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Few decisions have the lasting impact on your child as that of the school where your child attends. It is during their school days that life-long friendships will be made, spiritual formation will take place, and values will be instilled.  A true testament to that statement is our alumni who come back year after year to assist with our annual holiday bazaar, coach sports teams, run extracurricular activities or help with the annual play. Sometimes our alumni will even perform.  Many of our alumni come back to St. Joseph School. When they come back this time they are here as parents of current students and/or grandparents of enrolled students. Here are some of our highlights: • Emphasis on Catholic Faith Formation through religion classes and integration into all aspects of students’ daily experiences • Talented and dedicated faculty and staff, knowledgeable about academic content and effective instructional strategies • Student-centered decision making • Appreciation of parents as partners in the child’s education • Extended Care Program for both before and after school care • Innovative Pre-K and Kindergarten programs balance academic learning and social development • Student Safety is paramount in our school community • Academic support for students who need extra guidance • Middle school math and science class time exceed state standards • Spanish language and culture instruction for grades Pre-K through 8 • Specialized classes include Visual Art, Music, Physical Education, Computer Technology and Library Literacy • Ever evolving technology integration with interactive whiteboards, and new iPad program • Varied extra-curricular activities including an exceptional Drama program • Strong Athletics program, including basketball, cross country, volleyball, and other sports • National Junior Honor Society • NEASC accredited  Our families have made an investment in their children by choosing a Catholic education. Our students see the importance of commitment, hard work and community involvement. They leave SJS knowing not only that they can make a change in the world, but it is their duty and responsibility to bring about a positive change in their communities. By choosing to send your child to SJS, you can be ensured that your child is prepared academically. We teach facts and items that require memorization, but also critical thinking and application skills; we teach students how to learn, and instill in them a love for lifetime learning. We would enjoy the opportunity to meet you in person. To schedule a tour, spend a day at SJS, or if we can provide you with more information, feel free to contact us.
We look forward to meeting with you and your family soon!  The First Grade class enjoyed learning about apples through investigation. We were busy identifying the parts of an apple, as well as, looking for familiar characteristics. During this unit, the students wrote and illustrated the life cycle of an apple tree. We enjoyed making a yummy apple treat with all the apples that the students brought in. Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed!   After a month-long study of the stages of butterflies, the kindergartners celebrated this investigation with a monarch send off. They witnessed the emergence of the caterpillar from egg to pupa to the adult butterfly. Fr. Bob blessed our monarchs as they flitted off for their long journey to winter in Mexico. Mr. Woodmansee and Fr. Bob provide a resting place for the monarchs as they pump their delicate wings to fly.   With the Pope’s recent visit to the United States, St. Joseph School has been discussing the Pope. Not just our students, but our teachers are also reflecting on his messages of faith. "You have to teach not just about a subject, but also life's values and habits, because when it comes to learning about a subject, a computer is sufficient, but to understand how to love, to understand what the values and habits are that create harmony in the world, you need a good teacher." The Pope remarked in the National Catholic Reporter "all students must feel welcomed and loved for who they are, with all their limits and potential." The Pope asked teachers to be "witnesses of life and hope. Never, ever close the door, open all of them wide so that students will have hope." St. Joseph School is filled with enthusiastic teachers and students who are learning to create harmony in our classrooms, our homes and throughout the world. Today in Grade 1, Father Bob brought in some of his favorite childhood superheroes, many which you may remember and some still popular today; Hulk, Spiderman, Superman, Captain American and Ironmen. Our students know that superheroes have special powers such as, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, super strength, endurance and speed, just to name a few. All these seem an easy task for superheroes. But Father’s most favorite and greatest is a beautiful figurine of Pope Francis. The Pope is our “superhero” opening our hearts to more love and patience! Pope Francis doesn’t have any of those supernatural powers, but he has gifts. And they are plentiful! Most powerful is his gift of speaking. Through his voice, he brings comfort and happiness to those who hear it. His gift of speaking allows him to pray for but himself and encourage others to do God’s will.   Kindergartners investigate the life cycle of the monarch. Children document the stages of development through science journaling and verbally incorporating the vocabulary: egg, larva, pupa and adult butterfly. In literature, children noted discrepancies in reading a fictional account, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and scientific—informational reading of the development of the monarch. We await the emergence of beautiful monarch as we count down ten days.  Students re-teaching concepts to others is an effective means to support understand and retention of learning. Kindergartners were excited to welcome the scientist from Grade 5 as they shared their experiment with an egg to demonstrate osmosis. Our Grade 5 science teachers explained their hypotheses and revisited us 24 hours later to allow kindergartners to investigate changes. Kindergartner’s inquiry prompted our student scientists to make predictions and investigate further.
Grade 2 studied hurricanes. Students learned that meteorologists are those who study the weather. They watch radar and satellite to follow the track of all kinds of storms including hurricanes. The students learned that hurricanes are track and measured on a scale of 1-5 - 5 is the worst. At home children completed a scavenger hunt for a hurricane survival kit. In class students took turns creating a hurricane, swirling water in a bucket. Then they observed what happened when they added an “eye” to the storm. They discover the “eye’ is a calm place to be. The students in grade 2 did a great job.   Grade 4 work on some Biology discovering plant parts in leaves. After some observation through video and textbook work on the different parts of a leaf, we compared the texture, shape, size and color of many leaves that were brought into class. Our math skills were also sharpened during this lessons as we counted and measured our leaf collection. The variety to be found among the leaves of plants is enormous. Leaves provide a level of oxygen in the air that benefits all living things.   In middle school science we like to play games to study our vocab terms before a quiz. Here we are playing "Memory", matching terms with definitions. Who knew vocab could be so much fun?!
  Grade 5...How to make a Bare Egg? A “bare egg” is an egg that has no shell. This is not something you normally run across and when you are shown a bare egg, it's hard to believe the egg stays intact. The shell of an egg is made up of primarily calcium carbonate. If you soak this egg shell in vinegar which is acetic acid, you start a chemical reaction that dissolves the calcium carbonate shell. The acetic acid reacts with the calcium carbonate in the egg shell and releases carbon dioxide gas that you see as bubbles on the shell. On paper it looks like this: CaCO3 (s) + 2 HC2H3O2 (aq) → Ca(C2H3O2)2 (aq) + H2O (l) + CO2 (g) The egg insides remain intact and are held together by the two fragile membranes just inside the shell. The process is really very simple. We carefully placed our eggs in a mason jars and fill the cup with vinegar so that our eggs were completely covered. We put just enough vinegar in the cup to mostly cover our eggs. The hard part – WAITING. In the beginning we could see some bubbles appearing on the outside of our eggs. These are bubbles of carbon dioxide gas from the reaction. After a day or two of soaking we carefully remove our eggs from the vinegar. At this point we literally rub the shells off our eggs with our fingers. We had some pretty cool bare Eggs!
 As you know, we are currently engaged in a focused effort to create a hands-on science program. This week, our teachers began discussing national standards and reflecting on our current program. Our plan over the next year is to develop our program so that our students truly experience the excitement of science.
This project is three-fold:
This is a costly and time consuming process. It is for this reason that we are reaching out to the SJS community, local partners and philanthropists who recognize the need for every child to both learn and experience science. I know that we have lofty fundraising goals and many of you have been so generous. It is for this reason that we ask that you consider sharing this information with your personal friends and networks. You never know, one of your friends, or possibly their employers may be looking for a charity for their company to adopt. We are fortunate and thankful for Mr. Roger Bertrand, a local business owner and generous philanthropist, and supporter of Catholic Education who has agreed to match the funds we raise for this project. The outline of his fundraising challenge is as follows: 10 $1,000 gifts = $10,000 50 $500 gifts = $25,000 100 $100 gifts = $10,000 Unlimited amount of $50 gifts Peace, Mr. Jim Woodmansee To donate, please contact the school at 401.821.3450 or visit our giving page. |
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