Flash

Christmas Holiday
12:00 Wednesday, Dec. 21 ~ Tuesday, Jan. 3
School resumes: Wednesday, Jan. 4.

St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School

December 16, 2011

Rejoicing in anticipation of Christmas

Lord God, we rejoice at the birth of your Son, Jesus. We listen to the words of John the Baptist who says: There is one more powerful than I coming after me. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. This reference to the coming of Jesus shows his great power and love. We rejoice in the care and embrace of a loving God who continuously invites us to follow his Son. In preparation of the birth of Jesus, may we say yes to this invitation. Amen.

Mark your calendar for Sunday, January 15th, 2012 Fr. Befort will hold a mandatory parent meeting for St. Francis parishioners with children at St. Francis School or Bishop Carroll High School. Meeting times are as follows:
Last names beginning with A-L 2:30 PM in Cana Hall Last names beginning with M-Z 4:00 PM in Cana Hall

The following students have been recognized by their peers, as well as the teachers and staff for Star Student qualities! Please join us in congratulating: Diego GarciaEmma SchniedersJohn RongishLogan PrichardDonovan Cook Cristina RosalesAngela NguyenGage HosfordKaelyn SueperBrooke Prichard Jennifer ExleySophia JordanJason TrowerEmma BenefieldKendall Forbes Riley MartinMaya SanchezLiam Huynh Charlie HillMichael BurnsAshley vonMoschJohn HonasRochelle Gallant Shana StuhlsatzEmily LandonDillon FrangenbergAustin MernaghTyler AlversonDanny JasinskiElisabeth Akin Nathan LiesRobert GarciaAshlyn FloerchingerAshley PoettkerJennifer Vu Crystal NguyenLandon HorschHarry Wald

This Advent, it has been inspirational to see teachers and students, share their faith, grow deeper in Christs love and reach out to others in needall in the name of the Savior born for each of us! A special thank you goes out to Mrs. Malone, Mrs. Kostelecky and Mrs. Kessinger for all of their efforts in decorating our school for the season of Advent. The special touch of these dedicated volunteers set a perfect tone for this blessed time of year. On behalf of the teachers and staff of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School, I wish you joyous blessings this Christmas and happiness and holiness in the New Year. With you in Christ,

Mrs. Mary Carter

Christmas Gift
There is still time to contribute to the Christmas gift for our priests. If you would like your child/children to participate in this, please put your donation in a sealed envelope marked Priests Christmas Gift and give it to your childs homeroom teacher by Monday, December 19th. The gift will be presented at the Childrens Liturgy on December 21st. Thank you!

Calling for photos of any SFA activity, sport game or event. We want group shots, as well as up-close individual action shots. Please email them directly to Mrs. Farley for the yearbook at [email protected] Thank you!

Voice

by~ Mrs. OConnor

of the Student Body

Kindergarten students are enamored with Holiday Nostalgia whether it is measuring lengths with gingerbread cut outs, glyphs, sack puppets, studying symmetry, sorting, patterning, reading stories and for sure, decorating houses. Our special Gingerbread House Day was a thrill spending time with our families & creating our little masterpieces. An Elf named Lucky made a special debut in KC just in time to report to Santa so hopefully our class will make the nice list this year. In Religion, we began a daily Advent Calendar for school and home along with our special Advent chains in our Countdown to Christmas. Each day, we discuss the lesson and ways to incorporate our good deeds at home or in our community. The students made a holiday coupon book of good deeds to give to our parents as a generous token of time. We are grateful to our parents, parish and SFA community for our Catholic Education this Christmas. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Thank You!

Dear SFA Family, We would like to give a sincere Thank You for all the prayers and thoughts during this past year, while Joe battled cancer. He is in remission at this time and we appreciate your support and strength in prayer. God Bless You, The Lies Family

Does you child have a food or milk allergy?? We cannot make any meal modifications until we have a completed Meal Modification form signed by your doctor on file in the school office. Thank you!

The students in the 7th and 8th grade Spanish classes at SFA have been busy learning basic expressions to help them communicate in Spanish. We learned different greetings and departures, how to introduce new people, how to ask questions, etc. In order to get them immersed in the language, students are required to ask simple questions, in Spanish, in order to use the restroom, go to their lockers or get a drink of water. With all their new knowledge, they prepared and performed a variety of skits. It was a great time! They prepared skits on how to order food in restaurants, the baptism of a little baby, shopping in Hawaii, surfing in Florida, hiking in the Grand Canyon with an 86 year old grandpa, and adventures with Harry Potter at the School of Magic and Arts. In November, the 7th grade did a research project about El Da de los Muertos (The day of the death.) We learned about this colorful tradition of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, comparing it with our custom to celebrate Halloween. We discovered some similarities between them. The students made wonderful presentations with a variety of visual aids, bread of the death and a special candy skull called calaca. After all this hard work we celebrated our success with a fiesta. We had great food (good salsa and queso with chips) and Latin music, of course! On this occasion we danced to the rhythm of Colombian music and learned some new steps. Finally, this December we honored St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe. We watched an interesting video, sung Las Maanitas (the traditional Mexican birthday song) to Our Lady, and learned about the symbols that she used in her apparition to help the Aztecs to believe in her and be converted to the Catholic faith. Next semester the teacher is planning to speak a lot more Spanish in class! We will travel around Spain and Latin America through the research projects that we will be doing. FELIZ NAVIDAD and blessings for the New Year, 2012. Seora Menndez

NEWS
Parents please know and follow our health policies. Students must remain out of school for 24 hours following vomiting or fever illness. Medication brought to school must have a parent request and doctors release (forms available).

Bring in your labels and Box Tops!

Please bring in all of your Box Tops for Education, Campbell labels and Tyson's Project A+ labels and deposit them in your classrooms by Tuesday, December 20th! They will be counted and go toward the next classroom competitions which will occur early this next year. Remember that some of the Bonus Box Tops in particular have expiration dates on them so send them to school now to ensure they will be counted and not expire!

Way to Go 3C!
The latest Box Tops for Education, Campbell label and Tyson's Project A+ winner was 3C collecting 939 items! Second place went to 3B with 891 items and third place went to 3A with 637 items! It looks like the 3rd Graders are on a roll taking the first three spots! Way to go!

Monday, December 19: Kindergarten Christmas Play 10am & 7pm in Gym Tuesday, December 20: Combined Band/Chorale Concert 2:30pm and 7pm in Gym Wednesday, December 21: 12:00pm Dismissal, NO LUNCH Thursday, December 22: Teacher Workday, NO SCHOOL December 23~ January 3: Christmas Holiday, NO SCHOOL Wednesday, January 4: Classes Resume

Star Student awards went home today.

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Flash

St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School exists to form, inform, and transform students as members of Christs Mystical Body.