part in the classes as well as trying out the moves herself. “It is a great way for the kids to get their daily physical activity.” said DeMarco. “As well, the school is able to promote physical fitness while supporting a really great cause like Haiti!”
St. Anne’s Parent Going Above and Beyond to Support School Community
At all of the schools at the Sudbury Catholic District School Board, one can find many parents who go that extra mile to ensure that the students and staff have all that they need for great, fun, safe school days. One such parent that fits this bill is Todd Connors. Connors is a parent of a grade 8 student at St. Anne Catholic Elementary School in Hanmer and is the Regional Operations Manager of Perkins Restaurants. Todd is continuously supporting St. Anne not only with different supplies, but also by finding time to fit volunteering at the school in his busy schedule. As Regional Operations Manger of Perkins, he often donates many different food supplies to the school including pancake mix, muffin mix, crackers, soups, juice etc and in large enough quantities to feed the entire school! As well, he has donated season tickets to the Sudbury Wolves games for the school to enhance their student recognition programs such as “I caught you doing something good”. Laura Stirrett, Vice Principal of the school feels that Connors is an excellent example of positive parent involvement as well as a great example of how community can work together with schools building strong partnerships. “Mr. Connors is an important part of our school.” said Stirrett. “With his generous donations, he has helped eased some of the fund-raising burdens on students especially during these difficult financial times. We are very grateful for all that Mr. Connors has done and does for our school!” Cheryl Macrury, the JK/SK teacher at the school had her students write a letter to Mr. Connors on behalf of the school to express their gratitude for all that he has done for them. St. Anne’s would like to thank Mr. Connors and Perkins Restaurant for really making a difference in their school community.
The letter includes these lines from the JK/SK students:
Dear Mr. Connors,
Thank you for the pancake mix and syrup
for our pancake breakfast. They were EXCELLENT!!
They tasted YUMMY!!! You always give us awesome
treats for our special celebrations. We wan to thank
you for everything you do for our class and for our school.
We love it and we love YOU!
Love,
JK-SK
St. Paul Catholic Elementary School Donates to Canadian Development and Peace
Students and staff of St. Paul Catholic Elementary School were thrilled to present a $1000 cheque made out to Canadian Development and Peace on Thursday, March 4, 2010. The students presented the cheque to Sudbury Catholic Trustee Paula Peroni who was on hand at the school to accept the money on behalf of the organization. The money was raised to help out people in Haiti still reeling from the devastating earthquake.
St. Andrew Does a “DEAR”
At 2:30 on Thursday March 5…World Book Day…the students and staff of St. Andrew School “Dropped everything and Read” DEAR for 10 minutes. The halls were all quiet except for the voice of the Kindergarten prep teacher Mrs. Hyndman who chose to have a read aloud for her group of students.
Dr. Jeffrey Wood, Guest Speaker at MISA NEOEN Carousel Event
Dr. Jeffrey Wood was a keynote speaker at a recent MISA-research carousel organized by Jean McHarg, Superintendent of Education for the Sudbury Catholic District School Board on behalf of the eight school boards and one school authority.
Dr. Wood emphasized the importance of the collaboration of all stakeholders to share the research being done in our region by the eight school boards and one school authourity and the two universities. Future plans would include having doctoral and masters students conduct research in the school boards on major initiatives presently being implemented.