Embedded Files
Kindergarten Enrichment
Students in Kindergarten Enrichment Small Groups were read a book called "It's not a Box" by Antoinette Portis. After reading the text students took boxes on paper and created them into something completely different. They then took one of their ideas and turned a box into that item. Check out these creative ideas! An elevator, a car, a robin, an i-pad, a dog, a horse barn and a jet! So proud of these students and their creativity!
Refugee: Sentence, Phrase, Word
Students chose one chapter from our novel, Refugee, and selected three pieces of text: a sentence, a phrase, and a single word.
From these selections, students gave more context about the selection by relating it to big ideas and key words from that character’s chapters. They also made inferences about the character based on those selections from the text.
First Grade Pollination Challenge
Students in first grade were given the following challenge: Due to climate change and human pollution pollinators are becoming more and more scarce. Your challenge is to create a "robot" pollinator that would help pollinate our flowers so we can have the fruits, vegetables and oils we need as humans to survive.
Students then were given a variety of supplies to create the pollinator. Check on the photos to the left to see some of their creations.
***STAY TUNED because next week we test out our pollinators on some fake pollen.***
Second Grade Robot Challenge
Second graders were tasked with the following challenge: Design a model robot that could actually be used in today’s world to solve problems that our society faces. (e.g. - pollution, plastic waste, food waste, littering)
Students were then given various materials to create their robot based on a quick sketch they made. Some of these materials included: coffee filters, straws, googly eyes, aluminum foil and pipe cleaners.
Check out the pictures to the left to see some of their awesome creations!
Is it the End of Humanity?
The news has just come in – the world as we know it is about to end. Scientists are clear in their findings. By the end of the century (2100), a mere 80 (almost) years away, the earth will consist of only three extreme ecosystems: salt water oceans, expansive deserts and vast arctic regions. If humanity is to survive, we will have to adapt to these extreme environments. Natural evolution takes millions of years but with science and technology we can drastically alter human evolution in a fraction of the time. Students were tasked with developing a plan that would allow humans to continue to survive in one of these extreme environments.
These 4th graders combined their knowledge of animal adaptations, environmental factors of their chosen ecosystem, natural and artificial selection, and genetic technology to develop a detailed plan that would allow humans to continue to survive in one of these extreme environments. They illustrated their human and named their new subspecies of human using Greek and/or Latin roots.
4.W.7, 4.SL.5, 4.L.1 - Extension & Enrichment
The Weekend Getaway
Have you ever been camping? There is more math involved than you may think. 4th grade students planned a weekend camping trip to Boone, NC. Students evaluated their needs, selected items to pack, and ensured that each hiker’s load did not exceed 30 pounds. In order to determine the total weight of supplies, students had to compare decimals, convert fractions to decimals, and operate on decimal fractions. Students also had to do some weight conversions between ounces and pounds.
4.NF.5-7 - Extension & Acceleration
Hiker Pair 1
Hiker Pair 2
Hiker Pair 3
Solo Hiker
Inspector Graph-It
Third graders played with finding errors in data by looking for what didn’t make sense on the Animal Height graph & table. Then, partners conducted research and constructed their own set of faulty data. Finally, students tried to detect logical and discrepancy errors in the data displays. Can you find the errors in these graphs?
3.MD.3 - Extension & Enrichment
Family Game Night
Our first ever Family Game Night was a huge success with over 200 people turning out to play games that required critical thinking, creative problem solving & teamwork! Check out some of the ThinkFUN games we played below.
Visual Spatial Thinking
Games like Instant Insanity, Knot Racing, Big Coin & Matchstick Challenges had students and parents manipulating objects to create a desired outcome. It's not as easy as it looks!
Problem Solving & Logical Thinking
Chicken Crossing, Human Hoppers, and River Crossing made students think logically to solve problems with their team.
Strategic Thinking
Hex, Ducks in a Row, Nim, Hare & Hounds, and Dodge 'Em were games that required players to think strategically in order to win with some playing multiple games to perfect their strategy!
Brain Food & Games
And, of course we couldn't let you leave without a take home game and some brain food (almonds, dark chocolate, and craisins). We hope to see you at a future Family Game Night!
Visual Spatial Thinking
During enrichment, 4th and 5th graders learned about visual-spatial reasoning and how we use it every single day from packing a suitcase to remembering where we put something we need.
Students challenged their visual spatial thinking with a task called Dividing Apples. Using only 3 "sticks" students had to divide up the apples so there was only one in each group. Can you solve the puzzle? They did! With perseverance, creativity, and visual-spatial thinking, they were able to do it!
Then, students got to choose from several visual-spatial games or activities to continue to challenge their brains in this novel way.
Enrichment
What's The Fractional Part?: An Activity Exploring Equivalence
In this activity, students explored equivalent fractions and developed an understanding of different fractions of a unit whole using pattern blocks. This task is enrichment of grade level standards as it requires abstract and high-level thinking while incorporating discovery learning.
First, students were asked to consider shapes (a sailboat and a puppy) made with pattern blocks as one whole and make “fair trades” with the pattern blocks to determine the different fractional amounts of the whole.
3.NF.3, 3.G.2 - Enrichment
Then, students made their own shapes and wrote fraction questions with an answer key for their peers to solve. Can you determine the fractional part of their shapes?
CSI: The Tale of DespereauxColor, Symbol, Image: The Tale of Despereaux
While reading the novel, The Tale of Despereaux, students considered the main character - a mouse named Despereaux. Using a thinking routine from Making Thinking Visible, students stretched their thinking to describe the character metaphorically.
Students determined a color, symbol, and image that represented something about the little mouse. They connected their thinking to character traits that describe Despereaux and used textual evidence to support their thinking.
3.RL.3 - Enrichment
Inference Poetry
During Enrichment, Third, Fourth and Fifth graders read various poems that gave clues about a mystery object. Students used background knowledge and context clues to infer what mystery object the poem was about. For example, students had to use clues like, "When I was born, I was sure I'd float through the air. But, that dream has deflated and it's just not fair," to determine the mystery object was a balloon. Words like floating, deflating, air were verbal cues that students could use in their reasoning to justify the object was a balloon.
After exploring several poems like this, students were tasked with writing a Haiku that would give clues about a mystery object of their choice. Can you figure out what their mystery objects were?
Enrichment
Elements of Fairy Tales
After identifying patterns from various fairy tales, students generated examples from their novel, The Tale of Despereaux, that followed the same patterns. Check out their thinking on this Padlet.
Fraction Flags
After a brief introduction to world flags, students explored the fractional parts seen in various flags.
Then, students were given the opportunity to create their own unique flag while identifying the fractional parts of each color.
With each part of this activity, students had to explain their thinking. We focused on being clear and using mathematical language to explain the fractional parts of each flag as well as explaining relationships between related denominators.
This activity is an extension of 3rd grade standards because it asks students to reason about fractional amounts when the pieces are not equal as well as reason about the relationships between different sized denominators.
3.NF.1 - Enrichment & Extension
Artistic Influence
Third graders read various texts about artists and their work. With each text, students considered how the artist's work inspired or influenced others. Check out what students thought about each text in the document below and keep scrolling to see some student products from this unit.
Ava Duvernay & A Wrinkle in Time - Students read a short biography of Ava Duvernay and an article about the film A Wrinkle in Time. Students also analyzed graphs about trends in film industry. After analyzing the graphs, students considered how Ava Duvernay tried to influence the film industry through her choices as the director for A Wrinkle in Time.
Here are some student products from this unit.
Magic Trash: The Story of Tyree Guyton and His Art - A true story about Tyree Guyton and his art and how it saved his community. After reading this book, students collaboratively wrote a statement describing the big idea of the book and then individually chose details that supported the big idea. Students wrote inside a "house" and chose a theme to decorate the outside inspired by Tyree's work.
Becoming the Artists - After looking at various works of art that inspired others, students became the artist. They chose an issue they cared about and created a work of art that would inspire or influence those who interacted with their art.
Poetry Palettes
5th graders read a series of Shel Silverstein poems. After reading, students analyzed the poem to answer the question, "According to Shel Silverstein, how should we live our lives?" After discussing the message, text evidence that supports the message, and poetic devices, students were challenged to choose a color that represented the poem to them. This required students to make creative connections and explain their thinking. As they added new colors, they had to pick colors that fit their palettes. After reading all the poems, students had created a Shel Silverstein poetry color palette. Check out their color palettes and their reasoning for choosing each color.
Rube Goldberg Machines
During Quarter 2 students studied force and motion during science and enrichment. Students then learned about Rube Goldberg's whacky machines that he illustrated in his comics. Finally, students applied what they knew about force and motion to build their own Rube Goldberg-inspired contraptions.
Flip through the photos to the left to see all the wonderful contraptions first graders created.
Math, ELA & Social Studies Integrated Project
Students at the fourth grade level are asked to solve problems involving multiplicative comparisons by finding unknown quantities. This task builds on fourth grade concepts by asking students to research data and generate their own multiplicative comparisons. In addition, students learned about North Carolina landmarks.
Scroll through the pictures to read information about each landmark and find out its multiplicative comparison!
Kindergarten Enrichment Small Groups
During the 2nd Quarter all Kindergarteners were able to participate in small group nurturing. During this time students were given a bin of objects and a sorting mat. Students were asked to sort the items based on any rule/characteristic they came up with by looking closely at all objects and thinking about how they relate.
Once students sorted their objects one way they were asked to sort things a completely different way. Finally, they sorted the objects one final time.
Some ideas students came up with through our discussions were...
Color
Shape
Item type
Texture
Instagram Character Study
4th graders dove deep into the main character of a novel of their choice. Students inferred multiple character traits through an analysis of their character's speech, thoughts, effects on others, actions, and looks. Then, they had to demonstrate those character traits by creating a Instagram profile and multiple posts as their character that also highlighted key events from the book. Check out the Instagram feeds of the main characters in The Wild Robot by Peter Brown, Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate, Masters of Disaster by Gary Paulsen, and Clueless McGee by Jeff Mack.
Architect Arithmetic
In this project, students became architects and problem-solved how to construct a 2-D replica based on scaled measurements using toothpicks. They chose a building that interested them and then determined how many toothpicks they would need based on the scale provided. This activity was an extension of grade level standards as students were multiplying past 100 or factors larger than 12.
Made to Order Rectangles
An introduction to logical reasoning with the 4th grade math group had students thinking about how to cover their grid with rectangles to satisfy the criteria:
- each rectangle contains one number,
- rectangles had an area that equaled the number inside the rectangle,
- every small square is part of a rectangle, and
- no rectangles overlapped.
Students started with smaller grids and worked their way up to a 10x10 grid increasing the complexity each time. Finally, students thought about what made a puzzle more difficult/easy to solve and created their own puzzles for classmates to try!
How would you solve this puzzle?
Kindergarten Investigations - Bubble Bonanza
Check out the Kindergarteners using their brain focals for our Bubble Bonanza activity! Students helped Isabel the Inventor by using divergent inventive thinking to transform the bubbles on their papers! Scroll through the photos and check out some of the creations students came up with!
Food for Thought: Share with us how you would transform the bubbles? The wackiest idea gets a high five from Mrs. Miles!
My Flag
5th graders started this school year by getting to know each other a little better. After learning about the symbolic meanings associated with different colors, students designed a flag using colors that represented qualities they display. They chose three colors to use in their flag and created a design using geometric shapes. Just like each of them, their flags are unique. They practiced public speaking skills when they presented their flag to their classmates.
Kindergarten Investigations
Last week we wrapped up our unit on Dudley the Detective and convergent thinking! This week we are beginning our unit on Isabel the Inventor and learning about divergent thinking. Isabel the inventor uses her "brain focals" when she is brainstorming ideas for new inventions. When she uses divergent thinking she looks at things in new and different ways to come up with lots of ideas for inventions! I look forward to seeing how all the Kinders use their brain focals to practice divergent thinking in the coming weeks!
Beyond Base 10
9.15.21 5th graders explored alternative number systems outside of Base 10. First, students learned about other number systems like Binary (base 2), Roman numerals (base 10), and Babylonian numerals (base 60!). Then, students converted numbers from a Base 9 system to the Base 10 system. Then, students created their own number system where they decided on the amount of numerals, researched what to name that number system (based on shapes with the same number of sides), wrote 2-digit numbers in their numeral system and determined the value of their number in Base 10.
Kindergarten Investigations
9.14.21 In Kindergarten AIG Nurturing this week we are learning about convergent thinking skills by becoming detectives and solving mysteries. Today we learned about Dudley the Detective and solved his missing badge mystery by looking at all the clues and coming to one conclusion! Then we made our very own detective badges! Next week we will solve more mysteries with Dudley!
Mystery Lego Structure
Mystery Lego Structure
8.31.21 Learning how to communicate without words…Students were either the runner or the builder. The runner could view the mystery structure but the builder could not. The builder could touch the Legos but the runner could not. Neither student could talk so they had to figure out how best to communicate to finish the mystery structure!
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