Mount Saint Mary's Academy Established 1859

August 30, 2010

Mount St. Mary Academy

REMINDERS: Sept. 3: Minimum Day; 12:00 dismissal; Extension open until 6pm

Sept. 6: NO SCHOOL; Labor Day Holiday

Sept. 9: Back to School Night – 6pm St. Patrick’s Church

Sept. 29: Picture Day

SPORTS CORNER: Welcome back to school and welcome to the 2010-2011 Sports Season.  We start off the year with Girls' Basketball, Cross Country and Flag Football. Flag Football practice will be Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursday s from 3:15 to 5:00 at Condon Park. Be sure to meet Mr. Thibodeau or Mrs. Lima as soon as school gets out in the back parking lot before heading over for practice, and bring plenty of water. Forms went out last week for all sports.  Please return the signed forms and fees ASAP as we need the information for the league to set up the calendar and the start of practices. Please return Basketball and football forms to Mr. Ellis and Cross Country to Mrs. Ridens. Remember to write two checks: one for the player’s fee and one for the uniform deposit. -Tim Blaney/Barbara Hurley

Girls’ basketball season gets underway this week, so Mr. Ellis will not be available after school for help. He arrives at school at 7:30 promptly, so please come in and see him in the morning if help is needed. Girls’ basketball update: practice will go from 3:15-4:30 Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. No practice on Tuesday (this week only). Mr. Ellis will put together a complete game and practice schedule once he receives a game schedule from the league. There will be a parent meeting following practice on Thursday.

Sacrament Preparation for the Entire Family!

Celebrating Jesus in the sacraments is the foundation of the Catholic Faith. Sacrament preparation is a wonderful process for families to learn more about what it means to be a member of God’s church, as brothers and sisters of Jesus. To serve our families, religious and sacramental needs, we ask that ALL families fill out the sacrament form that is located on the web site and return it to school office as soon as possible. The sacrament process if for all members of your family—Parents and children of all ages who needing sacraments of baptism, first Holy Communion or confirmation. If you or your children have sacrament needs you will be contacted. More information will be provided at our back to school night.

Root Beer Floats are back! This Friday, September 3^rd, teachers will be selling Root Beer Floats for $2.00 in the back parking lot after school. Come and enjoy this yummy and refreshing treat.

Mt. St. Mary Choraleers: This is an audition performance choir of students in grades 4 – 8. We meet once per week on Thursdays at 6:50 a.m. in the music room at school. Our performances include entertaining at parish events and parent club events, singing at Cornish Christmas, occasional nursing home activities and senior center events. Auditions for new participants will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, August 31, immediately after school in the music room. They are only 2-3 minutes long per student. There is a monthly fee of $15.00 per student for this activity. If this fee poses a hardship, please see me privately and I will attempt to find scholarship monies for your child.

We begin practices this week, Thursday, Sept 2 at 6:50 a.m. Students should arrive between 6:40 and 6:48 so that we can begin promptly at 6:50. I will see any interested students tomorrow afternoon. I’m looking forward to a great performance year. Please call me with any questions. -Colleen Deneen 530-559-5507

YEARBOOKS!! Order early and save 20% off the price. Complete the attached flyer and return to the school office with payment.

CLASS NEWS

PRE-K – MRS. QUENTMEYER: Welcome Pre-Kindergarten parents! This week the children will continue to learn about school rules and classroom routine! We will be working on some fun activities with apples this week also! In Religion the children will be learning about creation. Please return “All about me” papers by Tuesday, September 7^th with a photo of your child attached! Reminder that this Friday is a half day and extension will be available. No school on Monday, September 6^th. Also back to school night will be on Thursday, September 9^th at 6:00! Hope to see everyone there!

KINDERGARTEN – MRS. RIDENS: Welcome all parents and students. We had a great first week. Your children are eager to learn and step up to the tasks. We are talking about being a friend and the Golden Rule. We will be reviewing the letters D,E,F,G, & H this week. It is important for students to form their letters correctly. That will be a main focus. I expect each student to write their name with a capital and lower case letters. Please help me to establish this as well as the other good habits of being a super student. If you haven’t sent a pillow and blanket with your child, please try to do so. When the weather changes it is more comforting during rest time. Thank you, God’s peace and joy this week.

1^ST GRADE – MRS. KENT: Hello First Grade families- Welcome to a great year together! I think we had a good first week. You will notice that Homework starts today.  Your child will be bringing home his/her folder.  On one side is all the corrected work we did last week.  This is yours to keep.  On the other side of the folder is tonight's homework.  I try to make homework relate to something taught that same day or the day before (review).  Give your child a quiet place to work, and they should be able to do it on their own.  The only thing you need to do is look it over when finished for any obvious errors and help your child correct if necessary.  Then put the paper back in the folder and send it back to school.  You'll see it again tomorrow with more homework.  Don't forget that this Friday is a half day, with dismissal at noon.  Have a good week!

2^ND GRADE – MRS. KEANE-STEIN: Welcome to 2^nd Grade! I am so happy you are all here! Our first week of school was delightful as we got to know one another. We will continue to ease on in to the coming weeks, with minimal home practice (the hardest part being to cover books!) and lots of in-class review. We begin Atrium this week and welcome our catechist, Mrs. Valvo, and her sons Christopher and Matthew! I will let you know all about our policies and procedures in 2^nd grade at our Back to School Night on Thursday, September 9^th which begins at 6:00pm in St. Patrick’s Church. See you then!

3^RD and 4^TH GRADE – MRS. REYNOLDS: Welcome back! We have had a wonderful 1st week, getting to know each other and learning daily procedures. We welcome our new 3rd and 4th grade students, Rion Bindewald, Maria Skoblar, and Miranda Hauke! We will continue learning classroom procedures this week, as well as, adding a few new things. This year the 3rd and 4th grade students will be blessed to be a part of the Atrium program, with Mrs. Valvo! We will begin this on Thursday. Parents: please expect your children to have 30-45 minutes of homework each night. Daily assignments in Spelling, Math, and Reading will be given, starting today. Please check your child's agenda book every day, to see what their homework is, and sign the bottom of each day.

My Blog should be up and running by next week, so keep an eye out for the address to be sent home. You may check daily assignments on my Blog, as well as, long term assignments. We will be starting our Reading Logs today. Both grades must read, outside of class, 40 minutes each week. These logs are due every Monday and need to be signed by a parent or guardian. The Friday Folders are sent home every Friday, with your child's graded work. Please sign the front and return with your child on Mondays. If you have any questions, please email me at kreynolds@mtstmarys.org. Have a great week!

5^TH GRADE – MRS. DOERR: Greetings! We’ve had a great beginning to our school year! This week we will begin the first spelling packet which is due on Friday. There will be a lot of training time spent on creating it so not to fret! We will continue looking at tips for keeping assignments on track and being organized. Thank you for all the classroom supplies! We are off to a very happy and productive start! Have a fabulous week!

JUNIOR HIGH GRAMMAR – MRS. DOERR: Welcome to school! We’ve had a fine beginning! The first lesson plans were handed out last week and everyone is catching on to our schedule! Unit 1 vocab cards are due on Thursday this week. The test will be Friday. Keep up the great attitude and have a wonderful week!

4^TH – 8^TH GRADE – MR. ELLIS: Math: All grades will be introduced to their textbooks this week.

5^th grade will begin the week in chapter one by recognizing the value of a digit to the billions place. They will also compare and order numbers throughout the week. Weekly concepts will be reviewed on Friday.

6^th grade will start by estimating with whole numbers. Basic concepts with estimation will be analyzed through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division throughout the week. Students will be asked to prepare for a chapter one quiz on Friday following a review session on Thursday.

Pre-Algebra students will begin the week by looking at expressions and variables. On Tuesday we will practice with powers and exponents followed by order of operations. Students should also prepare for a quiz on Friday.

Algebra students will begin chapter one with variables in Algebra. Exponents and powers and order of operations coincidentally will be analyzed as well. Students must understand these basic concepts of Algebra in order to be prepared for Quiz #1 slated for Friday.

Social Studies: 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th will continue to work on their current event summaries on Monday and prepare to give their oral presentation on Tuesday. On Wednesday, 6^th and 7^th grade will turn their attention towards geography and begin mapping the world. 8^th grade will start mapping the U.S. By Friday, all grades should expect a geography quiz.

4^TH – 8^TH GRADE SCIENCE – MRS. McDANIEL: 

Welcome back to another exciting year of science. I have enjoyed hearing about all of the summer adventures that your children took part in the last few months. This year I have a bulletin board in my classroom titled “Snapshots of Science.” If you have a picture of something you think our science classes would enjoy seeing or hearing about please send it in with your child. Thank you to all of the students that turned out and helped out at the Parish Picnic yesterday. We will keep you posted on the results of our Zero Waste Picnic. This week 8^th grade will be busy playing with Hot wheels and learning about acceleration. 6^th/7^th grade will continue learning about what lies beneath the surface of our earth and work together to decipher Wegener’s Puzzle. 5^th grade will continue learning about the cell, receive details about an “Edible Cell” assignment on Thursday, and have a short quiz on the parts of the cell on Friday. Finally, in 4^th grade we will be learning about the basic needs of animals through working with Earthworms in the lab.

4^TH – 8^TH GRADE SPANISH – MRS. McDANIEL: 

This week 6^th-8^th grade Spanish will be practicing the phonetic sounds and mastering the vowel sounds through jingles, games, and vocabulary exercises. 5^th grade will be working with the “a” sound and receiving a short spelling and vocabulary list for practicing at home. 3^rd/4^th will continue their work on learning the entire alphabet and challenging each other in Alphabet Tic/Tac/Toe. In 1^st and 2^nd grade we will be listening to Spanish stories, picking out the words we know, and practicing our greetings. Finally our Kindergarten class will also listen to stories and practice what they learned last year in a game of Color Bingo.

LANGUAGE ARTS – MR. PETERSON: 4^th Grade: This week we will read “The Pumpkin Runner” by Marsha Arnold. We will be using this reading to review our many reading strategies we will be using this year. This past week the students have been writing about the events in their summer. We have been taking a closer look at what makes a good paragraph. The students have showed great improvement already. Keep up the great work! We will revise the rough drafts and finish the final drafts this week. 4^th Grade Math: The students will begin our study of rule and place value up to ten thousand. We will be using the textbook and in class activities to gain a better understanding of each topic. The students have showed good progress in their pre testing and various math activities last week.

6^th Literature and Writing: This week we will begin by looking at two of my favorite questions for students. What is writing and what is reading? We will do two different class activities in which students will look further into their understanding of what is writing and reading to them. At the end of the week, we will begin looking at our entry theme of Mystery. We will look at four different types of literature which all have the theme of Mystery within them.

7^th and 8^th Grade Literature and Writing: After our class discussion of what is reading, we will begin this week looking into literature. The 7^th grade students will begin reading and discussing the story of “ Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.” The 8^th grade students will take a close look at how characters communicate in three different writings, “A Days Wait,” “A Time to Talk,” “Growing Up,” and “The Miracle Worker.”

6^th, 7^th, and 8^th Spelling: This year, we will complete our spelling class work/homework in a spiral notebook. In this notebook, students will be able to keep assignments organized, grades and test scores in one place. I ask that you continue to check in with your students about their spelling homework and homework/test grades. With your support we can continue to make great progress.