Mount Saint Mary's Academy Established 1859

February 8, 2010

Mount St. Mary Academy

82 more days until our 150^th celebration!

REMINDERS: Thursday, Feb. 11: End of 2^nd Trimester - 4^th – 8^th Ski Trip

Friday Feb. 12 & Monday Feb. 15: NO SCHOOL

Friday, Feb. 19: Report cards go home

4^th – 8^th Grade Ski Trip Thursday, Feb. 11: We plan on leaving the school by 8:30am and should be returning at approximately 5:00pm.

Correction concerning 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd grade revised ski date: This trip has been rescheduled to Wed., March 3^rd, not March 18^th as previously stated.

♥ Due to the long holiday weekend, students in grades 5 through 8 ♥ will not exchange valentines at school this week. Please see Mrs. Wood with any questions.

February Gala Update: The Gala is quickly approaching – March 20^th! Remember to buy your tickets early to save $10.00. Tickets are on sale in the office and online at www.mtstmarys.org. This year’s event will be held at the Grass Valley Elk’s Lodge with a catered dinner, music for dancing, and lots of auction items to bid on. Your family or business may also reserve a table. Call or go online for more information. I would like to thank everyone who has brought in donations. Your help and generosity is greatly appreciated. If anyone has baskets of any size that they would like to donate to the Gala we could really use them for packaging donations. Childcare will be offered at no charge until 11:00pm on the night of the Gala here in the Extension Room at school – only 10 spaces available – first come, first served - call the school office to reserve space. - Denise Rideout-O’Neill 432-3903

SPORTS CORNER: We have two games this week:  Tuesday at 4 P.M. at Ready Springs. This is our only away game and is between Ready Springs and MSM.  At the same time in our gym is a game between Chicago Park and Yuba River Charter.

CLASS NEWS

PRE-K – MRS. QUENTMEYER: Thank you to all the parents who brought in goodies for Teacher appreciation day. It was very thoughtful and I loved them all. This week the children will begin to work on the letter Rr. In literature the children will be working on the sound of R with the poem Raccoons race around in the rain. In religion we will be discussing Valentines Day and loving others. The children will be having a Valentines Day party on Thursday from 10:45-11:45. Also the children will be going on a field trip next Friday to Dr. Griego’s dental office at 9:45. Permission slips will be going home today after school.

KINDERGARTEN – MRS. RIDENS: Welcome to a short week.  We will be working on the letter Kk, and continue working with the short sound of 'i'.  In math we will be working on more and less as well as continuing to recognize and write to 100. We will be studying about American symbols and our Presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  YES, we will be having a simple Valentine's Party on Thursday at 2:15, a class list is being sent home today.  Justine Allen has details.  Have a wonderful week.

1^ST GRADE – MRS. KENT: Hello First Grade Families! It was fun seeing so many of you at the Spaghetti dinner! Although there are only four days of school this week, it will be packed with lots of learning.  In Reading and Spelling we'll learn about all the ways the "long e" sound is made. Please keep reading the take home books and signing the Reading Log.  In Math we'll continue subtracting numbers up to 13.  We'll also learn about Abraham Lincoln. Thursday afternoon we'll have a small Valentine Party-Look for a list of students' names in today's folder.  Have a good week.

2^ND GRADE – MRS. KEANE-STEIN: I would like to express my eternal gratitude to all of you for the lovely book of thoughts! It is such a precious gift I will cherish always. Thank you to Mrs. Pelline for putting it all together! Thank you all! We begin our short week with a continuation of our story, Jamaica Louise James. Math continues with addition of 2 digit numbers. In religion, we are talking about the last supper and it’s contribution to Mass we know today. Talk to your child about the Mass and ask questions! This will help them to be ready for First Holy Communion. Our next Sacramental Prep Workshop will be February 24^th. Our hero report in social studies will be written this week, with a presentation to share with the class next week. Thanks for all you do!

3^RD GRADE – MRS. REYNOLDS: Thank you to all who participated and came to the Pasta Feed, Saturday night. It was so much fun! The 3rd Grade Ski Trip will be rescheduled due to its cancellation last week. In Science, we will continue to study the moon how it affects the earth. We will be taking the Unit 2 Chapter 1 Test next week. Please make sure your child is keeping up with their handwriting packets. They should finish #24-#42 by the end of this week, which is the end of the 2nd Trimester. We will be taking the Chapter 6 Math test on Thursday, which is all about using time. The Unit 2 Math Test will be sent home Thursday and will be due on Tuesday, Feb. 16th. In Religion, we are continuing to learn about Ordinary Time on the Liturgical Calendar. For Social Studies, the "Mission Projects" will be assigned at the start of the 3rd Trimester. Our Valentine's Day Party will be on Feb. 10th from 1-2 P.M. Also, please note we don't have school Feb. 12th and 15th in observance of the President Day holidays. Have a wonderful week!

4^TH GRADE – MRS. REYNOLDS: Thank you to all who participated and came to the Pasta Feed Saturday night. It was so much fun! The 4th graders turned-in beautiful Book Report Scrapbooks of a Newberry Award winning book last week. You all put a lot of time and effort into them and they look great! In Language Arts, the students will be working on how to compose a Persuasive Essay. Each student will present their essays to the class at the conclusion of the assignment. The 4th-8th Grade Ski Trip will be this Thursday. In Religion, we are continuing to learn about Ordinary Time on the Liturgical Calendar. For Social Studies, the "Mission Projects" will be assigned at the start of the 3rd Trimester. Our Valentine's Day Party will be on Feb. 10th from 1-2 P.M. Also, please note we don't have school Feb. 12th and 15th in observance of the President Day holidays. Have a wonderful week!

5^TH GRADE – MRS. DOERR: Thank you for EVERYTHING last week! We had a great celebration of our great school, ending with the St. Canice liturgy. Thank you to everyone who volunteered for any and all of our activities. This week we are finishing the second trimester of school. Tomorrow we’ll have a test on Chapter 9 (Gifts of the Holy Spirit) and our spelling test on Lesson 20 on Wednesday. Can’t wait for skiing on Thursday! It’s always so much fun! Because of the long holiday weekend, we will not be having a Valentine’s party. On Wednesday, our room mom will treat us with a cookie after school. Thank you, Mrs. Meagher! Enjoy your holiday weekend!

JUNIOR HIGH GRAMMAR – MRS. DOERR: Greetings! Thank you for all you did to help make last week a great time for our school! You are so appreciated! This week we’ll finish Chapter 8 vocab. The cards and exercises are due tomorrow. Test on Wednesday and that ends the trimester! Boreal will be so cool! Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Social Studies: 6th-7th will wrap up chapter 10 on Monday with a review "Jeopardy" style game followed by a chapter 10 test on Wednesday. 8th grade completed their constitution book late last week and now are only a few weeks away from the Constitution Test! We will be doing some mock congress assimilations this week and further review to prepare us for the big day!

4^TH – 8^TH GRADE SCIENCE – MRS. McDANIEL.  This is a short week which marks the end of our 2nd trimester.  In 6th-8th grade we will be having a Chapter Test on Wednesday.  Students that currently have an A in the class have earned a "Free Pass" out of this test.  Students with grades below a 90% are required to take the test.  All students have learned their grades to date and know what measures they can take to improve their grade by Thursday.  I feel that everyone is capable of a strong performance on the test on Wednesday and therefore able to improve their overall grade.  Students have also started to work on their Science Project Research in class.  If you haven't already done so please be sure to sign and return the Science Proposal sheet with your signature.  In 4th-5th grade we continue our work in learning about the effects of gold mining.  Thank you to all who participated in our field trip last week.  This week we will be setting up our hydroponic garden in the lab and begin testing.  Students should also be working on their individual portfolio assignments.  We will be in the computer lab over the next few weeks, mainly on Mon., Wed., and Fridays.  If you have any spare time to help out as the children do their research and build their digital portfolios please let me know.  Fifth grade science time is 10:45-11:30 and 4th grade science time is 11:30-12:15.

SPANISH – MRS. McDANIEL: 6th-8th grade will be having a verb quiz on Tuesday.  4th - 5th grade will continue with the -ar verbs and putting them into simple sentences.  In the younger grades we will go back to working and expanding our folios.

3^rd GRADE LANGUAGE ARTS – MR. PETERSON: This week we will finish reading Balto and The Great Race. We will continue to work on our description writing and finish our final drafts on Thursday. We will also review our grammar from the past week and begin our new study on exclaiming sentences. Homework will be send home Tuesday – please return next Tuesday, Feb. 16.

JUNIOR HIGH LANGUAGE ARTS – MR. PETERSON: 6^th/7^th/8^th Language Arts: I was very impressed with everyone’s rough drafts of their first business letter. This week, students will choose from a variety of topics to write a new letter to show what they have learned. Keep up the good work!

6^th/ 7^th/ 8^th Spelling: After last week’s break for CSW, we will start back up with Lesson 19. This week’s test will be the following Friday Feb. 19 since we have a shortened week.

8^TH GRADE RELIGION – MR. PETERSON: Students will learn about Jesus’ Great Commandment and the obligations and challenges the commandments place on us. We will also discuss the meaning of names and how we honor those who we love. Lastly, thanks to all of those who helped with Catholic Schools Week. Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves!