Tag Archives: St. Anthony School

Aviva Community Fund: Ideas for our new school yard

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Evergreen has produced an impressive series of photographs and charts based on the consultation of Andrew Harvey that took place with all our students last month.

The beauty of this plan is that it has the handprint of each and every student on it. Andrew talked to all of them and he is coming back at the end of the month to make sure he got the plans right.

The Aviva Competition is very important for us – it gives us a national platform to show people what a Canadian inner city playground really looks like.

Andrew’s work gives all of us even more information on how the students feel about their yard.

The amazing thing is the students accept what they have, but they really deserve so much more. Take a look at this collection of material. You can show your support for our kids by becoming a regular voter in the Aviva Campaign. Change can happen and our kids deserve better.

St. Ant Problems

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This is what we expect the yard to look like as the changes take place.

This is what we expect the yard to look like as the changes take place.

St. Anthony Connects The Week of October 27 – 31

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Junior Art

Junior Art

 

Teacher notes:

The Kindergarten classes:  

The Kindergarten students are invited to wear their Halloween costumes to school on

Friday, October 31st. Please ensure your child is safe and comfortable in his/her

costume and that a bag be included in the knapsack to hold the costume. They will be

allowed to wear the costume until lunch time and then they will remove the costumes

and place them in the bag for the remainder of the day. Labelling props is

recommended to ensure all the parts of the costume return home with your child’s

costume.

We ask that plastic weapons (i.e. pitchforks, swords, and guns) stay at home.

Your Kindergarten Team

Ms Myers: This week in Grade One….

 Our Home Reading Program will begin this week! Mrs. Mullins is a dedicated volunteer who will

visit each Wednesday and read a book with each student. Your child will bring home this book to

read with you. The Home Reading Books and Library Books will both be returned on

Wednesdays – this should keep the routine easy to remember!!

 The children are very excited about our Raz-Kids on-line reading program! Remember to

download the free app if you are connecting from an iPad. If you have difficulties, please let me

know.

 We will enjoy several math and literacy activities that are connected to Halloween this week 

Ms Rupnik’s Class:  We will wrap up our unit on Halloween this week. Our language lessons and tasks will include sequencing 6-8 pictures to explain how pumpkins grow. We will also decorate a pumpkin for our school-wide contest. Later in the week, we will carve a pumpkin and work on adjectives to describe the pumpkin, inside and out.  I will draw for one student to take the carved pumpkin home on Friday. Remember to return the October homework calendars on Thursday, October 30, 2014.

Ms Manzoli’s Class:  The grade 2/3 class has a week full of events, beginning with, pumpkin carving on Monday. On Tuesday our school nurse is coming in to talk about ways to stay healthy including hygiene . On Wednesday we have a Lego presentation with hands on activities. Thursday progress reports go home and on Friday it’s Halloween, come to school with your costume and have a fun filled day with various activities. Have a safe and Happy Halloween!🎃👻

M. Girard’s classes: week of Oct 27,

 2/3e : La fête de la citrouille (activités diverses)

4/5e : Rédaction d’une annonce d’animal perdu

5/6e : Etudes Sociales -Droits et responsabilités du citoyen canadien

4e Immersion: Arts Plastiques -décoration d’une citrouille, Education Physique -évaluation des techniques de course (Fun 2 Run)  

St. Anthony This Week

Monday, October 27

BYOD – students are now allowed to bring in their laptops, tablets or smart phones.  They will be kept secure in the classroom in the class tech tub.  Devices are not to be brought outside and gaming devices are not permitted.  The devices are to be used for educational purposes in the classroom.

Andrew Harvey from Evergreen in all day to consult staff and students about the greening of our property

evergreen

Andrew is from Evergreen – this is from their website:

We believe we can solve even the most pressing urban environmental issues by bringing diverse people together, inspiring them with possibilities and engaging them in identifying solutions and taking action. The need has never been more urgent.

To help create greener, more sustainable cities, we focus on four key areas:

Greenspace, Children, Food and CityWorks

Evergreen will meet with all our staff and students to come up with a plan to continue the greening of St. Anthony School

fire drill scheduled for 10:15-10:30 (weather dependant)

Squirmies – 11:35 – 12:15

Maker Event in the learning commons – grade 5/6 class, – this is a really important event for our school.  We are starting something new – a makerspace.  This will be a space in the learning commons for students to create and innovate.  These are the skills that will be so important for all of our students in the future.  You can read more about makerspaces here.

Here is a short video of one of the tools we have purchased for our makerspace – a Makey Makey kit

 

Tuesday, October 28

Andrew Harvey from Evergreen in all day to consult staff and students about the greening of our property

Andrew

Andrew Harvey meeting earlier in the year with the Green Team

Wednesday, October 29

Blockheads comes to St. Anthony – grade 2/3 – this will be a very exciting activity for the grade 2-3 students.  Blockheads is a group that uses lego to teach concepts to students.  This activity will focus on math

a Blockheads workshop from their website.

a Blockheads workshop from their website.

 

Thursday, October 30

Oct 26-3

Fun2Run program Ghost Run for the juniors!  This will be the culmination of a 5-week program to introduce our juniors to running as a fun way to keep in shape.  The run will start at the War Museum and end near the Bytown Museum – a unique event for our kids!

here is an excerpt from Michael Stashin’s website – Michael is the designer of the Fun2Run Program:

Michael is a running instructor (www.runeffortlessly.com) working with the Healthy Active Living and Obesity (HALO) research group through the CHEO Foundation to promote healthy active living among kids in the Ottawa region. Collaboratively Michael and HALO developed a Fun2Run non-competitive running program for elementary school children grades 4 through 6. The Fun2Run program will be piloted within St. Anthony School and endorse the concept of running as a fun easy activity based on the application of efficient running technique.

Progress Reports going home today

Somthing-Scary-You-2

Friday, October 31

Hip Hop day with Katie Gauthier – for all students in the gym – this is the beginning of the Little Horn Theatre Program – this is the beginning of an arts program that all our students will take part in throughout the school year.  Little Horn will expose our students to drama, dance and music created by a variety of Ottawa artists.

Halloween!  Students are allowed to wear costumes!!  

We ask that plastic weapons (i.e. pitchforks, swords, and guns) stay at home.

Don’t forget to vote for us – tell all

your friends –

everywhere!!

 

Oct 26 - 1-20 PM

St. Anthony this week

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Spaces in Squirmies and Game Pack still available.  Ability to pay is not a factor – fun is!  Please register your child if interested. Just send in the form.  Registration extended until Friday, September 26th.

 

St. Anthony this week

Wednesday, September 24 – Terry Fox Day!

Our plan is to do the walk then meet in the gym and we will dye Mr. McGuire’s hair in front of the students – then Mr. McGuire will don his princess costume for the afternoon!.

For our Terry Fox Event next Wednesday I have a note to send home for parent volunteers if you need them for your class during our walk.

The plan is to have the whole school walk around the schoolyard 2 times with the kindergarten students first.  Then the kinders will go back to class while the rest of the classes walk up booth street towards Dows Lake.  We will do a little loop in the park and walk back up Booth Street to St. Anthony School.

After the walk, Mr. McGuire will have his hair dyed pink and he will dress up as a princess!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, September 25

Shayna Tate – mural artist visiting St. Anthony to consult students

Shayna will try  to get to every room and spend 10-15 minutes or so talking to each class (depending on what the teachers prefer)

Due to smaller size of mural, all students in school may not have a chance to paint with me. It is up to teachers to decide students selected and sign then up on my schedule day of. All students ideas will be considered however and the goal is to be inclusive in this way. They are partners with me in designing the theme. 

 

This will allow for a better quality mural. 

a sample of Shayna’s work

Teacher plans for the week

Grade 2-3 Ms. Manzoli:  

The grade 2/3 class will be introduced to the fourth center of our “daily Five” (working on writing).
In math we continue to work on number sense and focus on rounding numbers to the nearest ten and hundred. 
We will also begin our first science unit.
The Primary Language Class Ms. Rupnik:
This week in the Primary Language Class, we will begin work on individual reading programs and start work on new vocabulary for the season of Autumn orally and in written form. We will continue our Social Language activities, focusing on introducing ourselves!
Finally…..Parents, please make sure to let the office know if there is a change in
pick-up plans for your child at the end of the day

 

 

The Gardens of St. Anthony

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The grounds around St. Anthony are quite beautiful. It was the first school yard greening project in the City of Ottawa back when John Dorner was the principal.

Ann Coffey, one of the original designers of the beautiful greened area in the yard writes,  “the quiet natural “island” was also to be used as an outdoor classroom. Two years after we removed the asphalt from that area and planted the trees, we did a plant ID. There were 210 species of plants, and many of them were “volunteer” wildflowers. We had all four species of goldenrods found in natural areas in Eastern Ontario, and we hadn’t planted any of them. It was really lovely there – full of the sounds of crickets and birds…”

The area is still beautiful, but it is really time for a renewal of the original project. Working with our school board, Ann Coffey, Andrew Harvey of the Evergreen Foundation and especially the students, staff and parents of the St. Anthony community, we plan on revitalizing the gardens of St. Anthony.

 

 

Some areas really need some weeding, but even in these areas we were able to find native plants like milkweed which are very good for attracting butterflies.  Other plants like the hostas in the back gardens are thriving with the shade from the central island of trees.

I think the most exciting part of this new project will not be the new trees and plants we bring into our yard, it will be the collaborative spirit that will bring all of us together to come up with a new plan that involves our students, staff and parents.  In my experience, that will build the spirit we will need to maintain our new gardens in the years to come.

I hope our wider community becomes involved in this project. The trees and gardens of St. Anthony can offer a great deal to the greening of the entire community.

Let’s make this an island of natural health and beauty in our neighbourhood.

 

New Programs for September

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Summer is the best time to start setting up programs for the year.  It is wonderful to actually have the time to do some work that I hope will benefit the whole school during the upcoming year.

We are starting with a new program called Fun 2 Run!

 

 Fun2Run Program

Michael Stashin and the Healthy Active Living and Obesity (HALO) research group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario are developing the Fun2Run non-competitive running program for elementary school children grades four through six.

We met with the two people who will be running the program.  They are both wonderful and the program looks fantastic!  Michael Stashin is a running instructor who is doing amazing things including running to the North Pole.  Here is a video showing some of the work he is doing.

 

What is impossible2Possible (i2P)? from GOi2P on Vimeo.

We also met Sophia Rosa who is a health communication consultant working with CHEO.

As you can see there is a connection to a program called impossible2possible which looks amazing and perfect for our school.

Next week we are starting with a runner’s workshop with Mike.  It will be great to see how this program works with our kids in the fall.  The plan is to train all the juniors throughout the fall in running techniques then to hold a running adventure for the students to finish off the program.

Any program that motivates people to move from the impossible to the possible has wonderful potential for our school!

More information to come!  Maybe see you next week?