St. Lawrence the Martyr | Elementary & Middle Schools

We believe that every child has unique and special gifts that enhance the community. Therefore co- and extra-curricular activities at St. Lawrence are designed to assist students develop their gifts and talents and become well-rounded and concerned citizens.

One of the ways St. Lawrence brings depth to students' learning experience is with Co-Curricular Event Days, which develop cultural literacy and divergent thinking. These events are for the entire school, with accommodation to grade level. Often students work with different age children, which enhances the feeling of community. These unique days can be topical, as with the St. Lawrence Olympics held during Olympic years or the Best Book Ever Election held during an election year. In both cases, students participated in the entire process and history of the subjects for weeks before the Event Day. Sometimes the inspiration is literary, as with Nursery Rhyme Day for which everyone learned rhymes, wrote rhymes, recited rhymes and invented businesses inspired by them. The staff is looking forward to having a social studies event, a science event, and another fitness day.

Each December the faculty selects a piece literature (book or film) and creates an event for students in grades PreK-6 in the school and parish. They transform the library into the setting of the literature, share the story, and provide activities for the students related to the story. Past events include Narnia, Charlotte's Web, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. These evening events have become both a tradition and a way of initiating the Christmas season for our families.

Middle School students, under the guidance of the Middle School science teacher, pose a scientifically-based hypothesis, conduct an experiment, collect and record data, and report their findings at the annual Middle School Science Fair in January . Students defend their projects for judges, who are parents and volunteers from the community. Local winners take their projects to the County Science Fair. In 2007, two students took their project to the State Science Fair in Southern California .

Some elementary students and their teachers may create grade level Science Fairs with the assistance of the elementary science teacher.

For one week each spring, students and their families are invited and challenged to a ?screen-free? week. Students and parents are invited to school one evening during the week to participate in interesting family-oriented activities that can easily take the place of screen viewing. These activities are presented by the faculty with the goal of showing how much fun there can be in games and physical activity when everyone participates instead of watching TV, playing video games, or surfing the net.

St. Lawrence Elementary and Middle Schools do not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and/or ethnic origin, sex or disability in administration of educational policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school administered programs.