News

The kindergarten and eighth grade buddies' program is an annual Fuqua tradition. Each 8^th grade student is paired with a buddy in one of the kindergarten classes. The buddy program is an opportunity for some of our younger Falcons to get to know the oldest Falcons on the LS/MS campus. This year's program kicked off on Friday, October 21st. The buddies spent the first few minutes of their time getting to know each other and learning their favorite foods, sports teams, and after school activities. Kindergarten students showed their 8^th grade buddies around the room and their toys and special parts of the class.  Then, the pairs spent some time playing number and alphabet matching games. During all the activity, much laughter could be heard throughout all the groups. We can't wait to get the buddies together again!

Students in Mrs. Sara Price’s Spanish II class made projects to illustrate aspects of Latino holidays. Pictured are three examples of their creativity. Olivia Fortune chose to research El Día de la Independencia de Panamá.  She brought in a yuca cake. Sophomore classmate, Caroline Krouse, made a decorated Barbie cake to represent the traditional last doll given on a Quince, with a fancy dress and cake to celebrate the birthday theme. Madison Atkins chose to feature Día de los Muertos and brought in a cake decorated like a sugar skull. All three were proud to share their creations with their fellow classmates.  

Andrew Brinks, better known as lower school students Scarlett and Sawyer Brinks’s Poppy, visited the kindergarten classes this October. Both classes have been learning American Sign Language (ASL) for basic words and phrases including “thank you”, “please”, and “bathroom”. Mr. Brinks, who was born deaf, has lived his entire life learning how to communicate with others through ASL. Poppy taught the children how to sign and showed them the neat technology he uses! The children learned about his phone, his watch, his cochlear implant and his " alarm clock". Poppy kept the kindergartners fascinated for a solid 45 minutes..... he would be surprised to know their normal attention span is only between 10 to 20 minutes!!  The kindergarteners are so grateful to Poppy for sharing his story with them!

Mrs. McGregor's fourth grade class had so much fun pretending to be a drop of water in "The Incredible Journey" Water Cycle Game, brought to us by Kelly Atkinson and the Piedmont Soil and Water Conservation District. Our students collected beads that represented their journey to places like clouds, soil, and the ocean. Once completed, they created a map of their journey and wrote a story. This is the water cycle hands on! 

Yeehaw! The cowboys and cowgirls in kindergarten and 7^th grades had a hog-killin’ time celebrating Cowboy Day in October.  Students in both grades sported their best country gear and participated in both academic learning and play.  Fun stations included bolo tie making, horse crafts, cowboy chili math, hide the horse math games, panning for gold (letters), and making s'mores.  This helped our kindergarten students gain a better understanding of their study of the great plains, while the 7^th graders will able to put together information they had been learning about the western expansion.  These students really took the bull by the horns and made this the best Cowboy Day in history!

During this fall semester, students in grade 5 have been participating in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program with Officer Kyle Britton, of the Farmville Police Department.  The D.A.R.E. program is a 12-week program that will help assist students in problem solving, being good citizens, and making wise and healthy decisions.  This program is another valuable resource to emphasize our current Fuqua School fifth grade health curriculum.  We are excited for this collaboration with the Farmville Police Department, and even more excited to offer this program to our students to help drive home Fuqua School’s core values and essential life skills. 

Mrs. Baird's 8^th grade physical science class is learning about chemical compounds, bonds, and reactions this quarter. As an introduction to this unit, the class participated in a mini experiment that explored mixing substances and adding elements. Students separated the two liquids that make up a glow stick, and then combined them outside of the plastic casing. When these two substances react with oxygen in the air, the glow from your basic glow stick is intensified. Students were able to put on safety gloves and explore the substance. The students were amazed by the enhanced brightness, and it led to scientific thought and questioning that promoted 21^st century skills such as critical thinking. 

Students in Farrah Schmidt’s Communications class recently wrapped up their "How-To" speeches. The topics were varied, from how to play a guitar, to how to change a car’s oil, and how to cook yummy treats. These were the second set of speeches from the class, and Mrs. Schmidt commented that students seemed better prepared and more comfortable with both the preparation and delivery this time around. The students are required to submit a number of different outlines for each speech to include certain key features that will engage the audience and help communicate their ideas more effectively. Pictured is senior, Dalton Tucker, who shared with his classmates “Different Shot Forms.” 

On Wednesday, October 5, the Battle of the Brains team from Fuqua School traveled to Richmond and visited the CBS-6 studio to tape an episode of the academic quiz bowl, Battle of the Brains. The team is led by senior captain James Royall, and his on-air teammates are juniors Hayden Hodges and Matthew “Carter” McCarty, and sophomore Brandon Seiler. Freshman member and alternate, Corbin Tinsley, also accompanied the team for the filming. For the past two years, the program has operated virtually, so it was good to see the resumption of in-person competition. Coach Corrinne Van Dorpe, upper school math teacher, is pleased to work with this crew, and to sponsor the club.  The club doesn't just involve those on-air, but also includes additional members on campus who practice together. Tune in to watch the Falcons on Saturday, January 14th! 

Students in Mrs. Pembelton’s 5th grade science class investigated destruction from a volcano by designing houses that would support volcanic ash on a roof. Students had to draw and create their designs using limited resources and test their designs by pouring a cup of flour on top.  Students learned, through trial and error, that their "houses" needed angled roofs and lots of support to withstand this type of natural disaster. 

Students in Ms. Audrey Sullivan’s upper school art class designed their own miniature kingdoms to add wonder to the school’s nature trail. The fairies and the elves, supposed rivals, inspired the students to create unique sculptures to represent homes, castles, and more. Fanciful shapes and ornamentation now adds a shaded land of whimsey alongside the natural plant life. Ms. Sullivan was also excited to see a little friendly competition evolve as the sculptures came into being, adding some spirited fun as well.  

After 2 years of being only online due to COVID-19, the lower and middle schools were excited to, once again, attend The Virginia Children’s Book Festival (VCBF) in person. The VCBF is an event that students across Virginia, and beyond, look forward to every year.  This event brings real authors and illustrators to our students and allows them to interact, learn from and understand the pathway to writing and illustrating picture books and novels from start to finish.  Students were able to meet and learn from Russell Ginns of the Samantha Spinner series, Victoria Kahn of the Pinkalicious series, Varian Johnson who wrote Twins, and also learn from some of the most creative minds behind graphic novels including Gene Yang who has been published by both Marvel and DC Comics. Some students were even able to visit an art mobile, from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where they were able to see portraits from across the ages here in Farmville. What an amazing opportunity we have to attend this annual event right in our own backyard!

Aye Mateys! The kindergarten classes battened down the hatches and ran up the Jolly Roger for national Talk Like a Pirate Day celebrated annually on September 19th.  Ye lads and lassies started the day by receiving their pirate names, eye patches and making their pirate crowns.  They designed their own pirate and wrote their own tale. The scallywags read pirate books, plundered a treasure chest and counted their loot!  A few carousers had to walk the plank but most ended the day a true seadog!

As a culmination of their geography unit, students in the sixth grade completed a project with the help of chocolate chip cookies. Each student was given a cookie that had been broken into interesting shapes and they had to create an island based on that cookie. Each student was to include four landforms, two water features, and two geographic regions, in addition to a new place on the globe using coordinates. Students then presented their island to their classmates.

Algebra I teacher and fitness instructor, Coach Rick Davis, keeps his students engaged by incorporating humor into his lessons. His math class requires that students “use algebra as a tool for representing and solving a variety of practical problems". While the examples may be practical in application, they are also funny. Davis keeps the class interested by spicing up his word problems with a variety of off-beat topics from possums and push-ups to dynamite and military operations. He's used this method for years to help students develop their math communication and reasoning skills while also allowing them to enjoy a good laugh, now and then, too.