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A Look Ahead
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Mark Your Calendar:
Apr 10 All-School Fiery Hills Market Day (8:30-11:30 AM)
Apr 16 K-6 Poetry Slam
Apr 17 7-12 Poetry Slam
Apr 28 Scarborough Fair Student Days (MS & US)
Apr 30 Lower School Dinner Theater & Fine Arts Showcase
May 2 Triennio Young Fundraiser/Auction/Dinner
May 7 Middle School Fine Arts Showcase (7:00 PM)
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| Firehawk Family Fund Status | |
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| Mrs. Raymond Receives Award from TMA | |
Congratulations to Carol Raymond! She is a 2015 second place winner of the Texas Medical Association's Ernest and Sarah Butler Award for Excellence in Science Teaching! This award honors teachers who exhibit a personal commitment and enthusiasm for science education. Over 440 nominations were received! We are very excited for Mrs. Raymond and are so lucky that she shares her knowledge, passion and compassion with our students every single day. In addition to her award, the TMA will present EA Young Academy with a $1,000 award for the school's science curriculum!
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Lower School
Megan Hitchings, BA; Alison Sheffield, BFA
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  Kindling Forensics Unit is studying a mock crime scene in Mrs. Hitchings' class this week!
 Sparks scholars have kicked off their geology unit in a delicious way- edible layers of the earth.
   Perot Museum of Nature and Science Field Investigation!
In Kindling Humanities, scholars analyzed characters and plotted them on coordinate planes using criteria they chose. This group used intelligence and courage as criteria. They further labeled the quadrants, too.
 Kindling scholars reading and analyzing poetry in the outdoor learning area. K-2 African folktales with djembe drum.
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Middle School Humanities
Betsy Modrzejewski, BA; Marilu Rosales, MEd |
 Pastor Molly Simpson spoke to Ms. Mod's 5th/6th Humanities class this morning about the Haiti Clean Water Project. After reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, scholars are exploring the need for clean water in Sudan and other countries. Thank you, Pastor Molly, for your informative and hands-on presentation.
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Applied Research & Statistics
Carol Raymond, MEd
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Scholars critiqued the research design of "studies" found on social media sites. The scholars realized that the results from many of these "studies" are based on biased research with poor design, however a few were actually linked to legitimate research studies. They are learning how to be more critical when evaluating "research based" claims - especially on social media!
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| Lower School Announcement | |
Please join us in welcoming Brittany Platz, our long-term substitute Mrs. Sheffield. She will be training for a few weeks before Mrs. Sheffield leaves for her break after April 15.
Brittany graduated from the University of Houston with a Master of Science in Reading and a Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies Reading/English. She taught in Texas for eight years before committing to stay home and raise her two boys. Brittany's impressive resume includes teaching at the elementary, intermediate and university levels. She has served as a Language Arts Department Head for the Clear Creek, Texas ISD and also worked at a GT Magnet school in this same district.
Brittany was very active with Odyssey of the Mind serving as the Bay Area Regionals Spontaneous Problem (Instant Challenge) Captain from 1996 through 2000 and a World Judge in 2000. Brittany and her husband Dave met while volunteering for this organization. Dave is currently an aero-space engineer for Bell Helicopter. Santa brought their family a 3D printer for Christmas which lives on their dining room table; they now eat in the kitchen. Please join us in welcoming Mrs. Platz as part of our Firehawk Family. We wish Mrs. Prostek, whom Mrs. Platz is replacing, all the best as she recovers from an illness. |
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Middle School Girls' Advisory (EAYAXX)
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As you surely heard, this year's Pi Day was EXTRA special because at 9:26:53 it was 3/14/15; 9:26:53 - the first ten digits of Pi in order! Due to Spring Break, the middle school girls celebrated a bit early on 3/13/15. The girls made calculations to determine the diameters and radii of their pies, and the volume of their desired pie slices!
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FLARES (Parent Group) Info
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Are you starting to spring clean? Collecting items for Goodwill? Great! We can use your unwanted items! We will be collecting your donations for a garage sale to benefit EA Young Academy! More details will come soon. In the meantime, clean out those closets!!
Photos for Yearbook - Shutterfly Share Site
We rely on photos taken by parents, faculty and scholars to create a yearbook. The yearbook deadline is fast approaching! Please take a moment to upload any photos you may have to the 2014 - 2015 School Year folder. You can click on the link to sign in to the site and upload pictures directly: EA Young Yearbook Site.
Do not forget to record your volunteer hours! Our Volts - Please take a moment to log your volunteer hours to date on Our Volts. All volunteer activity should be recorded on Our Volts, including: DI Coaches, Committee Meetings, Car Pool Assistance, Book Order Coordination, etc.
TARGET RED CARD: EA Young Academy participates in Target's Take Charge of Education Program. Go to www.target.com/tcoe and enter our school ID. Our school ID is 153636. They are unable to use punctuation in the name, so we are listed as EA Young Academy.
TOM THUMB: EA Young Academy participates in Tom Thumb's Good Neighbor Program. Our school ID is 13241.
KROGER: EA Young Academy participates in the Kroger Community Rewards Program. Visit this link and apply the school's ID number to your Kroger Plus Card. The school ID is 47813.
Please also continue to collect Box Tops and Labels for Education. You can submit them in the office.
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| Trienno Young is coming up May 2! | 
Please mark your calendars and plan to attend Tuscany in Texas - Trienno Young, our annual dinner and fundraising auction! The event will be held May 2. Watch your mail for invitations, which will include more specific details and RSVP information. If you would like someone added to the invitation list, please contact Marle Trivedi for more information (fundraising@eayoungacademy.com). If you are on Facebook, be sure to "like" the event page so you can have the latest updates right in your newsfeed! Special thanks to our corporate and family sponsors:
La Quinta, LLC
Marriott Courtyard Dallas DFW Airport North/Grapevine
VLK Architects
Davis, Craig & Taylor, PLLC
Traction First
Cancun Tan
Variosystems
Little Giant Printers
The Turner Family
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State Science Fair Recap
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Our ten Firehawks who presented their projects at the Texas Science and Engineering Fair in San Antonio this weekend would have made you all so proud! They looked professional, were confident in their projects and their knowledge, and, overall, just did a really good job! There were six Upper School students and four Middle Schoolers who presented in several different categories on Saturday. They were with their projects for four hours and met with a minimum of three judges. Then, it was waiting time. On Saturday evening, the Junior Division Awards Ceremony was held. Riley Turner was awarded Third Place in Behavioral and Social Sciences (image above)! In her research, Riley aimed to determine if reading Manga (which is read right to left) could help dyslexic students' reading fluency. This award is a tremendous accomplishment, as the fair is quite extensive; several hundred projects are in competition from regions all over the state. Way to go, Riley!
The ten Firehawks who qualified to attend, based on their placement at the Fort Worth Regional Science and Engineering Fair, which was held in February.
 
Middle Schoolers, Parker Horn and Tyler Young, with their project before judging commenced.
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Upper School Humanities
Marilu Rosales, MEd; Leslie Horn, BA
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After a few curricular adjustments this month, our Humanities class has the time to take an in-depth look at eight major world empires or civilizations that thrived from around 200 BCE-1450 CE. We have started with a three-week study of the Maya, Persian and Roman Empires. Scholars have been reading from Plutarch's "Lives," and have broken up into groups: each taking on one of the empires listed above. We spent a few hours in class this week learning about and discussing the Maya people of Ancient Mesoamerica.
 The scholars were enthralled by many aspects of this culture, including the Popol Vuh, the Maya sacred religious text, which tells, in detail, of the Maya Creation Myth. Ask your Upper Schooler what materials the Maya gods used to create the first humans. Fascinating!
Next week, we will spend a lot of our class time learning about and discussing the Ancient Persian/Achaemenid Empire, focusing on figures such as Cyrus the Great (why was he so great anyway?), Darius I and Xerxes, among others.
We have also been finishing up learning about over a dozen different poetry types as we prepare for the upcoming Poetry Slam, during which Upper Schoolers will perform original poems!
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Purple Cord/Volunteer Opportunity
June Johnson, BA
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We have a wonderful opportunity for you to volunteer with your scholar this spring! Jim Hilderhoff, a fellow EAY parent, is chairing this year's March of Dimes Walk held in Fort Worth. The event is on April 18th. There will be an upcoming email with details about times and where to meet. Jim Hilderhoff works at GE, and they are a major sponsor. GE will have a large tent full of food and games that are open to EAY families, as well.
Here's what we need:
1. Parent Volunteers and Scholar Volunteers to help with the Walk Day events
--Middle and Lower School Scholars must be accompanied by a parent or trusted adult.
--Upper School will be in my charge on the day of the event. They do not need a parent present.
2. Families to Register to walk at the event
If you and/or your child want to volunteer please email June Johnson, Purple Cord Faculty Coordinator, at jjohnson@eayoungacademy.com.For Upper School only, we have another volunteer event on April 3rd (Good Friday). There will be a March of Dimes Golf Tournament and they will need HS volunteers for that event, as well. As a reminder, the volunteer hours goals for the 2014-2015 school year are: Lower School (K-4)- 25 hours Middle School (5-8)- 50 hours Upper School (9-12)- 100 hours (This is a school-wide goal, and not a mandated requirement. We want to instill in our Firehawks a spirit of giving back to the community and identifying needs around them. We will recognize scholars who have reached their annual goal by mid-May.)
Many thanks to all who make this a wonderful community to serve with.
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Visual Arts
Cindy Perreira, BFA, MA
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In Visual Arts, MS scholars are busily working on their Gallery Night pieces. We can't tell you more, but we can give you a glimpse of the theme in Audrey Horn's Gallery Night poster she did for the event. It's going to be great! We all want to make it really feel like an Art Gallery opening so we want to have snacks, etc. I will send out an email soon with more details and information.
Our LS scholars have been finishing a couple of projects for their Gallery Night as well. We are also beginning to work on perspective and dimension.
One last note, each class is working on an awesome auction piece for Tuscany in Texas - Triennio Young, so be ready to do some bidding!
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Middle and Upper School STEM
Carol Raymond, MEd; Evan Fuchs, BS; Jeremy Edins, BA
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RAYMOND SCIENCE: Presentations of the scholars' original ecosystems are underway. The creativity within the projects has been unbelievable! Every part of the scholars' projects are so unique - the organisms, the environments types of interdependence present and even the way that they chose to display their final products. So far, I have seem amazing ink drawings, beautiful watercolors and impressive digitally created organisms and environments. I can't wait to see the remaining scholars' projects next week!
RAYMOND MATH: Scholars jumped into our geometry unit with the "House Challenge." Scholars were given specific dimensions and then had to build a flat net (pattern) out of a single piece of paper that would fold together to create a house with the given dimensions. They found out very quickly that the roof was the hardest to get the right height! However, scholars soon realized that they could use Pythagorean theorem to get the right roof length.
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Fine Arts Announcements
June Johnson; Betsy Modrzejewski; Jeremy Edins
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The Firehawk Fine Arts classes have been hard at work planning for their spring showcases. Within the next two weeks, we will be sending out emails to each grade cluster with show specific information. Please mark your calendar for your child's performance:
Grades 3-4: Dinner Theater - April 30 at 6:30pm
Description: Last fall, this extremely creative group of scholars took part in an 8 week process drama experience where they immersed themselves in problem solving, character development and improvisation. Kindling scholars will celebrate the culmination of their hard work at a Mystery Dinner Theater. Reservations are required for this exciting evening. Each member of the "Mystery Theater Troupe" will have a limited number of tickets to sell to his/her family.
Middle School Showcase: May 7 at 6:00pm Art Gallery and 7pm Performance (Dress Rehearsal: Monday, May 4 6pm-8pm, 5pm call time for tech crew.) Description: Last fall, inspired by the illustrations in Chris Van Allsburg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, our Middle School Scholars put in many hours writing stories. On May 7, many of these stories will be brought to life on the Firehawk Stage.
Grades K-2 Matinee - May 29 at 11am
Description: We hope you can join us as we celebrate the artistic work of the Sparks class. Our youngest scholars will be demonstrating how creative dramatics can be used as a powerful tool to encourage comprehension of literature, teamwork and self-esteem. We will be acting out a few of our favorite stories from the year.
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| Torch Honor Society | |
 Our Middle and High School Honor Society members had a great time volunteering at Revive last weekend! Thanks to Mrs. Sheffield for organizing! REVIVE is a free parents night out program for children with special needs and their siblings. t is offered from 6:00-10:00 pm two Fridays per month. A staff of trained, loving volunteers care for children with special needs and their siblings. The event is designed to provide socialization and fun for children. REVIVE is not specifically designed to be a therapeutic environment, even though the current staff includes child psychologists, medical professionals, speech therapists, occupational and physical therapists, and special needs educators. Medical professionals are present at each event to address any medical issues that may arise and a criminal background check is conducted on all REVIVE volunteers. A full array of activities are planned for the children, including crafts, playground activities, ball pit, bounce house, computer games, music or karaoke, and board games.
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Ignite! Summer Intensives
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 Watch your inbox for the IGNITE! schedule. Registration should open sometime this week. The first 48 hours will be open for just our EAYA families, so be ready!
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