Kids Food Basket

Community Service Partner

ASA partnered with Kids Food Basket in 2016.  There are many different ways to volunteer at KFB, but ASA has focused on

• decorating brown lunch bags to deliver Sack Suppers
• packaging trail mix which is added to the Sack Supper bags
• collecting money to assist KFB in other ways

Each week the ASA kids decorate plain brown paper lunch bags as gifts for the Sack Suppers.  Each bag beautifully wraps a healthy meal sent home with kids daily.   These bags are a vital component as KFB delivers more than 7000 brown bag Sack Suppers in West Michigan weekly.

This year, ASA families collected and donated enough oat cereal, pretzels, raisins, cheddar crackers, and snack-sized zip bags to make and package trail mix for the Sack Suppers.  Our ASA hands packed almost 3000 snack bags filled with trail mix for kids' Sack Suppers in our community!!!  

Our dollar jeans days collected almost $1700 cash for KFB to continue serving the kids and families right here -- close to home!  

Recently, Troy was sharing KFB information with another area school and he proudly used the extraordinary energy that ASA has put forth over the last two years as an example of the success of Kids Helping Kids right here in GR.  So our light is shining!!!  

KFB is just one more way we are sharing the Gospel. 

Our outreach contact is Troy in the Kids Helping Kids department of  Kids Food Basket.  Kids Helping Kids serves greater Grand Rapids, Holland, and Muskegon.   

Kids Food Basket is currently located at 2055 Oak Industrial Drive, Suite C, Grand Rapids, MI 49505 between Maryland and Plymouth.  However, they have been the gracious recipients of land on Leonard between Plymouth and Perkins (near the Yankee Clipper Library).  A huge working garden has grown fresh vegetables, and a ground breaking is planned soon for a  new KFB headquarters.  

Many volunteers are needed in many positions every month to make sure that Sack Suppers are available to community families every day!  

www.kidsfoodbasket.org

Hatching Chicken Eggs

21 Days and Counting

Students in Mrs. Anderson’s Pre-K 3 and Mrs. Livingston’s 4th grade classes are anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby chicks. But first, they’ll have to exercise the virtue of patience and learn a little something about the life cycle. It typically takes 21 days for the eggs to hatch. In the meantime they’ll be in the incubator where it is between 90 and 100 degrees. 

“We can use candles to illuminate the chicks while inside the eggs to see their development.” 

Mrs. Anderson explained. She has been doing this project with her classes even before her time at ASA. 

“First they are going to be wet like in a bathtub.” Grace explained. “Maybe we’ll get to give them names.”

A second incubator was purchased through the generosity of Eaglefest donors. Now students at both campuses can experience the anticipation of new life this spring...even if it doesn’t feel like it outside!

Students in 4th grade will make scientific observations and collect data as they monitor their 18 eggs over the next 21 days. 

The 8th grade class proposed chickens as a possible addition to our ASA Community Garden work. They will partner with the 4th grade and work to locate forever homes for chicks once they hatch. 

After School Clubs at ASA

Ski Club

Hello my name is Nicholas Moll and I want to tell you about an ASA club I enjoy called ski club.  Ski club takes place mainly at Cannonsburg ski area every Wednesday after school from about January 1 to March 10.  Ski Club is a free club and is open to all students whether they ski, snowboard or due neither.  We encourage anyone who skis, snowboards, or is interested into learning how to ski or snowboard to come see what our club is all about.

Here are some fun facts about Ski Club:

. Ski Club creates new friendships
. You can enjoy Ski Club with your family and friends
. Ski Club builds confidence
. Ski club gets you outside during the winter months
. Ski Club builds school spirit

At the end of the season Ski Club takes a trip to Crystal mountain where we have a whole day of fun.

If you want learn more about Ski Club stop me in the hall and ask any time.  I hope I see you at Ski Club in 2019.

Ski Club

Hey, my name’s Cassandra Sisk. Ski club is super fun. It is a club on Wednesdays that is for girls or boys, skiers or snowboarders, you don’t have to pay the school to do it but do keep in mind that you need to buy a lift ticket. My whole family skis and I can tell you that it is a great experience.

Ski club is mostly at Cannonsburg but one of the highlights of ski club is when we go up to Crystal Mountain and spend the weekend skiing all together.  Ski club is a great way to create some new friendships, have fun, let loose, give yourself more confidence, and spend time with your family and friends. I highly recommend trying ski club. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find out that you really love to ski! If you have any questions then you can talk to me, Ms.Giroux, Nick Moll, or Grace Ellis. Hope to see you skiing next year!

2nd Grade Top Ten List

2nd Grade Top 10 List April 2018

10.  Going to Mass

9.    Learning

8.    P.E.

7.    Building structures in science

6.    Art

5.    Taking off shoes and socks while working

4.    Field Trips

3.    Box Top Prizes

2.    Teachers

1. Friends!

Classroom Learning Labs

We Can All Grow 

You may have noticed some visitors at the Elementary Campus on Friday March 9. About 20 teachers from throughout the diocese were here to participate in a classroom learning lab with our host teachers Mrs. Wendy Bowman and Mrs. Jane Reeves. After joining Blessed Sacrament Church for morning Mass half the teachers had the opportunity to observe a lesson taught by either Mrs. Bowman or Mrs. Reeves. Our visiting teachers then gathered together with their host teacher and were then asked to reflect on the lesson. 

Monday March 12 All Saints Academy k-8th grade teachers were out visiting other schools around the diocese to learn from and collaborate with other Catholic school teachers. Throughout the day teachers had the opportunity to visit a classroom or watch a recording of a lesson. After the observation teachers gathered together to discuss things they noticed during the lesson and things they wondered about. Through this collaborative discussion teachers took away some short and long term goals of ideas they could implement into their own classroom. 

Upon returning to school on Tuesday, teachers were very excited to have had such a positive experience throughout the diocese. There is a lot of anticipation and excitement about the next opportunity to visit and collaborate with other teachers from our local catholic schools. 

Teachers shared that it’s nice to break routine occasionally to have a chance to learn together with colleagues. For example ASA teachers reflected that: 
“It was great to get little, procedural, management ideas.”
“It was helpful to see how other teachers prep classes for group work.”