October & November 2024 Newsletter

Happy fall to one and all! I apologize for not getting this newsletter out during the month of October, but these first nine weeks have been action packed! Student Council and academic team are in full swing, and my co-teach and resource groups for 3rd-5th grade gifted & talented instruction is happening Monday - Thursday! We are currently in a very busy season for gifted and talented screenings and identifications. Please see the information below to learn more about the gifted & talented screening process for general intellect, reading, math, science, social studies, and the visual & performing arts areas this month for 3rd-5th grade students. We will be finalizing all new primary talent pool referrals before Thanksgiving break.

Fayette County Gifted & Talented Screening Window

Visual and Performing Arts

During the month of November, all 3rd-5th grade students have an opportunity to audition for dance, drama, vocal, instrumental, and visual arts. Auditions will take place at Maxwell Elementary the week of November 11th-15th. Mr. Spottswood has shared this information with all third, fourth, and fifth grade families, but I wanted to mention it here because I am the case manager for communicating with families who have questions about this process. We are spending some time practicing for auditions at school, and I have spoken with many families to review the process and make recommendations so that your student feels prepared and ready to audition. If your student is interested to audition for SCAPA, he/she MUST participate in the visual & performing arts auditions happening this month. This includes students who are already identified as gifted in an arts area. The application for SCAPA opens in March, but only students will a current audition for the 24-25 school year may apply.

CogAT & IOWA Testing

All third grade students are taking the CogAT & IOWA assessments November 6th-12th to screen for gifted and talented eligibility in the areas of general intellect, reading, math, science, & social studies. Students who obtain a qualifying score in general intellect, reading, and math will be considered for the GTAP programs at Ashland, Meadowthorpe, Tates Creek, and Winburn. We hope you will keep your student at Maxwell because we believe strongly that the dual language immersion program is the BEST magnet program in Fayette County!

Student Council

Our student council team is excited to kick start Maxwell's Cougars & Cubs mentorship program! Our student council team wanted to create an intentional opportunity to allow the primary and intermediate students to get know each other before being partnered with a buddy for the 24-25 school year. On Wednesday, thanks to our AMAZING PTA, all students will receive a special gift to honor them as loved and valued members of the Maxwell community on World Kindness Day! Additionally, we are excited to elect our fifth grade student council officers this month! Student running for positions have the opportunity to campaign through a recorded speech, website page they create, and posters advertising their mission as an elected officer for our school. Good luck to all of our 5th grade candidates! We look forward to voting and sharing the results with the Maxwell community at the end of this month.

Academic Team 

Maxwell Elementary is the reigning regional champion for Academic Team, and I for one am excited to defend our title this year! I look forward to growing our team this year with invigorating energy from our NEW fourth grade team members! We have already begun to prepare for another great season of Future Problem Solving, Composition, Written Assessment, and Quick Recall! Our first academic team scrimmage will be held on Thursday, November 21st.

5th Grade 

Math - During the first 9 weeks we learned all about how to calculate and evaluate proportional relationships to solve real-world problems. Additionally, we learned the formulas for lateral surface area, surface area, and volume of 3-D shapes and used our knowledge to solve calculations when given measurement values. We are excited to use our knowledge of three dimensional shapes this year to create designs for our 3-D printer and to build structures out of cardboard using the Makedo cardboard tool kits! Check it out here! 

ELA - We have been working hard this year to level up the depth and complexity of our writing! Students have worked to develop sentence variety using conjunctive adverbs, creative fluency (quanity of ideas), creative elaboration of ideas, and mindful attention to grammar, conventions, and mechanics. We were very impressed to see the quality of their writing show for their Biztown advertisements this past Friday! We will continue to work on developing the art of highly effective and articulate communication via writing during the school year.

4th Grade

Math - During the first 9 weeks we learned all about ratios and how to real-world problems using our knowledge of ratios. Next, we started our fractions unit by learning how to add fractions with unlike denominators by finding a least common multiple, converting the addends to equivalent fractions with a common denominator, and determining the greatest common factor to write our answer in simplest form. Next up, we will use this knowledge to practice subtracting fractions with unlike denominators involving proper, improper, and mixed fractions.

ELA - We have been working hard this year to level up our inquiry-based discussion and writing by asking meaningful questions with more than one answer. Students have worked hard to find subjective evidence from the first theme of short stories, honesty, in the fifth grade Junior Great Books series. To finish out the semester, students were introduced to an AI resource called, Magic School. Students were given an opportunity to use the AI Research Assistant tool to build background knowledge about a topic of interest. Next, students will be working to develop five inquiry-based questions for an independent research project. Students will use the database research tools on the Biblioteca de Maxwell website to find answers to their inquiry-based questions. Finally, students will decide on a creative way to compile the information learned and share it with their class. We look forward to seeing what they learn and how they share their knowledge with us!

3rd Grade

Math - During the first 9 weeks we have been working hard to learn how to solve multi-digit multiplication and long-division problems! It has been a joy watching students engage in productive struggle throughout this unit! At the beginning, when many of them couldn't master the process on the first try, they were incredibly flustered! We worked and worked diligently to learn how to solve these multi-step calculations, and I can happily say we finally got it!! Here is a link to a song that I wrote and sang to help my students learn the four step process of long division!

ELA - We have been working hard this year to level up our inquiry-based discussion and writing by asking meaningful questions with more than one answer. Students have worked hard to find subjective evidence from the first theme of short stories, respect, in the fifth grade Junior Great Books series. To finish out the semester, students were introduced to an AI resource called, Magic School. Students were given an opportunity to use the AI Research Assistant tool to build background knowledge about a topic of interest. Next, students will be working to develop five inquiry-based questions for an independent research project. Students will use the database research tools on the Biblioteca de Maxwell website to find answers to their inquiry-based questions. Finally, students will decide on a creative way to compile the information learned and share it with their class. We look forward to seeing what they learn and how they share their knowledge with us!

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

All my best,

Rachel Matthews

Maxwell Elementary

Gifted & Talented Specialist