Excellence in Action

On Friday, May 17, distinguished software and aerospace engineers Dr. Charles Simonyi and Chris Lewicki visited St. Thomas School during Chapel to share their experiences in space exploration. Both visitors focused on how scientists take innovative ideas to the next level and work as a team to accomplish amazing scientific feats. What made this event even more unique is that after their short presentation in Chapel, they met with our MS students to engage in deeper conversations related to engineering and health problems scientists have been trying to solve in this specialized field. Read more in the full article.

St. Thomas School changed it's logo in 2012, and began phasing out the old logo uniforms to the new logo uniforms. Beginning September 2013, the new logo will be worn by the STS students Primary through 8th Grade. Our Uniform Closet Co-Chairs, Cathi Haight and Sharon Cunnington (along with staff and other parents) began looking for a group who could use our gently used old logo uniforms. In the Winter of 2012, Sharon discovered Global Roots. And, in working with the Global Roots founder, Rick Montgomery, St. Thomas School determined that donating the clothing to Global Roots went hand in hand with our Mission and Core Values. Read more in the full article.

Recently Eva found an enormous feather and brought it to school. She shared it during our Morning Meeting. The feather ignited a lively discussion about birds among 16 very curious five-year-olds. If the feather and the children's thoughts and ideas weren't exciting enough, that day on the playground we spotted a hummingbird sitting in a tree for all to see. Eva's simple action started the class on a expedition to discovery. Read more in the full article.

WALKATHON is one of the most beloved traditions at St. Thomas School, and this year's Walkathon was FANTASTIC! For the Walkathon on Friday afternoon, 250 STS students, their parents, faculty, and staff walked 9,193 laps or about 2,300 miles around the track at Medina Park to raise money for our Parents' Association and to support the charity chosen by St. Thomas School students. Thanks to our enthusiastic community, Walkathon nearly doubled its goal raising approximately $44,000 in pledges! Read more in full article.

St. Thomas School presented its first ever Dinner Theater event! Café Murder, performed by the Seventh Grade Theater Master Class, was presented on June 6th. The performance sold out and delighted it's 80 attendees with suspense, humor, and delectable food. See full article for more.

By Natasha W. and the other Seventh Grade Sailors Our Salish Sea Voyage was such a remarkable experience, one which we will always remember. We participated in so many amazing activities and learned so many new things. We learned the parts of the boat and the different signals the captain calls out, and what they mean. We played many new games such as kubb and Alaskan football. Nights were filled with jokes that made you clutch your stomach with deep laughter, light-hearted bantering, and crackling beach blazes. Mornings were filled with grumbling stomachs, numb fingers, and silly dances to wiggle on our boots. On the morning of April 30, members of the Seventh Grade rendezvoused at school, loaded up a van, and headed north to Anacortes with Mr. Pippin and Ms. Anderson. We met the crew of Orion at a marina in Anacortes. There was Captain Kevin, Chief Mate Kris, Chief Scientist Jess, and Gunnar the deckhand. Orion is a 64 foot yawl operated by an environmental education organization called Deep Green Wilderness. It is the most beautiful sailboat in the world.

Microsoft has announced that St. Thomas School has been selected to take part in its Innovative Schools World Tour, which was launched to celebrate and showcase schools that have successfully implemented technology and innovative teaching and learning to improve 21st century learning competencies for their students. The tour, which is set to visit 33 schools in 20 countries, begins in April and will see St. Thomas School open its doors to an audience of education leaders, ready to show why they exemplify the future of learning.

After much anticipation, we rolled out our new electronic book lending program to Middle School students in early January. We are extremely grateful to the Parent's Association for the gift that made this pilot possible and we are very excited. The pilot consists of six e-readers, a mixture of Amazon Kindle Fires and Paperwhites. Hermione, Harry, Malfoy, Ron, Hagrid, and McGonagall, are each loaded with a different collection of e-books, magazines and newspapers. Hermione, like her namesake in Rowling's famous series, is a little bit precocious and offers award-winning young adult novels such as Barnaby's The Wonder Show, Green's The Fault In Our Stars, and Hartman's Seraphina. Harry is smart and likeable and provides access to a range of recent Newbery winners, including Applegate's The One and Only Ivan. Hagrid's collection is for readers who enjoy thrillers and page-turners. Ron offers up a sweet confection of realistic fiction-- after his character is the consummate people-person. Malfoy and McGonagall provide access to newspapers and serials, some light and some serious. Read the full article to learn more about our pilot program including supporting research about the impact of digital readers.

Ancient Rome had its Senate. The US has its Senate. So too, now, does Middle School at STS. We started the new STS Senate this year. The process to be in the Senate is not an easy job. It takes courage, for you have to get up in front of the whole Middle School to make a speech about why you should be voted in. From the election forward, students have a key leadership role as a part of the senate. Not only do they get work done in the Senate, but they represent their class and bring ideas, issues, and concerns to the Senate to discuss. There are two different roles you can be; either the Senator, or the class Representative. The Senator is a part of the Senate for the entire year, and the Representative serves for one trimester. New Representatives are elected each trimester.

Where would you go to read stories about mosquito hunting, falling off a chair, the first day of school, saying "good-bye", and learning to swim? At St. Thomas School, you could visit the Primary classrooms and read these very tales and many more. In late November, Primary students shared their writing with each other and celebrated their work to date. During Writer's Workshop, children have been learning to retell a small moment of personal importance. I can never stop saying, "bye", to my mom and dad because I love my mom and dad. I always blow a kiss because I love my mom and dad. I put a kiss on my hand. I blow my hand. The kiss comes off of my hand. Mom does that too. My mom catches the kiss, so I know Mom loves me. Kyler

Leadership is a hallmark of the St. Thomas School student. However, just what does "leadership" mean in today's world? Forget your images of Napoleon or Alexander the Great. Leadership is not a title: it is a process, a journey. So what would such a journey involve? Here are some key ingredients: •Social and emotional skills •Self-knowledge •Organizational and goal setting skills •Set of core ethics •Willingness to serve •Connection with others •Presentational skills Our 7th Graders experience a training ground in very special setting: Leadership Lab. This class offers some unique, challenging experiences where students are exposed to contemporary research on the topic as well as given unusual challenges to experiment with their new-found knowledge and skills. The first trimester focused on connecting with younger students who would look up to and admire our young adolescents. Each student completed an apprenticeship in an Early Learning Center classroom, understanding that all human beings undergo profound developmental changes in the realm of physical, social, emotional, and cognitive realms.

The First Grade classes once again conducted the Mitten Tree project as their service learning activity. The project was associated with the Economics Unit which links Math, Social Studies, and Language Arts. The fundamental idea of economics that was stressed was the concept of needs and wants.

Leadership is a hallmark of the St. Thomas School student. However, just what does "leadership" mean in today's world? Forget your images of Napoleon or Alexander the Great. Leadership is not a title: it is a process, a journey. So what would such a journey involve? Here are some key ingredients: • Social and emotional skills • Self-knowledge • Organizational and goal setting skills • Set of core ethics • Willingness to serve • Connection with others • Presentational skills Our 7th Graders experience a training ground in very special setting: Leadership Lab. This class offers some unique, challenging experiences where students are exposed to contemporary research on the topic as well as given unusual challenges to experiment with their new-found knowledge and skills.

Rocketry, the science of sound, and management of a doctor's office; do these sound like courses from a college catalog? If you walk the halls of the ELC, you will see and hear our youngest students exploring these topics in-depth. Project-based learning allows young children to research topics of interest collaboratively.

This year marks the 11th year of a very special partnership between St. Thomas School and Islandwood, an environmental education center on Bainbridge Island where our students annually travel for 3 nights and 4 days of intense scientific exploration and team-building challenges. For many of our students, it was their first expedition away from the comforts of home, from parents, from relatives, and beloved pets.

Welcome to the world of portraits. Forget having a picture of yourself by clicking the button on your camera while looking in the mirror. This is the artistically messy way of doing it. When we started our Master class for this trimester, I didn't know what to expect. The 7th Grade walked into the Art room and was swept away into the land of portraits. We were given notebooks and from that time on every time we walked into that classroom we immediately grabbed our books and started sketching. We were making a series every time we did a portrait.

Is it possible to touch space? Some of our 4th Grade students believe it is! Reflecting the passion for science and technology held by many within the STS community, several STS 4th Grade boys have been part of a Father/Son club where they do scientific experiments outside of the classroom to achieve different results and test their hypotheses. This summer, 4th Graders performed a unique weather balloon experiment where their goal was to send a weather balloon into the stratosphere to take pictures from near space. They were successful with their experiment, launching the balloon for 47 minutes before it burst after climbing 16.3 miles into the air!

Everybody enjoys different activities and likes different things, so this year St Thomas School added a period at the end of every Thursday for all the middle schoolers. MS Clubs is the last period of every Thursday, lasting for 40 minutes. The middle schoolers chose a club to participate in on Thursday afternoons. There were 11 choices ranging from unicycle club to toothpick structure club, all with different teachers and staff members at STS.

By 6th Grade Reporter Jackie J. All of a sudden I can hear my heart my beating. I try to speak louder than the continuous beating of my heart. On September 20, 2012, at 1:00 p.m. there was an historic moment in St. Thomas School history. There was the first set of Senate and Representative speeches. This is the first time ever a Middle School student Senate has been created. I am running for 6th grade Senate. I am listening to my competitor's speech, which is hint that I am up next. I hear loud clapping. I stand up and give my speech. And here I am... all of a sudden I can hear my heart beating without touching it. After my first paragraph, I am 100% confident about giving my speech. After all of the 5th, 6th and 7th graders gave their Senate and Representative speeches, it is time to vote. I chose who I voted for, and so did everyone else. Then I huge crowd starts tumbling towards Mr. Colledge with voting ballets. I placed mine in the mountain. I start to wonder who will be the 6th grade senate. But guess what... we all made STS history... and I'm a part of it.

A landmark for the Middle School started on August 30, 2012. All the middle schoolers were gathered in the middle school plaza, waiting anxiously for the teachers to announce to us the new events that will be happening in this coming year. All the students were talking and catching up with each other on what they did over the summer. Right when the last student had arrived, Mr. Colledge started by saying how wonderful it was that everyone could be here on such a momentous occasion. The first thing that he did was introduced the new and returning faculty to us. He then told us about a new thing that will be used to collect all the memories we will have, dog tags. On the front they have our new mascot the falcon, and on the back they have the name of the student and what year they will be graduating St Thomas. Mr. Colledge then gave the students more information about the student senate. He told us that we would have an election after school started, and each class will have a Representative and a Senator. After a couple more announcements, we all filled outside to go to Medina Park, where we would have lunch. When we had walked over to the park, we saw two tables that had pizzas covering them. Everyone started to line up to get a slice. Students and teachers talked to each other about the new changes that have been applied to the upcoming school year. When everyone was done we headed back to school. We went outside to join the other students and parents. This was truly an amazing experience and will be looked forward to every year.

Ms. Gao, 2- & 3-Day Preschool teacher, just wrapped up the final session of a week-long summer camp at STS called "Little Monet." The camp provides children in PrePrimary through First Grade with an opportunity to discover the beauty and mystery of Impressionism.

Jennifer Patterson '04, has returned to St. Thomas School for the past two summers as an instructor with Pacific Science Center.

STS students were able to raise $3,016 for The Coral Reef Alliance during this year's Walkathon in May.

This past school year, the St. Thomas School Sixth Graders initiated a Clean Air Campaign designed to tackle the growing problem of air pollution in our community. As a result of their efforts, STS has achieved Level 2 status with Washington Green Schools.

Mrs. McGraw's third graders recently conducted a balloon and helium gas investigation. Watch the video of them testing out their experiment.