This week, the 2nd and 3rd graders made sure that their portfolios were updated and worked to finish their Wonders of the World agamographs. For students who still have work to do on their agamographs, they may take them home to finish them or use at least half of their Free Choice period to continue plugging away. However, it is time that we get moving on to some new and challenging material.

In the afternoon, we moved on to our "Are spiders artists?" work. Last week, students tried their hand at being abstract artists, so this week was the time to become spiders. Our curriculum set out a cool project to spin plastic wrap into spiderweb forms on tree branches... This turned out to be much more challenging than presented, and our generic brand plastic wrap was NOT up to challenge! Talk about scary!

However, we practiced having a growth mindset and headed back inside to brainstorm and revise the plan. The students examined the problem strategically using a Circle Map, and we're going to try again with some of their ideas at the next GATE class.

Even though this wasn't the intention for the afternoon's work, we practiced an important skill, especially for GATE kids who are often plagued with perfectionism and a tenuous relationship with failure. We are practicing learning from failure and persisting through difficulty with a can-do attitude. We can do hard things!