Special note to parents

Please do not park in the bus loading zone on Booth – this is causing lots of trouble for our vans who drop off and pick students up at the end of the day.  We will be putting up pylons on Monday to block the area.  If this does not work we will have to ticket cars in this area.

Thank-you for your cooperation

Mr. McGuire

St. Anthony This Week

Monday, December 12

Office Hours Rec Link Mondays 9:00 – 3:00PM

9:00 to 10:00 – Group 1 (50 Kids)
Kindergarten (46 students)
46 Students
10:30 to 11:30 – Group 2 (50 Kids)
Grade ⅘ Troccoli (23)
Grade ⅚ Colaiacovo (26)
49 Students

Tuesday, December 13

Guest Reader Session in Mrs. Rupnik’s class AM- 9:30 Tyson’s mom and 1:15 Aiden’s dad

Goodlife – Ms Troccoli -12:50

Wednesday, December 14

Grade 5/6 to St Luke’s Table

Goodlife Gymnastics – Grade 3 2:00 pm

Somerset West Community Open House – 4:00 PM

Thursday, December 15

Papa Jack popcorn 

Advent Liturgy  Week 3 – 9:15 am – all parents welcome

Friday, December 16

Pizza Day

Goodlife Fitness M Chartrand’s class

St. Anthony Super Stars

Teacher Notes for this week

Kindergarten News for December 12-16, 2016

There will be many opportunities to join the Kindergarten Groups this week at St Anthony School to take part in some fun adventures such as a field trip, an Advent liturgy, a neighbourhood walk to the mailbox to mail our Santa letters and Reading Buddies!

What a great week!  There is much excitement as we wait in joyful hope during the Advent season.  We are singing songs, participating in class discussions and sharing our great ideas as we begin to understand The Christmas Story.  Our students are very engaged during our weekly Advent liturgies.  They sing “Stay Awake, Be Ready!”  and “Light the Advent Candle”.  They know it is a special time when we listen to the gospel and the prayers.  Please join us this week on Thursday December 15th, 2016 at 9:15 for our Third Week of Advent Liturgy in the gym.

The Kinders attended our second Advent liturgy with the whole school on Thursday. This time some of the kinders got to participate by standing beside their older brother or sister as they read a prayer. Another student got to light the Advent candles.

Monday we will visit Starr Gymnastics for the last time.  Our students absolutely loved this experience and we were so lucky to go three times!  A special thank you to all of our parent volunteers!  The bus will leave at 8:40-8:45 am.  Please hop on the bus with us if you can! We will return by 10:20 am.

Tuesday we will get our jingle bells and musical instruments out as we march through the neighbourhood singing Christmas songs along the way.  We will stop at the mailbox on Rochester Street to put our letters in the mail to Santa.  We can’t wait to hear back from Santa this year!  Please join us if you can on Tuesday at 10:00am for our Santa letter walk!

Wednesday K1 has Reading Buddies with the Grade 4/5 class at 10:30 am.  We are reading lots of Christmas stories.  K2 visits the Learning Commons on Wednesday morning too!

On Friday we will say goodbye to Ms. Jasmine (ECE from Algonquin) and Ms. Henry (student teacher from Ottawa U). Our Kindergarten students were blessed to have such wonderful educators in training and as staff we were so fortunate to have these educators be a part of our Kindergarten Team.  We wish them continued success in their educational journey.  Ms Henry will be back in February 2017!

Thank you Ms. Jasmine and Ms. Henry!

Ms Myers’ grade one-two class

This week the children completed some amazing artwork in the style of Piet Mondrian, one of the founders of modern art. They used primary colours and simple lines to create versions of Mondrian’s “Composition in Red, Blue, and Yellow.” Come by our “gallery” in the hallway and take a look!

Week three of Advent is already upon us.  We have been focusing on a different part of the Christmas story each week.  The children continue to enjoy adding a piece to our Advent calendar each day and are experiencing the joy of giving each time they deliver a card to someone in our school community.  In the coming week we will read the story of the Legend of the Poinsettia. It is a Mexican folktale that emphasizes the importance of giving from the heart. Remember to ask your child about it!  In math we will continue to focus on collecting data. The children will have opportunities to generate questions for their classmates and practice using a tally mark system to organize the data they collect.  In reading we are working on a decoding strategy called “Guess the Covered Word.” It encourages students to cross check initial letter sounds with what makes sense when they get “stuck” on a word. Ask your child to tell you about our “Guess the Covered Word” activity. This week our class will be leading the Morning Announcements. If your child has been asked to say a prayer, please have them practice reading it aloud to you in preparation. Mrs. Mullins, our home reading volunteer, will return to the class this Wednesday. Please ensure your child returns their Home Reading book this week. It sounds like very cold weather is headed our way this week…please ensure your child comes to school warmly dressed and prepared for the brisk air!

Ms Moga’s Grade two-three class

Writing- The students are almost finished their descriptive reports on animals! Once, finished, the students will have a chance to present their reports to our class to share their learning.

Reading- We began discussing visualizing last week! Many of the students realized they already use this strategy when reading. We will continue to read texts and practice describing the visualizations in our heads.

Math- We began our unit on addition and subtraction. This week we will investigate various strategies for adding (e.g. use doubles facts to find larger sums, bridge to 10 to solve addition problems).

Science- The grade 2s started the new unit on Movement. We brainstormed ways that many objects can move. We discovered that objects and people need a force (push or pull) in order to move. Next week, we will continue to discuss movement, as well as position.

Have a great week!
Ms. Moga

Mrs. Rupnik’s Primary Language Class

We have been talking about how preparing for Christmas is much more than buying and receiving gifts. It’s thinking about how we can be more like Christ and then doing something about it.  To help prepare for this festive season, the children have worked on various Advent activities from participating in Advent liturgies, learning songs like Away in the Manger and donating toiletries for St. Luke’s Table.

This week, we will write letters and cards to special friends of St. Anthony Catholic School (for example: Father Felix, our van drivers, etc.). We will also complete a sequencing activity about the Nativity story. Then we will retell the story using our own words.

We have completed the descriptive writing assignment called “The Best Part of Me”. Have a look at some samples. They are so creative!

Please return the Retelling Journal to school on Monday, December 12, 2016.

Ms Solymar’s Grade three class

December is flying by! The grade 3 students had another busy week working and preparing for the birth of our Saviour. Elfie has been very mischievous, hiding all over our classroom, but she helps us to remember to be kind to each other especially during the season of Advent. I am also very proud of the work that the grade 3’s have done in their French class with Mr. Girard. Their play was unbelievable and I know they worked really hard on it.
Coming up this week:
Math – This week we will be looking at the different types of graphs and how we can use them to demonstrate information.
Language – We will be exploring how there are “pebble” words and “rock” words and how we can use them to describe Christmas events!
Religion – This week marks the third week of Advent so we will continue on our exploration of the Advent season.
Reminders for the week:
1. Popcorn day on Thursday
2. Third Advent Liturgy on Thursday at 9 am

M. Chartrand Classes

This week in Mr. Chartrand’s classes, we started a robotics program brought to us

by Mr. McGuire and Lockheed Martin. We built 3 simple machines last Tuesday and

we will be building the VEX IQ robot this Tuesday. If all goes well we will be

participating in a competition. Here are a few pictures:

ROBOTICS​ (Science: Pulleys and Gears – Simple

Machines)

1​ re année

Phonics

We have begun the sounds “é” and “è”. There are phonemic songs to learn:

É, é È,è

Émilie Éléphant étudie à l’école Ève Escargot, Ève Escargot

Étudie à l’école, étudie à l’école dit è, ê, ë, dit ei, ais, est

Émilie Éléphant étudie à l’école Elle pêche dans la rivière

Toute la journée Elle pêche dans la rivière

(tune: wheels on the bus) è, ê, ë, ait, et, es

WORD WALL WORDS

Students that are being reinforced at home are doing a great job recognizing all

the sounds and the word wall words. The word wall words this week are: métro,

fusée, pourquoi, travailler, donner​.​ ​If you have a chance, I have setup

links to activities on Quizlet on SEESAW.

READING

We are reading “Un éléphant, ça trompe” and “Ève la petite chèvre” while the

grade 2’s will read “Bébé est entêté” and learn the more difficult “è” sounds.

We are also reading “L’hiver” book on Raz-Kids and the song “Jouez au hockey”

En écriture, ​we have started “how to make a snowman” and “describing how to get

dressed for recess”.

En sciences sociales​, We are focussing our week on the Mexican and Chinese

culture, clothing, arts and crafts, food, shelter, games, etc… In the New Year, the

grade 2’s will be creating a project on the country of their choice and compare it

to Canada

4​ ième​/5​ ième​ année (Immersion)

En Science​, Les Roches et les Minéraux and Les Poulies et

Engrenages through VEX IQ Robots have started. Our guided trip to

the museum of nature will be Thursday, January 19th. We have

learned about the rock cycle and how to identify minerals.

En Français​:

Our words this week are: ​arrière, à peu près, planète, poussière,

derrière, colère​.​ We have begun a new unit on “Au travail”​. The thematic

vocabulary includes: travail, profession, une carrière and different professions.

We will be focussing on “er” verbs au présent, le verbe “être” and “faire”. We will

also study adjectives that describe these professions such as sociable, créatif,

sérieux, coopératif, etc..

On oral: ​We our practicing interviewing classmates: Qu’est-ce que tu aimes

faire? We are will be playing role games: taking the role of a profession. They will

also have to create interview questions for a famous person of their choice and

then post them on Twitter.

In writing​, they will finish writing about what they would like to be when they grow

up with what traits and skills they need to attain their goal. We are also writing

Christmas cards.

En Dance​, students have now picked 2 songs for their creative Dance. Here are

the groups: Group 1 Aiden, Sophia D et Ayoub

Group 2 Sa Say, Arianne, Rin Dik

Group 3 Mandresy, Leandro Sophia N.

Group 4 Deborah, Zemhiret, Hannah

The Dance Smash is available on YouTube and on SeeSaw for them to create the

dance moves. They must choose 5 moves from each poster.

En musique​, The piano apps are on the Ipads and we are ready to learn the tune

“Ode to Joy”.

I’ve also started to teach and coach badminton after school on Tuesday’s and

Thursday’s. I have 18 students who are getting ready for our tournament in early

January.

Merci,

M. Chartrand

M Girard’s French Classes

2/3^e Français oral : une prière pour le temps de l’Avent, vocabulaire du temps des fêtes, chansons de Noël

Lecture : «Dépêche-toi» avec deux «Prouve-le»

Écriture : Père Noël et la petite cheminée (parties 1 et 2)

3^e Français oral : une prière pour le temps de l’Avent, vocabulaire du temps des fêtes

Lecture : chansons de Noël

 5/6e Immersion

Français oral : vocabulaire du temps des fêtes, un conte du moyen âge

Lecture : étude du texte de la chanson «Le roi d’à l’envers» de Marie-Claire et Richard Séguin

Français écrit : dictée décembre (71 mots)

Etudes Sociales : la ligne de temps du moyen-âge (fin)  

Sciences : la question finale (re : la démonstration de Rachel et Kaia)

Santé : les substances nocives (fin)

Éducation Physique : badminton (jeu en double)

Nixon’s Extended French Class

This week students presented their work and enjoyed group games in grades 3, 4, 5, and 6!

Grade 3: Students had fun playing classroom games to show their knowledge of when a word is masculine or feminine. With an understanding of the French definite articles, le et la, students had to identify which words from a list of vocabulary should be identified using le and which should be identified using la. Students were presented with a list of basic rules that explained when to use le et la before a noun, and a list of words that corresponded to those rules. Everyone had fun and students worked well in teams to help each other. Bien pensé!

Next week

French Language: Students will play in class games to help practice the rules related to using (de, du, des, un, et une), and begin to write sentences using these articles in Christmas related themes.

Grade 4/5: Students had fun playing classroom games to show their knowledge of when a word is masculine or feminine. With an understanding of the French definite articles, le et la, students had to identify which words from a list of vocabulary should be identified using le and which should be identified using la. Students were presented with a list of basic rules that explained when to use le et la before a noun, and a list of words that corresponded to those rules. Everyone had fun and students worked well in teams to help each other. During social studies, students enjoyed presenting and listening to the presentations of other classmates on ancient civilizations. Students also had the chance to ask questions to the presenters, and comment on the posters that each student helped to make. C’est vraiment bien!

Next Week

French Language: Students will play in class games to help them practice the rules related to using (de, du, des, un, et une), and begin to write sentences using these articles in Christmas related themes.

Social Studies:  Students will explain and examine significant differences between the ancient civilizations that they have been studying in class.

Music: Students will continue practicing singing the song “L’oiseau et l’enfant”, and work on the dynamics and pitch of their voice.  

Grade 5/6: Students had fun playing classroom games to show their knowledge of when a word is masculine or feminine. With an understanding of the French definite articles, le et la, students had to identify which words from a list of vocabulary should be identified using le and which should be identified using la. Students were presented with a list of basic rules that explained when to use le et la before a noun, and a list of words that corresponded to those rules. Everyone had fun and students worked well in teams to help each other. For social studies, students began to examine the conflict and collaboration encountered by Jacques Cartier and First Nations during Cartier’s voyages. For music, students continued to practice singing the song “L’oiseau et l’enfant”. Continuez à bien travailler!

Next week:

French Language: Students will play in class games to help them practice the rules related to using (de, du, des, un, et une), and begin to write sentences using these articles in Christmas related themes.

Social Studies: Students will write 3 consequences and 3 benefits in their journals about the stories of first encounters between First Nations and Europeans, and explain how these and other stories have helped to shape Canada.   

Music: Students will continue practicing singing the song “L’oiseau et l’enfant”, and work on the dynamics and pitch of their voice.  

Dec. 12- Dec. 16

Mrs. Troccoli’s Grade 4/5 Team News

The third week of Advent is upon us with all its joy and anticipation.  The students have been summarizing an article on the significance of this important time of the year and all the symbols that go with this liturgical season where we wait to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Ask your child all the interesting information we have discovered through our readings.

The students will visit Starr Gymnastics once again on Monday morning.  They are to be reminded to dress comfortably to be able to participate in all the fun physical activities they will be engaged in.

In Language, the students are enjoying our Book Study “Hana’s Suitcase”.  Ask your child about the events that unfolded in Hana’s life during World War II.  The students will also be writing an explanatory story about how people celebrate Christmas in another country.  It will be interesting to learn about how the customs differ from how people celebrate this holiday in Canada.

In math, we will begin our next strand, Data Management.  Students will learn various ways to collect and organize data.  They will make pictographs and bar graphs.  The goals for your child are to learn to gather and organize information appropriately; to read and interpret tables, charts, and graphs correctly; and to understand and be able to explain how people use data.

Our next science unit is Rocks and Minerals.  The students will learn about the different types of rocks and minerals and how they are important to our Earth.

The homework duotang will be sent home on  Monday and must be returned on Friday completed with care and attention to detail.

The students continue to bring in items in support of St. Luke’s table. Thank you!!!  The Grade 4/5 team certainly is an example of “Good News”!

Have a great week!

Together Everyone Achieves More!

Mrs. Colaiacovo’s Grade five-six class

Whoa! We are keeping a frantic pace, but enjoying every minute of learning and fun in grade 5/6!

         The students presented their December book talks this week and I enjoyed their creativity and their insights. I am building a reading list for my Christmas holidays, based on their recommendations! We were lucky to have Mr. Moleski (a Board technology expert) visit the class on Wednesday morning to work with the students on a mini research project for  Advent on their ChromeBooks.

         We began the data management strand in math and students have been revisiting the concepts of mean, median, mode and range; constructing bar graphs and pictographs; and collecting and interpreting data. Next week we will continue to examine and graph data as it relates directly to us here at Saint Anthony.

The grade 6 students have been working hard on the Earth and Space strand of science. Ask your child to tell you their mnemonic device they are using to remember the order of the planets in our galaxy! The students will have a mid-unit quiz on Tuesday to check in on what they have learned thus far.

We have also been working on the special grade 6 rendition of a popular Christmas song and invite parents to attend our big premiere at the monthly school assembly on Wednesday, December 21.

We enjoyed the second Advent celebration as we gathered as a school community this past Thursday and I hope that parents will join us next Thursday, December 15 at 9:15 a.m for our next liturgy.

On Monday during second block we will be attending our second and final Starr Gymnastics session with the grade 4/5 class. On Wednesday morning, we will be walking to St. Luke’s Table to assist in preparations for their Christmas meal. Please continue to support this community organization by sending in personal care items. Help us fill our Advent train!

Please continue to check in with your child to ensure that he/she is staying up to date with work assignments.

Our Go Girls Group pose for their group picture.

Green Club News November and December 2016

The Green Club continues to do work around the school to promote a green way of life. We are working on energy conservation and minimizing waste. Students continue to lead monthly assemblies for   Wastefree Wednesdays. We also welcomed Roberta LeBlanc, an Ontario Dairy Educator, to St. Anthony Catholic School. All the students learned how we get our milk and milk products from the ‘farm to the table’. They even made and tasted their own butter. Late November, our post-Halloween Pumpkin bird feeders attracted some birds for us. Thanks Ms. Myers for capturing these birds on your camera! We also had our first Waste Audit for the school year. Students worked with Green Club staff members to gather garbage, recycling, and compost materials for a 24 period. We then weighed the clear plastic garbage bags and filled in the worksheets for our Ontario EcoSchools application. Finally the students assessed the data and communicated results to the whole school community during an assembly. They even created a Google Slide presentation with reminders and reduction strategies. Keep on going!

Hatch prepares students (ages 7- 17) for the 21st century by teaching how to write computer code using JavaScript in a fun and engaging way. Hatch has built a proprietary educational platform that is designed around the principles of self-paced and mastery-based learning to encourage children to challenge themselves and build their own digital portfolio from their library of 600  projects including Minecraft, Star Wars, Games, Art, Design Apps and much more!

Hatch after school and lunch time programs are 8 to 12 weeks in length, and your preference of start dates & times are available for the winter of 2017. After school programs cost $21 per hour per student, and lunchtime programs are pro-rated at $16 for a 45-minute session.

 In order for students to obtain as much hands-on coaching as possible, we strive to provide 1 instructor for each 6 students. As such, we can run a program for as few as 6 students, although most schools have over 15 students participate. Our programs are HST exempt due to a positive ruling from the government who believes in the educational value of Hatch programs.

Registration for January classes starts soon – we will be running a lunch-time program.  Subsidies are available

Christmas Activities in the next two weeks:

Ms Rupnik’s Class

We will continue to write  letters and cards to friends of St. Anthony Catholic School (i.e., Father Felix, Mr. Bob, Mrs. Kealey, Mrs. Dorothy, our neighbouring K classes, etc.) that we started today. 

We will decorate ornaments for these special people and deliver them…. 

We will continue with our Advent story as we light the candles weekly on our Advent wreath. 

Also we will do a school walk-about for our Christmas Scavenger Hunt (a follow up activity will be send home too)… 

We will learn our 2 Christmas songs: Away in the Manger and I’m a little Santa…. with actions! 

Tues Dec 13 Santa Letters…walk to the mailbox, we will have jingle bells and musical instruments and fun hats to wear as we walk and sing through the neighbourhood until we reach the mailbox on Rochester Street.  Notes will go home asking for parents to join us too!!  

Wednesday December 14 Reading buddies with K1 and grade 4/5 reading Christmas stories…

Thursday Dec 15 Advent Liturgy at 9:15 JK/SK students with their older sibling will do various readings, (note and reading to parents going home on Monday)

We are making special ornaments but they are gifts for the parents!  We are planning a few things the last week but will confirm with the Team and then we will send you an update!