Grace Program - Mother’s Day Enrollment

Remember your mother in a very special way with a Mother’s Day enrollment in our May Grace Program. All enrolled Mothers, living and deceased, will be remembered as we honor Our Blessed Mother at May Crowning on Monday, May 21. You will receive a lovely “Thinking of You” card and “Mothers are a gift from God” bookmark to give your Mom, if you wish. Watch for an enrollment form in the family information packet or send your request to the office marked “GRACE – Mother’s Day”.

Three St. Philip teams competed against two Carlynton school district teams on April 25th, for the second annual Battle of the Books hosted by Crafton Library.  Participating students had to read at least three of eight books assigned this year, and as a team, had to answer dozens of very specific questions about the texts over several rounds.  Two of our teams took 1st and 2nd place in a tight-scoring competition in which most teams scored within one point of each other.  Congrats to 1st place winners  Ella Wrabley, Arabella Sargent, Elias Ward, Brendan Callahan, and Maddie Hoff the blue team.  Congratulations also  to 2nd place winners Erin Sheedy, Briana Patterson, Emily Costantino, Tyler Gura, and Matthew Mell the white team.   Kudos as well to the green team of Carmen and Louis Worrall, Maeve Callahan, Alex Fuchs and Zach Zwigart for their photo finish for 4th palce.  A special thank you to Carolyn Rosenberg of Crafton Library who so graciously handles all the nuts and bolts of making this event possible for our children each year and to Carlynton gifted teacher Mary Beth Veri who also aids in the planning and execution of the Battle.

St. Philip 6th 7th, and 8th grade Thinking Caps students participated in an innovative project  that provides engineering and design activities as well as mentors to middle school classes throughout the region. The Design Lives Here initiative is an innovative partnership between WQED Multimedia, the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, MSA, and Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Healthcare and American Bridge which  sponsors an education outreach program that promotes learning about engineering via interactive teaching, mentoring, and challenge activities.

The group has identified the common goal of assisting educators in teaching STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) subject matter. Design strives to engage young people in STEM careers by providing them with exciting and interactive real-world applications of engineering. 

The students completed 4 challenges at St. Philip which included building a gamebox powered by a kickstick, building a working crane from cardboard, and creating and tuning a string instrument.

The program culminated with a challenge day at Wqed  during which the St. Philip students were teamed with students from other  Design schools to face 3 additional challenges: creating a tent to withstand hurricane force winds, racing rubber band powered boats, and  designing a carrying device for patients on crutches. St Philip students Maggie Leone and Louis Worrall were members of the 1st place team while Olivia Clark and Mike Mikush took 2nd place  and Miranda Thompson and Caitlin Donahue were 3rd place finishers.

128 students from Carlynton, Montour, Allegheny Valley, Manchester Charter, Brentwood, Penn Hills, Chartiers Valley Middle and Intermediate Schools, and St Philip School participated in the AIU’s annual Invention Convention.

Grade level winners from St Philip included: Grade 3: Matthew Mell – Honorable Mention;  Grade 4: Andalushia Reilly - 1st place, Linda Ashby - Honorable Mention;  Grade 5: Maddie Hoff – 3rd Place, Briana Patterson - Honorable Mention;  Grade 6: Michael Kirsch - Honorable Mention; Grade 7: Maggie Leone – 2nd Place, Hope Grefenstette - Honorable Mention;   Grade 8: Lauren Kanavy – 3rd Place, Ashley Mell, Honorable Mention.

Briana Patterson, Elias Ward, Maggie Leone, Luke Rattay, Miranda Thompson, and Louis Worrall and were Triple Crown Winners who have represented St. Philip School 3 times at the convention.

1 A earned a trip to Shake and Twist for meeting Mrs. Druga's challenge of reading at least 10 books each month from October through March.They read 894 books!! Wow!! They walked to Shake and Twist on April 20th for their reward.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
King Sam cordially invites all SPS students
and faculty to attend a royal feast
in the Cafeteria on Thursday, April 26th

The Royal Menu will be:

Walking Tacos
w/ Taco Meat, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes
Celery Sicks w/dip
Fruit Salad w/Fresh Grapes
Lime Jello
Cookie
Choice of Milk

Congratulations to King Sam!!
Enjoy your Feast!

Fifth Grade learned about the density of materials by predicting whether a material such as a butter stick, chocolate bar, or sugar cube would sink or float and then testing that hypothesis with an actual observation of that material in water.They also determined whether size, texture or composition plays a part in determining buoyancy.