First grade had a busy week celebrating the birthday of Johnny Appleseed and hosting the Teddy Bears' Picnic. With the help of Mrs Druga and Miss Rodgers they made applesauce and read the story of Johnny Appleseed.  Each child brought a bear in for the month of September. The bears were used to help with lessons about graphing  and estimation. Before they were home , the bears were treated to a picnic.

Second grade students celebrated the Feast of the Archangels by hearing stories of the Angels Gabriel, Raphael and Michael.  Students printed the prayer below for a handwriting grade and made St. Michael the Archangel, nighttime protectors, to hang above their beds.

St. Michael, Pray for us!
Prayer to St. Michael

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.  Protect us against the wickedness of the devil.  O prince of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who want to lead souls into hell. Amen.

We have a request from the Bishop Canevin Service Learning Class for help on the Hunger Action Month Project. By clicking on the project link and watching a 30 second video, you will provide a meal for a starving American. The Web site is safe and cost free.
Log onto - www.hungeractionmonth.org
It is only accessible until September 30th. After you have watched the video e-mail - bcservicelearning11@yahoo.com so that your viewing may be counted.

Congratulations to Mrs. Aiello and the members of the Cross Country team who did well in the 5 school meet this week. Sarah Green took 1st. Place for  Varsity Girls while Jimmy Hurley, Luke Rattay, and Ryley Tarasi all placed in the top 20 for Varsity Boys. Ana Bergstedt, Brendan Callahan Abby Aiello, Ana Petrak, all ran strong in their divisions.

It has long been tradition at St. Philip School to share our time, talents and treasures with the greater community.  In keeping with that tradition, the second grade students in Mrs. Ravenstahl's class made tray favors for the Meals on Wheels clients in the Crafton area.  Each grade will provide tray favors once during the school year.  This is quite an undertaking, as the service has greater than 70 clients to feed on any single day.   As the saying goes, "Many hands make light work."  And so, with every student making several favors and homeroom parents, Mrs. Linda Brunick and Mrs. Sabeth Biangone to help, the work was joyful!  Each child made pumpkin magnets with a pumpkin prayer attached.  The children, and Mrs. Ravenstahl, look forward to making favors again in the future!

When 2B read a story about Hawaii, they took the opportunity to study Hawaiian culture. Learning about the clothing, jewelry, volcanoes, and food of our 50th state made the story come alive. The children especially liked dancing the Hula to beautiful Hawaiian music.

St Philip 6th graders in Miss Astwood’s Social Studies class have been learning about ancient Mesopotamia and the culture of people who lived there. Part of the lesson included learning about the scribes and their ancient form of writing called "cuneiform”. Students experienced the difficulties of using this cumbersome form of writing by becoming scribes. Using ancient symbols to write a sentence into a pad of clay, the “scribes” saw how much effort it took just to accomplish their task and how much storage space was needed to record a small amount of information. The task gave the students an appreciation for the struggle ancient peoples had to preserve and pass on their knowledge.

Mrs. Cardillo’s 5th graders  found a tasty way to learn about animal and plant cells. They decorated cookies with treats like M&Ms and icing to represent parts such as the cell wall, mitochondria, and nucleus. The young scientists compared their creations and enjoyed the best part of the lesson – eating their sugary models. But they didn’t end their cell study there. Each 5th grader was required to find items around the house that represent the function of each part of a cell and present the items to the class.

Congratulations to the following students who have been elected to serve as St. Philip School Student Council for the 2011-2012 school year: Persident – Athena Pyros

Vice President Maggie Leone

Secretary Eric Ashby

Treasuree Britney Kowal

Public Relations Joey Begg

Community Service Jack Pulford

Homeroom Representatives: 6A- Margaret Begg, Marissa Pekular, 6B- Jordan Gallegos, Kasey Kaczorowski, Jack Shorthouse 7A Jimmy Hurley, Meaghan Maloy7B Hannah Gamrod, Luke Rattay 8A Ashley Mell, Matt Tutsock 8B Joel Patterson, Summer Nicholls

 

Today, each second grade class was treated to a visit from Mrs. Kimberly Gamble, mother of second grader, Jake.  She is a certified guidance counselor and works in the Mt. Lebanon school district.  During her visit today, Mrs. Gamble led a lesson about happiness and treating others kindly. 

Beginning the discussion, students suggested what might be in a person’s heart such as Jesus, kindness, and love.  When we act unkindly towards another person, we hurt his/her heart.  Mrs. Gamble asked the children to name ways that we might act unkindly towards other children. Each time, she wrinkled up a picture of a heart.  Upon opening the heart, the wrinkled paper symbolizes that we can try to make up for unkind words and actions, but we can never really erase that from someone’s heart. 

Using the popular, best-selling picture book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness Today, children see how easy and rewarding it is to express kindness, appreciation, and love on a daily basis.  Children learn the meaning of the terms, bucket filling and bucket dipping and discover that when they fill someone’s bucket with kind actions or words, they fill their own.  Children are challenged with the question, “Why not decide to be a bucket filler today and every day?”