St. Monica Elementary School Newsletter February 2018 Dear Parents/Guardians, February is a wonderful month to share love and service to others! This is our focus at St. Monica School. We will have Random Acts of Kindness Week from February 12-16, 2018 where each class will engage in activities such as secret valentine deliveries within the community and visiting a senior s residence. Our Kindergarten and Grade One Spirit Buddies will be doing special activities related to sharing love with one another through kindness. There are many reasons to celebrate the special people in our lives and we will do exactly that with many Valentine s activities in-class on February 13, 2018. We will celebrate St. Valentine one day early because February 14 is Ash Wednesday, which is a special Holy Day in the Catholic faith where we begin our Lenten fast. Please join us for Ash Wednesday if you wish to receive blessed ashes at 1:00 in the gym. There will be no school on Tuesday, February 6, 2018 due to Faith Development Day. This is a district-wide PD which allows all ECSD staff to join together to grow in faith and unity. Family Day is celebrated on February 19, 2018 province-wide and it is a great time to share joy and laughter with loved ones. There will be no school on this day. My challenge to all students and their families is to ask yourself this question each day? I WONDER; HOW WILL YOUR BEAUTIFUL HANDS SERVE OTHERS TODAY? A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34 May God, keep you and Bless you each day and bring you to His glory by sharing love with one another. St. Valentine blessings. Kristy Desmarais Principal Nancy Bromley Assistant Principal
Prayer Corner Ash Wednesday February 14, 2018 We will have a special religious liturgy in the gym at 1:00 p.m. for Ash Wednesday. All Valentine s day celebrations will take place on February 13, as permission has been given by Archbishop Richard Smith to celebrate St. Valentine one day early. Ash Wednesday is a Holy day of obligation where we, as Catholics, experience a day of fasting and penance for our sins. All parents are welcome to join us for this special liturgy and to receive ashes. Please see the information provided on the next page, by our Religious Education Consultant for all the district, Sandra Talarico.
Ash Wednesday The Journey to Lent Ash Wednesday is one of the most popular and important holy days in the liturgical calendar. It is the day many Christians mark as the first day of Lent; the 40-day period of reflection, fasting, abstinence, and penitence leading up to Easter Sunday, reminding us that God is gracious and merciful. This year we mark Ash Wednesday on Wednesday, February the 14 th. Ash Wednesday comes from the ancient Jewish tradition of penance and fasting which includes the wearing of ashes on the forehead; ashes made from the blessed palms used in the Palm Sunday celebration of the previous year they are burned, christened with Holy Water, and scented by exposure to incense. Historically, the distribution of ashes comes from a ceremony of ages past. Christians who had committed grave faults performed public penance, and on Ash Wednesday, the Bishop blessed the hair shirts which they were to wear during the forty days of penance and sprinkled over them ashes made from the palms of the previous year. Then, while the faithful recited the Seven Penitential Psalms, the penitents were turned out of the church because of their sins and they did not enter the church again until Holy Thursday after having won reconciliation by their forty days of penance. In time, all Christians came to receive ashes out of devotion. In his Lenten message from last year, the Pope wrote that Lent is the favorable season for renewing our encounter with Christ, living in his word, in the sacraments, and in our neighbor. A right relationship with people consists in gratefully recognizing their value. Even the poor person at the door is not a nuisance, but a summons to conversion and to change. In this way, Lent is a particularly fitting time to open our door to all those in need. Each life that we encounter is a gift deserving acceptance, respect and love. Indifference to our neighbor and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience. Describing this phenomenon, he called the globalization of indifference, Francis continued: whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. We end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else s responsibility and not our own. But when we fast from this indifference, we can begin to feast on love. In fact, Lent is the perfect time to learn how to love again. Jesus the great protagonist of this holy season certainly showed us the way. In him, God descends all the way down to bring everyone up. In his life and his ministry, no one is excluded. As we start the journey of Lent, with its emphasis on fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, we have an opportunity at a new beginning in our own lives. As the Pope affirmed, this season urgently calls us to conversion. We are asked to return to God with all our hearts, to refuse to settle for mediocrity, and to grow in friendship with the Lord. During this Lenten Season, let us pray for one another so that, by sharing in the victory of Christ, we too may open our doors to the weak and to the poor. Sandra Talarico, Religious Education Consultant
School Council (SC) THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2018 7:00 PM AT THE SCHOOL. PLEASE JOIN US TO LEARN ABOUT THE SCHOOL INNITIATIVES AND TO HAVE A VOICE IN DECISION MAKING FOR YOUR CHILD S SCHOOL. (parent meeting only, childcare not available) Join us on Facebook at our St. Monica School Council page. You can get up-to-date School Council information about fundraisers and school initiatives. This page is coordinated by our School Council Executive. School Council needs parents to volunteer for: SC will be having a casino fundraiser on March 12 and 13, 2018 and they need you! SC needs volunteers for specific duties and shifts at the Palace Casino in WEM. This fundraiser will bring well over $75,000 to the school and help make our Naturescape a reality! Please consider offering your time in service of your school s initiatives. Any friend or family member over 18 can volunteer. There are approximately half the shifts that still need to be filled. There is a sign-up table just outside the school office or you can visit http://www.volunteersignup.org/xe4de. Thank you to Emily Kaminsky for volunteering to be our Casino Chair because it is a BIG job to coordinate everything needed. We will need to apply for our next casino fundraiser (we have one every 2 years) and will need a new Casino Chair. If you would like to know more about this volunteer opportunity, please contact Emily at andrews_emily@hotmail.com The St. Monica Naturescape is a huge initiative that will transform our outdoor play/learning space for all students. This is a joint initiative between School Council and St. Monica School Administration. Everyone involved in this project is working very hard to raise enough money to break ground this spring. We are getting very close, but we need the greater St. Monica community to help! Sharla Madsen is the Naturescape Chairperson and we thank her very much for all the work she had done over the past one and a half years to pick up this initiative and run with it. Please visit the website that she has built at www.stmonicanaturescape.ca and you will see the concept drawings, a fly over of the entire project in our blog as well as opportunities for personal and corporate donations. Many of our fundraising projects are targeted toward funding this project as well as various grants that we have already received. If
any of our parents own or know of a business that could provide a corporate donation of funds, materials or services please contact Sharla Madsen at stmonicanaturescape@gmail.com Grade One Hot Lunch and Milk Program will not run without our valuable volunteers. School Council will need parents to set up this program for the 2018-2019 school year. If your child will be going into grade one, please let your teacher know if you would like to learn more about how these healthy and fun programs are run and we can connect you with the current volunteers. Many of our School Council Executive members will have children moving to St. Mary next year therefore there will be open positions on School Council for the 2018-2019 school year. Please join us at our monthly SC meetings to learn more about these positions and become active in your child s school by volunteering. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION AND SUPPORT FOR ST. MONICA SCHOOL! St. Monica School Website We would like to encourage all families to visit our ever-changing website on a regular basis. We are continually adding information, news and important messages and ask that you bookmark it and visit often. As we move through the remainder of the school year the SwiftK12 messages via e-mail will contain more and more links to the website where you will find information to be communicated with you. If you are experiencing any issues with the links please go to the website to find the information or contact the office for assistance. The website address is www.stmonica.ecsd.net Lunar New Year We like to celebrate the various cultures of our students and Lunar New Year is happening on February 16, 2018. To celebrate the Chinese and Asian cultures we will be having guests visit the school on this day to perform a Lion Dance in celebration of the year of the dog. We invite all of our Asian families that celebrate Lunar New Year to dress in their traditional clothing and all students to wear something RED on this day! Parking Lot Safety Please keep everyone safe by driving safely in the parking lot. Please practice patience, park in the back area of the lot or along the curb by the tennis courts only and watch for adults and little children walking to their car.
Entering the School Please be aware, that due to district-wide safety procedures, all school doors are locked and everyone is asked to enter the building through the front doors only. During pick-up and dropoff times the front doors will be unlocked however, you will need to press the button to be buzzed in during instructional hours. Administration is asking that staff, students and parents refrain from letting anyone in other school doors. You will be asked to go to the front doors if you approach another door for entry. Thank you for your cooperation in keeping our students safe. February 5 Kindergarten & Grade 1 Skating Lesson 4 6 Faith Development Day NO CLASSES 8 Open House 6:30 p.m. (for new families new registering at St. Monica) 12-16 Random Acts of Kindness Week 12 Kindergarten & Grade 1 Skating Lesson 5 13 Valentine s Day Celebrations in class 14 Ash Wednesday Celebration 1:00 gym, AM PowerPoint in classroom (AM students can attend in the PM with an adult), 16 Lunar New Year Dragon Dancers 10:00 gym (PM students can attend with an adult) 19 Family Day NO CLASSES 23 Gr. 1 Hot Lunch, School-wide Theme Day March 1-2 Teacher s Convention 7 Parish Visit Time TBA Theme Lent School Council Meeting 7:00 PM 9 Gr. 1 Report Cards Online 15 Demonstration of Learning 1-4 & 5-7 p.m., Audrey s Book Fair 12:00-7:00 p.m. 16 Gr. 1 Hot Lunch, School-wide Theme Day 22 Full Day all classes attend 23 Half Day only Gr. 1 attend 26-Apr. 2 Spring Break No Classes