The Cool Things

Carvalho Family After
Gustavo's Confirmation

The hardest part of writing a blog is just getting started. For this week's blog, I decided to just start with the cool things that happened this week. It was a short week but a very cool week.

The coolest thing took place this morning at 11:30 Mass. One of my former students from Holy Names, Gustavo Carvalho, was confirmed into the faith, and I was honored to be his confirmation sponsor. The Carvalho Family moved to Memphis from Recife, Pernambuco in Brazil so one of Gustavo's sisters, Gabriella, could receive medical treatment at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The Carvalhos are an incredible family, and we are fortunate to call them St. Ann parishioners. Thank you Fr. Bill for today's confirmation ceremony.

If you want to see a beautiful city, Google images of Recife in Brazil. I've never been there but would add it to my bucket list if I had one.

With Fr. Bill and Gustavo

It is amazing how many people at St. Ann are a part of the St. Jude story including me. The reason my family moved to the United States is because my father was the first oncologist at St. Jude. We have a number of school parents who work at St. Jude in so many different capacities.

Three St. Ann students have spent the last week training in soccer at the Juventus Academy in Turin, Italy. Ruby Langford, Jack Langford, and Brett Battle were part of a team representing Lobos Rush Soccer at Juventus. The 10 day trip included trainings at the Juventus Training Center with the academy coaches and matches against local teams affiliated with the Academy. The trip culminated in a 1-1 tie against the Sisport Scuola

Rudy, Jack, and Brett in Italy

Calcio Juventus Academy team. They also toured the area around Turin, including Cantalupa, Vivono, Milan, Lake Como. They saw the Shroud of Turin, and the remaining wall from when the Romans ruled.  Congratulations Ruby, Jack, and Brett on representing St. Ann, Lobos Rush, and the US Soccer Federation successfully!

The third session of Extracurricular Exploration (EE) began this past

Brett at the Shroud of Turin 

week with many new activities. The coolest thing about this session is that two students are teaching a session. Lauren Truelove and Ruby Langford are teaching the sewing EE class. Thank you to Mr. Vince Migliaccio for helping our students with making Rosaries in the Rosary EE. We are looking to add volleyball to the fourth EE session starting in January. 

New Pyle Speakers
Mounted in the Library

Another cool thing that is taking place is the number of Pyle speakers being donated for the students and teachers to use in the classrooms. So far, 16 of the 21 sets of speakers we need have been donated. I just checked the school's Facebook page and it appears that 3 more sets have been ordered to bring the total to 19! Thank you to all the donors, which includes students, grandparents, parents, teachers, and friends. One of the friends, Philip Schulte, comes from St. Martin, MO. He is a good friend of mine who read my blog, and was the first person to order speakers from Amazon for us.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XCYK12M/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Now it is teacher brag time. I have been doing classroom observations for nearly two decades. This past Friday, I observed two of the best classes, ranking right up there with some of the best I've ever seen. The two classes were 5th grade with Mrs. Metaxas and 4th grade with Mrs. Williams.

Kevin and Tavarius
Singing a Duet

The 5th graders were working in groups on their building projects (spaghetti, marshmallows, and tape). It was neat to see some of the groups succeed and some not succeed. Hey, we all learn when we don't succeed. The extremely neat part was the student collaboration taking place as they were doing the math to figure out how much they spent on their project, and if they were able to complete the building project. The whole time, Mrs. Metaxas was guiding the students in her calm and patient way. I greatly enjoyed this observation.

In 4th grade, some students were reading in a group with Mrs. Williams using ReadWorks on their iPads. (https://www.readworks.org) The students were reading Jenna and the Black Cat. The students not reading with Mrs. Williams were reading Jenna and the Black Cat or Holes on their own, doing vocabulary words, or working on handwriting (cursive). Students were focused, helping each other when needed, and transitioned quickly and quietly when it was time to do so. They were using the iPad, novels, textbooks, and workbooks. This is the way today's classrooms need to look. This class was pretty close to perfect. 

I noticed at Mass this past Thursday that Mr. Ryan Cooper was getting more students involved in the duets. I thought that was pretty awesome. I enjoy listening to our students share their talents.

Looking forward to two events this week. The first one is Donuts with Dad this Wednesday. The second one is the Fall Fest! I hope to see big crowds at each event. Let's support our students and school!

Also want to thank the Fall Fest planning team for allowing me to represent St. Ann on the Channel 24 Local Memphis Live with Chelsea Chandler. Thanks to James Dean from Wolfchase Hyundai for joining us on the set to talk about the car raffle. I hope your kindness and generosity pays you back ten-fold.

Support St. Ann

Please keep St. Ann Catholic School, our students and staff, and this week's events in your daily prayers. We need and greatly appreciate your support.

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School