National Catholic Schools Week (CSW) is the annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States. We celebrated CSW 2025 January 26 - February 1, 2025, and observed the week with our annual Open House, Home School Association events, special Masses, a "Catholic Bee", and Special Person Lunches. These events and other activities for students, families, parishioners, and community members allow everyone to join the celebration and experience what makes St. Mary School spectacular!
We started the week off with a stellar showing at our Open House on Sun., Jan. 26th. Many, many new families took tours of the school, led by current school parents and middle school students. They had the opportunity to experience our classrooms, speak with our teachers, and get a taste of just why SMS it the place to bee!
Many families made the "HSA Donut Sunday" in our cafeteria the last stop on their school tour, and enjoyed a donut and some coffee or juice, courtesy of our HSA. Thank you to all of our HSA volunteers who made this possible - it was a great display of our hospitality and a wonderful addition to Open House!
Our HSA's Snow Me the Money Cash Raffle also was held on Sun., 1/26 in conjunction with Open House, click here to see who the winners were!
The school week kicked off on Monday with "Special Person Lunches". Students loved inviting one special guest of their choice to have lunch with them one day during Catholic Schools Week. Many chose Grandmas or Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles, Mom, Dad, or even older siblings! The special guest even sometimes brought in a special lunch to share with their student. Check out some of the great photos we took during the week of our students and their special guests here.
During this week of celebration, we also took time to recognize our dedicated faculty and staff. Kindergarten and Grade 1 students in Mrs. Picone and Miss Gon's classes colored some beautiful cards and put them in staff mailboxes in appreciation of our hard working teachers. Click here to see the beautiful cards they made, featuring flowers in winter -what a nice surprise!
The fun and celebration continued all week into Friday with our 9 am School Mass. All of our student Faith Family groups were involved in the Mass, from reading & singing to bringing up the gifts. Additionally, each Faith Family created a paper chain with all of their names, which was brought up on the altar and linked together with the other Faith Family chains, to create one huge paper chain which surrounded the altar! Check out this YouTube short which shows the whole process.
After Mass, grades 3-8 gathered in the gym for our first ever "Catholic Bee". Teams faced off to test their knowledge of the Mass, scripture, liturgical seasons & more. Students in the audience were also invited to answer the questions on their clipboards. The teams "buzzed in" with their answers using light up bee sculptures made by students in our Makerspace Lab. The white team claimed victory in a close match, but every on-stage participant was a winner thanks to Target gift cards generously donated by the St. Mary's Knights of Columbus. Think you could answer most of the questions correctly? Take a look at some of the sample questions below and test your Catholic knowledge, then watch the video below to check your answers!
1) What flower is symbolic of the Easter season?
2) Which liturgical season marks the beginning of the church year?
3) Who disobeyed God and did not want to go to Nineveh?
4) Where did Jesus go to pray after the Last Supper?
5) Where did the Holy Family stay until King Herod died?
6) What did God use to guide the Israelites through the wilderness?
7) What did Jesus do at the Last Supper to show his Apostles how they were to live in service of others?
8 ) Which Apostle at first did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
9) What name was Jesus sometimes called that means "master" or "teacher"?
10) What are the first three words of the Bible?
On Friday afternoon students continued the annual tradition of the HSA Ice Skating Party! Skaters tall and small got out on the ice and had some fun at the Northtown Center. Thank you to our HSA for once again organizing this fun event- even a number of teachers attended and had a blast spending the afternoon skating! Click here to see photos from the ice skating party.
To wrap up this very special week, the HSA & St. Mary's Knights of Columbus organized and served a delicious pancake, egg & sausage breakfast to our school families. Middle school students created the table centerpieces in Mrs. Leong's Makerspace lab to look like bees sitting on honeycomb, since our mascot is a bee! The Catholic Schools Week family breakfast is yet another tradition that our school families have participated in for quite some time, and always look forward to. Click here to see photos from the breakfast.
Although we may have wrapped up Catholic Schools Week, we are always proud of our amazing Catholic School, where Catholic values shape tomorrow's leaders! If you would like an opportunity to see for yourself why SMS is the place to "BEE", contact our Enrollment Coordinator, Rebecca Kisailus at rkisailus@stmaryschoolswormville.org, or 716-689-8424 to schedule an on-school time tour. To download a FREE information packet on SMS, click here.