November 9, 2022

We need your support! St. Catherine's is in the final weeks of our SCM Annual Fund drive, and having the support of our entire community is vital to reaching our goals for the year: $200,000 and 100% parent participation.

If you have not done so, please click the button below to make your gift or pledge by Tuesday, November 29th. Each contribution brings us a step closer to completing the school’s operating budget and fully funding the cost of educating every St. Catherine’s student, which we cannot achieve with tuition dollars alone.

Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or (713) 665-2195 with your questions about the SCM Annual Fund or giving at St. Catherine’s.

I look forward to every classroom reaching 100% participation and demonstrating its dedication to the Fund’s motto, Every Family for Every Child.

Thank you!

Lyndsey Ray

Advancement Director

Primary Specialist, Renee Smith, will share the Montessori approach to toilet learning and offer practical and emotional support to check this less-than-glamorous parenting task off your to-do list!

Join Renee on Tuesday, November 15 from 8:30 to 9:30 AM, as she shares:

• practical strategies to build positive restroom habits;
• how to curate your child’s wardrobe for independent dressing and toileting;
• how to set up or adapt your restroom for your child's functional independence; and
• ideas for navigating common potty training power struggles.

Students in Lower Elementary and Ms. Spesia's Upper Elementary class recently hosted Famous Person Day in their classrooms. Students researched notable people from history and gave presentations dressed as their chosen person.

Click here to enjoy the photo album. 

Thursday, Nov. 10 at 6:00 PM

Attendees will receive an overview of the high school's curriculum, three-year cycle, and assessment process. This event will be led by guides and students from the high school community. This is a great way to get an in-depth look, guided by experts, at SCM's High School. We highly encourage all parents and their students to attend!

Monday, Nov. 14 at 6:00 PM

All parents Infant Community through Lower Elementary are invited to learn what they and their children can expect as children transition to Upper Elementary, where they will further refine their understanding of concepts and work requiring abstraction.

Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 6:00 PM

We invite our Infant Community and Primary parents to learn what they and their children can expect as children transition to the Lower Elementary level and move from the first plane of development (Infancy) into the second plane (Childhood).

Thursday, Dec. 1 at 6:00 PM

Parents with children of all ages are invited to join Sarah Lewis, St. Catherine’s director of college counseling, to discuss college admissions and financial aid. Also open to students in 9th grade and above.

Click here to register for one or all four of these events. And note that we are collecting your College Information Night questions on the RSVP form to tailor the program to your areas of interest.

All are invited to attend the rescheduled Haunt-cert on Thursday, November 10 at 6:00 PM. Haunt-cert is free and open to the public, and a wonderful opportunity for our student-musicians to perform in a concert venue in front of an audience. Please join us at Pershing Middle School (3838 Blue Bonnet Drive) tomorrow evening!

ADVANCING THE MISSION

Join our Silent Auction Committee chairs, Julie McLarry and Aimee Raley, for their first meeting on Thursday, November 17 at 8:30 AM in the SCM Gym.

This committee is dedicated to organizing the silent auction for our upcoming Raise the Roof for Japhet gala, and there are several ways to get involved:

• Help contact businesses that have donated in the past
• Contact businesses that you frequent
• Brainstorm class basket ideas or Guide/Parent-led party ideas
• Help by putting packages together (examples: birthday parties, spa weekend getaways, etc.)

If you can't make the meeting but have an idea or a business you'd like to contact, email Julie at [email protected]. We welcome your ideas and help!

OUR FAITH IN ACTION

Thank you to all who joined us on All Saints' Day. It is a blessing for us to gather and worship together as a community.

All are invited to attend our next Mass on Thursday, December 8 at 2:15 PM in the school gym.

Last week, St. Catherine's honored our community's deceased friends and relatives with an ofrenda in the Welcome Center. Organized by students in our Adolescent Community, the ofrenda gave all of our students the opportunity to learn more about family members who they didn’t get to know, and for families to talk about their relatives who have passed away. Monday through Wednesday, classes visited the Welcome Center to share memories of their loved ones.

All are invited to attend the PSO Meeting this Friday, November 11 in the SCM Gym. We will gather right after morning arrival. Every parent is welcomed as a member of the PSO as soon as your child is enrolled at St. Catherine's.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday!

This morning the St. Catherine's faculty and staff enjoyed breakfast organized by the PSO Faculty and Staff Appreciation Committee. A table with breakfast tacos, fruit, yogurt, granola (and Halloween candy for a mid-morning sugar boost) greeted them upon arrival and helped sustain them throughout the day. The taco breakfast is one of many events and gifts the committee plans throughout the school year to express parent appreciation for the guides and staff members.

A big thank you to the Faculty and Staff Appreciation Committee for this thoughtful and delicious start to the day!

Please join the PSO Ambassadors this Friday, November 11 from 2:30 to 3:30 PM on the SCM Soccer Field for a playdate. St. Catherine's parents and students of all ages are encouraged to attend. We will have light snacks, but be sure to bring your own water. We look forward to catching up with old friends and making new ones too!

For those who wish to attend, please drive through the carpool line as usual to pick up your child, then park and walk through the side gate to the soccer field. We hope to see you there!

Book Fair season is here! This fall St. Catherine's is partnering with Literati to host an online and an in-person book fair. The online fair is open now through Friday, December 2. The in-person fair will run Monday, November 28 through Friday, December 2 in the Welcome Center.

St. Catherine's will receive a percentage of all books sold, which we will use to purchase books and supplies for our Sister Edna Ann Hebert Library.

This is a great opportunity to support SCM and do some Christmas shopping! The in-person fair will feature books tailored for readers aged 3-12 years old. The online fair includes an expanded inventory of books for all reading levels, including adults. 

Start your online shopping now and save the date to visit us in person beginning November 28!

The PSO Book Fair committee invites you to volunteer for the in-person book fair. Please sign up here for short, flexible shifts. If you have any questions, please contact Library Manager Melissa Lopez at [email protected] or our book fair chair, Karine Schepers-Cheng at [email protected].

Basketball practice is in full swing! The season opener is on Monday, November 14 at 4:30 PM where the boys varsity team take to our court against Holy Rosary. The girls varsity team will travel to St. Christopher on Thursday the 17th for their season opener. 

Click here to view the complete basketball schedule and make plans to cheer on our SCM Owls!

HIGH SCHOOL CORNER

Last week in the High School, we invited ninth grade students from the Adolescent Community to shadow our community. The students came and spent a day in our community, taking classes with the High School students and learning about our environment. 

We started the day by working in a physics lab examining Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, something we have been learning about in physics. Each of the shadowers got a high school lab partner to work with for each experiment and the analysis questions afterwards. After the lab, as a community, we drove to the University of St. Thomas and spent the rest of the morning there, something we do regularly on Wednesdays. The ninth graders were introduced to the UST library and shown all the resources available to them there. The students had the opportunity to explore and see the freedoms given to them in the High School - working independently in the library and even exploring the campus of UST a bit. 

After a lunch at UST, where many students got Boba at the campus tea shop, we journeyed back to the St. Catherine’s campus. We then participated in a Humanities class with the shadowers where we had a key lesson based on our topic for the quarter, which is the years between the Civil War and 1900. After Humanities, we all participated in community meeting, the time each week where we discuss issues or events that are happening in our high school community. Each high school student takes turns facilitating the conversation to practice leading these types of meetings and discussions. The shadowers were able to see the different opportunities happening in our community, such as the coffee business, planning of our upcoming trip to Puerto Rico, and more. We are excited to invite more shadowers in a few weeks, and we hope to see these students in the High School next year!

Thursday, November 10

• High School Open House, 6:00 PM (SCM High School)
• Haunt-cert, 6:00 PM (Pershing Middle School; 3838 Blue Bonnet Dr.)

Friday, November 11

• PSO Meeting, after morning arrival (SCM Gym)
• PSO Ambassador Playdate for IC-UE, 2:30-3:30 PM (SCM Soccer Field)

Saturday, November 12

• Saturday Soccer, 9:30-11:00 AM (SCM Soccer Field)
• Sociable: Robotics & Coding for Kids! See party host communications

Monday, November 14

• Varsity Boys Basketball vs. Holy Rosary, 4:30 PM (SCM Gym)
• Parent Education: Moving Up to Upper Elementary, 6:00 PM (SCM Campus)

Tuesday, November 15

• Parent Education - Restroom Independence: Montessori Toilet Learning, 8:30 AM (SCM Gym)
• Parent Education: Moving Up to Lower Elementary, 6:00 PM (SCM Campus)

Wednesday, November 16

• Varsity Boys Basketball @ St. Theresa Catholic School, 4:30 PM (705B St. Theresa Blvd., Sugar Land, TX)

Thursday, November 17

• Gala Silent Auction Committee Meeting, 8:30 AM (SCM Gym)
• Varsity Girls Basketball @ St. Christopher Catholic School, 4:30 PM (8134 Park Place Blvd.)

Friday, November 18

• Garden Teaching Day - Farm to Table: Cooking with Seasonal Vegetables 8:30 AM (SCM Campus)

For more calendar events please check our website.