FSAPS ROBOTICS TEAM WON 1ST PLACE IN REGIONAL FLL TOURNAMENT

Team keep calm and innovate technology won 1st place
On Saturday, Dec 6th, three of our five robotics teams, Keep Calm & Innovate Technology, clever Five, and Fiery Phoenix competed at three different FLL Regional Qualifiers.

Keep Calm & Innovate Technology won not only "Best Robot Performance Award" but also 1st place overall among 18 teams in the regionals and advanced to Super Regional Qualifiers.

Best Robot Performance award recognizes a team that scores the most points during the Robot Game.

Keep Calm & Innovate Technology includes the following students: Damien Davis, Neel Bhatt, Abhijn Gutta, Sedat Akgun, Pranav Madadi, Taha Tas, and Faris Unal.

Our second team, fiery phoenix won both best robot performance award and mechanical design award
Mechanical Design award recognizes a team that designs and develops a mechanically sound robot that is durable, efficient and highly capable of performing challenge missions.

Fiery Phoenix includes the following students: Shreyan Ghelani, Siyona Patel, Sameer Cheema, Micheal Rico, Celil Teber, Aaron Weinberg,Jacob Grisgsby, Mario Machado.

Team Fiery Phoenix and Team Clever Five are still waiting for the notification of the qualification for FLL Super-Regional Qualifiers. We are very hopeful that our other teams will advance to Super Regional Qualifiers as well.

GREAT RESULTS IN CENTENNIAL HIGH SCHOOL MINI MODEL UN COMPETITION

On Friday, November 21st the FSAPS Model UN Team competed in the Centennial High School MiniMUN competition.

It is inspiring to see our students working and behaving like young delegates, showing decorum and following rules of procedure as they debate and propose realistic solutions for some of the major issues facing our world today.

All of our students performed admirably and had a terrific time while picking up invaluable experience. I am proud to announce that FSAPS students received recognition in each of the award categories:

Jaeden Amiri-Owens was named Outstanding Speaker representing Austria in the Economic and Social Council. Kian Nijaf, representing Greece in the World Health Organization, was recognized for Outstanding Diplomacy. Christina Wang, representing Sierra Leone in the Human Rights Council, was awarded Best Position Paper. Both of our delegated in the United Nations Security Council received honors, with Shreya Rekapalli, representing Chad, being named Outstanding Speaker and Chloe Richardson lauded for Outstanding Foreign Policy in her representation of the Russian Federation.

Congratulations to our entire team for their hard work and excellent showing!

PARENTS MAY BEGIN TOURING OUR NEW CAMPUS ANY SATURDAY FROM FEBRUARY ON

Our faculty members have begun to visit our new campus in small groups this past week. Beginning February the new campus may also be toured by our parents on Saturdays. We we will send you an e-mail and explain how you can schedule your tour.

The great news is that the campus construction is 10 days of schedule as of today and will be completed sometime in May 2015. Hopefully, we will start moving our class furnitures and start decorating our classes at the end of May, 2015.

After 13 years in our current facility, these are such exciting times for our FSA community. :)

For those of you wondering, our new address will be:
3035 Fanfare Lane
Alpharetta GA 30009

FAMILY THANKSGIVING DINNER WAS WONDERFUL!

On Thursday, November 20 our families enjoyed a wonderful thanksgiving dinner altogether. The vent included Book Fair, Medieval Bazaar, Thanksgiving Dinner, and performances by our talented students. A big THANK YOU goes to FSA Parent Volunteer Organization for such wonderful organization of this family event. It was such a great night for everyone.

Our second big family dinner event will be held second semester and is called International Cafe. The dates will be announced soon.

Please see some pictures from the thanksgiving dinner here:

FSA FACULTY THANKS TO PARENT VOLUNTEER ORGANIZATION

PVO volunteers literally rolled out the red carpet for our students during the Scholastic Book Fair. Who would imagine that a dimly lit corridor and former classroom could be transformed into a castle complete with drawbridge, sentry, gargoyles, and parapets?

Students from pre-K to 8th grade loved spending time shopping for books and trinkets all to benefit the Media Center and Reading Room. The raffles and estimation games were wildly popular and competition in the Boys vs. Girls Challenge was fierce, with the boys winning a dress-down day due to a few last-minute donations.

Many thanks to Book Fair Chair Susie Miramontes for her vision, creativity, and endurance in planning and running this week-long event. Thanks as well to the dozens of parent volunteers who assisted with decorating and staffing the book fair.

KINDERGARTEN THANKFUL FEAST WAS LOTS OF FUN!

On Wednesday, November 19th Ms. Fichter and Ms. Przedpelski's Kindergarten classes had a Thankful Feast. Families and friends came to join their Kindergarteners for a fun performance and some delicious food! During our feast, our two kindergarten classes performed 3 different Thanksgiving songs, and one very silly Turkey Time dance. Students were able to show off their hand-made place mats, head bands, and some extra special shirts made by one of our wonderful Kindergarten Moms. Students enjoyed the company of their guests during the feast. It was a very exciting and special day in Kindergarten at FSAPS!

The video of the performance can be viewed here

HELP A CHILD THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!

MUSIC AND DRUMMING (3RD - 5TH GRADES)

So far this year, our Music and Drumming students have learned about different places of the world and how their music represents a variety of elements in their culture. We have composed and arranged our own music within different boundaries/guidelines decided upon as a team. We have also enjoyed reading stories and bringing them to life by created musical sound effects to help enhance the story in a magical, life-like way. Our favorite thing to do is learn new rhythms and beats with different percussion equipment and create a true ‘drum circle’ environment, including ALL the bells and whistles!

PULSERA PROJECT

his month the WORLD Language department is in charge of a charity event called “Pulsera Project”. With this event we will be collaborating with a non-profit organization that educates, empowers, and connects Nicaraguan youth with students in more than 800 US schools through the sale of colorful, hand-woven bracelets, or “"pulseras"” in Spanish. This project is a registered 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization. Donations are tax deductible and provide critical support for programs in Nicaragua. Most of their Nicaraguan programs are guided by a philosophy of empowerment. Rather than just giving things to people, they empower people with skills, opportunities, and education that allow them to provide for themselves and their communities.

The Nicaraguans have made this beautiful Pulseras and sent them to us. We would like to support their efforts by purchasing them. Each PULSERA costs 5 dollars. For elementary students we will have some 8th grade students passing by your child’s room every morning during second period, which at this time your child will be able to purchase a “pulsera”. For middle school, there will be a table set up outside of the cafeteria for purchasing. We are hoping each student from the school buys at least TWO pulseras, a total of 10 dollars. These could be a great addition to your holiday presents. J Our goal is to be able to sell 400 pulseras in total.

If you have any questions please contact Mrs. Atchison, Mrs. Teber, Mr. Duman or my self- Mrs. Carmona. You can also ask your child’s homeroom teacher. We will try our best to help you with your purchase. We would be deeply grateful for your support of this philosophy and the many young Nicaraguans who will benefit through your generosity.

1ST GRADE KINDNESS TREE

Mrs. Houston's first grade class is working to fill up our class Kindness Tree. The Kindness Tree is a place to display the random acts of kindness each students performs over the next few weeks. For example, our new student Chase picked up litter on the Old Mill trail while hiking over the weekend with his family! Please stop by to see all of the random acts of kindness our class is performing.

WINNERS OF SPANISH POSTER CONTEST

The three winners of the Spanish poster contest have been selected.
Seventh grader Christina Wang, Eight graders Elaine Wen and Gwyn O'Sullivan. Congratulations! They will have a dress down on Friday.
This year the theme was Espanol: Un puente al futuro (Spanish: a bridge to the future)
Every single student had the opportunity to show their art skills while drawing what Spanish means to them in a creative way. These posters are a demonstration of students understanding of the importance and uses for learning new languages.
The selected pictures will be participating at the National Poster Contest in April 2015.
A BIG thank you to our great art teacher Mrs. Millar. This could have not been possible without her help.

1ST GRADE PILGRIM SIMULATION

Mrs. Whitlock's class had a terrific time during our two-week Pilgrim simulation. Students imagined they were Pilgrims on the Mayflower, wrote journals imagining what key events of the Pilgrims' journey would be like, learned about the differences between the Pilgrim and Wampanoag Native American cultures, created Mayflower fact books, and even created Pilgrim hats! We used our hats and special woven placemats we made for our first grade "Friendsgiving." We learned so much about the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving and had a blast in the process!