Author/illustrator Dan Killeen is coming to the Academy of the Sacred Heart on Wednesday, May 18. He will be reading his latest book, Derrick and the Dinosaurs, and talking about the process of writing/drawing. Read more about each of his books and pre-order signed copies via this order form (10% of all proceeds will be donated back to ASH). To get a sneak peek of his work and free coloring pages, please visit HappyFunBooks.com.

Last fall, 7th grade students in 18 states began writing poetry for a contest sponsored by the 7th Grade Poetry Foundation, a group dedicated to transforming young lives through poetry. The 104 participating schools each selected one winning poem and those student poets were celebrated yesterday afternoon at the Missouri History Museum. Congratulations to Cassie Smith, the Academy’s winning poet.

Although not 100% complete, here is the major project that Middle School students worked on together in Mr. Taylor’s Global Studies class since last year.

MINECRAFT PROJECT of ACADEMY GROUNDS

All Fifth through Eighth Class students took turns, adding his or her own creativity to build the school, block by block. Next year the project will be updated to represent new changes to the school and will also include what the school looked like in the 1950s, 1900s, 1850s and 1818 when Philippine arrived.

Did you know that our St. Philippine Duchesne Shrine Gift Shop (besides its inventory of Mater, Philippine and Sophie medals) also carries medals of St. John Francis Regis?  These medals, struck in 2014, depict the image of the painting in the entrance to Regis Hall.  St. Philippine Duchesne had a deep devotion to this French Jesuit saint and promised that his image would be honored in her schools in America.  The medals are available in sterling silver ($55) or silver plate ($6).

Fifteen of our Seventh and Eighth Class students will fan out across the country this summer to take part in Network of Sacred Heart Schools’ summer service projects.

• Caroline will live for a week on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She and 23 other Network of Sacred Heart students will serve the Native American Indians from the Lakota Tribe. They will be building decks, skirting trailer homes and doing minor repair work as well as learning about Native American culture and customs.
• “Helping Hungry Hearts” will take Kenneth to Michigan. He will volunteer at Gleaner’s Food Bank in Detroit or Pontiac and Forgotten Harvest in Oak Park. He and other students from Sacred Heart schools will serve dinner at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and visit Crossroads of Michigan in Detroit to prepare bag lunches for children.

Congratulations to Paul McClain, Sixth Class, who received a perfect score in the second of three meets for this year’s WordMasters Challenge—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge, Paul earned a perfect score of 20 in the recent meet. Nationally, only 11 sixth graders achieved a perfect score. Paul and his classmates were coached by Mrs. Laura Craig, Fifth and Sixth Class Literature and Writing teacher.

Our Middle School students made us all very proud at the Excellence in Mathematics Contest held March 19 at St. Louis Community College in Florissant.

6TH CLASS earned second place in the small school team category.  Students whose scores qualified for this award were Matthew Leight, Anna Robben, Paul McLain and Nathan Rich. Additionally, all four of these students placed among the top 10 students in their division: Anna placed 10th, Nathan 8th, Paul 6th and Matthew 2nd overall.