What's New At St. A's
DRAMA STUDENTS COMPETE IN VIRTUAL FORENSICS TOURNAMENT
On Monday, May 18, 2020, two Drama students, Jonathan D. (Grade 5) and Layna T. (Grade 8) represented St. Augustine of Canterbury School at the 24th Annual Union Catholic Jr. Forensic Tournament. 129 students from 15 schools competed virtually in one of 4 categories: Drama, Humor, Reading, and Declamation. Jonathan competed in the Drama Category while Layna competed in the Humor Category, earning the 5th place trophy for her performance. Congratulations to both students for all their hard work and for representing our school so well!
ST A'S DRAMA CLUB STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN NJ JUNIOR THESPIAN VIRTUAL FESTIVAL
On Saturday, May 15, 2020, four 8th grade Drama students (Sharbella J., Layna T., Gabriella M., and Alexander D.) represented St. Augustine School at the NJ Junior Thespian Virtual Festival. Students from 35 NJ Middle Schools interacted virtually throughout the day participating in the dance and movement workshops offered at the Festival, and competed in the Seasons of Thespian’s Challenge and the Time Warp Challenge. Sharbella was a double honoree at the Festival. She received the award for Superior Creativity for her music video rendition of "Seasons of Love" from the musical Rent, and was also awarded 1st place in the Time Warp Costume Contest for her interpretation of Aladdin in modern times. All of the students worked hard preparing for the competition and wonderfully represented their school!
NOTRE DAME HS AWARDS FITZPATRICK FAMILY MERIT SCHOLARSHIP TO ST. A'S 8TH GRADER
From the Notre Dame High School website:
The Fitzpatrick award is based on academic merit and students must have achieved a score of 90 or above on the HSPT or 85 or above on the SSAT. They are also required to submit an essay and interview with a Notre Dame Administrator.
Madison R., who is graduating from St. Augustine of Canterbury School, is the recipient of the $15,800 Fitzpatrick Family Scholarship. Upon receiving the award Madison exclaimed, "I am extremely grateful for the opportunities Notre Dame has given me and I am excited to join the ND family! Go Irish!"
Her parents are also very excited for her, "We are so proud of Madison and as much as we want to keep her little - we know that Notre Dame is the perfect fit to help guide in both her academic and faith journey. We are truly grateful that she was awarded a Notre Dame Scholarship. When President Jennings called us, we were speechless. The excitement and energy expressed from President Jennings and Principal Barlow were palpable! We are looking forward to Madison's next four years here at Notre Dame."
Below, Madison displays her commitment to service by demonstrating how to make fabric face masks to help with social distancing during the current pandemic.
ST. A'S CELEBRATES ITS FIRST LIVESTREAMED FAMILY MASS
On Wednesday, April 29th, history was made at St. A's as Father Bob celebrated the first ever livestreamed family Mass in honor of the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena. The Mass was streamed live on the school and parish websites at 6:00 PM and was watched by nearly 400 individuals and families. Thank you, Father Bob, for giving us the gift of the Mass once again during this unusual time, and thank you to all who participated and made this unprecedented event possible.
FAMILY CREATES AND DELIVERS SNACK BAGS FOR THE NEEDY
Second grader Alanna N. and her mom responded to a call for donations from Elijah's Promise by putting together 72 snack bags that they will deliver this weekend. Mrs. N. reflected on the project by saying, "I am a firm believer in teaching our children to give back but when we have the opportunity to do it with them it means even more..."
EXPERIENCING THE BEAUTY OF GOD'S CREATION ON EARTH DAY
As part of the school's virtual observance of Earth Day, the Middle School Science classes went on a virtual field trip with Boeing to see how individuals and companies can do their part to be good stewards of God's Earth. After the field trip, the students were asked to go outside and look around and see the beauty of God's creation. Their task was to find 3 things that touched them about God's creation. Maybe something that is beautiful - a tree or a flower or an animal - or maybe something that fills them with awe - a mountain or a river. Once they found those three things they were asked to take a picture and caption it. The captions could be scripture, poetry, quotes or one they created on their own but they must focus on the gift and beauty of the Earth. The amazing photos and captions were compiled into the video below by Mrs. Knox.
KINDERGARTEN VISITS THE SAN DIEGO ZOO VIRTUALLY
Kindergarten took a virtual field trip to the San Diego Zoo today as part of their remote learning activities. Next week, they will be doing a "research paper" on one of the animals they saw at the zoo.
EIGHTH GRADE SCIENCE LAB: EXTRACTING DNA FROM A STRAWBERRY
Our 8th Grade Science Students completed a lab on extracting DNA from a strawberry. In this lab, DNA was successfully extracted from a strawberry, demonstrating the process real life scientists would use to extract DNA from cells. Strawberries were used because each strawberry cell has eight copies of its genome, giving them a lot of DNA per cell.
KINDERGARTEN & THIRD GRADE TAKE THE READER'S OATH AND READ TOGETHER
On Thursday of Read Across America week, our Third Grade students read their favorite Dr. Seuss books to our Kindergarten students, who dressed for the occasion in their favorite pjs!
Then they showed how much they love to read by taking the Reader's Oath together.
ODYSSEY OF THE MIND TEAMS EXCEL AT SKYLANDS REGIONAL TOURNAMENT
Seven teams from St. A's competed in the Odyssey of the Mind Skylands Regional Tournament at Branchburg Central Middle School on Saturday, February 29th. All of the teams had a successful outing, with three teams qualifying for the New Jersey State Finals at Princeton High School on April 4th.
Leading the way was the 8th grade team coached by Mrs. Tarbotton and Mrs. Wolski, who won First Place on the problem "Gibberish or Not" in Division II with a perfect style score.
The 8th grade team coached by Mrs. Lyttle and Ms. Tauk is also heading to States thanks to their 2nd Place finish on the problem "Classics...The Effective Detective" in Division II. They achieved a perfect style score as well.
Not to be outdone by their older schoolmates, the combined 3rd-5th-6th grade team coached by Mr. and Mrs. Kumar placed Second on the problem "Balsa Limbo" in Division II and completed a trifecta of perfect style scores by St. A's teams. With that result, they also earned a berth in the State Finals.
The 6th grade team coached by Mrs. Abbott placed 3rd on the problem "Longshot Solution" in Division II, just missing a trip to States. The 7th grade team coached by Mrs. Domingo earned a 6th Place finish on the problem "Net Working" in Division II in their first outing as a team. The 4th grade team coached by Mrs. Sparagna and Mrs. Modzelewski placed 5th on the problem "Classics...The Effective Detective" in Division I. While these teams won't be moving on to the next round, they can be proud of their achievements and build on their successes for next year. And finally, the primary team coached by Mr. and Mrs. Lee received awesome comments on their performance: creative, perfect costumes; super creative song; great props and presentation. Thank you to the assistant parents. We look forward to seeing them compete as 3rd graders at the 2021 regional tournament! Congratulations to all!
8TH GRADE STUDENTS PRESENT HYDROPONICS PROJECT AT STATE HOUSE IN TRENTON
Our 8th grade Science students were selected as winners of a poster and video contest, sponsored by the New Jersey Network of Catholic School Families. The contest challenged Catholic school students from around the state to create a STEM-based project centered on the theme, “Our Catholic Schools use STEM to solve a school, local community, or global problem.” They presented their recycled hydroponic system to a standing-room-only crowd at the State House in Trenton on Jan. 27, the second day of the nationally-recognized 46th annual Catholic Schools Week. Speaking to their peers and school officials from the five Roman Catholic dioceses in the state, as well as interested parties and legislators, the students presented their recycled hydroponic system, which has already yielded a tomato. The goal of the project is to create a hydroponic vegetable garden to benefit the St. Augustine’s Food Pantry and the greater community. Congratulations to Mr. Tackett, our Middle School Science Teacher, and our 8th grade students for an outstanding project and presentation.
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK 2020 - DAY 1 RECAP
We opened our celebration of Catholic Schools Week 2020 with our traditional Opening Day prayer service. Students, teachers, and family members gathered in the gym where Mrs. Paras, our Middle School Religion teacher and a St. A's alumna, began by offering a powerful reflection on the gift of our Catholic school and the true meaning of our celebration of Catholic Schools Week. She then led us in a prayer of thanksgiving and closed by acknowledging and thanking the parents in attendance for making the choice to give the gift of Catholic education to their children.
After the prayer service concluded, everyone was treated to a performance by the St. A's Band led by Mr. Mallinson, our band director.
Special activities during the day included solving a reading mystery to find the "villain" responsible for "stealing" books from the library, only to discover that she did it because she wanted to read to the younger students.
CSW 2020 Day 1 concluded with the first of several scheduled Moving Up Days, where students get the opportunity to move up one grade and get a taste of the lessons, activities, and projects they will be doing a year from now.
Visit our Facebook page for many more photos of our Catholic Schools Week activities throughout the week!
TECH TEAM CREATES 3D PRINTED CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS
Our very creative Tech Team designed their own Christmas ornaments using Tinkercad. The ornaments were printed on our 3D printer and hung on our Middle School Christmas Tree.
Close-up photos of the ornaments can be seen on our Facebook page.
RECAP OF ST. A'S WEEK-LONG PARTICIPATION IN THE "HOUR OF CODE"
Each year, St. A's holds a school-wide participation in the Hour of Code during Computer Science Education Week. Our Pre-K 4 students kicked off the festivities a few days early by learning how to code a mouse! By using the Code & Go Robot Mouse, the students were introduced to coding, sequencing, directionality, and problem solving. Most importantly, they had fun while learning!
3rd Grade began the official Hour of Code Week by writing lines of code for the Minecraft Voyage Aquatic, where they explored and built underwater worlds.
Day 2 brought aspiting coders from 1st, 4th, 7th, and 8th grade to the Computer Lab. From beginners coding the Blue Fuzz in the Kodable app in 1st grade, to all the way to learning Python in 7th grade, our students love to code!
On Day 3 our coders in 5th grade used CoffeScript to code a monkey to get his bananas, while our 2nd graders wrote code for Run Marco. 3rd and 4th grades were also back for another round of Minecraft and Star Wars coding.
On Day 4, our 6th Grade Students had a very special Hour of Code as we were joined by Mr. Olegario, one of our 6th grade dads and a Customer Success Manager for Microsoft, as well as Ms. Chertnez, a Community Development Specialist for Microsoft. Ms. Chertnez quickly got them coding using using Blockly/Javascript to code the popular Dance Party on code.org. The students were able to complete this task, and quickly moved onto the Python programming language by coding Banana Tales from codemonkey.com. Our students had an awesome time coding with Mr. Olegario and Ms. Cherntez, and we are so thankful that they were able to share their talents and knowledge with us this during our Hour of Code 2019.
Not to be outdone by their students, members of the St. A's faculty also took part in an Hour of Code challenge as part of their professional development in technology. The teachers had to complete all 20 levels in the Frozen coding activity at code.org. The 2019 Faculty Hour of Code Challenge Winner was Ms. Farraye, one of our 5th grade teachers! Coming in 2nd place was Mrs. Duarte, one of our 3rd grade teachers, and 3rd place was Mrs. O'Donnell, one of our 1st grade teachers. Congratulations to all our faculty for a job well done!
Day 5 saw the Hour of Code end as it began: we started the Hour of Code with Pre-K 4, and ended it with our Pre-K 3 students. The Little Knights learned how to code by first playing Hopscotch Coding to help them begin to understand the basics of coding. Then they used the Daisy the Dino app to use block coding to move Daisy. To round out the final day, our Kindergarten Kids used the Kodable app, while the 2nd graders used the Run Marco app. Our 7th graders learned Python, while our 8th graders celebrated their last Hour of Code by completing the Frozen activity.
Please visit our Facebook page for many, many more photos from all of our Hour of Code Week activities!
"ROBO KNIGHTS" ROBOTICS TEAM WRAPS UP SUCCESSFUL 2019 CAMPAIGN
Our robotics season wrapped up well this year in the First Lego League. We placed 8th out of 24 teams in the robot game, our highest placement ever. In one of our 3 robot runs, we scored every point available to us, also never done before. Our 2 youngest teammates also had the second best run of the day. With only 1st and 2nd places being recognized in the 4 competition areas this year, we did not earn a trophy, but are very proud of our team. They demonstrated cooperation and teamwork during the core values activity better than ever. It was truly a group effort. Many thanks to the Lyttle Family for all their hard work, time and dedication to this team!
JUNIOR ALTAR ROSARY SOCIETY CREATES NATIVITY ORNAMENTS
Our Junior Altar Rosary Society created Nativity ornaments to display on their Christmas trees. The students respectfully and reverently pray the rosary after school with Ms. Fama for their special intentions and for the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
YOUTH MINISTRY STUDENTS HELP PROVIDE THANKSGIVING DINNER TO NEEDY FAMILIES
Some of our EDGE Students, along with Mrs. Paras, our Middle School Religion teacher, gave of their time and helped hand out 185 turkeys & 150 bags of groceries to families in need. Thanks to the parishioners of St. James in Basking Ridge for their generous donations, and the Diocese of Metuchen for coordinating this effort with the Holy Family Parish in New Brunswick.
PEP RALLY KICKS OFF 2019-2020 BASKETBALL SEASON
St. A's 2019-2020 Basketball Season kicked off with a Pep Rally in our gym led by Mr. Modzelewski. Each player was introduced by their Coaches, and showed off their awesome shooting skills. The most exciting moment of the Pep Rally was when our faculty challenged our 8th graders to a game. The game was fast and furious, but in the end, our 8th graders beat the faculty for the WIN! Thank you to all our Coaches and Parents who came out to cheer our teams. We wish all of our St. A's Knights a fun and successful Basketball Season.
KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS CELEBRATE FIRST “KNIGHTS OF ACCOMPLISHMENT” AWARDS
The Knights of Accomplishment Awards for the first quarter of the 2019-2020 school year were presented to students in Grades K to 4 at the first of two awards ceremonies that mark the end of the first marking period. Pictured below are the Knights of Accomplishment from Kindergarten, who were very excited to receive their first Knights certificates as St. A's students.
Grades 5 to 8 will receive their Knights of Accomplishment awards and Honor Roll certificates at a separate awards ceremony to be held next week. Congratulation to all of the First Quarter honorees!
MISSION PET CONTEST RAISES MONEY IN SUPPORT OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHERS FILIPPINI
Congratulations to our Mission Pet Contest Winners: Lucas, an Old English Bulldog, Sky, a Pitbull, and Karma, a Malshipoo. We raised $450 to send to the Religious Teachers Filippini to build wells for water. Thank you to everyone for your generous support of this worthy cause.
STUDENT COUNCIL OFFICERS AND REPRESENTATIVES ELECTED FOR 2019-2020
We are very proud to introduce our Student Council Officers, School Representatives, and Class Representatives for the School Year 2019-2020.
The 2019-2020 Student Council Officers are (pictured below left to right):
Secretary Andrea A.,
Treasurer Shana I., President Alexander D., Vice President Gabriella K.
The 2019-2020 School Representatives are: Sharbella J. and Giovanni O.
The 2019-2020 Class Representatives are: Diego P. (8W), John M. (7B), Summer O. (7W),
Taanya K. (6B),
Gisele C. (6W), Saira H (5B), Cristina D. (5W), Advika G. (4B), and Ellie L. (4W).
Congratulations to all who were chosen to represent our school and be our role models to follow our Good God Choices everyday, and in every way. Together with Sister Mary Louise and Mrs. O'Connor, we know that you will incorporate innovative and creative ideas, and add new programs and fundraisers for our school this year.
8TH GRADE SCIENCE CLASSES CREATE ELEMENT-THEMED TEE SHIRTS
Mr. Tackett, our Middle School Science Teacher, taught our 8th Grade students the entire Periodic Table of the Elements through the use of music and the Periodic Table Song. The students then chose an element, and designed and actually created a tee shirt based on the properties of their element.
LITTLE KNIGHTS PRE-K STUDENTS SPEND A DAY AT THE FARM
Our Little Knights Preschool students visited Von Thun's Country Farm Market, where "learning is easy when it’s hands-on and fun at the farm."
KINDERGARTEN MEETS THEIR 8TH GRADE BUDDIES
Our Kindergarten Kids were so excited to finally meet their 8th Grade Buddies. This is always one of our 8th Graders' favorite traditions, as they spend the entire school year paired up with their Kindergarten Buddy!
FALL FESTIVAL AT SNYDER'S FARM
Many thanks to the Snyder family for hosting our Fall Farm Festival Fundraiser on their magnificent Snyder's Farm in Somerset. It was a warm and sunny day, and everyone enjoyed spending their time on the farm with friends and family. We are very grateful to all our HSA members, families, students, and alumni, for volunteering to make the event run so smoothly, and for sharing their pictures of the event. There's no place like St. A's, and we are so blessed to have such a warm and generous community of St. A's families.
RECITING THE PREAMBLE TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
The students in Ms. Fama's 4B Social Studies class are learning about the Preamble to the Constitution and what those words and ideas signify. Today on Constitution Day, September 17, 2019 they recited the Preamble together.
