Grade Four Garden Buddies

The Grade Four students have taken on the great responsibility of planting and tending to the ICS gardens over the course of this school year. Several times a month they meet with a group of Master Gardeners and gardening enthusiasts to learn about the fine art of planning, planting, tending to, and harvesting vegetables and flowers.  It has been a wonderful experience in which they have involved the rest of the school community in the areas of composting and taste testing. They have harvested and tasted many micro-greens and the most recent and deliciously crunchy harvest was radish. Thank you Grade Four for your dedication and hard work with our gardens!

The following excerpts were written by two Grade Four students:

Garden buddies are people that come to work with us when we garden.  They help us plant seeds in the garden.  The garden is in the back of the school.  Our buddies come every other Tuesday.  I feel happy and excited to work with our Garden Buddies.

This picture is about a group of students building a trellis to support the peas they’re about to plant. They’re going to plant Arugula. I chose this because they used teamwork to build the trellis. Each student is trying to do his or her best. I really like my garden buddy because she’s really nice and she tries to help when we need help.

Gold performance at the Chancellor Music Festival

On Monday, May 4th, the ICS choir participated in the 34th Annual Chancellor Music Festival at Our Lady of Mercy School in Burnaby. They performed two songs: Shout with Joy! by Mark Patterson and The Beginning of Love by Greg Gilpin.

We are very proud to share the news that our students were awarded a gold! Gold standing is awarded for receiving a mark of 88% or higher. This means that the choir sang to almost technical perfection!

During our time at the Festival, the choir had a chance to work with a trained professional who gave them a 15 minute clinic on choral technique to enhance their already successful learning of these songs. She commented favourably on their singing in two-part harmony, their wonderful energy, and strong voices. What an opportunity for our choir members!

At our assembly next Monday, May 11th, (10:45 in the gymnasium) the choir will be reprising the songs they performed at the Festival.  All are welcome to join us!

AGM notice and PEC Annual Report

We are happy to present the ICS 2014-2015 Annual report. We hope you will find it informative and useful.

Please remember that the Annual General Meeting is on Wednesday, 13 May at 2:15pm (in the school library). Join us for a brief presentation (related to the report) – and bring your questions.  We look forward to seeing you there. (Childcare will be provided.)

First Holy Communion

After many months of preparation, the Grade Two class received their First Holy Communion on Sunday May 3rd. First Holy Communion is considered one of the holiest and most important occasions in our lives – it is a significant milestone in the life of a Catholic. It is the first time that we receive the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, which is the eating of consecrated bread and drinking of consecrated wine. Everyone was excited about receiving this special gift from Jesus. Here’s what a few students had to say about their Holy day.

“My First Communion was great. I felt full of Joy after receiving Jesus”

“I felt reunited with God. My favourite part was receiving the Body of Christ for the first time. I enjoyed being with my family.”

“I will always remember receiving the host for the first time.”

“I felt excited. I enjoyed bringing up the wine. I will always remember Jesus.”

Family and friends joined us in celebrating – even from as far a field as Germany.   Thank you to all the wonderful Grade One and Three families who planned and hosted the lovely, delicious reception in the gym afterwards.

Speech Arts at our Little Blue School

UPDATE:  Congratulations to the ten students who represented ICS at the Archbishop Carney Speech Arts Festival in April. Gold and silver medals were achieved by all ten of our participants – we are so proud of you!

Originally posted April 15, 2015

On Friday, April 10th, we held our Speech Arts Competition to determine which students will be attending the Archbishop Carney Speech Arts Festival later this month at St. Joseph’s School. What a talented group of orators we have at ICS! There were two categories for the intermediate students: prepared Bible reading and poetry recitation. The poems ranged from the engaging verse of Shel Silverstein and Roald Dahl to the pensive and contemplative verse of Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, and Matthew Arnold. Bravo to all of our competitors! The decision was not arrived at easily; one Grade Four student and one Grade Five student will be advancing in this category. In addition, we have two students representing ICS in the prepared Bible reading category. Best of luck to you all!     

The primary students shared equally fun poems with the audience and also included some Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky gems. One student from Grade Two and one student from Grade Three will be advancing in this category. Theprepared Bible reading is always challenging, as our students must prepare three of the readings but do not know which one they will read on the day of the competition . . . congratulations to our Grade One and Grade Two winners! Finally, the primary students also take part in Prose Recitation and the selections this year were most challenging, ranging from Mercy Watson by Kate diCamillo to Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling.  Kudos to our Grade Two and Grade Three students who have advanced to the Archbishop Carney Speech Arts Festival in this category. 

We wish all of our contestants the best of luck and we will be thinking of you on April 22nd!

Gardeners and Artists

Our talented Grade One students recently tried their hands at a combined gardening and art project which has culminated with the creation of beautiful self portrait pots in which are growing micro-greens. The project began with a read aloud of Eric Carle’s story, The Tiny Seed. Under the expert guidance of the parent leaders, the students observed some newly germinated seeds which included broccoli, red radish, alfalfa, and mesculin mix. Next, they tasted each micro-green and determined what to plant. The flavours were all popular and, amazingly, the children wanted to try each one and many asked for seconds!

Once the taste test was competed, the children planted their seeds and now comes the waiting, and waiting, and waiting . . .

1… 2… Chow & Cha Cha

On Saturday night we held our annual Chow & Cha Cha – an evening filled with good food, live music, much laughter and dancing.  It was another great school community event that highlighted how much we value our wonderful families.  After a delicious pasta dinner we screened the world premier  of “A Day in the Life of ICS”.  This short movie, created by a talented group of Grade 5 and Grade 6 students,  illustrated how the funds we have raised over the last few years have been used for our children’s benefit (and also to support local and international outreach – the list is long!). Some serious square dancing and socializing followed the movie…

Thank you to all who helped make this another fantastic event!

Grade Five Explores Chinatown

On our visit to Chinatown we saw some very interesting buildings and monuments, including the Sam Kee Building, the world’s narrowest building! It is approximately 4’11” in width (1.50 meters). We also saw the Chinese Freemasons Building, every Chinatown in the world has at least one of these. The Freemasons were basically the Chinatown police back in the day.

Many years back, when there was a lot of racism against the Chinese, there were clans that people belonged too. For example, if I had the last name Lee, I would belong to the Lee Clan. They made buildings for these places where people could talk in their own language and play Chinese games such as mahjong together. Each Clan building had its own special meeting room usually located at the top of the building.

We talked to Bill Wong, an immigrant from China who right now is 93 years old. He told us what it was like to be an immigrant to Canada at the time and told us a little about his life.

For lunch, we ate at Jade Ming Dynasty and had some golden fried noodles, rice (of course), sticky rice, some stuffed eggplant, shrimp dumplings, BBQ pork rice rolls and mushroom tofu rice rolls.

Written by a Grade Five student

Racquets + shuttlecocks + fun = badminton

Badminton season is now over – but oh what fun was had by all!  For the last few months during P.E. classes Grades 4 to 7 learnt the terminology, the rules and the moves!  The Grade 6s and 7s also had extra practices before and after school and participated in the CISVA Badminton competition.  This competition was a wonderful opportunity for students to represent our school in three separate divisions of Singles, Doubles, and Mixed Doubles.  Well done to all the boys and girls who participated.  Congratulations to the students who went through to the Zone finals last week.

Now its time to lace up those running shoes – track and field starts this week!

Confirmation – becoming adults in the faith

On Monday evening most of our Grade Sevens and some members from our Parish celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation.  This sacrament builds on the sacraments of Baptism, Reconciliation, and Holy Communion, completing the process of initiation into the Catholic community. Confirmation establishes young adults as full-fledged members of the faith, and bestows special graces of the Holy Spirit upon the person being confirmed (wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and reverence of the Lord).  This sacrament is called Confirmation because the faith given in Baptism is now confirmed and made strong.

Archbishop Miller, wearing the traditional red vestments to symbolize the Holy Spirit, presided over the ceremony and administered the sacrament.  The Confirmation ceremony was then followed by a lovely reception (graciously hosted by the Grade Five parents) in the school gym.

May God’s love be in our young men and women’s hearts to strengthen them along life’s path.