Congratulations to Austin Peace Academy seventh grader, Nada Aljamal  for having the second place overall finisher in the DimensionM Public and Private school math contest. Students from all over Austin met at the Delco Center to engage in a high-tech computer gaming event. Strategy, quickness, and the ability answer math questions at light speed are needed to excel in this competition. We are all very proud of Nada’s achievement .

DimensionM is an immersive 3D video game world that engages students in learning and applying mathematics. Standards-based objectives are covered through a series of missions that bring math into a context that today’s students understand. Students become so captivated in solving the problems in the game that they forget they’re learning…but not what they’ve learned.

The APA teams are gearing up for another competition to be held on May 15^th at the Delco Center.

For more information on the Dimension M Math tournament, visit http://www.dimensionu.com/math/

 

On Saturday, April 24^th Austin Peace Academy hosted the Sports Day for all students and families.

Over 200 people joined in the fun to participate in the Father-Son basketball game, the shuttle races, water games, tug of war, volleyball and a whole lot more. A complimentary lunch was served to all of the families by Chef  Moutaz Nahas as he headed up a large number of parent volunteers to serve barbequed chicken and hot dogs.

The weather was a blessing as the day was perfect for socializing and for sporting events. This great day was primarily the organization and work of Ms. Emily Lejeune, APA’s physical education teacher. In addition to the complimentary lunch , Sr. Diana also purchsed inflatable APA footballs for all of the students.

Sports Day was another wonderful event showing the community spirit of our parents and students.




 

Alhamdulillah, Austin Peace Academy maintained its mathematics dominance by placing second overall in the Texas State Math League for seventh graders and seventh place in the eighth grade division.

Sixty-six of the best academic schools competed in the most recent math exams for seventh graders and sixty schools competed in the eighth grade division. While the team division showings were excellent our individual placement was equally outstanding.

Placing tied for first place in the individual eighth grade competition was Aminah Mabruk.  In the seventh grade division APA had four individuals who received PERFECT SCORES; Raiyan Chowdhury, Haneen Hussain, Zafir Khondker, and Mariam Syed. Congratulations to these students and our outstanding math teacher, Mr. Syed Fareed.

For more information about The Math League, visit http://www.themathleague.com/

This is a reminder that on April 24^th, its Sports day also known as Field day. We have a program in place filled with fun activities. We have rented bumper balls, a spider climbing magnetic wall game and moon walk for only two hours. In addition, there will be a presentation on the “APA HIGH SCHOOL Program" by Mr. Alex Pritchard for parents of 7^th Grade at 12:15 p.m and 8^th Grade at 12:45 p.m. Free lunch will be provided. The following is a schedule of events lined up for the day:

 Zone 1
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m -  Bumper balls
11:00 a.m

New for this year! Pie in the face auction starts at 11:00 a.m. There will be an auction off the right to put a pie in the face of the Principal, Mr. Alex, Mr. Fareed and Ms.Emily. The student who bids the most gets the honor! Starting bid is $15.00.

Alhumdulillah, the Quran competition held on April 4, was a huge success.

We thank all the students that participated. Mashallah, Allah Akbar, we had students that had completed two Juzza (Juz 'Amma and Juz Tabark). The competition was very intense in the high school as they had to recite all of Surat Alnur, which took 15-20 minutes long to recite at a steady pace. The student had to pass 75% of memorization to qualify for the finals. We encourage all our students to participate in next year’s competition.

A special thanks to our Quran teachers  Sister Samya and Sister Najieh  for their dedication  and hard work in preparing our students for the competition.

We would also like to thank our judges Imam Nur and Imam Islam Mossad  for being with us to evaluate our finalists. We encourage all our students to participate in next year’s competition.

Congratulations to all the finalists. The following are all our honored finalists who participated. (Click the Read More button to see the full list).

On Wednesday March 24^th Austin Peace Academy held its first Wax Museum.  Students in grades 4-6 participated in presenting short 1-2 minute speeches about the life and significance of the individual they portrayed, along with boards and costumes.  Parents and students were invited to come and view our Museum from 9:30-10:45.

The exhibits each contained a button that when pushed would signal the historical figure to come to life and describe for viewers the life and importance of each person.  The students did an amazing job of portraying their respective people and seemed to enjoy participating in the Museum.

On Friday, March 12, 2010 Austin Peace Academy held its first annual Career Day.

Students from the seventh through the eleventh grade listened to presenters discuss everything “there is to know about a career”. The presenters discussed the amount of education required to pursue that profession as well as  the advantages and disadvantages of each career. The response of the students was overwhelming. One student commented, “I had no idea what a human resource person even was, but it sounded really interesting to me.”

Students were treated to a wide range of professions from attorney and nurse to human resources and being a pilot.

Each student was able to select one of three speakers offered over three time lots. So every student was able to listen to three different career speakers. The intention for the day was to present a wide array of possible careers while motivating the students to work hard in school. Some of the careers presented required a small amount of college education to careers requiring graduate degrees. Everyone was able to find an interesting program to attend that fit into his or her own personal needs. Next year nine more careers will be featured in order to give the students the widest range of information about their future opportunities.

Team building. Ropes courses. Group strategy games. 

These are just a few of the exciting “games” our students engaged in as they took a field trip to McKinney Roughs State Park on March 9. Grades 6 through 11 took a short ride to a beautiful park to spend a day in the forests to learn more than they bargained for. The “games” were fully instructed by the staff of the park and they brought out the most in APA students.

The students were asked to work together to solve problems, coordinate ideas to perform group tasks, and then challenged to overcome fears by climbing the rock wall, walking the line 25 feet in the air, and feeling the exhilaration of sliding down a 70 yard zip line.

The day proved once again that learning can be fun, working together is difficult but rewarding, and examining oneself about anxieties forces us to reach out for help from others. George MacDonald once said, “A perfect faith would lift us absolutely above fear.”  The trip was certainly a day for students and faculty to appreciate others and to examine their own faith.

Attention Parents, Teachers, and Students of APA,

The Austin Peace Academy science department, 4-H Organization, and the student-led APA Garden Club are partnering to bring a vegetable and herb garden to APA!

Raised beds have been built and set up with the assistance of APA staff and energetic APA middle school students.  We have six 4 ft by 4 ft beds behind the portables awaiting the next step of the process.  We hope to have soil, compost and mulch donated by the agricultural extension program through Texas A&M University – but while we wait to see if that comes to pass, we must start sprouting seeds in preparation.

We need your help!

If you have any of the following to donate, please drop off in the Science Lab with Ms. Heather ASAP:

• Vegetable and herb seed envelopes.  If you have planted your own garden from seed this year, and have leftover seeds, we will take opened envelopes, too.  Including but not limited to the following:
  • For vegetables: beets, chard, collards, leaf lettuce, peas, radish, beans, cantaloupe, corn, cucumber, eggplant, tomato, spinach, summer squash and zucchini, watermelon.
  • For herbs: Anything!  In particular: warm weather herbs, such as basil and chives.

• Empty cardboard egg cartons, or purchased seed trays, for growing seedlings

After spring break, in late March, we will transplant seedlings into our raised beds. At that time, the following items will also be needed:

• Small vegetable transplants – more information about what specific plants are needed will be forthcoming.  Planting transplants will enable us to harvest our crop before the end of the school year – a big plus!
• Gardening supplies – watering cans, gardening gloves, garden tools, etc.

If you would like to make a monetary donation to the APA Garden Project, please do so at the main office.  Cash donations will be used to purchase supplies and plants as needed for the garden.

If you have a “green thumb” and would like to donate your time and expertise, please contact me for more information.

Thank you,

Heather Swanson
Middle School Science Teacher