We call our gifted education classes SEEK = Students Exploring and Expanding Knowledge.
October SEEK News
Parent/Teacher Conferences & Progress to Goals Reports: Many of you have already signed up for a 10-15 minute conference time next week on October 9th or 10th. Here is the link to the sign-up page if you would like to sign up, but haven't yet. If you need to change your conference time, please email me the day before in addition to making the change on the sign-up form. I will meet with families (and students if possible) before or after the conference you have scheduled with your child's other teacher. If you do not schedule a conference, I will send home a brief "Glows and Grows" page with some notes about strengths and growth areas at this time of the year. Students may also take home their work binders to share with you and return them the following week. Let me know if you would like your child to take home a binder. Progress to Goals reports will be sent home at the end of the first trimester in early November.
Current Learning:
4th Graders: Students have almost finished the I Am/Animal unit. They “observed” and researched an animal. Using their notes, they wrote an animal poem and created a clay animal. They also used brainstorming about themselves and their own “shadows” and “movers” to create an I Am poem. We reviewed fixed and growth mindset as well as qualities of creative problem solvers. In small groups, they created posters about these qualities, like risk-taking, intrinsic motivation, and persistence. Next week, we will begin our next unit on Inventing. Students will looking at character traits that inventors share. They will be exploring different inventions from the past and present. They will complete an inventor research project and plan and create their own invention using the Engineering Design Process. Students are working hard on Math Quest. All students have completed the Guess and Check strategy and the Draw a Picture strategy. We will begin the Make a Table or Chart strategy next week. We completed our first Junior Great Books assignments. We read a short story called The Enchanted Sticks. Students annotated during reading, answered an interpretive focus question, supported their answer with evidence, explained their ideas, and then had a shared inquiry discussion. We have begun reading our next selection, a nonfiction text about Young Inventors. Soon we will work on setting learning goals based on the APS Goals: perseverance, self-efficacy, self-regulation, or social awareness. Students may address specific areas within one of these areas that aligns with the Gifted Strands, Creative Problem Solver Traits, or Mindset skills. Students completed one critical thinking group challenges and have been involved in other creative and critical thinking activities, like “Notice, Think, Wonder”, “Stories with Holes,” and Creative Drawings. Soon we will complete in our first "Brain Game" Challenge.
5th Graders: The students learned how to pick up classroom recycling. They were the first 5th graders to pick up recycling and then they helped teach their classmates how to do pick-up. They also worked on recycling presentations about recycling, the 3 R’s, and what items to recycle at school. Each group visited 3 or 4 classrooms to share their presentations. They did a great job! Students reviewed “Characteristics of Creative Problem Solvers”, like persistence, risk-taking, and flexibility/adaptability. They learned about the APS Goals: perseverance, self-efficacy, self-regulation, or social awareness and created posters for them. For math, in the “Figure Me Out” assignment, students created their own challenging problems using various operations and order of operations rules, and then they spent time solving each others’ problems. They have also begun “The Great Equation Race” where they will “travel” around the world by answering facts about different cities and then solving different math problem sets. Most students are complete or almost complete with their first problem set about geometry concepts. Students reviewed Level 1 in Hands on Equations and have just started Level 2. This level will involve adding and subtracting positive and negative variables. They will work on algebra word problems soon. We read a Junior Great Books story called The Two Brothers and will read Kaddo’s Wall next. Students annotated during reading, answered an interpretive focus question, supported their answer with evidence, and explained their ideas. Then we will read our first biography selection about Eleanor Roosevelt. We will continue to read biographies in preparation for our big Images of Greatness unit later this year. Students completed one critical thinking challenge and have been involved in other creative and critical thinking activities, like “Notice, Think, Wonder”, “Stories with Holes,” and Creative Drawings. Soon we will complete in our first "Brain Game" Challenge. They have also just completed the first independent “Brain Games” challenge. Soon we will work on setting learning goals based on the APS Goals: perseverance, self-efficacy, self-regulation, or social awareness. Students may address specific areas within one of these areas that aligns with the Gifted Strands, Creative Problem Solver traits, or Mindset skills.
Schedules
4th Graders from Mrs. Martinez's class will attend SEEK on Mondays. They will attend at 7:50 until 2:15. (They return to class at 11:00-11:30 for part of the Math block.)
4th Graders from Ms. González and Mrs. Shoemaker's classes will attend SEEK on Tuesdays. They will attend at 7:50 until 2:15. (They return to class at 11:00-11:30 for part of the Math block.)
5th Graders from Mrs. Kittleson and Ms. Marquez's classes will attend SEEK on Wednesdays. They will attend from 8:10 until 2:15.
5th Graders from Mrs. Guerra's class will attend SEEK on Thursdays. They will attend from 8:10 until 2:15.
All student join their peers during Specials, Lunch, and Recesses.
