Catholic school day filled with study, fun and prayers

On a recent Friday when The Evangelist visited St. Mary/St. Alphonsus School in Glens Falls, the morning began with students filing to church. Junior high students attend Mass every morning; younger pupils go weekly. While the liturgy proceeded, non-Catholic students gathered for fellowship.

Afterwards, Pierre Castinguay, a father, carried a tray of spruce saplings into Kathy Arcuri's first-grade classroom. The children, fascinated by the bonsai-size trees, clamored to hold them.

"Remember we talked about Earth Day and Arbor Day?" asked Mrs. Arcuri. "What did we talk about?"

The answers were shouted: "Trees!" "I got a tree once!" "Leaves!"

Studies

Elsewhere, an eighth-grade religion class asked about their assignment for the week: papers about Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador and Pope Benedict XVI.

"This is your own opinion," instructed religion teacher John O'Brien. "What I want to see in your paper are your personal thoughts. Use newspapers, the web and other resources. And no cut-and-paste, or it will be a zero."

The students then filed to the upstairs chapel, where Friday Eucharistic Adoration had commenced. They knelt on kneelers and sat on the floor, their eyes on the altar and their thoughts on prayers.

Words and music

Downstairs, classes continued in full swing. The babble from a second-period Spanish class sounded like a doctor's waiting room: The junior-high students were learning to speak and write about fevers, backaches and diseases.

The door to the music room was closed, but that didn't prevent the sound of a dozen recorders from leaking into the hallway. Fourth-grader Ben Baker blew out the notes for "Round About Morning," which the class was preparing for a concert. Teacher Pat Sager waved her hand in the time-honored pattern of conductors everywhere.

They also sang a Korean song about boating and clapped the rhythm of the oars as they learned about Korean folk music.

Colorful day

In the art room, teacher Peggy Clohessy held court among colors that splurched on the walls and pushed-together desks. Giggling second-graders helped one another don smocks and retrieve their watercolor projects.

"Squeeze the sponge out, but leave just enough water to brush over the page," she instructed. "Dot this with color -- yes, the color is going to spread out. Pick up a little yellow paint -- no, just the tip of the brush!"

Alanna Belanger and Patricia Rabine grinned as flowers appeared under their brushes. Alanna produced long, thin purple petals, while Patricia created a wide green stalk. "This is so cool," she exulted.

Along the trail

Upstairs, in Heather Goddard's fifth-grade social studies class, the children studied the geography and history of the Oregon Trail.

Hunched over notebooks, their hands in the air, they worked to identify the natural formations, forts and landmarks that 19th-century pioneers would have passed on their journeys to the Pacific Northwest.

"What's this?" asked Miss Goddard, pointing to a landmark on a map displayed in the students' workbooks.

"Fort Bridger!" cried Katie Dimick.

Who am I?

Reading class followed. This day, the fifth-graders were presenting their biography book reports. They memorized the facts of their lives and were interviewed on a mock talk show in front of the class.

Erin Meacham emulated a younger Katie Couric, as she interviewed a bespectacled and blue-jacketed Dan Kaiser, playing the role of Microsoft's Bill Gates. He clutched an old laptop he brought with him.

"What was your goal when you started Microsoft?" Erin queried.

"To make computers easier to use," responded Dan.

"A very good idea!" quipped Erin as the class giggled.

Time for fun

Giggling is the rule in the playground, where the preschoolers were celebrating Bike Day with their teacher, Tricia Wadsworth. Their parents had brought their children's tiny bikes and lined them up against the school wall.

The preschoolers were shepherded by fourth-graders who watched that they didn't get hurt or in trouble. They were also there for peer education.

In front of a child-sized stop sign sat a helmeted Angela Trowisi on a small pink bike. Her partner, fourth-grader Kate Gregorio, helped to teach her bike safety.

Math games

Susan Bolduc's first-graders were learning about addition and subtraction through flash-cards and games.

"Around the World" is one of the favorite games, and students competed to see who could answer the most questions correctly. Michael Morey advanced again and again, and the students whistled in admiration,

"Have you been practicing your doubles, Michael?" asked Mrs. Bolduc.

"No, he's just the best!" Timothy Daley chimed in.

The class is "one of the most lively groups I've had," Mrs. Bolduc said.

Experiments

Eighth-graders were in science class, using red rubber balls and other implements to complete a lab experiment about the momentum of gliding objects. They sprawled on a hallway floor, taking precise measurements and noting their results on pieces of paper.

Down the hall, the sixth grade piled into Linda Auffredou's math classroom to learn about the metric system and decimals. The teacher rapid-fired questions at the half-dozen students bent over their notebooks.

Things go a lot easier at the Noah's Ark preschool. It was naptime, and the children were at their lockers, dragging out pillows decorated with pumpkins, Dora the Explorer and Spider-Man. A music box started to chime familiar nursery songs over the dozing children.

Under the sea

It was noisier in Mary Anne Edie's fourth grade, where she knelt on the floor with students, cutting out blue and green paper to assist them in making coral-reef dioramas.

Evan McLaughlin and Caleb Nicholson conferred over scissors and sheets of pictures: octopi, fish, jellyfish, seahorses, coral. The questions fluttered around the classroom: "What goes where? What does a proper reef look like?"

"We had a virtual field trip to a coral reef" on TV, explained Mrs. Edie. "At the same time, we were studying habitats. The kids enjoy doing projects, and it's a great way to get away from the mundane and having to sit."

Working in clay

Hands-on projects were the order of the day in the pottery lab. To complete the elective class, junior-high students had to make, glaze and fire a wall sconce with decorations, a small teapot and a decorative rattle.

There's a technique to clayworking, which Mrs. Clohessy explained to the students as she walked among them in the former chemistry lab.

During the morning, the sun had slipped in through the windows, baking some of the students' clay projects that had not been adequately wrapped in wet newspaper the day before. Mrs. Clohessy showed them how to re-wet the clay so it was workable again.

The school considers such electives to be an integral part of the curriculum. Clubs, too, are supported: from yearbook and student council to chess and golf.

Time to go

At 2:20 p.m., parents began to flood the hallways, standing outside their children's doors and lockers.

"We got our own trees!" exulted a blonde girl to her mother as the child burst out of Mrs. Arcuri's kindergarten.

She handed her sapling to her mom and ran back into the classroom for prayer. Little hands folded as small voices began the Hail Mary.

(6/9/05) [[In-content Ad]]