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Set of weekly School Newsletters

St. Henry School Newsletter

November 19, 2010

Saint Henry Catholic School “Soaring with the Lord!” 300 E. Cady Street · Watertown, WI 53094 920/261-2586 · 920/261-3681 (FAX) www.sainthenryparish.org

“He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible god, the firstborn of all creation.”

St. Paul to the Colossians 1: 15

Since there won’t be a newsletter next week – only a two-day school week – HAPPY THANKSGIVING! The concept of this holiday is so appropriate, given all our true blessings as a country, and our family gatherings are usually such a source of comfort, joy, and FUN. May you and yours have a wonderful day and weekend. By the way, if you want to express gratitude to God on Thursday with participation at Mass, -- Eucharist is a Greek word for giving thanks! -- it will be here at St. Henry that morning at 8:30 am with Fr. Brian and Monsignor Ganshert concelebrating. A perfect start to a very good day.

I know there was some contact among a number of parents in the late spring or summer about the possibility of forming an extra-curricular middle school robotics team here at St. Henry. This coming Sunday, the 21^st, there is a regional “Lego League Tournament” for middle school teams at Watertown High School. It runs from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, and is open and free to the public. Check it out! If you get excited and decide you want to get the ball rolling here at St. Henry and would be willing to be an adult supervisor yourself, please give me a call or stop by. I can share with you what I know so far about some possibilities for a team next year, and together we can plan on how possibly to proceed.

Next week will be a pretty opportune time to take out those Kraemer and Kringle orders and see if any of the people you visit with at Thanksgiving might like to participate. You can be very comfortable vouching for the quality of the products; it’s one of the reasons the Home and School Association has been offering this fund-raiser for a number of years now. All orders – with payment – are due into the school office on or before the Monday right after Thanksgiving. Thanks!

With this newsletter you will receive a little reading material for the next few days. The fall edition of the Incredible Hawk, a teacher contribution, will be included as well as the minutes from the most recent Home and School Association meeting. You will notice in those minutes a discussion about the use of our soda machine and a recommendation they wanted made to the Education Commission. The Education Commission was able to address that recommendation the very next night, and after a pretty thorough discussion, it decided in favor of HASA’s suggestion. Therefore a slight modification in our practice. Soda machine usage, on school days, will begin now after 3:15 pm. This will probably not affect most of you in any way, but the Commission wanted me to share their decision “publicly.”

Mrs. Harms, our eighth grade homeroom teacher, received some very good news a few weeks ago. She was awarded a grant by the Educational Foundation of Watertown for a subscription for “Brainpop,” a $195 value. May I quote from the letter she received: “Our selection committee was impressed with the description of the project/materials requested and the plans to use this both now and in the future.” Great job, Mrs. Harms. Thank you, Ed. Foundation! This week the second grade, Mrs. Menzia’s class, just learned that they were the lucky winners of an ice cream party, drawn from the entries of all who enjoyed the Watertown Daily Times fall serial story, “Ghost from the Past – Mystery of the Latham House.” What a deal -- reading and ice cream. Thanks to the Daily Times.

Drum roll: our honor roll list for first quarter. Three cheers to all the attainees. I see all the report cards so I know every parent had reason to be proud of at least some sections of every child’s card. Dr. Foster Cline, child psychologist extraordinaire, always suggests to parents that it’s to the positive things they see on their children’s report cards that they should give a lot of praise and pizzazz as in “Wow! Nice. Four solid C’s with all two’s in effort. Oh, my gosh, a ONE in effort in ____! Terrific. You must be pretty proud of yourself. I would be. How are you doing that? Paying attention in class a lot? Giving extra care to your assignments? Just plain getting smarter as you get a little older? Etc.” For the not- so-good things, he suggests a very quiet approach, with minimal attention. More like a little confused look, or a slightly sad-for-YOU (child) empathetic eye contact. Soft voice. “Gosh. Are you proud of that ___?” Hopefully, the child responds with an equivalent of a no. Adult: “Good (that you are not proud). Let me know if you’d like some suggestions from me on how you might get that up next time. You are getting that up next time, right?” Again, he suggests, no anger, no fireworks. If you’d like to hear it in his own words, stop by the office. We have some tapes and a couple of DVD’s we’d be happy to share. Now, back to the honor roll.

High Honors attained with a 3.80 grade point or better average

Grade five: Alyssa Denault, Kaitlyn Linskens, and Mickayla Meitner

Grade six: Isabella Beltz, Emma Cole, Gabriel Elsen, Erin Haeger, Karli Kohls, Natalia Olguin, and Victoria

Schimming

Grade seven: Sarah Bradow, Trey Jahnke, Christopher Justmann, Mara Lapp, Gabriel Linskens, Lacey

Mehltretter, and Steven Vacek

Grade eight: Janelle Hamilton and Leah Uecker

Honor roll earned with grade points between 3.3 and just under 3.8

Grade four: Alyssa Hinchcliffe, Ty Jahnke, Cameron Parrish, Bryce Rothschadl, Keyne Smedema, Max

Thomas, and Samuel Will

Grade five: Sara Lemminger, Colin Uecker, and Ethan Walter

Grade six: Joseph Brebeck, Caitlynn Hesse, Jesse Jurgella, Brenna Jo Smedema, and Michael Young

Grade seven: Jennifer Brebeck, Brett Caine, Alexander Denault, Grace O’Connor, and Joshua Schroeder

Grade eight: Noah Cole, Isaac Elsen, Brian Hogan, Cole Keller, and Jeffrey Schultz

Dates to Put on the Calendar

Monday 22 Second of the two days of late afternoon/evening mandatory

parent-teacher conferences.

Wed-Sun 24-28 Thanksgiving break. Mass Thursday at St. Henry’s at 8:30 am

Friday 26 “Please pick up your poinsettias if you ordered any.”

Parish Center hallway, 2-6 pm.

Sunday 28 First Sunday of Advent

Monday 29 Kraemer Cheese-Kringle fundraiser orders due in today with payment.

DECEMBER

Wednesday 01 Grade 4 has liturgical roles during 8:15 Mass

Athletic Association meeting, 6:30 pm, computer lab

Friday 03 Market Day

Monday 06 St. Nicholas Day

Wednesday 08 Grade 2 has liturgical roles during Immaculate

Conception 8:15 holyday Mass.

Thursday 09 Christmas program in St. Henry Parish Center, 6:30 pm.

Friday 10 First of second quarter’s AR points should be earned

by today by children in grades 3-8.

Student Council’s “Stuffed Animal and/or PJ’s and/or Slippers Day”

Kraemer/Kringle HASA fund-raiser -- pick up your orders day

FEBRUARY

Saturday 19 Bi-annual Parish Dinner Auction Event – reserve the

space on your 2011 calendars!

Verse for November 22- 23 (It’s our “Siren Prayer” for whomever needs help! Often prayed when the sound of a siren is heard; hence, the children’s name for Ps. 70: 2. Pronouns have been changed from the original “my” to “their” and from “me” to “them.”)

“O God, come to their assistance; O Lord, make haste to help them.”