It was a hard-fought Scholastic Olympics and Saint Ann School gave its best! Congratulations to one of our own 8th graders for taking home third place in English and congratulations to Saint Paul School for winning first place overall.

On Wednesday, January 23, 2019, the Holocaust Remembrance Education Program is returning to Saint Ann School. Members of the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A., Post 697 will be speaking to students in 8th grade at Saint Ann School. The program offers an interactive age-appropriate presentation of the Nazi Holocaust, which ties in with the 8th-grade Social Study curriculum of Adolf Hitler’s initiative in Nazi Germany and Europe during World War II. Volunteers from the Jewish War Veterans recall their experiences and offer an audio/video presentation to supplement their talk. It is a face to face experience that teaches students of diversity, tolerance, and bullying.

Meet our marvelous Mrs. Melillo! Suzanne Melillo teaches Language Arts to our middle school students. After teaching public school in the Hopewell Valley Regional School District, she brought her talents here at Saint Ann School. She teaches students to write thorough research papers and to work on enhancing their individual comprehension skills through reading strategies, activities, and exposure to different genres. Working very closely with the rest of the Middle School Team, she makes sure that her students are high school ready, with a renewed sense of responsibility and self-esteem.

This year for Catholic School Week’s service project, we continue to support tribal schools in the Philippines. These two tribal schools are in the villages called Kitorok and Ilian, deep into the mountain range of Santa Maria, Davao del Sur among the Tagakaolo tribal people, two hours by car from the nearest town. For the past few years, we have been donating school supplies and based on their current needs, we are including toothbrushes/toothpaste this year to further promote oral hygiene among the school kids and help prevent diseases or illnesses caused by improper oral care. All of our donations travel thousands of miles across the world to reach hundreds of tribal school students. We are very thankful to our SAS community for their constant generous support!

In Italian folklore, January 6 marks the feast of the Befana, an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve. Befana visits all the children of Italy on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany to fill their socks with candy and presents if they are good, or a lump of coal or dark candy if they are bad. Christian legend had it that the Magi came to her door in search of baby Jesus. Befana turned them away because she was too busy cleaning. Later, La Befana had a change of heart and tried to search out for Jesus. That night she was not able to find him, so to this day, La Befana is still searching for the little baby and she visits and leaves gifts for good young children because the Christ Child can be found in all children.

Meet our loving Mrs. Lucks! Mrs. Linda Lucks is the learning assistant for 2nd grade. This is her 9th year teaching at Saint Ann School and though her homeroom is the second grade, she has enough love and care to share with everybody! From early morning drop off to lunch and playground duty, Mrs. Luck is always there to guide and support all our students. We are very Lucks-y to have her!

Meet our very athletic Mr. Venanzi! Anthony Venanzy has been teaching Physical Education at SAS for a while. He keeps our students fit while teaching them good sportsmanship and how to stay healthy. As part of his curriculum, Mr. Venanzi is in charge of the school Field Day, an event packed with fun games and competitions for all students Preschool through 8th grade.

8th-grade students led the school in an Advent prayer service today. The ceremony was held in the gymnasium where all students, staff, and family members prayed with songs and scriptures preparing for the feast of the Lord's Nativity.

Extra! Extra! SAS Blue & Gold Gazette is back and the first copy is fresh out of the press. Didn't get yours? Grab a copy at the FDC!

In social studies, 5th grade is currently learning about Native Americans. Students are learning about specific tribes who existed throughout North America. As a hands-on project to put knowledge into practice, our fifth-graders made Native American homes that each tribe lived in. Students have been working hard to take notes on each tribe so they could successfully write a report and build a home on their assigned tribe and home.

Meet our loving Mrs. Lestician! Nicole Lestician has been teaching at Saint Ann School for 5 years, alternating between First grade and Kindergarten. Teaching young children has always been her passion and she considers herself very fortunate to be able to do exactly what she loves each day! Her enthusiasm is contagious and shows her love of teaching and nurturing the academic, spiritual, personal, and physical growth of each of her students. To read more about Mrs. Lestician visit her webpage under the Teachers Corner tab on our website.

SAS students in grades preschool to 4 enjoyed a morning of arts and crafts, delicious refreshments, and a visit from Santa himself! A big thank you to our PTA for organizing such a wonderful holiday event! Check out the pictures on our Photo Gallery webpage.

"Oh come let us adore him!" Saint Ann School students performed for families and friends last night reminding the audience what Christmas is truly about. The annual SAS Christmas Pageant included many beautiful Christmas themed songs, combining the classics with traditional carols from around the world. More about this story on our News webpage. Visit the Photo Gallery webpage for pictures of the performance.

Last week was Computer Science Education Week, and to celebrate it, our 6th graders met with their prayer buddies to teach our 3rd graders how to code using block-based coding. They used code.org's Dance Party Hour of Code to create a dance character and to program that character to dance along to a song of their choosing. Fun was had by all!

On Wednesday, Dec. 5, SAS students, staff and families had the chance to experience "Christmas Around the World". This project is part of the Spanish curriculum for students in 4th and 5th grade at Saint Ann School. Coordinated by Spanish teacher Mrs. Laccetti, the students were divided into small groups and researched an assigned Country and its Christmas traditions. They then presented their project to the rest of the school and their families, who walked around the gymnasium learning about Christmas around the world and tasting traditional Christmas food from the Countries that were represented.

Saint Ann School and Parish children in 7th and 8th grade volunteered their time on Saturday, Dec. 8 during the Advent Day of Giving event. This annual service project is sponsored by the SAS PTA and offers a chance to all Confirmation candidates in the Saint Ann community to donate their time and share the Christmas spirit with those less privileged. Read more about this event in the Events & News page of our website.

Meet our very talented Mrs. Moya! Mrs. Cheryl Moya is our Music teacher and Music program coordinator. Mrs. Moya has been sharing her musical talent at Saint Ann School for a long time! All students, from preschool to 8th-grade attend her music class once a week and many take part in her after-school clubs "Ringing & Singing" and "Experience Choir Chime Ringing". Read more about Mrs. Moya's clubs on our webpage under Academics/Clubs & Activities

Meet our gifted Art teacher, Mrs. Gladwell! Mrs. Brenda Gladwell has been teaching students from PreK to 8th grade at Saint Ann School for many years. Hers is one of our students' favorite classes. Mrs. Gladwell helps the children express themselves through many artworks and projects, not only in class but also through a series of sessions held during her afterschool Art Club. Visit Mrs. Gladwell room at the FDC and see for yourself how talented she is!

When Preschool students in Mrs. Juliano's class wondered about pine cones and their different shapes, Mrs. Juliano put together an experiment to see why some pine cones are open and some are closed. Mrs. Juliano demonstrated to her class last Monday that if you put pine cones in cold and warm water you can figure it out. Find out more by clicking on this story.

In preparation for the Insight Landing expected to occur on Mars, Monday, Nov. 26 Saint Ann's science teacher, Mrs. Daniel taught Saint Ann Students a mini-lesson about the spacecraft in her science classes. She started streaming the live video in PM homeroom, and students watched history in the making as the Insight made a successful landing on Mars!