“When the Saints Go Marching in” started off the celebration of All Saints by Gr. 7 on Nov. 1.  The students made pennants, decorated them with the name of a favorite Saint and marched around the classroom.  On the days preceding the celebration each student in the class gave a Saint talk.  On this day Kelly Krysiak talked on St. Bernadette, Emily Hollenbeck told us about St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and Adam Zielinski helped us learn more about St. Joseph.  Then the Litany of the Saints was read by Isabella Pacinelli and Karoline Kienholz with the students responding to the invocations.  The hymn “For All the Saints” was sung at the closing.  With Mass in the morning at 10:00 AM and the classroom celebration at 1:45 PM, it was a beautiful way to honor the Saints on this Holy Day of Obligation.  All you holy saints of God, pray for us!

                                                Sr. Martha, CDS

            Gr. 4A has really been using their brains in Health Class.  We are learning about our nervous system and the parts of our brain.  The students were interested to find out that the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain, has many jobs including thinking, moving and using our senses.  The cerebellum helps us with our balance.  Finally, there is our brain stem.  This is the part of our brain that is connected to our spinal cord.  It is in this area of the brain, the hypothalamus, that our growth is controlled.  Each student was amazed at how many jobs our brain really does have!  We learned that it is the control center of our body.  So hopefully grade 4A will put their “thinking caps” on and continue to make their brains work hard.

                                                Mrs. Sigler

            Gr. 8 just completed reading Across Five Aprils, by Irene Hunt, together in class.  To culminate this reading assignment the class performed skits they created in groups.  Each skit was about a scene in the story.  Through their presentations the students made their characters come to life.  The students, working cooperatively, were also improving their public speaking skills.  The budding actresses and actors performed their show for schoolmates in hopes of encouraging others to read the novel as well.  Bravo Grade 8!

                                                Mrs. Blaszczyk

            Time sure is flying by as we soar through Fall.  The Kindergarten children are meeting a new set of Letter People, the 5 consonants that are associated with parts of clothing.  B has beautiful buttons, Z has zipping zippers, S has super socks, P has pointy patches, and V has a violet velvet vest; along with our next vowel E who exercises.  As they become more familiar with the letter sounds, they will be able to put A and E in the middle to make the sounds “catch” for reading one syllable words like hat, bat, sat, fat, mat, men, pen, hen, den, etc…

            The children are anticipating the celebration of thankfulness as they become either a Pilgrim or Indian for the day and reenact the very first Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for each and every one of the children!  Don’t forget to have them entertain you with Thanksgiving songs and poems at home.

                                                Mrs. Cox

            November is a month of being thankful.  Grade 2 is thankful for our families, friends, school, and many other things.  We are working on our writing.  We wrote paragraphs of our favorite season for the month of October.  In this month of being thankful we are going to write what we are most thankful for.  Grade 2 would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

                                                Mrs. Keinath

            On Thursday, October 20^th, the sixth grade students attended the Erie Philharmonic Youth Concert at the Warner Theater.  As we were seated in the theater, some of the students that had never been there before were in awe at the beauty of the place.

            The program began with the singing of our National Anthem by all of the students.  Then Daniel Meyer, the music director, introduced himself.  He ushered the entire orchestra off stage and one at a time brought out the families of instruments in an orchestra and showed and described each one.  Then that group of instruments would play a brief selection for us.

            When this was completed, the entire orchestra treated the crowd to three pieces composed by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky.  The highlight of the show was when a fourteen-year-old boy from Pittsburgh played a solo on the piano.  What a gifted musician he was!

            If you ever get the opportunity to see this fine orchestra, I’m sure you will enjoy it as much as we all did.

                                                Mrs. Pacinelli