AAP Newsletter October

This newsletter will share how students at Forestdale have been engaging with the Advanced Academics Curriculum. It will share blurbs from K-6. Here is what we were up to in September:

Building Communicator Skills 

In the upper grades, students are already engaging in academic conversations through Socratic Seminars. Socratic Seminars are a type of conversation where students authentically discuss ideas without raising their hands.

• Third graders have read the poem “Everything I learned, I learned in kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum and responded to the question: which lesson is most important and why?
• Fourth graders read the book Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson and discussed how the author’s choices impacted the message. 
• Fifth graders are preparing for their seminar on Langston Hughes’s story “Thank you Ma’am”

Building Communicator Skills

Part of the advanced curriculum is teaching through concepts. Concept based instruction supports students making connections across content areas.

• Third graders are focusing on relationships and interactions; connecting science, social studies, and language arts. For example, students made connections between how relationships impact the classroom community.
• In fourth grade, students are learning about the concept of change and how it applies to Virginia Native Peoples and ecosystems.

Critical and Creative Thinking

• Kindergarteners practiced looking at different perspectives and then trying to think like someone else. They read Daniel’s Good Day by Micha Archer and thought about what a good day would look like for their teacher or a family member. One student said a good day for their teacher was “when students were listening”. 
• First graders practiced visualizing. They read Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews and imagined dots into pictures. One student turned them into flowers and another student saw their dots as parts of a dog paw. So creative!
• Second graders turned the letters of their name into parts of their identity. It was amazing to see how they could turn letters into their favorite foods and hobbies.