by Nancy Replogle

    There’s an old saying, “Whether it’s cold, or whether it’s hot, we’ll have weather, whether we like it or not.” Do you know how to read a weather map? The fourth grade students at St. Mary of the Assumption School do.  After studying weather map symbols and the different types of weather such as tornadoes and hurricanes the students made a weather map model using flour, salt, and water.  It is on display at the school.

    How much do you know about the athletes that competed in this year’s Olympics? The fifth grade students selected and researched an Olympic athlete; then they wrote a research paper about the person. The students also recorded the medal count of each country and created an Olympic bulletin board.  Trivia questions were presented to the rest of the school during afternoon prayer time. These activities made the Winter Olympics very interesting to the rest of the school.

    As the 5^th graders of St. Mary of the Assumption School studied the 13 Colonies, they learned that each area had different resources.  The New England colonies had many trees and lots of fish but not much good farmland.  The Middle Colonies had good farmland with small farms and were called the “breadbasket” while the South had large plantations with slaves to help with the cotton, rice and tobacco farms.  The class made 3 murals to show the difference among the areas.

    Do you remember when you were a child and mom’s bedtime stories helped you to relax so you could go to sleep? Well, we don’t do bedtime stories at St. Mary of the Assumption School but we do have many stories read to us. One of the story readers is our librarian, Mrs. Pollock. Each week, after the students have chosen their books to read for the following week, Mrs. Pollock selects a book or two to read to the class. Her stories are always fun to listen to and often the students ask to take the book home to read.   

    Rarely seen on the ground, the striped possum is one of many marsupials native to which country west of New Zealand?  If you know the answer to that question, congratulations!   That was the question that determined the winner in the St. Mary of the Assumption School Geography Bee. Students from grades 4, 5, and 6 were given similar questions. At the end, a sixth grader won and a fifth grader came in as runner up.  Oh, just in case you don’t know the answer, it is Australia.

    How well do you know your Ohio history? Do you know when Ohio was admitted to the union?

As part of their Ohio history studies, the fourth graders took a break to celebrate the birthday of their state. Their teacher brought in brownies cut into the shape of Ohio and a candle was lit. When is Ohio’s birthday?

     It was March 1, 1803. A bonus question-how old is the state of Ohio? Do you know?