General News
In the event that you occasionally do not receive your Friday Update via
e-mail, you may also view the update at http://www.fcds.org/faculty/amandaburton/friday_update/friday_update.asp.
Have a great weekend!
Amanda A. Burton
LS Technology Specialist &
Communications Specialist
Save the date: To celebrate Forsyth
Country Day's 35th Anniversary, the Parents Association will be
sponsoring a Dinner Dance at Forsyth Country Club on Friday, February 25,
2005 at 6:30 p.m. Be sure to mark your calendar!
Wes Clark (FCDS ’04),
chairman of last year’s Habitat for Humanity’s Youth United Build
in which FCDS partnered with RJ Reynolds High School to raise more than
$50,000 to build a Habitat house at 14th and Patterson Streets, was
recognized in the Winston-Salem Chronicle for his latest service
achievement this week. Over Labor Day weekend, Wes spent three days helping
to build another house during Habitat for Humanity’s Jimmy Johnson
Labor of Love Building Blitz. Wes’s latest build brings the total
number of Habitat houses he has worked on to six over the last one and a half
years. Now a freshman at Dartmouth College, Wes told the Chronicle that he
plans to volunteer at Dartmouth’s
Habitat chapter. We at FCDS congratulate him on his wonderful work and wish
him the best of luck at Dartmouth.
Food Service Information: For
declining balance accounts, please mail checks to the school’s address.
The check should be made out to Flik Independent Schools with the
student’s name in the memo line. You
may send your questions to the following e-mail address, Flik@fcds.org. E-mails are addressed by Flik chef/manager Frank Lloyd.
The
Parents’ Association will conduct two business meetings during the 2004-2005 school year. The first meeting will be held Thursday,
September 23. Refreshments will be available in the Gallery from
8:00-8:45 a.m., and the meeting will start at 8:45 a.m. in the
auditorium. All parents are invited to join us as we introduce our
Parents’ Association Board, receive general school updates from our
administrators, and obtain reports from our various committee chairs.
The meeting agenda is available at http://www.fcds.org/intranet/parents_association/meeting_agendas/PA_Agenda_9-23-04.htm.
Sally Foster
Fundraiser
ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT!!!
Don’t forget to
turn in your order forms (completed with both copies intact and back
in the white envelope) by Friday,
September 24. Checks are to be
made out to FCDS.
Order forms can be placed in the boxes located in
the Lower School
office hallway, Middle School hallway, in front of the Williams Library
Discovery Center,
or in the JAC lobby.
If you have any questions or need an additional catalog/order form, please
contact Marian Wilson at 659-9827 or Susan Ross at 722-7991.
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Athletics
The varsity football game schedule
for Friday, September 17 vs. Murphy has been cancelled due to inclement weather.
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Fine Arts
Congratulations to Becky Stone-Danahy on her appointment to serve on the state
board of the North Carolina Art Education Association (NCAEA). She will be
representing the art teachers of independent schools of North Carolina.
Dear Friends,
Don’t
miss out on what will almost certainly be one of the most memorable FCDS
events of this year!
The Eddie Pollock Band plays
this Saturday at the Millennium Center
in downtown Winston-Salem.
The Matt Hong Quartet and the Dixie Dogs
will also crash the party. It’s going to be a great evening of
music, dance, food, and fun.
The
event will benefit the Frances
Pollock Arts
Academy (and help it
grow) at FCDS. If your invitation was misdelivered
or misplaced, please contact the Development Office at 945-3151 x31: the
staff will be happy to help you acquire tickets. If you can’t
make it on Saturday, you can still make a donation in any amount to help
build the Frances
Pollock Arts
Academy.
Thanks,
and I hope to see you at the Millennium
Center this Saturday.
Rick Gomez
Director of Fine Arts
Don’t
miss out on two great opportunities in the visual arts!
Sculpture!
Instructor: Karen Dalton, LS Visual Arts
Location: Lower
School Art
Room
Carve, cut, twist, and mold sculpture using wire, plaster, paper, and
balsa foam.
For 1st—3rd Graders
Dates: September 13, 20, 27, and October 4
Time: 3:30-4:15 p.m.
Cost: $110.00
Rainbow Tie-Dye
Instructor:
Rebecca Stone-Danahy, US Visual Arts
Location: Upper
School Art
Room
Be prepared for Spirit Week and beyond! Learn just how easy it is to
create a cool tie-dyed –shirt! Participants should bring a white
t-shirt that has been laundered and drop off with Mrs. Stone-Danahy the
morning of September 23.
For 7-12th Graders
Date: September 23 and
24
Time: 3:45-4:45 p.m.
Cost: $20.00
For additional information, see our webpage http://www.fcds.org/arts/community_arts/August_Flier.htm.
FCDS Community
School of the Arts: We are thrilled to kick off a
new year in our recently renamed FCDS
Community School of the Arts. We are now offering classes in music,
dance, drama, and visual arts. Please use the following link to preview the
course schedule. http://www.fcds.org/arts/community_arts/home.htm
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Library/Technology
Reminder to parents: The Williams Library Discovery
Center hours are from 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:00
a.m. – 4:00 p.m. on
Friday. No students will be allowed to remain in the building after
hours. Also, all students second grade and under must be supervised by
a parent while in the Smith Library after school. Third and fourth grade
students may use the Smith Library independently after school to complete
homework or special projects
Life in the Clay Library was a never-ending thrill
ride, as usual. Eighth graders learned about Media Bias in its many forms as
they came in every day during Civics. Mrs. Grubb took the library to the
classroom as she introduced Upper School Art students to art databases and
discussed plagiarism issues and demonstrated CultureGrams
to sixth grade Technology students. Students in ninth grade English classes
delved deeply into Ancient Writing, using books and academic databases to
create presentations to help their classmates learn about different topics.
Ninth grade girls returned with their Health classes to create First Aid
PowerPoint presentations in the labs and on library computers. Kids lounged
against the pillows to hear genre book talks for sixth grade Language Arts.
AP English students began their term essays and were introduced to the
resources that will be most helpful to them. The ever-energetic Battle of the Books
team began practicing for their competition in the Spring. And of course:
study halls, study halls, study halls!
In the Jeanette M. Smith Lower School Library Pre-Kindergarten
students heard and experienced some “teeny tiny” stories for
“T” week, including the slightly spooky but funny tale, Teeny
Tiny, and Teeny Tiny Mouse: A Book About Colors, which
required the children to participate. Kindergarteners enjoyed goat stories
for “G” week starting with the hilarious Get That Goat and
finishing with the old favorite Three Billy Goats Gruff, which we
listened to on tape. First graders learned the benefit of choosing
“Easy Reader” books and how to find them in the Library. Second
grade enjoyed extended independent time on the computers to take Accelerated
Reader quizzes. Third graders finished their library orientation with a
review of using the library catalog and finding books on the shelves. Fourth
grade students flooded the library to check out books and take Accelerated
Reader quizzes, while Mrs. Flynn’s class used the computers to finish
their North Carolina
web on Kidspiration™.
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Upper School
Please note that the time for Senior College Night, which will be held on September 20 in the
auditorium, has been changed to 7:30 p.m. in order to accommodate some athletic
teams.
Battle of the Bands will be held
Saturday, September 18 at RJR Auditorium. The band Heureuses Dispositions (comprised of FCDS students David Eisenach, Kyle Nelson, and Michael Adams will be performing.
Battle of the
Bands is a fundraiser for the second Youth United building campaign for
Habitat for Humanity.
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Middle School
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Lower School
Pre-kindergarten: Pre-K has been host to Ms. “T”-Tall Teeth this week and
the t-t-t-sound can be heard in every room. Tilly
Turtle went to Tea is just one example on how the T- sound prevailed this
week. We read about turtles, colored turtles, and painted
turtles. We estimated triangles and toothpicks. We practiced
recognizing the “T” sound by bringing in things for the letter
box and by playing games and singing songs. Next week Ms.
“F” brings her Funny Feet to visit our classes.
Kindergarten: We are looking
forward to our Big Fun Greek Fest on Monday. Our parents are invited to
watch our Olympic Games in the Tierney Gym. We will also be singing a
Greek song and doing a Greek dance at our festival. It just so happens
that we are working in the Gg letterbook
this week—how appropriate! We have been talking about grapes,
gardens, gourds, and green grass. In math we have been continuing
patterns with attribute blocks.
Second Grade: The children started
finding new words to put into their word jars this week, and it has been
exciting to share the words! Next week we will start to read Cam
Jansen and the Mystery of the Missing Dinosaur Bones by David A. Adler as
a take-home reader. We will introduce vocabulary in class and ask the
children to read a chapter each night. Please help your child to
remember to return the book to school each day. This book will coincide
with Mrs. Shomaker’s unit on dinosaurs in
science class.
Third Grade: Next week, your
children will be asking you about your ancestors and their country of origin.
Next, they will research that country and make a doll in art that is dressed
to represent that country. Please be sure that students are practicing
basic addition facts to build a solid foundation for the rest of the year.
Fourth Grade: Fourth graders are
enjoying their adventure with Lucy and Edmund in The Lion, the Witch, and
the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. They have just completed their first
grammar tests in English, and the teachers are proud of their progress.
Art: The students in third
grade began learning about different kinds of “line.” They learned
that “line” expresses many things. It not only defines
shape, but can also be very descriptive. The students were fascinated
with the lines they created by using q-tips and bleach on colored paper.
Foreign Languages: French &
Spanish
Pre-kindergarten: Pre-K is learning to greet a friend “Hola, como
te va? Bien! This
week we mastered azul, rojo, amarillo,
y verde!
Kindergarten: Our first Spanish
class was today. We learned to introduce ourselves in a casual, friendly
manner: Hola, como te
va? Bien, gracias. Many of us are familiar with numbers and
that is helping us to learn Los siete dias de la semana. We also had our first session with
colors. We danced to the popular song Uno, dos y tres.
First Grade: Muzzy is a fun way to
learn! This week we learned to
describe people in short sentences: “Yo soy grande, el es
pequeno and to use the verb “ser” (to be) in
the first and second person.
Second Grade: “Jacques a dit”
is a game we enjoy playing in which we guess the names of objects that we
have hidden, using the words chaud and froid (hot and
cold) to tell us how close we are to finding them. It is a great way to learn
basic vocabulary. We are reviewing
days of the week and learning the months of the year. We are beginning to talk about what we
like/love : “J’aime les pommes.”
Third Grade: We are having fun
expressing qualities in people and objects.
We are beginning to learn fruits and vegetables in Spanish and using
the verbs “Tengo y dame”; we are also learning
to request food politely.
Fourth Grade: We are learning
phrases with the verb aimer, such as: J’aime la ville beaucoup.
Then we apply these phrases to
our project of the week: writing a letter to a friend or dear family member
expressing what we like and do not like. We are learning expressions that are
used to begin and conclude a letter: “cher ami… Au revoir.
Amities.”
Music:
Pre-K: The children loved the
story about the monkey and the crocodile. Mr. Monkey is always tricking
Senior Crocodile! After the story we sang, “Monkey See, Monkey
Do!”
Kindergarten: We are working very hard to be prepared for the Greek Celebration next
week. I hope you are coming to watch the children!
First Grade: The children had partners this week for a song called
“Partners!” One person moves while the other stands
still. Singing, listening, and following directions all come into play
with this tune.
Second Grade: This week we worked on
creating rhythms with popsicle sticks. Each student had to use the sticks
to form a rhythm pattern with quarter notes, whole notes, eighth notes, and
quarter rests. Then they have to clap the rhythm with me.
Science:
Pre-K: This week I really enjoyed meeting my
first group of Pre-K students. Mrs. Alley’s class came to science
and we enjoyed discussing some important ideas about science. We
discovered that almost everything in the world has something to do with
science. We made a poster about some of our ideas.
Kindergarten: We began out
Air Unit this week in kindergarten science. We discussed the fact that
air can be complicated to learn about because we can’t use our senses
to investigate it. We discussed that although we can’t see,
smell, taste, or feel air (unless it’s moving) we still know it’s
real because without it we couldn’t live. We also discussed that
air takes up space all around us and that it fills up everything and that it
also has weight, which some of us were surprised to find out. The
students really enjoyed a “magic” demonstration in which paper
was able to stay dry even though it was submerged under water! Ask your
kindergarten student how we did it!
First Grade: Our first grade
botanists used a balance scale to see how many of each kind of seed would
equal the weight of a Teddy Gram. The students recorded their results on a
graph. As we compared the different kinds of seeds, we discovered that corn
seeds are very lightweight. The
students are learning to work cooperatively on a lab team and share predictions
and results. Each student took a lima
bean seed home with instructions to soak the seed overnight. I hope each
student did the experiment and will report back to me next week with his/her
observations of the lima bean seed.
Second Grade: We enthusiastically began our Dinosaur
Unit this week in second grade. Children loved learning some
interesting dinosaur facts and feeling a “dinosaur egg!” We
discussed the characteristics of dinosaurs and learned exactly what made a
dinosaur a dinosaur.
Third Grade: Students enjoyed
making kaleidoscopes this week as a way of investigating more about the
concept of reflection. We also enjoyed seeing the world through convex
and concave lenses.
Fourth Grade: It was all about
ATOMS this week in fourth grade! We learned what an atom is, the parts
of an atom and their charges, and exactly what atoms have to do with
magnetism. We were fascinated to find out that magnets aren’t really magic at all, but that
it all has to do with what magnets are made up of and how the
different parts move! We also loved aligning atoms to create a
magnetized nail. We did this three different
ways-ask your fourth grader what worked best!
Thanks to all those who participated in science team this week. It was
a very successful first meeting. Be on the lookout for another sign up
sheet soon.
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