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On Sunday, January 29th, 2017 the Staten Island Catholic Elementary schools will gather to celebrate in unity the Annual Catholic Schools Week Mass as a kick off to Catholic Schools Week. The theme for the weeklong celebration, as chosen by the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), will be “Catholic Schools—Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Service”. The week is celebrated by the entire Staten Island Catholic school community, 22 regional, private and parish-based elementary schools.

Our schools are mission-driven and data-informed; integrating academic learning with enrichment activities and character development to help students develop spiritually, intellectually, socially and physically.

We are The Future of Education! The Catholic School Region of Staten Island is proud to announce that seven Catholic Elementary Schools recently received the Blended Learning Initiative Grant from the Richmond County Savings Foundation. The technology-rich learning program blends traditional classroom instruction and online learning with ChromeBooks in the classrooms. These schools join the several other schools that currently have embraced forward-focused innovation in teaching that is revolutionizing ways children learn on Staten Island.

We continue our collaboration with St. Joseph-by-the-Sea High School. Sixth, seventh and eighth grade students participate in the Seamless Online Learning Experience (SOLE) integrating the Blackboard online learning system, a college program using iPad technology as a tool for academic success.

Graduates move on from Catholic elementary school with a solid academic and social foundation necessary for the academic rigors of high school, college and beyond.

Our schools offer a Kindergarten through 8th grade education and most also offer Pre-K 3 or 4 year old programs, and FREE UPK. Children of all faiths are welcome. Visit www.BuildBoldFutures.org to learn more about the 22 Catholic Elementary Schools on Staten Island. Come visit us today—your child’s journey starts here!

When school lets out for a break or weekend or even the end of the day, the learning doesn’t have to let out with it. Visiting a museum with your children affords them opportunity to discover new information and ideas in a fun and engaging way. Although children have different interests and hobbies, from young science enthusiasts to early sports fans, there’s a museum to pique the curiosity of every child. Pick your child’s favorite or try something new to spark fresh interest. Here are some museum day trip ideas for families with curious youngsters.

NY Transit Museum — Located in a decommissioned Court Street subway station in downtown Brooklyn, this museum boasts an impressive collection of vintage subway cars and retired buses, as well as other bridge, tunnel, and railway artifacts and memorabilia. Any child with an appreciation (or more likely, a fascination) for trains and other forms of transportation will delight in this ride through the history –and future – of New York’s mass transit system.
www.nytransitmuseum.org • Located at the corner of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn

NYC Fire Museum — The fire house-turned-museum aims to collect, preserve, and present the history and cultural heritage of the fire service of New York and to provide fire prevention and safety education to the public, especially to children. From a horse-drawn ladder wagon and early rescue gear to modern day tools and equipment, museum-goers get a sense of what firefighting was like at different time periods throughout city history. There’s also a special memorial to the 343 members of the FDNY who were lost on 9/11, featuring a number of firefighting artifacts recovered from the World Trade Center site.
www.nycfiremuseum.org • Located at 278 Spring Street, Manhattan.

Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum — The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum lets visitors climb aboard the legendary aircraft carrier Intrepid, see the space shuttle Enterprise, as well as the world’s fastest jets and a guided missile submarine. Kids will especially love the interactive Exploreum exhibit, where they can climb in an actual Bell 47 helicopter, navigate through a submarine and steer the wings of an airplane. There’s also a 22-foot, 550-pound model of Intrepid crafted from over 250,000 LEGO bricks!
www.intrepidmuseum.org • Located at Pier 86, W 46th St & 12th Ave, Manhattan.

Museum of the Moving Image — Museum of the Moving Image helps visitors understand and appreciate the art, history, technique, and technology behind film, television, and digital media. Families will enjoy exploring the Museum’s hands-on core exhibition Behind the Screen, which features over 1,400 artifacts, from mind-bending optical toys to a real Yoda from the Star Wars films, as well as various interactive experiences in which families can make stop-motion animations, add sound effects and music to famous movie scenes, and star in a personalized flipbook of their own.
www.movingimage.us • Located at 36-01 35 Ave, Queens

Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center — Young baseball fans will find the Yogi Berra Museum both entertaining and inspirational as they tour the life and career of one of the most beloved sports figures of all time. The Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center strives to remind young people that they can be anything they want to be.
www.yogiberramuseum.org • Located on the campus of Montclair State University at 8 Yogi Berra Drive, Little Falls, NJ

The Children’s Museum of the Arts – CMA combines contemporary art exhibitions and hands-on art-making studios for children ages 10 months to 15 years, offering different workshops every day for guests. The popular Clay Bar lets artists mold their favorite creatures out of modeling clay; kids can record a song, speech, or score a soundtrack in our Sound Booth on Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday; the Fine Arts Studio is open for families to paint, draw, sculpt, or sew an original masterpiece.  Kids under five can explore creative materials in the WEE Arts early childhood studio.
www.cmany.org • Located at 103 Charlton Street, Manhattan.

Insectropolis – View thousands of beautiful and bizarre exotic insects from all over the world at this bug enthusiast’s utopia. Touch a live tarantula, scorpion, millipede, and a hissing cockroach before you leave, crawl through a mudtube like a termite, and explore the world of insects up close. The museum isn’t huge, but worth the trip for any budding entomologist.
www.insectropolis.com • Located at 1761 U.S. 9, Toms River, NJ.

Dimenna Children’s Museum – This children’s wing of the New York Historical Society makes history fun for kids. Targeted toward children ages 8–13, the museum focuses on the life stories of a diverse selection of youngsters who lived in New York City from the late seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. Each character has its own pavilion within the museum combining objects, games, and information that help tell the story of each person’s childhood and adulthood. Another exhibit allows families to choose a borough and peer through an engaging viewfinder to see then-and-now photographs of selected locations in New York City.
www.nyhistory.org/childrens-museum • Located at 170 Central Park West, Manhattan.

​New York Hall of Science – NYSCI boasts over 450 interactive displays that explain science, technology, engineering, and math (popularly known as STEM) to young audiences. Kids learn through hands-on displays and demonstrations. The 60,000 square-foot outdoor Science Playground and Rocket Park lets visitors get an up-close view at vintage Atlas and Titan rockets, and experience a nine-hole miniature golf course that shows how mini-golf really is rocket science. There’s also a special section designated for the preschool crowd.
www.nysci.org • Located at 47-01 111th St., Queens.

The National Museum of Mathematics – Arguably one of the most useful subjects a child learns in school is math. The National Museum of Mathematics, or MoMath, features exciting, interactive displays and exhibits that provide a place for children and adults of all ages to experience the excitement of math — with a special emphasis on activities for 4th through 8th graders. Ride a bike on square wheels or form your own unique geometric creation; stop by on Family Friday for a workshop that brings families together through engaging mathematical activities. Momath opened its doors just five years ago and is currently North America’s only museum devoted to the wonders of mathematics.
www.momath.org • Located at 11 east 26th Street in Manhattan.

Dear Cupid,

Forgive me for butting in on your business, this being a hectic time of year for you and all. But I had to write you about something that has been bothering me in the years since I became a mom: if you haven’t noticed, your holiday has been hijacked. By other little people who don’t sport wings and a bow and arrow. Three of them reside in my house and they’re not remotely ready for the idea of romance (okay, so maybe the fourteen year-old thinks she is). Yet they’ve co-opted what should be a celebration between couples for their own purposes.

For instance, have you ever noticed on February 14th how my husband hurries to leave love notes on the breakfast table for our daughters and in his haste forgets to even tell me goodbye? And the grandparents send along cards and candy hearts for the kids while the love of my life gives me… nothing?

It seems your powers of attraction have been redirected to cause parents to overexert themselves in being sure on this day of days that their children know they are cherished. They’re moved to gush over their offspring, whom they already cuddle and coddle. They shower them with hugs, gifts, attention. And at the end of it all, they give their conspirator in the scheme called “family” an exhausted peck on the cheek and a quick, ‘love ya, hon!’

I’m not sure that’s what you’re aiming for, Cupid.

I’ve been a victim in this hijacking myself. Reduced to tucking frilly cards in lunch boxes, writing chalk marker messages on our patio window and decorating heart-shaped sugar cookies. Oh yes, and I’ve been swayed into spending hours coaching my children to squeeze their names on the cheap character-themed greetings they exchange with classmates. I guess I should be grateful they haven’t convinced me to do it all for them. In the name of love, of course.

By the way, I’m pretty sure the kids don’t mean any of the sappy sentiments on those cards, except maybe for the ones they give to their best friends. But this isn’t a “friendship” holiday, is it? Or did I miss that chapter on the history of St. Valentine?

For once, dear Cupid, I’d like to wake to flowers on my dresser and champagne in the fridge. I’d be thrilled to break out a dress and heels for dinner on the town at a restaurant that doesn’t serve chicken fingers or macaroni and cheese. I could use a special day where the cards and wishes flowed only between me and my sweetheart.

Actually Cupid, what I really wish is that you had given me a warning about the influence over endearment held by babies and children. A heads-up for what was to come. I would have squeezed in more romantic fondues or steak-and-seafood dinners. I would have taken more chilly moonlit strolls and splurged on that carriage ride. I would have fussed more over gifts of tenderness in that brief span of years.

Then again, in those days I probably wouldn’t have believed your warnings, my cherubic friend. After all, I was too smitten to imagine bringing little people into our lives could do anything but multiply our devotion to each other.

Which in a way, it has. I have so much more to appreciate about my husband now. Like the way he can create a fishtail braid in a young girl’s slippery tresses. Or how he gently glues the heads back onto tiny plastic princess dolls to restore them for his own princesses. And have you seen how he bristles with a show of manly protection over the mention of a boy by our tween-aged daughter?

See, it somehow always comes back to those kids!

Yet for all the devotion and love flowing in our household, I wish I could, for one Valentine’s Day again, be the center of someone’s world. To attract again all that affection to myself. Which is why you should do something to reclaim your holiday for romance.

So what do you think? Will you take back Valentine’s Day from the youngsters?

If not, I guess I’d settle for a box of chocolates, a candlelit dinner at home with my husband and a snuggle in front of the lit fireplace.

While the kids wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen. After all, we have to give them some way of participating in the holiday they’ve hijacked. In the name of love.

By Lara Krupicka, a parenting journalist and mom of three, who enjoys doting on her husband of 18 years when she’s not focused on the kids.

Cuddle up with someone you love, cue the streaming video service and enjoy a romantic film for Valentine’s Day.

Couples celebrate Valentine’s Day in many different ways. For some the idea of dinner out followed by a stroll arm-in-arm seems the epitome of romance, while others may want to go out dancing or engage in a favorite hobby.

Valentine’s Day also can be a romantic endeavor if a couple chooses to spend time at one with each other watching a romantic movie. The following are a handful of love-inspired movies that can add a special something to Valentine’s Day festivities.

The Notebook Author Nicholas Sparks has a way of taking the everyday experiences in a person’s life and making them relatable and heartbreaking in a pluck-at-your-heartstrings sort of way. His novel “The Notebook” won the hearts of many and seemed a natural to be adapted to film. Starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, the movie illustrates how love can last through the years and even survive an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

The Proposal In order to remain in the country, a demanding New York-based book editor (Sandra Bullock) asks her brow-beaten assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her. Their tumultuous relationship involves a trip to Alaska to meet his family.

An Affair to Remember Romantic melodramatic master Cary Grant falls in love with Deborah Kerr aboard a cruise ship while they are traveling with other people. They agree to meet at the top of the Empire State Building in six months if they have ended their relationships and are ready to commit to each other. Grant makes it to the rendezvous spot, but an injured Kerr never shows as Grant assumes she has rejected the proposal.

Say Anything In pursuit of a woman he believes is out of his social league, Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) creates hope for the underdog in us all. The movie inspired teens to raise their boom box radios over their heads and blast romantic tunes to illustrate their love.

The Wedding Singer This quirky movie about a wedding singer who falls for a banquet waitress highlights the importance of loving each other for what makes you unique.

Once Attraction between the main characters comes by way of creative musical collaboration. Music proves to be an aphrodisiac, making the film and the song “Falling Slowly” from its score so popular. This romantic tale helped take the film from the big screen to the Broadway stage.

West Side Story “West Side Story” is yet another homage to “Romeo and Juliet.” But the film made Shakespeare’s tragic love story relatable to audiences of the 1960s.

My Best Friend’s Wedding Julianne (Julia Roberts) is called on to be the “best man” for her friend’s (Dermot Mulroney) wedding. Only when the wedding planning is underway does Julianne realize she is in love with her friend and needs to get him to fall for her instead.

Never Been Kissed A reporter goes undercover at a high school to discover something controversial and ends up being the subject of her story when she falls in love with her English teacher.

Harold and Maude A man in his twenties and a much older woman begin a romantic relationship and challenge social norms along the way.

Annie Hall Winner of four Academy Awards, “Annie Hall” follows a comedian who is trying to maintain his relationship with a woman.

Bridget Jones’ Diary A modern adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice,” the movie tells the tale of a self-conscious woman who finds love in a man that seems to be her polar opposite.

Ten Things I Hate About You Filmmakers reinvented “The Taming of the Shrew” in this teen comedy starring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger.

Casablanca No romantic movie list would be complete without this wartime drama. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman are in top form in this movie of chance meetings.

The Princess Bride Girl meets boy, girl detests boy, girl truly loves boy, and then girl loses boy. This fairy tale shares the purity of true love and happily ever after.