Curriculum

The gifted need a curriculum responsive to their individual learning rate, style, and complexity. The gifted learn best in an instructional environment that encourages and nurtures inquiry, flexibility, and critical and creative thinking.

Units of Study

All grades:  Hands-on Equations (algebraic concepts using manipulatives) and Figure it Out (using mathematical reasoning and logic to solve intricate problems)

3rd Grade:  Shakespeare—Students are introduced to Shakespeare's life, language, times, and plays through research, technology, and hands-on activities. This unit shows students that he is as relative today as he ever was.  We will study 4 plays:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet using kid friendly versions.

4th Grade:  “Explorations” is an interdisciplinary STEM unit that includes the engineering design process, geography, and a study of U.S. bridges.  A structural component requires students to design, build, and test bridges.

"Rube Goldberg" will require students to study his work and identify cause and effect within a sequence of visual events and utilize creative thinking and concepts in physics to design a contraption.

5th Grade: “Viewpoints” is an interdisciplinary unit on art, architecture, and monuments.  This unit is an excellent extension to the Social Studies curriculum allowing students to study in-depth a variety of artists, architecture, and monuments during specific time periods.  They will gain an understanding of why these things are important to us personally and to us as a nation.