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.

Author Mentor Ellen Schwartz Visits Grade Six

Grade Six has had a three year working relationship with local author Ellen Schwartz. Our most recent workshop sessions with her included a sneak preview of the editor’s notes on her latest novel, Heart of a Champion, the story of Vancouver’s historic team of Japanese Canadian baseball players. Mrs. Schwartz shared the tribulations and triumphs of editing and revising a beloved piece of writing. Next, she lead the students through an exercise in fiction writing. Our very own ICS authors toiled over their writing pieces for several days and then  the writing was sent to Mrs. Schwartz, who became our Editor-in-Chief, returning to meet with each student the following week to conference and provide a “critical review” of the writing.  What a strong contribution Mrs. Schwartz has made to our writing program and to each student’s ability to live a “writerly life”!

Dear Mrs. Weaver and class
 
Thank you so much for the photo and card, and for your kind words. I had a great time working with you and reading all your funny, scary, spooky and true stories. Good luck with your writing, and remember: strong nouns and verbs!
 
All the best,
Ellen Schwartz

Our Lenten Journey

The three tenets of a Lenten Journey are fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.

The community at ICS shared a special prayer experience this Lenten season as a part of our journey. It all began on Ash Wednesday when we met in groupings of children from each grade led by a Grade Seven student; these groupings became our “family” during Lent. Each of us made a Lenten Promise and a banner signifying the Resurrection of Christ.

We then shared in a most beautiful experience by singing the Celtic Alleluia (Alleluia means “Praise God”) which faded into prayerful silence as we left the gym.  After Ash Wednesday we continued to meet weekly in the church in our family groups to share in Lenten prayer, led by a different primary grade each week.

We concluded Lent with a school-wide retreat on Holy Thursday themed “Our Journey From Triduum to Easter”.  For the students, it was a beautiful, prayer-filled morning of reflection on each Station of the Cross.

We thank the parents who shared in our Lenten Journey, which focused on parents as educators using the example of the soon-to-be canonized parents of St. Therese of Lisieux. Maureen Wicken led a reflection on how we embrace and encourage our children to dream and imagine a better world and how God calls them to be in this world.

The “why” of our crown star-halo logo

Our simple logo – a crown star-halo – is rich in meaningful symbols for our school community. It reminds us of the crown of Mary. The crown of stars circling Mary’s head, as found in all statues and paintings of Mary in her title as the Immaculate Conception, speaks to us of the honour we give to Mary as the mother of Jesus our Lord. Within the crown of stars we find the shadow of Jesus’ crown of thorns, a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice of love carried out for each one of us.

The halo of stars serves as a symbol of the holiness we are all called to strive to live as followers of Christ.  Our star-halo also symbolizes the pure innocence of children, something we work to nurture and protect at our school. We want our children to grow up accompanied by a symbol of goodness that speaks of all that is good and holy and beautiful in our world.

And last but not least, our logo symbolizes the ICS “All-Stars”, the name of our school teams, where our students learn teamwork, sports skills and love of play.  The School Logo is especially meaningful when combined with our Motto: “Today I will grow in knowledge, love of God and service to others”.