K-2 Physical Education
Students have PE twice a week for 30 min. each on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Students should be able to tie their own shoes quickly and tightly, please practice at home if your child is still learning.
Physical Education Philosophy
The Saint Ambrose of Woodbury Catholic School physical education curriculum provides a wide range of opportunities for every student to participate in physical activity. Students learn various ways to move: loco-motor, gross/fine motor skills, object manipulation, in addition to learning through movement.
These experiences result in understanding concepts of; hard work, cooperation, fair play, team building, perseverance, and lifelong health-related fitness.
Students are introduced to vocabulary relating to the body; offering an overview of basic anatomy and function of the musculo-skeletal, cardio-pulmonary, and nervous systems.
Students are encouraged to participate in all activities to the best of their ability.
Physical Education Grades 3-8
Ministry Guideline:
National Standards and Grade Level Outcomes, Shape America
Description:
The goal of Physical Education is to develop physical literate students who have the knowledge, skills and confidence to enjoy a lifetime of healthful physical activity. To pursue a lifetime of healthful physical activity, a physically literate student will:
- Learn skills necessary to participate in a variety of physical activities
- Know the implications and benefits of involvement in various types of physical activities
- Participate regularly in physical activity
- Be physically fit
- Value physical activity and its contributions to a healthful lifestyle.
Units:
Fitness Building Activities, Indoor and Outdoor Games, Movement Exploration.
Achievement:
The National Standards and Grade-level Outcomes provide a national standard for teachers to use as a framework to assess and evaluate students’ achievement. Students’ achievement in Physical Education will be assessed according to five standards: Skilled Movement, Movement and Principles and Concepts, Personal Fitness, Responsible Behaviors, and Physically Active Lifestyle.
Evaluation:
- Skilled Movement
- Movement and Principles and Concepts (strategic)
- Personal Fitness (including Participation)
- Responsible Behaviors
- Physically Active Lifestyle
Spanish K-8
Bienvenidos-Welcome!
We are delighted to be teaching our student population at Saint Ambrose Spanish. The goal is to positively and joyfully interact with students while helping them acquire the Spanish language at a very elementary level. We seek to do this through prayer, song, games, and a great deal of comprehensible input. There is a great big world out there and it is a pleasure to help young students learn a bit more about it and how they fit into it.
Technology/ Media Specialist
The school has fully adopted Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides software online to replace the Microsoft Office Suite on our student computers. Students in grades three through eight will continue to use school-issued usernames and passwords to reach their online data drives and to access their projects during school, at home, at Grandma’s house, and even on vacation.
Our partnership with Northwestern Evaluation Association is allowing an upgrade to the way we perform our Measures of Academic Progress exams. The new system operates almost entirely online. The change allows nearly instantaneous reporting of results and verifiable evidence of learning for every student – we need wait only til the following morning to see complete results from testing sessions. The new system also allows greater numbers of students to test simultaneously. Testing more students in less time means finishing sooner and returning students to their educational tasks more quickly.
Band
Why be in band?
Music is a Science. It is exact, specific, and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor’s score is a chart, a graph with indicated frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time.
Music is Mathematical. It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper.
Music is a Foreign Language. Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French; and the notation is certainly not English, but a highly developed kind of short hand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.
Music is History. Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation – often even the country and/or political feeling.
Music is Physical Education. It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lip, cheek, and facial muscles in addition to extraordinary control of the diaphragm, back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.
Music is Infinite. It has been around since man first discovered he could organize the noise around him and create something which would transcend and uplift the human experience. Music shall live as long as there are ears and minds to listen and appreciate this art.
Music is all of these things, but most importantly…
Music is Art! It allows a human being to take all these individual left brain elements that can be dry and technical, and combine them with right brain feeling and emotions to create art that can be shared with the rest of the world! No other subject in school has the ability to combine so many different aspects of life, and have such a broad impact on the rest of the World!
That is why you should be in band! Not because we expect you to become a professional musician … but so you will be a more complete human!
In Band, the Saint Ambrose mission is in action through:
Faith – We pray before every rehearsal.
Academics – We achieve great things together as a band “team”! We work hard, we help each other, and we always try our very best!
Service – We share our gift of music at Masses, retirement homes, and at concerts in the school and community.
Art
As an art educator at St. Ambrose of Woodbury Catholic School I believe that each of our students grades K-8 has the ability for thinking and living artistically. I believe that God has given each of us talents and gifts which He expects us to develop and use to the best of our ability.
The art education program at St. Ambrose is an important part of the school curriculum. It allows our students to express their creativity, balancing the intellectual side of the brain with the artistic side of the brain. Art is a universal language and can be understood by all of us. Through art, students can come to recognize their talents and gifts, and use them to respond visually to the beauty of God’s world. They can learn to appreciate and respect the creative talents of artists in many different places, cultures, and time periods.