Olympic Stadium News
Upper’s New Residence
Upper Elementary’s new classroom space at Busch Hall wins
a gold medal! We are very excited about its appearance and
are especially ecstatic about the laptop and interactive Promethean Board that adorn our room!
The students and I brainstormed and chose a name for
our classroom. Many factors compelled us select
We, as Americans, are extremely proud of and impressed
by the athletes who represented the United States at the
2012 Summer Olympic games in London! USA won the most
medals (gold, silver, & bronze) and demonstrated teamwork in
the true spirit of the Olympic games.
We, as Academy students (and teachers), strive to always
do our best, to work as a team, and to “go for the gold” in all
that we do. The Olympic athletes are exquisite role models
for us, and we decided there couldn’t be a better name for
our Upper Elementary team!
Academy of
Academic Excellence
2012-2013
Volume I, Issue 1
September 2012
Upcoming Events
*Drama Enrichment
Classes begin 9/21 for
8 weeks
*Art Enrichment
Classes begin 9/25 for
7 weeks
*September 27: Bowling at Bowl America
*October 8: Columbus
Day - No School
*October 11: School
photos at Hayes Studio
*October 24: Young
Thomas Jefferson at
VA Repertory Theatre
at Willow Lawn
Inside the Stadium...
Language Arts: We love learning about Jack Prelutsky and
reading his hilarious poems!
We investigated his web site
and found
some really
cool sights! :)
We created
our own poems
and have
drafted a letter to send to
Jack Prelutsky
himself!
We are hoping to see our
letters on his web site in
the near future!
We are venturing through
various versions of Cinderella from around the globe.
The Egyptian Cinderella is a
great tale that includes a
Greek slave, Rhodopis, who is
taken by pirates and sold in
Egypt. The Egyptian servant
girls scoff at her, but eventually the Pharaoh finds her and
declares her his queen! The
Promethean Board is helpful in
practicing vocabulary, and we
are enjoying comparing and contrasting
this tale
to the
traditional
Cinderella
on the
board with
a Venn
Diagram.
Math: After pretesting, we
jumped into Place Value. Mrs.
Chitra is helping us identify
place versus value as well as
teaching different ways to express a number: standard form,
expanded form, word form, and
short word form. The Promethean Board is a great tool for
helping us learn these concepts!
Social Studies: In learning a
bit about the Olympics and
the teamwork the Olympians
show, we discussed how
teamwork fits in our classroom. We are defining these
attributes: competency,
problem-solving, cooperation,
reliability, communication,
commitment, enthusiasm.
For practice, try
We will strive to use these
http://www.aaastudy.com/, and traits everyday. We are also
click on Place Value.
using what we learned from
Dr. Carpenter’s Leadership classes (which will
continue this year) about
Empathy, or understanding others’ points of view.
We want to always show
kindness, honesty, patience, and respect to
MathBusters has begun on Friday mornings, and we are eager
to try harder, work better,
never give up, always check our
work, and pretend we’re not
done (our motto) as we try to
beat our own scores each week.
others. We are working
on “telling versus tattling.”
Along with this, we have established our classroom “laws
and fines” (see our Take
Home Folders), and are
working on networking skills
as well.
We have our jobs for MiniEconomy, and are doing well
following through with our
positions. We will have our
first payday and store very
soon. We will be learning to
deposit and withdraw money
as we balance our checkbooks.