Forest Hills Flyer

October 2023

A Note from the Principal

Forest Hills Families,

October is here! We are excited to host Goodies With Grands later this week. Please remember that anyone attending must be on your child's pickup list. To add someone to your child's pickup list, please call our secretaries at (256) 768-2500. We will also have our Book Fair & Spirit Store open during this time for grandparents to shop with their grands!

Fundraiser items will be available for pickup Tuesday, October 3rd from 12:00-6:00. Please make arrangements to pick up your items as we do not have freezer space to accommodate any items left after 6 pm.

Please be sure to sign up for a Parent/Teacher Conference if you have any concerns you would like to discuss with your child's teacher.

If you have not joined the Falcon Hub App, be sure to do so--you will find that our school calendar is linked to the app so you can see events planned far in advance! This is also a great tool for parents with students at multiple schools--it's a one stop shop for all FCS schools!

If I can ever be of assistance to you, please call, email, or stop by! GO FALCONS!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Fowler, Principal

#WeAreFalcons

Attendance Matters

Please remember that our attendance goal is for every student to maintain a 95% attendance rate. If a student misses more than 5% of his/her school year, the student is at a significant risk of learning loss. Please see the graphics below for important attendance reminders! Each month I will share with you what our school's average attendance rate was for the previous month. Our goal is to stay at or above 95%.

Communication Update

Clear communication between you and the school is essential in supporting your child's education.

Some of you may have noticed a change in the method of communication from your child's teacher. Forest Hills is in the process of transitioning classroom communications away from Remind App.

In the coming days, you will be receiving communications from your child's teacher via email, text & callout (very similar to the way I communicate with you). You do not need to sign up, but please be sure your cell phone number and email address is up-to-date in PowerSchool. If at anytime your cell phone number or email address changes, you will need to update it in PowerSchool by visiting or calling our office.

Please note that with this new communication system, parents will NOT have the ability to text teachers back. If you need to communicate directly with your child's teacher, you will need to call the school, email the teacher, or send a note in your child's folder.

The Counselors' Corner

Each month Mr. Bradford & Ms. Tittle (better known as "Mr. B & Ms. T") create an awesome newsletter for students and families focusing on our virtue of the month. Families will also hear from students about what's going on at The Hill!

Counselor Information

Please scan the QR code below to learn about all of the support services our counselors offer to students at Forest Hills.

zoom_out_map

Falcon Hub App

Be sure to download the FCS Falcon Hub app! This is a great one stop shop for families (and especially those with students at multiple FCS schools).

Falcon Hub App Video

PLEASE COMPLETE THIS SURVEY!

The survey link provided below is essential for gathering valuable insights from our K-6 students' parents. Parents will be required to select the school their K-6 students attend and proceed to answer the survey questions. If a parent has multiple K-6 students, they need only complete one survey.

eProve™ surveys

eprovesurveys.advanc-ed.org

Survey About Possible Transition to K-6

As we continue the planning process for the 2024-2025 school year, Florence City Schools is keen to understand the preferences and interests of our Falcon parents. We are exploring the possibility of a transition in which all elementary schools, including Hibbett Intermediate School, would serve grades K-6.

To provide you with insights into the motivations behind this proposed change, we invite you to participate in a brief survey. You can access the survey by following the link provided below. Additionally, we have prepared a video presentation that explains the driving factors behind this proposal for the 2024-2025 school year.

https://forms.gle/F81oHyxHBgqHzykb8

Please take a moment to complete the survey no later than Friday, October 13. Thank you for your active participation and continued support of our school district.

How to Help Your Child Study for Spelling Tests

As many of you have noticed, spelling tests are back! The reason students are being assessed on spelling words each week is because "encoding" or accurate spelling of words is part of our Alabama Course of Study standards in grades K-4. Learning to spell words correctly is just as important as being able to read words correctly--they go hand in hand. If you are wanting to help your child study spelling words at home try these easy multi-sensory study strategies:

say the word
spell the word orally
write the word
trace the word in a cookie sheet filled with sand or rice
have child trace the word on a table or pants leg (or any surface with a texture) using finger
clap syllables
have child extend one arm and use the opposite hand to tap their arm for every letter going in a downward motion

Keep in mind most spelling words will follow phonetic skills your child has been learning, but some words may not, and those words must be memorized. If you have further questions about how to help your child with spelling, please contact your child's teacher.

1st Nine Weeks AR Goal Deadline - October 6

BioBlitz at Cane Creek Canyon Nature Preserve - Land Trust of North Alabama

Land Trust of North Alabama will host a Cane Creek Canyon Nature Preserve BioBlitz conducted by Discover Life in America (DLiA), a nonprofit organization out of Tennessee that specializes in biodiversity inventory and conservation, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. A BioBlitz is a citizen science event where participants learn about the plants and animals in [...]

landtrustnal.org

Grade Level News

Kindergarten

Kindergarten is learning so much in October! Our unit study items for this month are the fall season, pumpkins, farm, & nocturnal animals. We are learning all about the plants on the farm, how they grow and, in some cases, how they get to the stores/factories. The animals on the farm are also super interesting to us. We get to learn how the farmers care for these animals and what the animals do there. We are excited to go to the farm this month on a field trip to learn even more!

First Grade

In First grade our students are so excited to build their reading fluency. In math, we are working on building our discourse (math talk) and math vocabulary. Our annual Attendance Everyday Wins challenge has been motivating our students to stay healthy and come to school everyday to learn. #Wearefalcons

Second Grade

We are so proud of our second graders! They have been learning to add and subtract two-digit numbers in math. They have also learned how to make inferences, sequence events, identify the main idea, and many other comprehension skills in reading. This month we are excited to visit the Amish community in Ethridge, TN. We will take a wagon tour through the neighborhood and purchase items sold at each house. We will also have a picnic lunch at Rotary Park. We are looking forward to this fun day!

third grade

Third grade students are “FALLing” into learning! Over the past few weeks students have begun learning multiplication strategies and beginning to write cursive. Students have also been practicing reading skills such as main idea, summarizing, sequencing, and making inferences. In language arts students have been using descriptive language, identifying similes, writing with quotation marks, and working on creating an opinion writing piece.

Be on the lookout for information regarding Book Character Pumpkins!! These are always a favorite fall activity for our third graders and their parents!!

We are very excited for our upcoming visit to the Cook Museum of Natural Science on Wednesday, October 11th. We can’t wait for our students to explore and learn so many fascinating things! Information about Parent/Teacher conferences will be sent home in your child's binder soon! To wrap up October, each class will have a Halloween snack on Tuesday, October 31st. Each teacher will send information home soon about what items are needed.

Third Grade Teachers

fourth grade

The 4th Grade Montgomery Field Trip is scheduled for March 18, 2024. Students will be selling Krispy Kreme BOGO cards in the first half of October to help raise money for their trip. See a 4th grader to purchase your BOGO card.

4th Grade is finishing up a Reading unit on biographies and other stories about people making a positive difference in their community or country. We are so proud of our students and the conversations they are having on this topic. In Math, students are starting to learn about patterns in multiplication and division. Knowledge of basic facts is so important to the success of deeper math problem-solving. Practicing multiplication facts at home up to the 12s will be beneficial for your child. Students have been learning about the water cycle, weathering, erosion, and deposition in Science and our Alabama Regions and Rivers In Alabama History.