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Greetings from the Counseling Department! We have been learning a lot in guidance. We have been talking about bullying and kindness in our classrooms. This is a theme that we will continue throughout the rest of the year. It is so important that we teach our students to be proactively kind. In middle school, we discussed reputations and how what we say and do can impact on how other people perceive us. In our younger grades, we explored the concept of bullying and how it differs from teasing. After each lesson, I encourage the students to go home and share what they have learned with their family. We are a team and your input on these issues is crucial! You can help by talking to your child(ren) about the importance of daily kindness. These are important life lessons that will help them develop and keep meaningful relationships in the future.
Dr. Simon
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Computer class, Spanish, art and music are combining resources for an 8th grade project: Make Your Own Music Video. Catholic schools include religion as a piece to the STREAM curriculum. For this project, the overall subject of their video must be the virtue of
gratitude
. In music class, the 8th grade students will be writing lyrics and choosing a karaoke song to use as music. In Spanish, they will write one verse in Spanish and translate the chorus into Spanish. In art, they will each be creating an album cover. Then, within their groups, they will vote on the album cover the group will use for their soundtrack. The 8th graders will perform, record, and edit their video in computer class. The best videos will be displayed at Breakfast with the Arts in April.
Students 2nd grade through 8th grade have prepared hymns for Catholic Schools Week. Students are asked to please come and fill the choir loft at St. Mary's Catholic Church on Sunday, January 26th at the 9:30 Mass and/or the 11:00 Mass to kick off Catholic Schools Week. Students will also sing during our school Mass on Monday, January 27th. Come and be a part of the most meaningful part of Catholic Schools Week!
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Please join us for our Book Fair on January 27th-31st. The Book Fair will open every day at 9am and close at 4pm. Everyone is welcome!
The Book Fair this year is a little different (more books, less merchandise). We are using Follett Book Fairs this year. There are many AR books in the collection. Please support Saint Mary's book fair; all the money we make goes right back into the library.
Thank you,
Mrs. Cox
In P.E., Pre K - 1st grade is practicing balancing golf tubes. They are also balancing balls on top of their tubes. Can you balance your tube and ball like the Statue of Liberty? Another class favorite is balancing peacock feathers.
2nd through 5th grades have been working on cup stacking. Did you know that cup stacking requires using both sides of your brain?
The children must build the cups in a 3-6-3 pattern, then
two stacks of 6.
Finally build a stack of 1-10-1, all as quickly as possible!
6th through 8th grades are starting a volleyball unit. First we will be doing some skill work and then moving into games. After volleyball we will move into a badminton unit.
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The following students from Saint Mary's Catholic School were selected to be Keep Rome-Floyd Beautiful Poster Art Contest Exhibit show:
Alex Tran, 8th grade
Annie Beauchamp, 6th grade
Audrey Abbott, 8th grade
Ava Kirby, 7th grade
Bennett Smyth, 8th grade
Caitlyn Aspera, 6th grade
Eli Nichols, 2nd grade
Jenny Giles, 7th grade
Karly Nguyen, 7th grade
Kimberly Johnston, 8th grade
Madison Lemaster, 8th grade
Nathaly Carrasco, 6th grade
Peter Whitehead, 6th grade
Sophie Piller, 6th grade
The Exhibit will be at the Rome-Floyd E.C.O. Center January 23 through February 6. The Rome-Floyd E.C.O. Center is located in Ridge Ferry Park at
393 Riverside Pkwy NE, Rome, GA 30161
.
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Our basketball teams have had stellar seasons, with both the boys and girls middle school teams expanding their schedules to play several local public middle school teams as well as the private or independent schools that we have played in past seasons. SMS also hosted a double-elimination basketball tournament over Christmas break between several area schools.
2019-2020 proved to be another successful basketball season in the books!
Tennis and co-ed middle school soccer is right around the corner, so look for more great sports updates in the spring. Go Knights!
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You can support SMS without even trying...companies like
Kroger and
Publix
make quarterly donations to our school just because you patronize their businesses! At Publix, all you have to do is enter the school's phone number in the keypad at checkout (706-234-4953). At Kroger, you can link your grocery shopping cards to SMS. In five minutes you can help bring money into SMS all year long! If you have any questions, contact the Development Office for more information!
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Amazon Smile
Will you be shopping Amazon often over the next few months? If you shop through Amazon Smile, you'll get the same great selection and service from Amazon, and SMS will receive a portion of your purchase. Click the image below to take you directly to Amazon and support SMS, too!
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Saint Mary's Catholic School continues a tradition of academic excellence as we challenge students to become lifelong learners and dedicated Christian men and women. We develop individual strengths by fostering critical thinking, setting high standards, and challenging each other to become virtuous, responsible human beings. Our courage shines as we live the Gospel, always seeking the wisdom to understand God's will, as we share the love of God with all people.
If you would like to learn more about Saint Mary's School or schedule a visit to the school, please contact me at (706) 234-4953 ext. 204 or cjackson@smsrome.org.
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Saint Mary's Catholic School continues a tradition of academic excellence as we embrace a faith-filled future. Our Courage shines as we live the Gospel, always seeking the Wisdom to understand God's will as we Share the Love of God with all people.
This is so prevalent as I walk around the school daily. Our teachers strive to give the best education pursuing the best practices in every lesson. Not a day goes by that we do not have one of our parents volunteering at SMS. Our school is a community filled with faith-based people striving daily to make our community flourish.
We share the Love of God inside and outside of the school. We are all so proud of the children that we are raising together for the greater good of our community. Thank you so much for voting Saint Mary's Catholic School "The Best Preschool and Private School in Rome, GA!"
Happy Catholic Schools Week!
God Bless!
Melissa Reder
Principal
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Advancement News
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We will be hosting an Admissions Open House this Tuesday, January 28th at 6 pm. Visitors will have the opportunity to visit classrooms, meet with our faculty and staff, and participate in STEM activities.
If you know a family that is interested in Saint Mary's School for the 2020-2021 school year, please invite them to join us Tuesday night. Remember, if you refer a new family to SMS, you will receive a complimentary registration fee for next school year! For more details about Open House or our referral program, please contact Christa Jackson at cjackson@smsrome.org or (706) 234-4953.
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Elementary Classroom News
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PK3 is having fun with technology STREAM centers over the next few weeks. The first week we made snowflakes, exploring
Tinker Tubs, and did a math activity of
Roll and Graph. The snowflakes were made with glue and wax paper. In the
Tinker Tubs activities, the students were challenged to build something like an igloo, snowflake or other winter things with cotton balls, tiny plastic cups, q-tips, shredded paper and more.
Winter Roll involves the teacher rolling a die and the students coloring in a graph. In future weeks, we will have some of the following centers: religion, games on tablets, and science experiments to fully embrace the STREAM experience for the PK through kindergarten ages.
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Pre-K 4 has been learning about winter. We used play dough, buttons, pipe cleaners and wiggly eyes to make our own snowmen. We are also learning about arctic animals. We loved learning how penguins slide on the snow to get around faster. Did you know that penguins can't taste their food? We played with arctic animals and floated them on "icebergs." To end our unit on winter, we will have a Warm & Cozy Day. We will wear our pajamas to school, drink hot chocolate and ice skate on paper plates. Winter is so much fun!
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The kindergarten class has been learning about winter and how arctic animals find food and stay warm. We did an experiment with blubber. The students put their hands in a bowl of ice to feel the difference in comfort level for their bare hand as compared to a hand in a glove filled with "blubber" (Crisco shortening). It was a fun and chilly time in kindergarten even though it was 70 degrees outside!
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This week first grade is learning two new vowel pairs! EE and EA both make the long e sound, and we are using our Phonics Friends lessons, the Green Team to learn all about it! We are studying sound isolation, blending and segmenting phonemes, word fluency, and spelling. Using Phonics Friends makes learning so much fun and engaging!
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Second grade has been working hard learning contractions. We put our knowledge to good use during "Contraction Surgery" as we cut apart words and joined them together as contractions, using Band-Aids as our sutures. It was helpful to realize that in most of the contractions we worked on, the Band-Aid is where the apostrophe will go, so when we write them, we can remember the apostrophe as a little scar that reminds us where the missing letters were. The students made sure to have a sterile work space with surgical masks and gloves, which made the activity fun and engaging. We love learning in second grade!
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Third grade had the privilege of listening to Katie Owens, mom to three Saint Mary's boys and Upper Coosa River Program Director at the Nature Conservancy, discuss the importance of prescribed fires. Prescribed fires are important to animals such as the bobwhite quail, red caucasian woodpecker, pygmy rattlesnake and bats, as well as the longleaf pine tree. Mrs. Owens told us about how she leads prescribed fire teams and the equipment they wear to keep them safe. Connor, her third grade son, demonstrated the equipment used.. We enjoyed having Mrs. Owens in our classroom!
Mrs. Owens also joined the fourth grade to present an interactive program about the water cycle and water pollution. Students acted out the part of the water droplet and the Etowah Darter fish, which is a fish only found in the Etowah River and nowhere else in the world. Mrs. Owens discussed all the pollution that gets into our rivers as students placed pollutants on the water droplet. We are so blessed and fortunate to have such an invaluable resource in Katie Owens!! Fourth grade learned many important lessons about the water cycle and how to keep our water clean.
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5th Grade students completed a S'mores Lab to examine the differences in chemical and physical changes. To start the lab, we made balloons inflate using the energy from the chemical reaction of vinegar and baking soda. The class discussed what kind of changes were taking place and what was happening to the balloon. The students then worked in groups to examine each of the components of a s'more and list the physical properties of the ingredients. Students were told to break the graham crackers and chocolate, and determine if these changes would be classified as chemical or physical changes. The class then roasted marshmallows in the oven, and we discussed if this was a chemical or physical change. Finally, students ate the delicious products and were asked what kind of changes we created by eating the s'mores. This lab allowed students to see an everyday example of the concepts that they are learning in Science. The products that the students attained were delicious, and the learning experience was exciting.
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Middle School Classroom News
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How can one combine reading, creative writing, Ancient Greek gods and myths, social studies, and drama into one exciting learning experience? In the sixth grade's study of Ancient Greece, the students read several Greek myths, including "How Troubles Came Into the World," "Prometheus," "Narcissus, " and "Apollo and Daphne." Collaborative groups read, wrote scripts, edited, directed, and acted in student created Readers Theater productions. Then, these were performed for their fellow students on the St. Mary's stage. Maria Franco, a sixth grader in Mrs. Miller's class, exclaimed, "This was so much fun. Can we do this again?"
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The 7th grade literature class has begun 2020 by exploring selections with the common theme of friendships; human, animal, and imaginary. The students' favorite quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The only way to have a friend is to be one." The favorite selection so far is a historical fiction short story, "The Dog of Pompeii." It is a story that combines fact and fiction to relate an exciting story of a blind boy and his dog, Bimbo. Aside from it being a touching story, the class studied the ancient city of Pompeii and the volcano, Mount Vesuvius.
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Eighth grade science students completed an Engineering Internship project that required them to design a "baby warmer" that could be used in areas of the world where incubators might not be available for babies born prematurely or with low birth weights. The students worked in small groups and were given three criteria for the project. The baby warmer is meant to keep the baby as close to 37 °C as possible, minimize the time the baby spends outside the safe-temperature range, and cost as little as possible. The results that the students achieved were excellent and the presentations were amazing. Our future looks bright with these promising young engineers!
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