Differentiation of the Curriculum:  Students served in the AIG Program are working above grade level and require specialized instruction to be appropriately challenged. Teachers at Codington Elementary School employ a variety of strategies and practices to meet the needs of our gifted learners.

Codington's teachers use a variety of best practices to meet the needs of all learners in their classrooms.  

The following list is a sampling of tools used for differentiation in the classroom.  Teachers tailor each of these to meet the needs of all students, including gifted learners.

Choice boards          RAFT assignments          Tiered assignments          Think Tac Toe boards

Cluster grouping       Think Dots                        Learning Contracts           Rubric Scoring

Questioning             Anchor Activities

Nurturing Program:  Lessons involving creativity, logic, problem solving, deductive thinking, evaluative thinking, spatial reasoning and more are taught by Castle Hayne's Gifted Education Specialist and classroom teachers.  These lessons help students relate their grade level curriculum to higher level thought processes.  Please visit the "PETS: Thinking Skills" link on the left for more information.

Kindergarten:   Lessons center around Thinking Skills and the Primary Education Thinking Skills (PETS) program, including deductive, logical, evaluative, spatial, and convergent thinking.  Units are designed to challenge all learning levels and help make stronger connections to grade level skills and thought processes. 

First Grade:  Lessons center around Thinking Skills and the Primary Education Thinking Skills (PETS) program, including deductive, logical, evaluative, spatial, and convergent thinking.  Units are designed to challenge all learning levels and help make stronger connections to grade level skills and thought processes.  

Second Grade:  Units are designed to combine the concepts from Kindergarten and First Grade Nurturing Lessons as students merge thinking skills, use logical reasoning while working to reason at a higher level, and consider mathematical concepts through visual/spatial manipulation at a higher level.  Evaluative thinking is a large focus of this grade level's nurturing program.

Think Lab:  The Think Lab is a special place where students practice their thinking skills in a nontraditional way.  For example, students use their deductive, logical, evaluative, spatial, and convergent thinking skills with specific games such as Apples to Apples and the popular Rush Hour, for example.  More information is located under the PETS: Thinking Skills section.  Want ways to help your child at home?  Take an inventory of the games you have available.  This can be board games, backyard games, card games... anything.  Talk with Codington's Gifted Education Specialist about your list.  Mrs. Wescoe can help you target specific thinking skills required for each game.  By doing this, you can be more intentional with your conversation when your child is playing a game at home.