Community

Library - IB HUB

At the heart of the school’s program of inquiry is the St. Mary’s IB Hub. Students utilize it for research and 21st-century information skills and it is a source of enjoyment for our entire school community. The IB Hub offers resources in multiple formats and languages to inspire imagination, nurture storytellers, reflect personal interests, and contribute to the classroom units of inquiry for both PYP and MYP. The physical and digital resources reflect a true understanding of IB principles.

In addition to a large print selection of picture books, fiction, non-fiction and reference materials, the IB Hub features several digital resources and subscription databases for students to conduct research in more than 1,000 full-text periodicals.

The IB Hub houses a World Languages Collection which features books and realia from more than twenty countries. Included in the collection are the MYP Language Acquisition Porgramme languages, Spanish, French and Mandarin.

Students in the Early Education Program-Grade 3 visit the IB Hub weekly for storytime and an opportunity to check out books. Grades 4-8 visit the library independently, in small groups or as a class during research projects.

St. Mary’s Director of Information Services introduces students to Information and Research Skills beginning in Kindergarten and builds upon the fundamental skills each year as students advance in their academic pursuits.

Global Trunks

The global trunks in the IB Hub are generously donated by our St. Mary's families to represent and honor the diverse backgrounds of our school community and to represent the countries, regions and cultures that make us unique.

List of 1 items.

What sorts of items go into a trunk?

Ideally, we would like to represent countries, regions, or cultures as multidimensional and engaging. Items that are representative and real to children of any age, are perfect. Clothes, toys, books, currency, flags, games, small instruments, small artifacts and handicrafts can be symbolic items with cultural weight. Examples of non-perishable foods such as spices are also welcome. The kinds of extended learning experiences that our students have through tactile participation are authentic and engaging.

Trunks, clothing and artifacts currently in the IB Hub hail from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Sweden.

Global Conversations

The purpose of these gatherings is to bring together parents who share a common culture or language, to chat in their mother tongues and meet others in our school community with similar backgrounds and experiences.

Book Fair

Thank you to all of our families who visited the Book Fair. Thank you to our parent volunteers for supporting this event. Check back in the fall for the dates and time of our 2023 Book Fair.

Battle of the Books - BOB

Battle Of the Books (BOB) is a literary tournament among Orange County Schools for teams of students in Grades 4 and 5. Every March, St. Mary’s BOB teams compete with other schools, answering questions about twenty books from a selected reading list. Winning teams with the most points at the end of the day earn a trophy for their school and medals for themselves.

World Geography Club

This club is open to all Middle School students. Objectives of the club are to encourage and enable students to:

understand basic physical systems that affect everyday life (e.g. earth-sun relationships, water cycles, wind and ocean currents).
learn the location of places and the physical and cultural characteristics of those places in order to function more effectively in our increasingly interdependent world.
understand the geography of past times and how geography has played important roles in the evolution of people, their ideas, places and environments.
develop a mental map of the world so that you can understand the ‘where’ of places and events.
recognize spatial distributions at all scales - local and worldwide - in order to understand the complex connectivity of people and places.
be able to make sensible judgments about matters involving relationships between the physical environment and society.
appreciate Earth as the homeland of humankind and provide insight for wise management decisions about how the planet's resources should be used.
understand global interdependence and become a better global citizen