MATH ENRICHMENT (click here for Language Arts Enrichment) Program Overview To best serve students of all abilities in math, Mr. Kendall, gifted education coordinator, will be assisting second grade teachers with enrichment activities on a once-a-week basis. He will pull selected students to a location in the classroom or outside the classroom depending on the enrichment activity and the other classroom instruction that is taking place. Students in a pull-out group will not need to “make up” any classwork missed during their time in the pull-out group, but they will be responsible for any assigned homework. There will be no additional homework for the pull-out group. Students are expected to put forth their best efforts and complete assignments required in the pull-out group. Appropriate behavior is also essential to maintain a productive work environment to meet the needs of all children in the group. Students who repeatedly disrupt the group will miss out on enrichment activities. The participants in the pull-out group may change periodically over the course of the year because students who show advanced mastery in certain math skills may not have that same level of ability in another unit. Pretest and posttest scores will be important in selecting students for enrichment activities. If for any reason you do not want your child pulled out of the regular classroom for enrichment, please send a note or e-mail to your child’s teacher. Often
the students in the pull-out program will received a "compacted" lesson
to acquire the skill being covered in the classroom that day. If students learn
the concept quickly and are able to complete practice problems
accurately they move on to extension activities and challenge problems selected/developed through Mr. Kendall's collaboration with the classroom teachers. Mr. Kendall will sign off on problems and challenge worksheets completed in the pull-out group so that you know the work that is an extension beyond the standard second grade math curriculum. These extension problems will be sent home in Monday folders with the regular assignments. Feel free to e-mail Mr. Kendall if you have any questions about the program and/or specific lessons being covered in the pull-out group (kkendall@lexedu.org). Parenting/Mentoring Tip: The important focus of some of the early chapters in the math series is developing strategies for improving mental math skills ("doubles plus one", "adding to 10", etc.) that are important for advanced students to learn, especially because when they say they "I did it in my head" it is often because they have memorized certain sums rather than using the mental math strategies. These strategies become more and more important as the numbers grow too large to solve in their heads in future grade levels. Students who fail to acquire these strategies now can start to doubt their math abilities in upper grade levels when they can no longer do their math homework "in their heads" at the level of speed and accuracy they demonstrated when they were younger. Strategy: Ask your child to state how they solved the problem to expose their thinking strategies. At this age we should be breaking away from finger counting and developing more advanced mental math strategies. Link to ON-LINE MATH GAMES we sometimes use in class (includes ones students enjoyed last year). READING ENRICHMENT Program Overview Selected students are pulled from class once a week, during their normally scheduled language arts time on . Mr. Kendall The students are pulled at the following times: Mrs. Mohr's Students - Friday, 8:40-9:20 a.m. Mrs. Bytnar's Students - Friday, 9:20-10:00 a.m. Mrs. Suter's Students - Friday, 10:10-10:50 a.m. Program Objectives:
Click here for Curriculum Updates for your child's group. |