E.A. Young Academy is a not-for-profit, private academy created to generate transformative changes to meet  the needs  of the K-12, gifted, talented, and high ability scholar.

The Source for Firehawk News and Information
Vol. 5 Issue 2 - September 17, 2016

A Look Ahead
Mark Your Calendar:

Sep 20/21      Picture Day - Wear purple polos!
Sep 22           North Texas Giving Day 2016
Sep 28           Health Screenings
Oct 7              No School - Faculty/Parent Conferences
Oct 10            School Holiday
Oct 14            FLARES Book Swap (more info below)
Oct 28            Halloween Event
Nov 17           Early Release

To access the General School Calendar, click here. This calendar is downloadable/uploadable to your smart phone, as well.  iCal: http://bit.ly/EAYAOfficialCalendar  
Fiery Hills News
K/1: This week, everyone met with their new managers to be trained for their Fiery Hills employment. These jobs will be a great opportunity to show RESPONSIBILITY (one of our core values!!). We are all excited to get started doing our new jobs!

2/3:  I can't believe we are already winding down our third week of school. It's been a really fun week with the kids receiving their Fiery Hill Jobs. Last Friday, all departments met for training. The scholars were so serious about attending their "Staff Meetings." We've also instituted our classroom jobs and firmly established our morning routines.
Visual Arts
Julie McGhee, BA MA

This week in Visual Arts, scholars explored continuous contour line drawing (where their pencils couldn't be lifted off of their paper AND where they were not allowed to look at their paper while drawing a chosen object). Upon reflection, the majority of scholars found the activity to be freeing, as they knew the outcome would look a little different than their typical drawings. In the end, I think the scholars truly enjoyed stretching their brains and working with contour drawings in this way. Many also liked the way the continuous line looked! We also practiced drawing by focusing on lines only by turning a contour line drawing upside-down and attempting to draw the subject by seeing the the piece as simply a series of lines to follow. Again, it was a challenge that ended with most scholars pleased with the results and feeling as though staying focused on the lines - instead of the outcome of the drawing - was a helpful exercise.  Next week, we will be starting our first piece for the up-and-coming gallery in December!
ELA E
Brenda Edins, BEd
As we work toward better understanding of the written word and getting our ideas down on paper, we are sharing the tales from the childhood of Roald Dahl in Boy. We have been working on truth vs. perception in fables and the works of several artists, including M. C. Escher. We have set reading and language goals for the Fall, and are choosing our first class novel to study! So many exciting things coming up!
ELA F
Allison Ross, BS MEd
We began reading  The Outsiders  and the scholars are loving the text! It's been a great segué  to identity-related discussions and how individuals within a group do not always fit a given stereotype. Scholars analyzed the figurative language of Frost's poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and discussed how it connects to the theme of  The Outsiders .
Math Lab C
Kerensa Prostek, BS MEd

The scholars are learning the importance of personal financial literacy. The are learning about expenses and the how important getting paid is, especially if you are playing The Game of Life. They are also learning how to use a check register to keep track of their money.
Math Lab D
Allison Ross, BS MEd
After some time exploring proportions related to the people that make up the world, scholars are now beginning to compare GDP, literacy rate, life expectancy, and other data of United States and another country. They will use various graphs and charts to display their findings.
4/5 Advisory/Science/Social Studies
Kerensa Prostek, BS MEd
In our Advisory class, we have chosen Make-A-Wish Foundation as our organization to work with for Purple Cord. The scholars have suggested great ideas for fundraisers. My personal favorite is having Mr. Lyda become a human sundae. 
In Social Studies/Science, we are going to be "cell-fish." The scholars will be comparing how a government is run and compare it to an animal cell. Their final project is create a "cell-fish" government. 
In QUEST, the scholars have taken a multiple intelligence quiz. With our knowledge growing on how to use Powerpoint, the scholars are sharing their results and putting it all together on a Powerpoint presentation. They are also experimenting with Sway, another presentation platform.  
For your radar, we will be having parent conferences on October 7th. With the full class I have, I will be scheduling more than one day! We also have a field investigation scheduled for October 19th. We do ask that parents drive on field trip days. More info to come!
Seventh Grade Social Studies/Science
Allison Ross, BS MEd
Over the past couple of weeks, scholars have continued their Citizen Poké project by researching political parties throughout history and finding Pokémon that they feel would represent a given party. Scholars have also examined atomic and bond structure and built models to show their understanding using candy. Yum!
Geometry
Gayle Brown, BS MBA
Scholars have been brainstorming a bit . . . creating a kind of mind map for all the ways they could possibly imagine how one would use geometry in the real world. They also have been practicing their deductive reasoning skills which they will soon put to use in developing geometric proofs.
Algebra II
Carol Raymond, BM BMEd MEd
Scholars have been busy analyzing functions. They first discovered their domain, range and end behavior then learned the characteristics of their graphs and how to transform them and find their inverses. It has been weeks packed with new information!
APHELION

Aphelion president, Lindsey G., and treasurer, Jordan H., met opened the organization's bank account last week! We are one step closer to having our online store up and running.
Chemistry
Jeremy Edins, BA

In Chemistry this week, we have been exploring the properties of bismuth. We melted it at approximately 300° C and found that, to our pleasure, when cooled, the metal crystalizes in glorious rainbow colors. The slower it cools, the more exquisite and intricate the crystals. As of now, we are doubtful that we will come across a more beautiful and, frankly, more awesome element. The year has only begun and we are excited for the many adventures to come! Photos by Audrey D., article by Katarina G.
PSAT
Carol Raymond, BM BMEd MEd
On Wednesday, October 19th, we will be administering the PSAT 8/9 at EAYA. We anticipate that all of the current sophomores will take the PSAT 8/9 on this date as it a fabulous preparation for the PSAT and SAT. The cost for the PSAT is $10. Please submit that amount to Mrs. Anglin, payable to EA Young Academy, with a memo line "PSAT" by Friday, September 16.
PREPARATION: If scholars are interested, they are welcome to login to Khan Academy and begin the PSAT/SAT preparation course. However, we feel that this year is mostly just an opportunity for the eighth grade students to get a feel for what the assessment will be like and get a baseline score. The questions on Khan Academy will likely be more difficult than the questions than they will be given on the PSAT 8/9, as they will be addressing content that has not been covered yet. For more information about the assessments, visit this link.
Texas Theatre for Young People Discount!
We have a great relationship with the fantastic folks at Texas Theatre for Young People (they meet here at the school!). They are offering the EAYA family 25% off all services and play tickets! Go to their website to sign your kids up for fall classes or purchase tickets using the coupon code "EAYoung." Be sure to get some tickets for their upcoming show, KOKO KARATE AND THE KUNG FU KITTENS. How could you pass up tickets to a play with a name like that?!
(The coupon code works for classes and tickets!)
Upcoming FLARES Events
FLARES Book Swap - Friday October 14
1. Donate books to the school on October 12th and 13th.
2. Log the number of books in your donation to receive credit and pick up a charitable donation receipt. The classes with the largest percentage of books donated will get the first shopping times! 
3. The scholars will have shopping time on Friday, October 14th during the school day. For $10 students will get unlimited shopping credit for each book donated OR pay just $2 per paperback and $3 per hardback.
4. We often get board books, early readers and other books for younger kids as well as books for adults, so make plans to swing by and shop for the rest of your family too! All books remaining at the end of the day will be donated to our classrooms or to a local charity.

$2 paperbacks and $3 hardbacks AND/OR $10 Unlimited Swap Pass allows you to take home as many books as you donated! Contact Kimberley Davis at  kbdavis@mac.com if you have any questions or would like to volunteer to help!

FLARES Clothing Drive
We're partnering with  Schoola.com, an online resale shop, to raise funds for EAYA. Donate your gently used women's and children's clothing to EAYA. We will send it to them and they sort, spiff and sell in their online store where shoppers can filter by item, size, and even "new with tags!" Items that originally retailed for more than $30 sell best, and when they do, Schoola will send us 40% of the proceeds! 
 
Drop a bag with your donations at school when you donate your books Oct. 12th-13th OR on Friday, October 14th at the FLARES meeting, at the Book Swap, or before/after school. Of course you can request a postage paid donation bag anytime or shop for yourself at  Schoola.com. Contact Kimberley Davis at  kbdavis@mac.com if you have any questions or would like to volunteer to help!
New Nut Policy
We are all nuts. This is a confession. Just kidding! EA Young Academy is a nut-free campus. Our goal is to ensure that scholars with food allergies have a safe and welcoming learning environment. People with food allergies face life-threatening reactions when these allergens are ingested, in some cases inhaled or even topically through the skin. With safety in mind, EA Young Academy strives to provide a nut free environment. Please keep this policy in mind when selecting food for scholar lunches, snacks and food for school events. This policy includes all nut products so we ask that labels be read prior to bringing food items on campus. **Any item that contains nuts is prohibited from being on campus.** Upon identification, items containing nuts will be immediately disposed of and removed from campus.
Community Fundraising Info
AMAZON SMILE:   Be sure to connect EA Young Academy to your Amazon account by going to Smile.Amazon.com.
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. You can submit them in the office.
SHUTTERFLYWhen you purchase at Shutterfly through the storefront link, the school receives 13% of the sale (which is much higher than the Amazon Smile percentage)! Customers can still use Shutterfly's coupons! Check it out here!
North Texas Giving Day 2016

Please be sure to donate to EA Young Academy on North Texas Giving Day, September 22! Here is our donation page!
Firehawk Spirit Wear!

Spirit Wear is in! Hats and drawstring bags are available for purchase through the FLARES link! Items will be delivered to your scholar during school. You can purchase a bag + a hat for $30, or bags for $15, hats for $20. We can't wait to see Firehawks and their families sporting the new gear! The drawstring bag is perfect for HP clothes (hint, hint)! Support FLARES and show your Firehawk pride!
Kindergarten/First Grade
Mimi Turbeville, BA

Last week, we wrapped up our study of our EAYA Core Values. As we continue to explore our school as a  community , we applied these Core Values to what we want for our classroom culture. As we brainstormed desirable behavior, we tied each expectation to a Core Value or two. Then (since we know from our Fiery Hills experience that a contract really holds a person responsible), we signed our classroom agreement! We all agree: to keep our hands and feet to ourselves, to take good care of our stuff, to raise our hands to speak (when we are learning), to follow directions  the first time , to be kind, and to try our best! K/1 scholars did an outstanding job of applying our Core Values to make high yet attainable expectations for our classroom!

Humanities: These first few weeks of humanities have been an in-depth look at our school as a  community . We've learned about the building, the people who have jobs here, the community of classrooms within the school...and today we looked at  ourselves  as unique individuals of our community. We brainstormed ways we are the same as one another, then all the ways we are different! We created self-portraits to hang in our classroom, but there was a challenge in making them. No pencils, no crayons, no markers, no scissors! We had only our hands and our imaginations to turn our oval "faces" into a replica of ourselves! We used the classroom mirror to check for details we were unsure of, and they turned out great!
Spanish
Marilu Rosales, BS MEd

K-1: Our youngest Firehawks are having so much fun in Mrs. Lulu's Spanish class this year! Last Friday, they learned how to pronounce the alphabet in Spanish while they worked on their handwriting! Mataron dos pájaros de un tiro!
Sixth Grade QUEST
Gayle Brown, BS MBA

Over the past two weeks, sixth grade QUEST scholars have been working together in groups honing their reasoning skills with logic puzzles and 100s chart activities. Understanding that communication is important when working together, we played a game called "line-up" where scholars had to communicate non-verbally and put themselves in order according to certain traits such as shoe size, hair length, eye color, and birthday. We learned that we depend a great deal on our ability to speak to one another but that there are other non-verbal ways to accomplish a task. After brainstorming personal goals, both academically and outside of school, scholars wrote (and decorated) cards to their parents expressing what they feel is most important for them to accomplish this school year . . . another step in learning more about who they are and where their passions lie.
Sixth Grade Advisory/Science/Social Studies
Brenda Edins, BEd
Our 6th grade bunch is rolling along! We have worked during our Jump Start/Advisory classes to take some quotes from famous and not-so-famous people and look at applications to our own lives. One that stands out is "Don't worry about things you can't control." We discussed being flexible when things around us change, going with the flow as our moral compass guides us, and using our energies on relationships instead of things. Science has offered us some incredible analogies to remind us of these life lessons: Bernoulli bags, water-marbles, super-absorbent polymers, and paper towels in food coloring. To build a foundation for our Science/World History class we have been studying cartography and chronography. Maps and timelines can give us incredible perspective! Our online iScience text has given us the opportunity to plan and perform a virtual lab activity. Science Rules!!! If you know anyone who would like to adopt our class and help us get a "lab" outfitted for middle school, we have a page on Adopt-a-Classroom (click the link!). We will also be getting a wish list distributed of the lab equipment and supplies that we hope to add.
Algebra
Brenda Edins, BEd
"Once upon a time, there was a simple farmer. Knut Krumbli lived in rural Sweden, raising goats and making goat cheese. He and his family led an uncomplicated life, and they didn't have much need for mathematics. In fact, they really only needed numbers to count their goats: 1 goat, 2 goats, 3 goats, 4 goats. . . . But one day, after a terrible storm . . ." So began the foundation in our study of the language of numbers in Algebra class. As we continue to build on our mathematical knowledge, we will fill in some of the chinks in our walls and build ourselves some algebraic towers. We have studied Karmic multiplication and Evil simplification. Now comes the real work of applying our tools to Sierpiński's Carpet and the Koch Curve and adding more algebraic tools to make our mathematical world make sense!
Performing Arts
Brenda Edins, BEd; Jeremy Edins, BA

Fourth, fifth and sixth grade Performing Arts classes have been working on the six key elements of a successful theatre program that can be applied to personal and professional endeavors: ensemble-building, observation, trust, self-confidence/awareness, imagination & creativity, and concentration. Using improvisation and pantomime (pictured above), scholars have learned the importance of valuing everyone's ideas  and contributions.
Eighth Grade Advisory/Social Studies/Science
Gayle Brown, BS MBA

SS: TO SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN . . . That was the question concerning a number of our countrymen who, on September 17, 1787, were facing a personal decision of whether or not to sign our nation's Constitution. Scholars took part in a debate, portraying two delegates from that period in history, one a Federalist and one an Anti-Federalist, to more fully understand that the best decision was to sign on that day and keep the momentum going to unite our country with the hope that amendments added later would serve to protect our personal freedoms. Scholars discussed whether or not they would be willing to put their  own reputations on the line, as these men did, for something they feel passionate about. Scholars also learned about satire, sarcasm, irony, and parodies this week. They worked in groups to apply this knowledge in creating political cartoons of our top two presidential candidates. Their understanding of the issues facing our nation during this election year is amazing. We may even publish a cartoon or two here in the Talon soon!

Over the past couple of weeks, our eighth grade scholars have been learning what it means to take pride in one's community as they take on responsibilities with their Fiery Hills jobs as well as inside their own classroom. They have been meeting with their own managers, but also, since some of our eighth graders are managers themselves, they have learned to plan and conduct meetings with their young employees.
Honors Biology
Carol Raymond, BM BMEd MEd

Biology scholars have been discovering all sorts of things as they explore "What is biology?" This past week, they took a look down to the elemental level of life as we know it and found out a bit about carbon and what makes it essential to life on earth. They've played some biology "Taboo," learned all about sketchnoting and why visuals help your brain retain information, and explored some of the current happenings in the biological sciences. (Want to read about some interesting happenings in science? Check out "optogenetics!")
Recommended Viewing from Mrs. Lyda
"By loading kids with high expectations and micromanaging their lives at every turn, parents aren't actually helping. At least, that's how Julie Lythcott-Haims sees it. With passion and wry humor, the former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford makes the case for parents to stop defining their children's success via grades and test scores. Instead, she says, they should focus on providing the oldest idea of all: unconditional love." Check out the TED talk, How to Raise Successful Kids -- Without Overparenting, here.
MATH COUNTS & DI Starting Up Soon!
MATHCOUNTS will begin September 26 from 3:45-4:45 for interested students in grades 6-8. To read more about this exciting competition, click here!
I s your scholar interested in Destination Imagination? Complete the online form here!
FLARES News
If you are a Firehawk parent and haven't yet joined FLARES, please go to this link to pay your dues, get involved and purchase spirit wear!
You can sign up for reminders from FLARES to be sent directly to your phone by following these directions:
1. If you want to receive notifications on your phone, go to this link. Follow the instructions to sign up for Remind. (You will be prompted to download the free app.)
2. If you don't have a smartphone, or would just prefer to receive a text, you can sign up by texting @hbh83 to 81010. If this doesn't work, try texting @hbh83 to 817-310-8427.
*Your FLARES membership includes an associate parent membership in Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented (TAGT), our state's gifted organization, and a Firehawk directory!

All parent volunteer hours should be recorded on the Track it Forward   website. This information is needed for grant applications that are processed during the year. Please log your hours ! You can also download the Track it Forward app!
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