Dear St. Patrick families,
Last Sunday began the season of Advent. Once again, our liturgical season begins anew in anticipation of the birth of Jesus. We celebrate this season with our Advent candles and Jesse trees. I believe that our spiritual symbolism and themes of Advent will inspire us and guide us throughout this season in anticipation of Christmas. Tonight is our annual Christmas program. It begins at 7 PM at the Kent Roosevelt High School auditorium.
This program is always very well attended so I recommend that you arrive early for the best seats. I also hope everyone can remain for the 5th grade Christmas play. The students and Dr. Illa have worked very diligently on it and certainly would appreciate your support and attendance.
Our school Advent ceremony is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 5th, at 10:40 AM in the church. We invite everyone to join us in prayer. Tradition brought to America by Dutch settlers. This day honors St. Nicholas, a real person, who became the patron saint of children because of his acts of charity and kindness towards them. Many feel that St. Nicholas was the inspiration for Santa Claus. The school will celebrate this day by having “Slipper Day.” The students will leave their shoes in the hall in hopes that St. Nicholas will visit St. Patrick and leave them treats, much like he did in Holland. The students will wear their slippers the rest of the day in anticipation of St, Nicholas coming. If you don’t have slippers, an extra pair of shoes can be brought in to leave in the hallway. I am sure that St. Nicholas will be visiting St. Patrick on Tuesday.
On Thursday, Dec. 8th , we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which is a holy day of obligation. The primary grades will attend Mass at 9 AM. The middle school will attend Mass at 12:10 PM.
Interim reports will go out next Friday.
Looking ahead in December, there is an all school Mass on Thursday, Dec. 15th, at 8:30 AM. Friday, Dec. 16th, will be our final dress down day for 2016. Our last day of school before Christmas break is Wednesday, Dec. 21st .
This is also the time of the year when weather related, school cancellations occur. As in the past, we follow Kent City Schools for this. As soon as I receive notice of school being cancelled, I will do a parent broadcast and then get this information on our local TV and radio stations. I have heard from different sources saying that this will be another bad winter to other sources that say not as bad as in previous years. Who knows what Mother Nature has in store for us, as usual?
Thank you for supporting Saint Patrick School and helping to improve our technology department. Here are some examples of programming skills the students have been developing over the past 2-4 years.
Our coding curriculum includes writing code, as you will see in the following works, drag-and-drop coding, and creating games. This particular program is called Turtle Academy and starts the students off with very simple skills, like moving the turtle forward and turning, then more complex skills like creating loops, functions, and variables. The students start by learning some geometry needed to create closed polygons, like what angles are needed for different-sided shapes. They then learn shortcuts for the commands, put them together and Voila! The hardest part? Where to put the brackets needed for the repeats!
Girls and boys alike enjoy these programming projects and are equally adept at learning the skills. Pick up some colored pencils and enjoy our students’ creativity! Mrs. Zaynor.
Have a great weekend. And, as always ….. GO PANTHERS!