Grandparents Day Pictures

Hey there, fifth grade parents! If your students did something special for their grandparents today, could you snap a picture and email it to their homeroom teacher?

Co-Curricular Bingo March 23-27

Distance Learning Update

Congratulations to you all!  We have finished our first week of distance learning and we appreciate your patience and encouragement.  The FPD administrators have been an incredible support to all of the teachers and we would like to publicly thank them for that.  We are also so thankful for each of you and the support you gave your children as they figured out how to complete their schoolwork and continue their learning remotely.

We have a few suggestions to help make this new model as successful as possible for your student(s):

• Check NetClassroom regularly for assignments and grades.  If you see "M" where you should see a grade, that means the completed work is missing and needs to be submitted by your child.
• Remind your child that the daily email with assignments is usually sent the night before, so he/she will have to look at yesterday's email messages to see today's work.  The assignment date will be included in the subject line. For example, Monday's assignments will be emailed Sunday night, but the subject line will be "Monday, March 23."
• Encourage your child to do his/her very best!  Students are being held accountable for the quality of their work, just as they would be if we were on campus for school.
• Check out the co-curricular teachers' blogs for additional learning games and ideas!  They are working hard to continue the learning opportunities in their areas of expertise while our campus is closed.

We continue to pray for your families!  If there is anything we can do for you, please don't hesitate to send an email!

With Love,

Jessica and Melissa

A Message From Counselor Causey

Hi Guys!

This is Counselor Causey. Guess what? We missed you at school Monday! Even though you did not come to school, all of your teachers were here! We were preparing to teach you while you are still at home. Is that awesome or what? FPD is one of the few schools that is already prepared to be able to do this, since we have been using one-on-one technology for years, and have spent a lot of time learning how to use it! Your teachers know that you have a lot going on, so their assignments are going to be simple, but effective. The main thing we want you to do, is enjoy your time with your family and spend your time wisely. One of the wise ways you can use your time is to learn to pray always and trust in the Lord. So I have sent you THIS VIDEO to teach you more about prayer.

Counselor Causey will be sending you out some words of encouragement, and distance lessons and hugs to let you know we are thinking of you and that I am still here for you. If you  need me for any reason, just e-mail me or call me.

Lots of love,  

Counselor Causey

FPD's Outback Library Time with Mrs. Darnell

G’day, mate!  Did you know that there is a huge area of Australia called the Outback?  The area is so big, and the families living there live so far apart that going to school is impossible.  Kids might live hundreds of miles from their teachers and their school!  The only way kids in the Australian Outback can experience school is through “distance learning” like you are doing this week.   Each child has a computer and an adult helper nearby, usually a parent, and receives lessons and schoolwork from teachers and then returns the work to teachers through email.  Then 3 or 4 times a year the kids travel long distances to meet together for a week, kind of like a school camp.  Why don’t we pretend we are living in the Australian Outback, and I will deliver your ‘library time lesson’ for the week below?  Isn’t that a grouse idea?  (In Australian slang ‘grouse’ means that you like something, like you think it’s a wonderful idea.)

I hope you have begun your Newbery Award or Newbery Honor book and are thoroughly enjoying it.  Remember the book you chose was voted the BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR or a runner up to that honor in the year it was published.   Reading just doesn’t get much better than that!   If we were in the library this week, I would give you free silent time to begin your Newbery book and then give you the wordsearch puzzle below to do for fun and to see how many Newbery titles you remember hearing about last week.  I hope you will remember many of those titles and will read them in middle school because you’ll find most of them on the middle school side of the library, too.

Before you start reading and wordsearching, I want to share a few facts from those amazing Weird But True books that you love so much:

Vanilla is used to make chocolate.

An elephant’s tooth is the size of a brick.

The Statue of Liberty’s nose is almost 5 feet long, taller than you.

Chewing gum can make your heart beat faster.

The 50 tallest mountains in the world are all in Asia.

There are around 3 trillion (3,000,000,000,000) trees on Earth.                   (I wonder how many are cherry blossom trees.)

Isn’t it just amazing and so much fun to see what all you can learn when you read!

Now…on to your Newbery reading and wordsearch puzzle. Check your school email and let the fun begin!

Zoom Instructions & Rules

Hey Kiddos!!

We are still all learning and we will get better with each day. Please help us with Zoom by following these few rules and instructions. These will hopefully make our time together on Zoom much more successful! 

*Make sure your camera view is not distracting your classmates during the meeting.

*Keep yourself muted unless you have permission to talk (this is like raising your hand during class).

*The group chat feature can be very distracting.  Use it only if you need to ask the teacher a question.

Love,
Your 5th Grade Teachers

Distance Learning Information

Dear Fifth Grade Parents,

We are excited and a little nervous to embark on a new way of teaching, as I’m sure your children are excited and a little nervous to “do school” in a different way.  We feel that our FPD fifth graders are uniquely equipped for distance learning because our school already integrates technology into everyday teaching and learning.  While we don’t expect our students to complete all of their schoolwork on their tablets, we are thankful for an easy and somewhat normal way to communicate with our students daily while our campus is closed.

Please read the following information carefully.  If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us via email at any time.  We will answer emails during our established “office hours” that are listed below and as we can outside of office hours.

• Learning from home will be different!  Melissa and I will be flexible as we learn with your children how to “do school” in a different way.
• Your children will need supervision while working on their tablets.  This does not mean we expect you to sit next to them as they complete their work, but we think it’s important for you to have your eyes on their screens from time to time.
• We expect our students to be able to complete their daily school work in about 2 hours.  This will roughly equate to 30 minutes per class each day and will include any live meetings.
• All teachers have been asked to communicate office hours for school days.  Melissa and I will answer emails from 12:00-1:00 and from 6:00-7:00 daily.
• The school has set up a new page on the website for distance learning information. Please visit www.fpdmacon.org/distancelearning/ for updates from FPD.
• Your students will be expected to check their school email by 10:00 am daily.  This is a change from our original instructions to them!  We will email daily assignments and online meeting times to fifth graders (usually the night before, so that early birds can start their work before 10:00 am if they’d like).

We are praying for your families and look forward to our online meetings with our students!

Sincerely, 

Jessica Murnan

Campus Closure Announcement

FPD will suspend on-campus classes and after school activities beginning Monday, March 16, for one week in an effort to minimize the risk of the COVID-19 virus. Classes will continue through distance learning options beginning Tuesday, March 17. Plans for the following week will be evaluated on Friday, March 20.

Please check the school website (www.fpdmacon.org) for more information.

An Awesome Day at the GA Aquarium!!

Field Trip Thursday (3/12/20)

Please read the following reminders about the field trip this week:

• Meet in the Fine Arts parking lot at 7:30.  We will depart at 7:45 sharp!  We hope to return between 4:00 and 4:30 and will send a text message to parents when we can better estimate our arrival time.
• Students will wear their FPD uniforms and should wear comfortable shoes.
• Students need to bring a sack lunch if they are not on the 5-day meal plan.  All parents need to bring a sack lunch.

FPD FAMILY NIGHT

March 9, 2020, is FPD Family Night, which means that there is no homework assigned and there are no tests tomorrow.  Enjoy time with your family!  Have dinner together, play a fun game, or take a walk outside since it's not raining and there's an extra hour of daylight.  Whatever you decide to do with this homework-free day, we pray that you will enjoy time with one another!

Learning Fun

Did your fifth grader tell you about the new game we played at school today? It was fun for the teachers to see everyone so engaged while reviewing multiplication in Mrs. Murnan’s class and Social Studies vocabulary in Ms. Brown’s class! Check out the final scores. It’s too bad the prizes aren’t real!!