Newspaper Staff

Mikhaila Archer

Adriana Arias

Emma Butler

Emma Cooney

Caroline Featherston

Patricia Gerli

Maggie Hall

Catherine Hamilton

Isabella Hamilton

Riley Hicks

Camila Hirani

Brooke Lange

Clare Maleeny

Sara Micciulli

Margo Muccia

Grace Mullen

Emma O’Connor

Anna O’Malley

Lorraine Rinaldi

Georgia Ryan

Natalie Sanchez

Katherine Santoro

Isabella Santucci

Dr. Ann Marr

Inside this issue:

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Pg. 1

What Did You Do Over Spring

Break?

Pg. 1

Egyptian Cobra Pg. 1

Into the Wild Auction Pg. 2

Future Problem Solving Pg. 2

Interview with Mrs. Bercovici Pg. 3

Battery Box Pg. 3

Building

Community

Cub Chronicles

Volume I

Issue 4

2010-2011

Lower School

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami By Belli Santucci and Riley Hicks

Recently on March 11, 2011, there were an earth-

quake and tsunami in Japan. First we will tell you

about the earthquake. It occurred at 2:46 pm (Japan

time). It was calculated to be a 9.0 earthquake. The

earthquake was the most powerful quake to hit yet!

In Japan it lasted about six minutes, and caused a lot

of damage. More than 11,000 people died, and

many people are missing. There were a lot of fore-

shocks and a lot of aftershocks. The quake occurred

when the Pacific Plate was subducting under the

plate beneath northern Honshu. Now, we’re going

to talk about the tsunami in Japan.

Spring Break

It was rated as a “major tsunami.” The tsunami

occurred around 3:00 pm (Japan time). The waves

were about 30 feet tall. About one hour after the

quake, the tsunami flooded the entire Sendai Air-

port. When the quake occurred it moved the ocean

floor which caused the tsunami. Japan needs our

prayers so as you are reading this article send a

blessing to everyone who died, families who had

losses in the earthquake, people who are injured in

the hospital as we speak, and everyone who needs

our help in Japan. Hope you enjoyed our article!

Book Fair 2011 By Anna O’Malley & Katherine Santoro

We hope you enjoyed the Family Liturgy

and the Book Fair. We hope you enjoyed the

4th grade canters who did a wonderful job

singing. The Book Fair was so much fun

and the books were great. We hope you liked

the winning book mark and the books you

got.

Thank you for coming.

Pg. 3

Fain Mail Pg. 3

On May 7th 2011, Convent of the Sacred Heart is having its Annual auction. This year’s theme is Into the Wild . The 4th grade is auction-ing off a book of the girls’ Lower School memories . 1st grade is auc-tioning off Christmas tree ornaments. Also, if your family is looking for a labradoodle, the Into the Wild auction has one—all the way from Ireland . It will be a very exciting event. There will be a dinner your parents will go to, and the auction will take place at the Hyatt Re-gency in Greenwich . The silent auction starts at 6:30-7:30 . There will be dancing and a band . Who would ever want to miss a night like that ?

Into the Wild Auction By: Grace Mullen, Camila Hirani and Emma O’Connor

Future Problem Solving

By Mikhaila Archer

Future Problem Solving (FPS) is an after –school ac-

tivity that starts in 4th grade and ends in 12th. For the

Junior division, this activity is held on Thursdays from

3:30 pm to 5:30 pm. We did this activity with Dr.

Marr and an upper school student named Sarah Hir-

shorn. This year our topics were: Healthy Living, Air

Transport, and Genetic Testing. We had to come up

with problems and solutions for each topic. We com-

pared each problem and solution in the form of a grid.

This grid allowed us to assign scores to each solution,

allowing us to reach a final answer based on the high-

est score.

On our last topic, Genetic Testing, we had to do a

whole packet (solutions, problems, grid, criteria, and

final) in just 2 hours! Those packets were handed in to

statewide judges to determine the winning group, who

would go on to represent the junior division at the fi-

nal competition held at the University of Connecticut

during Spring Break. If your group did not make it to

the final Competition, you could choose to continue

with the individual competition . Research was very

important, too. We were given a packet containing ar-

ticles about each topic. We had to read the required

articles and take notes on what we read. FPS helped

us to make new friends. The junior division is made

up of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. FPS gave us a chance

to get to know each other better. We all became such

close friends; we never wanted to switch teams. FPS

was very exciting and fun because of our loving team-

mates and the challenging topics we discussed. To-

wards the end of the activity we did a “survey” on

who we thought was our favorite teammate . This year

the winner, for the whole state of Connecticut, was

Ludnie Rene. We are all very proud of her.

FPS promotes teamwork. Teamwork was a very im-

portant skill in this activity; if you try to do every-

thing yourself, nothing will get done! Dr. Marr was

a great teacher, and we all look forward to participat-

ing in FPS next year.

Interview with Mrs. Bercovici

Written by: Margo Muccia & Maggie Hall

For this article we interviewed Mrs. Bercovici

about her job here at CSH. Here are some of

the questions we asked her, and the answers

we got in return.

1. How long have you been working at Con-

vent of the Sacred Heart ?

Answer: I’ve been working here for 5

years.

2. What is your favorite part of your job?

Answer: My favorite part would have to

be working with students and coaching

teachers.

3. What is your least favorite part of your

job?

Answer: Definitely recess duty on very

cold days

4. What is your favorite kind of math?

Answer: My favorite kinds of math are

logic puzzles, algebra, and geometry.

Those were the questions we asked Mrs. B. We

hope you liked reading a teacher’s point of view

about her job, because we did!!!

What Did You Do Over Spring Break?

By Patricia Gerli and Georgia Ryan

Spring vacation is already over. Can you believe it?

We asked three students what they did over spring

break - Natalie Sanchez, Riley Hicks, and Olivia Ca-

poniti.

Natalie Sanchez stayed local. She visited her grand-

mother and her cousins. She also went and saw a

broadway show in NYC.

Riley went to Florida. While she was there, she swam

with dolphins at Discovery Cove.

Olivia Caponiti spent part of her spring break in

Washington D.C. She had a lot of fun.

We hope you had a great time over spring break.

Summer is coming soon and, before you know it, it will

be 2012!

Do you throw your batteries away? The Mid-

dle School girls are doing a science project

and they asked the Lower School girls to help

bring in dead batteries. The Middle School or-

ganized a contest and it is the B classes vs. the

A classes and whatever team wins, gets

CIVVIES!!!!!!!

UPDATE: the LS girls collected 2020 batter-

ies, and we ALL get a civvies day!!

Battery Box By Catherine Hamilton and Clare Maleeny

Fan Mail

Your paper only gets better! Congratulations to

you and the teachers. I am impressed by many of

the articles but the prize goes to Izzy Wise. I can

hardly believe that she is a fourth grader. There is

wisdom in “The Good Samaritan” that is rarely ac-

quired before maturity but she is a wise young

lady. Her last paragraph is masterly in being able

to recognize serious outside concerns and remind

all that daily behavior is an equal challenge and too

easily overlooked.

Thanks for the copy.

Sr. Ann Conroy, rscj

United States vs. Argentina By Adriana Arias and Emma Butler

On March 26, 2011, a soccer game was played be-tween the US Men’s National Team and Argentina, in East Rutherford, New Jersey in the new Meadowlands Stadium. The game ended in a tie of one to one. But in the first half, the US team was behind. In the sec-ond half, the US played better, scored their first and only goal, and finished the game with a tie. This game was one of the most crowded soccer games. 80,000 people were cheering in the new Meadowlands Stadium!

The Good Samaritan

By Izzy Wise

The theme of our Mass is creating a better world in 2011.

The parable of the Good Samaritan gives us clues how to do

that. Jesus teaches us to love God and our neighbor as much

as we love ourselves. He explains that in order to love our

neighbor we need to be kind and show mercy especially to

those that are suffering.

In 2011 we should all try to be Good Samaritans

FIRST to each other here at school. I once heard the saying,

“Charity starts at home.” I think this means that in order to

make a unified and strong community, one which is better

able to help the outside world, we must first be loving

neighbors to each other within our own community.

Have you ever been on the playground and watched

as someone is left out of a game? Have you ever been in a

situation where someone comes up to a group you’re playing

with on the playground and asks if she can play, and one of

the girls in the group says, “No! we have too many people,

already,” or “No, we want to play alone?” Have you ever

watched as that girl walks away sadly with her head down

and no-one does anything to include her or comfort her?

This is the time when you and I can be a Good Samaritan to

this girl. Have you ever been at gym class when the gym

teacher tells you to pick partners? Have you ever seen

someone who continually is left out? One who never seems

to quickly get picked to be a partner? Couldn’t we be a

Good Samaritan by saying to this girl, “Hay, do you want to

be partners with me?” Would you ever choose that girl first

instead of last? Once we establish that we are Good Samari-

tans to each other we can more effectively work together to

be Good Samaritans to the world outside our Lower School

Sacred Heart community. This will help us achieve one of

our five goals, goal 3, which is “social awareness which im-

pels to action.”

For our fourth grade non-fiction reading unit I am

currently reading Three Cups of Tea. This is a story about a

man named Greg Mortenson who travels to Pakistan to

climb the mountain K2. While there, he almost dies and

wanders into a village called Korphe. The people of Korphe

have very little food and material items but nevertheless they

generously nurse Greg back to health. They share what lit-

tle they have with him. They are Good Samaritans to Greg.

After Greg gets better he learns about the village of Korphe.

He learns that the nearest doctor is a week’s walk away. He

learns that one out of every 3 children in Korphe dies of

malnutrition. He also learns that the children in Korphe

have no school building and scratch their multiplication ta-

bles in the dirt with sticks. Greg decides to help the people

of Korphe by going back to America and raising funds to

build a school in Korphe. One way Greg raises money is by

going to an elementary school that starts the “Pennies for

Pakistan” project. The children collect $623.45 worth of

pennies to help in building a school there.

The story of Three Cups of Tea is inspiring be-

cause it is an example of how to be a Good Samaritan in

the larger world. Here at Sacred Heart in the lower school

we raise money for Uganda through our Jump Rope for

Uganda fundraiser. We also collect Christmas presents for

needy children through Operation Christmas Child. The

upper school is currently collecting toilet tree items for

their annual mid-night run. One of our first graders, Ra-

chel Pyne, is also currently collecting pens for soldiers

who are based in Afghanistan because children always ask

them for pens. Also, remember last year when we re-

sponded to the crisis in Haitii with donations?

In 2011 we should continue to support our exist-

ing programs to help those less fortunate, and it should be

our goal to make these existing programs even stronger.

This year new needs will be uncovered and it should be

our mission to recognize these needs and to develop strate-

gies to be Good Samaritans and to make positive differ-

ences in the Wider world. I know that you will join me in

supporting these projects. But will you join me in another

project? The project of being a Good Samaritan right here

in our Lower School; in the classroom, in the hallway, in

the lunchroom, in the gym and especially on the play-

ground? Let’s all remember that “charity starts at home.”