St. Gilbert Students Have Olympic Character

Character development is fostered at St. Gilbert School in a variety of ways. Different lessons and activities are done to incorporate the monthly character traits into the students' lives. Students attend Mass weekly to instill the Catholic faith. Junior high students model positive character at Mass as they sit with buddies from younger grades. Each trimester the school comes together at an assembly to celebrate the students living out these monthly character traits.

Last Friday students participated in the character assembly for 2nd trimester. Students came dressed in the colors of the Olympic rings. Younger grades were paired to wear the same color as an older grade and sat together at the assembly. These colored teams then competed in games to demonstrate different character traits.

Students demonstrated cooperation and respect as they worked together to build the tallest tower out of blocks. It was a close finish between the red, yellow, and green teams, but the green team of PK and 6th grade students made the tallest tower that remained standing and were awarded the gold medal to cheers from their classmates. As one sixth grader said "the preschoolers did a great job to help to our team." It truly was a team effort.

Students exhibited self-control and acceptance as they worked together to create a sentence about St. Gilbert School - Working together helps keep St. Gilbert School a Blue Ribbon School. The black team of 8th graders and 1st graders just barely finished the sentence before the blue team to win the gold medal.

The Olympic spirit was present as students competed in an Olympic torch relay. Working as a team these students demonstrated forgiveness and honesty as they passed colored pom poms from one torch to the next, picking up any that fell on the floor. The blue team of 7th graders and kindergarteners took the gold in this competition.

After the competitions the athletes, their classmates, and teachers came together as one school community demonstrating the unity of the Olympics by creating a lifesize Olympic Rings. Students representing the various colors of the rings stood in circles to show we are united as a St. Gilbert School community.