Shrove Tuesday with more than 800 pancakes drizzled with syrup…

Shrove Tuesday
Fat Tuesday
Fettisdagen
Mardi Gras
Fastnacht
Sprengidagur
Apocreas

It doesn’t matter what you call it, it was definitely a morning to fatten up heading into Lent at St. Raphael School. All the students packed into the gymnasium to enjoy pancakes dripping with syrup.

On Wednesday, students will celebrate the first day of Lent with an Ash Wednesday Service with Deacon Steve Callaghan and the St. Charles College Choir.

Students in Miss O’Reilly’s grade two class are showcasing their book reports this week in the form of “book floats”.  The students are presenting a book they read in a more three-dimensional way known as story dioramas. 
 
Miss. O’Reilly says that lots of the other students at St. Raphael’s have been busy working on bridge projects, science fair projects, and heritage fair projects and her kids wanted to take something big on and feel a sense of ownership too. 
 

St. Charles College hosted the SCC Cards Classic 7/8 Boys Basketball tournament recently.
The St. Francis A team came in 1st, 2nd place went to Felix Ricard, 3rd place went to MacDonald Cartier and in 4th place was St. Charles Elementary.

Congratulations goes out to all participants!

Students from St. Mary Catholic Elementary School and Marymount Academy took part in the 15th Annual Professional Engineers Ontario Bridge Building Competition this past week. St. Mary was represented with eight teams and Marymount Academy had four teams registered for the competition. For several of the students, this was their first time taking part in such an event and were excited to see their bridges put to the test. The students’ bridges were put to the test to see how much of a load they could take before they broke, which for some, was the most exciting part of the whole event. Top results for the two schools include Nathan Paul and Riley Talbot from St. Mary who placed fourth and Victoria Dryland from Marymount Academy who placed fifth. Congratulations to all the teams for your efforts and creativity!

With the launch of Full-Day Early Learning Kindergarten programs across Ontario this past fall, administration at the Sudbury Catholic felt it was important to link the Board’s commitment to technology to the new Early Learning Environments set up for the 4 and 5 year old students. As established by the Ministry of Education, the goals of the Full Day Early Learning program are to establish a strong foundation for the early years through a play-based learning environment as well as to improve a child’s prospect for success in school and beyond. Nicole Snow, Superintendent of School Effectiveness spearheaded an iPad pilot project for the Sudbury Catholic Early Learning classrooms. It was felt that the iPads in the classroom allow for the teachers and Early Childhood Educators to work together to set the students on a very positive trajectory for learning.
“This project has a two pronged approach with a focus on student learning as well as teacher/ECE efficacy,” Snow stated. “Not only will the students have an excellent opportunity to learn while playing – one of the six fundamental principals of the ELKP, the teachers and ECE’s will also have an important tool that helps track assessments, data and growth for each of the students.” Snow also explains that through the use of the iPads, the teachers and ECEs will have the opportunity to expose their students to a unique way to explore, discover and grow while being able to evaluate and assess the child’s progress.
Catherine McCullough, Director of Education for the Board strongly supports this project and feels that it is an exceptional opportunity for both the students as well as the staff. “This iPad pilot project allows our young students to develop curiosity, creativity and confidence through technology which speaks to the whole Early Learning philosophy of play-based learning,” McCullough stated. “I am proud that our Board supports our strategic commitment of living a culture of technology and this project is an outstanding example of putting the needs and successes of our students first.”
Each Sudbury Catholic Early Learning classroom will be equipped with a set of iPads, a MacBook, a printer and a digital camera as well as having access to wireless Internet. All of the ipads have been set up with numerous apps that will allow for maximum student learning as well as for teacher/ECE assessment purposes.
All Sudbury Catholic Early Learning Teachers and ECE’s were in-serviced on the iPads and will begin to implement them in their classes as early as March 2. For more information on this pilot program, please contact the Sudbury Catholic District School Board at (705) 673-5620.

St. Theresa Catholic School held a t-shirt contest recently and children were encouraged to design a t-shirt depicting St. Theresa School. All of the entries were submitted and all students voted on 5 final designs. The winning design was then printed on t-shirts which all students received at no cost thanks to the Parent Council. The student body will be encouraged to wear these on student assembly days once per month as well as other special days. The winning t-shirt seen in this photo is of an eagle since they are the St. Theresa Eagles and Gr.6 student Daniel Mensour (second from right) designed this image.

A crunch could be heard throughout the halls and classrooms at St. Raphael’s School this morning.  Almost four hundred students bit down on a red Gala apple simultaneously to celebrate the school’s first Apple Crunch a Month event.

The school is being recognized by the Healthy Schools Recognition Program.  It is a Ministry of Education initiative that awards schools going above the call of duty when it comes to the promotion of healthy living and eating. 

Students had been gearing up for the event with morning announcements that focused on the healthy benefits of eating the fruit. 

Grade Seven student Keenan Skilliter told the student body that “eating the apple will clean teeth, massage gums and nourish the brains.”

The school will continue to hold one Apple Crunch a Month from now until summer break. 

Junior kindergarten students at St. Francis celebrated Valentine’s Day in style. Students decorated their red paper hats with valentine cards they received from classmates. Students sang songs, listened to poems, stories and made crafts for their families to celebrate the special day.

Ms Peterson’s 1/2 class celebrated the 100th Day of School on February 11th this year. The preparation for the celebration starts in September as part of the math curriculum. Starting the first day of school until the 100th Day number sense math concepts are taught visually, orally, and “tactilely,” as well as, reinforced daily: calendar, identification and value of coins, counting by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, 25’s forwards and backwards, adding using regrouping for ones, tens, hundreds and the importance of ten as anchor number. A puppet named “Zero The Hero” comes to visit the students every ten school days with lifesaver candies to reinforce the concepts previously listed, as well as, the importance of zero in a number for place value. The preparation from the first day of school to the 100th day of school allows the children to experience number sense concepts in a fun way.

For the class celebration on February 11th, the grade 1/2 class decorated 100 Day crowns with cheerios using ideas from a math cheerio counting book, and brought clothing from home that represented the number 100 in some way, along with a home-made collection of 100 things to display. A classroom book was created about 100 Wishes for the principal. The children played several games that included counting to 100 in a variety of ways ( orally, physically in the gym and using dice). Also, several jars of valentine candy were on display and the children had to estimate which jar contained 100 candies. The week prior to the 100th Day the students made predictions about the book, “100 Day Worries.” Of course, the classroom puppet, “Zero The Hero,” came for a visit wearing a special 100th Day costume and a special zero shaped treat. Lastly, and the class favourite, is SNACK. The snack is selecting ten pieces of candy from ten bowls with different kinds of candy to collect and place the pieces on an individual 100 Chart mat. The children get to eat ten rows of 10 different types of candy. Many six and seven year old children have been heard to say during this activity, “This is the greatest day of their entire school life!”