Ms. Tauser

2020-05-17

Hello Stretch students and families,

Here is the procedure for finishing your 20-hour learning projects:

1. When you have completed your 20 hours of learning, make sure your Project Log is up-to-date in Google Classroom.

2. Then, complete your documentation by posting evidence of your growth over the 20 hours of practice. You may refer back to the table I posted in GC which provides a variety of ways to demonstrate how much you’ve learned or how you’ve grown in your skill.

3. Once you’ve completed posting the evidence of your growth, turn in your document or slide show (or whatever format you are using) to the 20-Hour Project Progress Documentation folder from April 6th.

4. Then, SEND ME AN EMAIL letting me know you are done. I will then review your work and indicate your grade in Infinite Campus.

5. Due date for 20-hour projects: no later than 5/21/2020.

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH OPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES:

Visit during my Zoom office hours to discuss your projects, to see your friends, and/or to get your questions answered.
Visit during Wednesday Zoom Lunch Bunch for purely social reasons.
As a reminder, here are the links for my OFFICE HOURS for 7th graders:

Mondays: 9 - 9:30 am, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/892070756

Tuesdays Lunch Bunch: 11:30 am - noon, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/528675764

Tuesdays: 5 - 6 pm, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Wednesdays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Thursdays: 5 - 5:30 pm, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/705705233

Fridays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

4. CONTACT ME: Please feel to reach out to me with your questions. Feel free to ask me to set up a Zoom session with you, as well. I hope you all remain healthy and happy.

2020-05-10

Hello Stretch students and families,

As we close in on the end of the school year, I want to let you know the procedure for finishing your 20-hour learning projects:

1. When you have completed your 20 hours of learning, make sure your Project Log is up-to-date in Google Classroom.

4. Then, SEND ME AN EMAIL letting me know you are done. I will then review your work and indicate your grade in Infinite Campus.

5. Due date for 20-hour projects: any time between now and the end of the semester, but no later than 5/21/2020. I worry that your motivation to finish work will dissipate during the last week of school, so I strongly encourage you to finish up this week!

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH WORK:

1. Spend time learning about your topic and practicing the skills the topic requires.

2. Every time you work on your projects, you need to enter the time into your Project Log in Google Classroom.

3. Use Google Slides to continue posting evidence of your growth in the skills you’ve selected. Each week I update my example of this type of visual diary in a slideshow. It’s in Google Classroom in the 20-Hour Project Progress Documentation folder from April 6th. Two weeks ago, I also posted, in the same folder, a table listing project topics and ideas for ways to document student practice and growth. These ideas are just my suggestions. Because I know significantly less than the students undertaking the projects, you may have much better ways to demonstrate/document your learning.

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH OPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES:

4. Visit during my Zoom office hours to discuss your projects, to see your friends, and/or to get your questions answered.

5. Visit during Tuesday Zoom Lunch Bunch for purely social reasons.

6. Play the games and puzzles linked in the Google Classroom announcement called Online Game Links that I posted on March 30th. Get competitive. Challenge classmates &/or me to play and compare scores.

7. Try out some of the amazing digital resources that the St. Louis County Library offers. Instructions on how to get to those resources and links are posted in the Google Classroom announcement called FREE RESOURCES THE ST. LOUIS COUNTY LIBRARY OFFERS (posted April 6th).

8. Use our Zoom sessions to arrange chess matches with one another, or ask me to teach The Questioning Game or Jotto.

9. As a reminder, here are the links for my OFFICE HOURS for 7th graders:

Mondays: 9 - 9:30 am, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/892070756

Tuesdays Lunch Bunch: 11:30 am - noon, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/528675764

Tuesdays: 5 - 6 pm, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Wednesdays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Thursdays: 5 - 5:30 pm, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/705705233

Fridays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

10. CONTACT ME: Please feel to reach out to me with your questions. Feel free to ask me to set up a Zoom session with you, as well. I hope you all remain healthy and happy.

2020-05-03

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH WORK:

1. Spend time learning about your topic and practicing the skills your topic requires.

2. Every time you work on your projects, you need to enter the time into your Project Log in Google Classroom.

3. Use Google Slides to continue posting evidence of your growth in the skills you’ve selected. Each week I update my example of this type of visual diary in a slideshow. It’s in Google Classroom in the 20-Hour Project Progress Documentation folder from April 6th. Last week I also posted, in the same folder, a table listing project topics and ideas for ways to document your practice and growth. These ideas are just my suggestions. Because I know significantly less than you who are undertaking the projects know, you may have much better ways to demonstrate/document your learning.

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH OPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES:

4. Visit during my Zoom office hours to discuss your projects, to see your friends, and/or to get your questions answered.

5. Visit during Tuesday Zoom Lunch Bunch for purely social reasons.

8. Use our Zoom sessions to arrange chess matches with one another, or ask me to teach The Questioning Game or Jotto.

9. As a reminder, here are the links for my OFFICE HOURS for 7th graders:

Mondays: 9 - 9:30 am, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/892070756

Tuesdays Lunch Bunch: 11:30 am - noon, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/528675764

Tuesdays: 5 - 6 pm, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Wednesdays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Thursdays: 5 - 5:30 pm, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/705705233

Fridays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

10. CONTACT ME: Please feel to reach out to me with your questions. Feel free to ask me to set up a Zoom session with you, as well. I hope you all remain healthy and happy.

2020-04-26

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH WORK:

1. Spend time learning about their topic and practicing the skills the topic requires.

2. Every time they work on their projects, they need to enter the time into their Project Log in Google Classroom.

3. Use Google Slides to continue posting evidence of their growth in the skills they’ve selected. I have posted an example of this type of visual diary in Google Classroom in the 20-Hour Project Progress Documentation folder from April 6th. I found it useful to create a slideshow. I would post one or two photos on a slide with a label indicating how many hours of learning it represented. I then used a second slide to write a brief reflection. The table below includes all (I hope—I know some students have switched topics, but even if theirs isn’t listed, they can look at a similar topic for ideas) of the student project topics. I wrote my ideas for how a student could document learning for each of these topics; however, these are just my suggestions. Because I know significantly less than the students undertaking the projects, they may have much better ways to demonstrate/document their learning.

SKILL: DOCUMENTATION IDEA

Auto maintenance: Write brief reflective journal entries throughout the project saying what you knew initially, what you have mastered after 3 hours, six hours, etc. Take photos of yourself working on various tasks with descriptions of what you’re doing in those photos. List the resources you used to learn the skills (ex. expert instruction, book, online tutorials [include website name & address], etc.). Describe the skills you learned, what you found surprisingly easy or difficult, how you overcame the difficulties, what’s been fun, what’s been boring, how your attitude toward the subject has evolved, how you motivate yourself to persevere when things become difficult or boring or you just want to procrastinate, and what else you want to learn about the topic.

Baking & Cooking: Begin by writing a brief description of your base knowledge and experience before you began your 20 hours. Some people have never boiled water, while others can make scrambled eggs or microwave mac and cheese. Then, take photos of each item you cook/bake. Write a brief reflection for each photo in which you describe how you made it, what new skills you learned, how it turned out, what you did right and what you’d do differently next time, what parts surprised you because of their ease or difficulty, and how the consumers rated it. Include the recipe. Consider taking photos or brief videos of yourself as you practice the new skill (ex. chopping, whisking, flipping items with a spatula, rolling out a pie crust, kneading dough, etc.).

Building / creating products (Woodworking, Sewing, Knitting, etc.): Write a brief reflection describing what you knew about your skill before you began the 20 hours of study. Take photos throughout the process as you hammer, saw, lay out the pattern and cut it out, stitch, baste, hem, knit, purl, stocking stitch, cast on, cast off, etc. Every three hours take photos of what you’ve accomplished to that point. Write a brief reflection that explains what we see in the photo. Describe the process, the difficulties you ran into and how you overcame them, the choices and decisions you made with the project, the skills you’ve improved upon, what you’ll do differently next time, and the next skills/tools/processes you want to master and the next item you are working to create.

Calligraphy: Photo of your first attempt, again after 3 hours of practice, etc. Brief journal reflections explaining what font you’re using, what materials you’re using, challenges, things you’ve mastered, where you want to go next, how you might apply this skill in the future (ex. handwritten invitations, school project labels and titles, writing out favorite poems and illustrating them, etc.).

Card tricks: Begin by writing a brief reflection of what tricks you already know. Describe the tricks you want to learn, the resources you’ll use (how many decks of cards, a book of tricks, video tutorials, etc.), the exercises you’ll practice to improve your dexterity, and which trick you want to learn first. If you do know a trick, have someone film you performing it. Then, after 3 hours of practice, record yourself performing the trick and write a brief reflection on the process. Address the frequency and duration of your practice sessions, the hardest parts of the trick to master, the problems/difficulties you encountered and how you overcame them, and what you’d like to improve on with the trick. Describe your motivation and how you overcome the desire to procrastinate or any boredom you experience. Finally, speculate on your next steps, either in improving on the current trick or in beginning to learn your next trick.

Computer language acquisition: Begin by writing a brief reflection of what skills you already have in computer languages, including whatever you already know about this language you are going to study. Describe what your goals are—are you planning to be able to program in the new language, or do you just want to have a feel for its power, for what it is capable of doing? Describe the resources you’ll use to learn the language (books, online tools, a particular kind of computer, software you need to purchase, etc.). Then, after 3 hours of learning and practice, demonstrate your learning by writing a reflection describing what you’ve learned. What commands have you mastered? What has been difficult, and how did you overcome the difficulties. What surprised you by being easy, and why do you think it was easy for you? What do you next need to learn? If you have done some programming with the new language, can you run the program and use Screencastify to record it so that you can include it in your documentation? Repeat this process after 6 hours, 9 hours, etc.

Dog training: Begin by writing a brief reflection of what skills your dog already knows, how old your dog is, what you already know about training, and what your goals are for your pet (and yourself). Then take video demonstrating these skills (or lack thereof). Take new video (& photos if they help illustrate the growth) after 3 hours of training, again after 6 hours of training, etc. Write a brief reflection to accompany each video in which you describe how and where you practiced, how long your practice sessions typically were, what tools and treats you used, and how the learning progressed (ex. was it linear growth, or did you see some backsliding and the need to start over with particular skills?). Describe the expert resources you’re using (book, video, TV show, online instruction, etc.) what went well, what mistakes you think you made, what adjustments you made and why, what’s been fun so far, how you deal with the potential boredom of repetition, what motivates you, and what you hope to accomplish in the next three hours of practice.

Gardening: Take photos throughout (ex. the seed packets, the containers, the placement, the appearance of beginning growth, etc.). Record the kinds of soil and fertilizer you’re using, the amount and frequency of watering, how much sunlight they get, problems with bugs or animal interference, what you did when we had frost advisories, etc.

Gymnastics skill mastery: Video of first attempt. Description of the baby steps you need to master to achieve the actual move. Video after 3 hours of practice, 6 hours, etc. Brief reflections to go with each of these videos: what you did right, what you need to work on, what has surprised you because of its ease or difficulty, any additional baby steps you need to insert to get from one part of the move to the next, what’s scary, what’s fun, how you deal with the potential boredom of repetition, what motivates you, where is your confidence level, etc.

Instrument mastery: Audio or video record yourself playing your instrument at the very beginning to demonstrate your level of fluency. Create a dated chart to record the notes you are learning and the exercises you are using to practice them. Indicate how much practice you required before you were able to add new notes to your practice. Do the same thing each time you increase the level of difficulty in your learning. On that chart include a column with the resources you’re using (ex. what kind of instrument, a book, a computer program, a metronome, etc., and if you add resources along the way, add those to your chart. Create a new recording after 3 hours of practice, 6 hours, etc. Write brief reflections to accompany those recording in which you describe what you’re pleased with, what areas are causing you troubles and how you’re addressing these challenges, what your next step in learning will be, how you motivate yourself to keep practicing, how you handle boredom or the desire to procrastinate, how you feel when others hear your practice, etc.

Language acquisition: Record yourself speaking at the very beginning to demonstrate your level of fluency. Chart the new words you’re adding to your vocabulary and how quickly you’re able to incorporate them into conversation. Describe the resources you’re using to learn the language (a fluent speaker, a computer program or class, a textbook, Audacity or another audio recorder so you can hear yourself to adjust your pronunciation, etc.). Record yourself after 3 hours, 6 hours, etc. Write brief reflections on what you’ve accomplished, what’s next, what you’re finding difficult or easy, how you motivate yourself to keep going when it feels like you’re not making progress or when it feels boring, etc.

Lawn care skills & business management: Reflective journal entries throughout saying what you knew initially, what you have mastered after 3 hours, six hours, etc. Before and after photos of tasks you worked on (ex. mulching a garden, mowing a lawn, edging a path through a lawn, planting trees/shrubs/flowers). Photos of you working on various tasks with descriptions of what you’re doing in those photos. Describe the difficulties you experienced and how you overcame them, and identify the tasks you like and dislike. List any resources you use to learn the various tasks (book, expert advice, video, online instruction, etc.).

Painting & other arts: Photo of your first attempt. Write a brief description of your knowledge base for painting. Also, identify the resources you will use to learn (ex. book titles, video instruction via a purchased course, online instruction with names of instructors and website addresses, etc.). Then photograph each of your paintings. For each photograph, indicate how many hours of practice it represents, what materials you used (types of paint, brushes, paper, canvas, cardstock, linen, etc.). Brief journal reflections explaining what font you’re using, what materials you’re using, the challenges you ran into and how you overcame them, the techniques you’ve mastered, where you want to go next, how you might apply this skill and continue to pursue it in the future.

Photo editing: Before & after pics from your first attempts, after 3 hours, 6 hours, etc. Explanations of what you did to change the original photo, what you’ve found difficult and how you worked through the difficulties, what tools you have mastered, what tool you next want to master, what has surprised you about the process, etc.

Quilling: Photos of your first efforts, again after 3 hours of practice, etc. Brief journal reflections explaining what patterns you used and how hard it was to master them. Reflect on color choice as well as on how you could use these skills for a new product (ex. make a card, decorate a hollowed out egg shell, add to scrapbook pages, decorate an invitation you’ve saved, etc.)

Rubik’s Cube algorithm mastery: Chart recording the time it takes to solve the cube at the beginning, after 5 hours of learning and practice, etc. Video record yourself solving it at the end. List any resources you use to learn the algorithms (book, video, instruction pamphlet, advice from a more experienced person, online instruction [include website name and address], etc.). Write brief reflections describing the difficulties you encounter and how you overcome them, how you keep yourself motivated, if procrastination &/or boredom is a challenge and how you handle it.

Songwriting & video production: Write a brief initial reflection describing your past experience with these tasks. Describe what you would like to accomplish at the end of 20 hours of practice and learning. Indicate the resources (ex. book titles, video instruction via a purchased course, online instruction with names of instructors and website addresses, etc.) you intend to use. After 3 hours, post a recording of what you have accomplished. Write a brief reflection where you discuss the difficulties you’ve encountered and how you’ll address them, what things you’ve mastered, your satisfaction with your progress, what adjustments you plan to make going forward, and what you will next need to learn to make further progress. Describe your process of songwriting and video production. Are you storyboarding your video? What tools are you using for the song & video production? After 6 hours, repeat this process including the updated recordings and new reflections. Repeat at 9 hours, etc. to demonstrate your growth through your practice and learning.

Sports including Basketball, Ping pong, Rip sticking, Scuba diving, Skateboarding: Video record your starting ability level. [Scuba diving would need to write about starting ability.] Write a brief reflection of your past experience with the sport/skill and what resources you’re using to learn (ex. book, video, advice from an expert, TV shows, online resources [include name and web addresses]). Describe the baby steps you need to master to achieve proficiency in your sport. Video after 3 hours of practice, 6 hours, etc. (excluding scuba which will require writing or photos, where useful). Brief reflections to go with each of these videos: what you did right, what you need to work on, what has surprised you because of its ease or difficulty, any additional baby steps you need to insert to get from one part of a skill to the next, what’s scary, what’s fun, how you deal with the potential boredom of repetition, what motivates you, where is your confidence level, etc.

Studying sports statistics: Write a brief initial reflection indicating what you currently know about the area of statistics you intend to study. Explain what you want to be able to do with this knowledge, how you will use it. Then, as you research and learn, design a way to collect and categorize the information you gain (Google Sheets might be a useful tool, or you could create a table). After 3 hours, post the information you have gathered, showing how you’ve organized it. You might take a screenshot of your table or spreadsheet, or you can make a copy, label it with your name and 3 Hours, and upload it into the Documentation folder in Google Classroom. Then write a brief reflection describing what you can conclude from your statistics at this point. Also describe what you’ve found interesting and/or tedious, what roadblocks and difficulties you’ve encountered, how you’ve overcome those obstacles, what adjustments you have made as you have progressed with your research, and what your next steps are. How have you maintained your motivation, and what have you done when you’ve become bored or wanted to procrastinate? Repeat this process after 6, 9, 12, etc., hours.

Three-D pen mastery: Photo of your first attempt. Photos of new products every three hours of practice to show where you’re growing in skill. Write brief reflections on the materials you use, the resources you are using to learn (book, instruction pamphlet that came with the pen, YouTube instruction videos [include the names and web addresses], etc.), the challenges you did and did not expect, what is getting easier, how you can apply what you’re learning in new products.

Typing: Create a chart to record your initial typing speed and error count for a specific time period (ex. 3 minute typing test). Describe the tools you’re using to learn to type (typewriter only, computer only, typewriter & computer, the name of the typing instruction book or computer programs you’re using). Track the exercises you are using to practice (ex. home row practice). Test yourself again after 3 hours, 6 hours, etc. and record your results. Write brief reflections each three hours about your satisfaction (or lack of) with your progress, what is and isn’t working, what adjustments you’ve made, when you practice and for how long (ex. every morning for 30 minutes, or 15 minutes in the morning and 15 more in the evening), what you’re finding difficult (ex. holding your wrists in the right position or reaching the number keys or striking the keys with the proper pressure or making yourself sit down and practice), and what methods you are using to try to overcome these difficulties.

Writing a book: Describe your process. What was your original story idea? How did you come up with it? How long did you plan? Did you outline? If so, how? by chapter? by plot pyramid? Do you write straight through the story, or do you constantly go back and revise parts? Do you type your story or hand write it? Pencil or pen? Yellow legal pad, spiral notebook, loose leaf? When do you typically write? Do you have a writing routine? How do you handle writer’s block? Every 3 hours or so, summarize what you’ve accomplished (# pages or even words), how you’ve refined your ideas, the problems you’ve encountered (ex. motivation, writer’s block) and how you’ve dealt with them, and what you think is coming next.

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH OPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES:

4. Visit during my Zoom office hours to discuss their projects, to see their friends, and/or to get their questions answered.

5. Visit during Tuesday Zoom Lunch Bunch for purely social reasons.

8. Use our Zoom sessions to arrange chess matches with one another, or ask me to teach The Questioning Game or Jotto.

9. As a reminder, here are the links for my OFFICE HOURS for 7th graders:

Mondays: 9 - 9:30 am, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/892070756

Tuesdays Lunch Bunch: 11:30 am - noon, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/528675764

Tuesdays: 5 - 6 pm, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Wednesdays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Thursdays: 5 - 5:30 pm, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/705705233

Fridays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

10. CONTACT ME: Please feel to reach out to me with your questions. Feel free to ask me to set up a Zoom session with you, as well. I hope you all remain healthy and happy.

2020-04-19

Hello Academic Stretch families,

I am missing your children so much! I teared up at the end of our Thursday evening Zoom session. The fact that I’ve taught your children all together in a classroom for the last time really struck home when I looked at all those earnest faces in the Zoom boxes. To teach gifted students effectively, the teacher must have the humility to be able to say “I don’t know” when they ask difficult questions; just as important, the teacher must be a learner, too, and must be open to learning from her students. I am personally missing out on so much learning by not having daily contact with your students, not to mention the fun and the humor they brought to class every day.

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH WORK:

1. Spend time learning about their topic (practicing the skills the topic requires),

2. enter the time they spend on their projects into their Project Log in Google Classroom, and

3. use Google Slides to begin posting evidence of their growth in the skills they’ve selected. I have posted an example of this type of visual diary in Google Classroom in the 20-Hour Project Progress Documentation folder from April 6th.

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH OPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES:

4. Visit during my Zoom office hours to discuss their projects, to see their friends, and/or to get their questions answered.

5. Visit during Tuesday Zoom Lunch Bunch for purely social reasons.

8. Use our Zoom sessions to arrange chess matches with one another, or ask me to teach The Questioning Game or Jotto.

9. As a reminder, here are the links for my OFFICE HOURS for 7th graders:

Mondays: 9 - 9:30 am, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/892070756

Tuesdays Lunch Bunch: 11:30 am - noon, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/528675764

Tuesdays: 5 - 6 pm, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Wednesdays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Thursdays: 5 - 5:30 pm, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/705705233

Fridays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

10. CONTACT ME: Please feel to reach out to me with your questions. Feel free to ask me to set up a Zoom session with you, as well. I hope you all remain healthy. While sheltering in place is causing serious difficulties for many, I hope that you are able to take advantage of the unique opportunities it affords, especially this blessing of time with your children! This prolonged family time might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I hope you are able to find some joy in it, despite the inconveniences, dangers, and obstacles that are also present.

2020-04-12

Hello Academic Stretch families,

I hope you are all remaining healthy and are still finding ways to enjoy your time with your children. The novelty of sheltering in place has worn off in my house, so I’ve been looking for ways to introduce new ideas and activities into our lives. One of my favorite sources is the St. Louis County Library’s free resources. #3 below describes some of the free items they offer.

THIS WEEK’S ACADEMIC STRETCH WORK:

spend time learning about their topic (practicing the skills the topic requires), and
enter the time they spend on their projects into their Project Log in Google Classroom.

The items that follow are OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENRICHMENT &/OR RESOURCES:

1. I posted links to a number of FUN, EDUCATIONAL ONLINE GAMES that might be a nice break from their usual video games. The folder is in Google Classroom. If any links are blocked with the Chromebooks (the district filter cannot always distinguish between educational games and those that are not school appropriate), they should still work with their phones or the family computers.

2. I have added a WEEKLY ZOOM LUNCH SESSION for the 7th graders. This session is simply an opportunity for them to socialize with their Stretch classmates. I will only be involved if a student asks me a question, or if a conversation strays away from school-appropriate topics or tone. The 7th grade lunches will be each week on Tuesdays from 11:30 to noon. The link for Lunch Bunch follows: https://zoom.us/j/528675764 .

3. THE GREAT COURSES is a website that sells terrific courses taught by experts in their fields. When I first began taking their classes, the courses were college-level academic classes taught by outstanding professors from highly regarded universities. Currently, they offer classes in a much wider variety of fields. I’ve taken drawing, photography, yoga, and even dog training courses from them. The courses are available on CD or DVD, but you can also download them to your computer or watch them from their website (www.thegreatcourses.com). If you are looking for something new to learn, you might want to check them out.

4. The generous mother of a Stretch student shared with me the following information about some FREE RESOURCES THE ST. LOUIS COUNTY LIBRARY OFFERS. She gave me permission to share her summary of them with you. Following the resources are instructions for how your students may access the resources, even if they don't own a physical library card (the topics in all caps are ones that some students selected for their projects):

Creativebug offers video lessons on 1000s of crafts, creative skills and COOKING for adults and kids (anything from PAINTING to CAKE DECORATING to LETTERING to knitting+more).
Mango is an online course to learn your choice of 60+ FOREIGN LANGUAGES.
Lynda.com offers tutorials on TECHNOLOGY and business, etc.
Gale Courses are professional-type courses for career enhancement from business, to health care to education to PHOTOGRAPHY plus more (you enroll in a course over several weeks)
Learning Express Library offers 800+ tutorials for career advancement (resume writing, COMPUTER BASICS, job hunting) and academic advancement including things like ACT/SAT prep

Here's the link: https://www.slcl.org/content/ecourses . OR YOU CAN:

Go to slcl.org,
Click on Using the Library tab
Click on Virtual Library
Go to eCourses

The library also offers lots of things that you can access through the eMedia tab. Then you can view them on a computer on or on an app downloaded to your device:

Overdrive with separate ones for teens and kids--ebooks / audio books / movies / videos
Hoopla--ebooks / audio books / movies / videos / music
Kanopy--movies
TumbleBooks--ebooks for kids (these might be too young for you)
Flipster--magazines
RBdigital--audiobooks and magazines
EBSCO Books--ebooks

Don't worry if you don't have a library card of your own. All the Rockwood students have a county library card through the district that gives them access to the SLCL online resources (you just can't borrow books with that card). We used the card to gain access to the SLCL databases for your research on WWII topics, remember? I'm including the instructions in case you forgot. When prompted by the library website, you need to log in with

your last name,
091+ten-digit student number, and
PIN 1234 (you may change this if you wish [or you may have changed it back in January or February when we were using the databases]).

5. As a reminder, here are the links for my OFFICE HOURS for 7th graders:

Mondays: 9 - 9:30 am, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/892070756

Tuesdays Lunch Bunch: 11:30 am - noon, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/528675764

Tuesdays: 5 - 6 pm, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Wednesdays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Thursdays: 5 - 5:30 pm, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/705705233

Fridays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

CONTACT ME: Please feel to reach out to me with your questions. Feel free to ask me to set up a Zoom session with you, as well. I hope you all remain healthy and enjoy this blessing of time with your children!

2020-04-05

Hello Academic Stretch families,

I hope you are all remaining healthy and finding ways to enjoy your time with your children. LAST WEEK, your children completed the following tasks:

emailed me to tell me the topics they were considering,
selected a topic,
asked you to email me your approval of their topic,
completed a Project Contract and submitted it into Google Classroom,
documented their initial skill level with their topic through video, photos, audio recording, a journal entry, statistics, etc., and
began to enter the time they spent on their projects into their Project Log in Google Classroom.

THIS WEEK’S WORK is much simpler. They should work on the following tasks:

spend time learning about their topic (practicing the skills the topic requires), and
enter the time they spend on their projects into their Project Log in Google Classroom.

The items that follow are OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENRICHMENT &/OR RESOURCES:

2. I have added a WEEKLY ZOOM LUNCH SESSION for the 7th 6th graders. This session is simply an opportunity for them to socialize with their Stretch classmates. I will only be involved if a student asks me a question, or if a conversation strays away from school appropriate topics or tone. The 7th grade lunches will be each week on Tuesdays from 11:30 to noon. The link for Lunch Bunch follows: https://zoom.us/j/528675764 .

3. The generous mother of a Stretch student shared with me the following information about some FREE RESOURCES THE ST. LOUIS COUNTY LIBRARY OFFERS. She gave me permission to share her summary of them with you. Following the resources are instructions for how your students may access the resources, even if they don't own a physical library card (the topics in all caps are ones that some students selected for their projects):

Creativebug offers video lessons on 1000s of crafts, creative skills and COOKING for adults and kids (anything from PAINTING to CAKE DECORATING to LETTERING to knitting+more).
Mango is an online course to learn your choice of 60+ FOREIGN LANGUAGES.
Lynda.com offers tutorials on TECHNOLOGY and business, etc.
Gale Courses are professional-type courses for career enhancement from business, to health care to education to PHOTOGRAPHY plus more (you enroll in a course over several weeks)
Learning Express Library offers 800+ tutorials for career advancement (resume writing, COMPUTER BASICS, job hunting) and academic advancement including things like ACT/SAT prep

Here's the link: https://www.slcl.org/content/ecourses . OR YOU CAN:

Go to slcl.org,
Click on Using the Library tab
Click on Virtual Library
Go to eCourses

The library also offers lots of things that you can access through the eMedia tab. Then you can view them on a computer on or on an app downloaded to your device:

Overdrive with separate ones for teens and kids--ebooks / audio books / movies / videos
Hoopla--ebooks / audio books / movies / videos / music
Kanopy--movies
TumbleBooks--ebooks for kids (these might be too young for you)
Flipster--magazines
RBdigital--audiobooks and magazines
EBSCO Books--ebooks

your last name,
091+ten-digit student number,and
PIN 1234 (you may change this if you [or you may have changed it back in January or February when we were using the databases]).

4. As a reminder, here are the links for my OFFICE HOURS for 7th graders:

Mondays

9 – 9:30 am

https://zoom.us/j/892070756

Tuesdays

5 - 6 pm

tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Wednesdays

9 - 10 am

tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Thursdays

5 – 5:30 pm

https://zoom.us/j/705705233

Fridays

9 - 10 am

tauserterri@rsdmo.org

2020-03-29

Hello Academic Stretch families!

ZOOM: I hope the first two days of school went well. I was thrilled to get to visit with 42 students during our Thursday evening Zoom sessions! I will be available on Zoom Monday Morning from 9 to 9:30 am (link https://zoom.us/j/892070756 ) to answer questions and hear about your students’ project ideas.

20-HOUR PROJECT TOPIC SELECTION: To that end, I have created a folder in Google Classroom called 20-Hour Projects. In it I will post all the material students will need for this assignment. They should begin by reading the Project Ideas document and reviewing it with you. Please, please, please help your students to choose a topic/skill that will engage them for twenty hours! The time they spend on this project should feel more like play than work. I want them to have an “I actually get school credit for doing this” attitude rather than an “I have to do this for school” mindset. It will make all the difference for this assignment.

20-HOUR PROJECT CONTRACT: Next, they’ll need to complete and submit into Google Classroom the Project Contract document. Before I will accept their project choices, though, I will need a quick email from you confirming that you are okay with their choice. This project is meant for them to discover that, with tenacity and practice, they can learn most skills they’re interested in acquiring. It is not meant to cost you a bunch of money or your own time!

20-HOUR PROJECT LOG: Finally, they should begin learning about their topic in order to begin practicing. They need to log all of their project time into the project log that is also posted in the same Google Classroom folder. They will receive periodic grades for keeping their logs current, and they’ll receive an overall grade for the log at the end of the project.

20-HOUR PROJECT DUE DATE: That raises the question, when will this project be due? I’m afraid I can’t answer that right now because returning to school would change what we can ultimately do with our learning. If we’re able to return to our classroom, I would love to have the students present their learning to their classmates. Such presentations would probably take up the last two weeks of school. That would shorten the amount of time students would have in which to get their 20 hours of practice completed. Once I have a sense of the district’s decisions about the rest of this semester, I will provide a more concrete answer. For now, though, I would suggest that students put in at least three hours a week practicing their new skill.

LETTER-WRITING UNIT: I am not going to begin the letter-writing unit this week until I hear more from authorities about the danger of the virus being transmitted through the mail. On Friday evening, our local news reported that a postal worker in a rural section of St. Charles tested positive for Covid-19. While the authorities interviewed indicated the chances of becoming infected through the mail were low, they also suggested wiping down our mail with disinfecting wipes. While I think our students will benefit from the pleasures of receiving mail (as well as learning how to properly write and send letters for different purposes), I do not want to put anyone at risk.

INDEPENDENT RESEARCH PROJECT MAKE-UPS: I will be reaching out via email to students who still have work to complete for their independent research projects and their works consulted documents. I also will Cc their parents. I will be looking to set up individual Zoom sessions with these students to talk to me about their WWII projects so that I am able to assess their work.

2020-03-25

Hello Academic Stretch families & students!

I hope everyone is well and that the only trial you are suffering is cabin fever. Hopefully the resumption of school will provide you with some interesting distractions and some daily structure. Welcome to distance learning, Academic Stretch-style!

My first 7th grade Zoom video-conference session will be Thursday, 3/26/2020, from 5 to 5:30 pm (click https://zoom.us/j/705705233 to join the session or call 1-312-626-6799 and enter meeting ID 705-705-233 to be a phone participant). The purpose of this session is for students to ask questions and connect with one another. Everything students need in order to complete their assignments will be posted in Google Classroom.

My weekly office hours will be as follow:

Mondays: 9 - 9:30 am, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/892070756 , Meeting ID 892-070-756*

Tuesdays: 5 - 6 pm, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Wednesdays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

Thursdays: 5 - 5:30 pm, Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/705705233 , Meeting ID 705-705-233*

Fridays: 9 - 10 am, email: tauserterri@rsdmo.org

*If you prefer to connect to our Zoom session through a telephone call, use this number (1-312-626-6799) and then enter the meeting ID #.

My Thursday Zoom sessions are in the early evening so that parents who are still working may join in and get their questions answered, too. Also, you may still email me at any time of the day or night and I will respond—my email office hours just indicate that I will be at my computer at that time and will try to answer your email immediately. Remember, though, that I may be in the middle of answering someone else’s email when yours arrives, so my response could be delayed.

We are going to be pursuing personal interests with another 20-hour skill acquisition project similar to those your children pursued last year. Since we have fewer demands on our time due to the quarantine, I would like my students to take advantage of this lull to learn about something they’ve always been interested in but never had the time for. Please encourage your children to review their 100 lifetime goals lists that they created last year to come up with ideas. Before students may begin, they’ll need to complete a project contract, share it with you, and get your permission to pursue the topic/skill/activity in which they are interested. It is not my intention that this project become a time or financial burden for parents. If the projects your children propose are too expensive or require too much help from you, then please tell them to find a more reasonable one. Only after you have given your approval to the project will your children begin their learning while maintaining a project log in which they track their work as they pursue that topic/skill/activity. I will provide many more details in Google Classroom.

In addition, we are going to do a letter-writing unit. We will consider how a physical letter that arrives in the mail differs from an email or a text and the circumstances when a letter is preferable to a text. With your permission, we’ll begin by writing letters to friends and include fun items like drawings, stickers, photos, book marks, comics cut from newspapers, etc. Then we’ll move onto thank you notes. I intend to teach them how to write thank you letters, format a friendly letter, write and format a business letter, and address an envelope. It’s my hope that they’ll enjoy receiving letters in the mail from their friends and will realize that writing a thank you note is not a difficult task.

Finally, I recognize that the learning I’ve outlined here is ambitious. I do not expect students to complete these projects by April 22; rather, we will continue with them in school whenever we are able to return. I want their learning to be meaningful, to meet the same curriculum goals we were pursuing with our WWII studies, and to be flexible in terms of student choice of topics and projects to demonstrate their learning.

Please feel free to join our Zoom meetings or, as always, to email me with your concerns, questions, and ideas. Thank you.

2020-03-12

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Happy Spring Break Eve! A quick update: your students have now raised $423.75 for Fisher House! I’m so proud of their hard work and the enthusiasm they’ve exhibited.

We have watched performances of student research projects in class all week. One class is finished, and the others have a few presentations still to perform. We'll pick up with them when we return from break. In addition, we'll read and discuss an article from the History Channel called "The Home Front." We'll use a new reading strategy, and students will be quizzed on the content at the end of the week. We're also about to begin our debate unit--look for more information on that topic after break.

Your children have another opportunity to present their independent research projects to a new audience on April 22nd at the CCL's Cognitive Carnival from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. They'll be able to play their games, sell their products, and show off their learning, as well as raise more money for Fisher House. The CCL administration has invited us to showcase the thinking we do in the gifted program. Because they will be reserving space for us, I need interested students to sign up on the sheet in Google Classroom. If we have enough interest, maybe we'll be able to organize a carpool. A couple of reminders regarding the Cognitive Carnival:

Participation is NOT required, and no grade will be attached.
Students are able to participate for any part of the two hours; they do NOT have to be there for the entire evening.
Students do NOT have to make new projects.
This audience will expect to visit each booth and interact with the students, so your children won't have to wrangle them in to see their projects.
I will be there to help with setup and any last minute emergencies that will undoubtedly arise.
Most importantly, having an authentic audience with which to interact is incredibly powerful for student engagement and enthusiasm!

The dates for established upcoming assignments are listed below. We will return to studying articles and taking article quizzes after spring break. Articles, instructions, and scoring guides are all posted in Google Classroom.

Reading quiz on "The Home Front" - A-Day students, 3/27/2020 - B-Day students, 3/26/2020
Reading quiz on discrimination-on-the-home-front primary sources - A-Day students, 4/2/2020 - B-Day students, 4/3/2020

An invitation for our gifted girls:

Nancy Bonn-Winkler, the gifted specialist counselor at the CCL, sent the Stretch teachers information about a counseling program for middle school girls for us to disseminate. West County Psychological Associates (12125 Woodcrest Executive Drive, Suite 150, Chesterfield, MO 63141) is beginning a new session of their program called "Middle School Managed: A Group for Girls." The program runs on 6 Saturday morning sessions (April 4, April 18, May 2, May 9, May 16 & May 23), 9:30 - 11 am and costs $280. Topics addressed include relationships, communication, social skills, social media use, self esteem, body image, and problem-solving skills. You can visit their website at www.wcpast.com or call (314) 275-8599 for more information. You may register at https://contac.cc//2RZ37KI .

Please contact me with any questions, concerns, and good news you'd like to share, and have a wonderful and healthy vacation week with your children!

2020-03-06

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Your children raised $393 at our project night Wednesday to benefit Fisher House, and I am so proud of their work and enthusiasm! Attendance at project night was phenomenal--more than 90% in each of the 7th grade classes, and close to that among the 6th graders! Thank you, parents, for your support in helping your children to obtain the materials they needed for their projects and for managing to get them to our event for any part of the night. It was a terrific event.

Your students are in the process of presenting their projects to their classmates now that the project night is complete. Thus far we've played games, watched videos, and listened to explanations of the in-depth research the students completed in order to create their projects. I am grading their work as they present to the class. The scoring guide for these projects is posted in Google Classroom for your reference. We will continue with these presentations next week and hopefully conclude before Spring Break.

I'm excited to tell you about another opportunity your children have to present their work to a new audience where they'll be able to play their games, sell their products, and show off their learning. In addition, it'll be a great chance to raise more money for Fisher House. The CCL is having a Cognitive Carnival night on April 22nd from 5:30-7:30 pm to showcase the thinking we do in the gifted program. They have invited the Stretch and high school gifted programs to participate and have promised to reserve a space for us. I just need to let them know how many students will be attending.

Final project class presentations - 3/9/2020 through 3/12/2020
Reading quiz on "The Home Front" - A-Day students, 3/27/2020 - B-Day students, 3/26/2020
Reading quiz on discrimination-on-the-home-front primary sources - A-Day students, 4/2/2020 - B-Day students, 4/3/2020

An invitation for our gifted girls:

Please contact me with any questions, concerns, and good news you'd like to share, and have a wonderful and healthy warm weekend with your children.

2020-02-28

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Our final project night fast approaches! Wednesday, March 4th from 3:30 to 7 pm we will have students running games, manning booths, selling products they've created, and, most of all, educating our visitors about the aspects of WWII that they have spent the month researching.

The projects should display their learning and educate others about their topics; in addition, many students are adding a fund-raising aspect to their projects. All money raised during the project night will be donated to the local Fisher House, a place for veterans and their families to stay while the veteran from out of town receives services from the Jefferson Barracks VA Hospital.

No grade is attached to attendance at our project night, but I believe students will be gratified to share their learning with a real audience. Additionally, many students are eager to raise money for Fisher House by charging money to play their games. It is perfectly okay for a student to come only for part of the conference night. Because attendance is not mandatory, students will present their projects to their classmates in the days after the project night. I will grade their work when they present to the class.

The majority of students have indicated that they want to have the projects on display for the entire conference night from 3:30 to 7 pm, so that they are able to reach as wide an audience as possible for fund-raising purposes. To that end, students are welcome to recruit a friend to help with their projects that night. That way, students will be able to leave their own booths to visit those of their classmates to play their games and learn about their topics. Again, recruiting a friend is not a requirement.

I am encouraging all students to bring their projects from the cafeteria to my classroom that night. I'm hoping it will spare families from having to make arrangements to bring projects back to school another day.

The dates for established upcoming assignments are listed below. I have pushed back the article quizzes until after spring break. Articles, instructions, and scoring guides are all posted in Google Classroom.

Final project - 3/4/2020
Works Consulted document of research sources - 3/4/2020
Final Project Night - 3/4/2020 - during conferences - in the cafeteria
Final project class presentations - 3/5/2020 through 3/12/2020
Reading quiz on "The Home Front" - A-Day students, 3/27/2020 - B-Day students, 3/26/2020
Reading quiz on discrimination-on-the-home-front primary sources - A-Day students, 4/2/2020 - B-Day students, 4/3/2020

Please contact me with any questions, concerns, and good news you'd like to share, and have a wonderful and healthy weekend with your children.

2020-02-21

Hello Academic Stretch families!

First of all, I made a mistake in last week's newsletter--the date of our final project night is Wednesday, March 4th, not the 3rd! I'm sorry for any confusion I caused.

Almost every student has received an email from me containing links to websites that should prove helpful for their individual topics. I'm collecting sites for the remaining students and will email them as soon as I have confirmed their value.

The students have been busy researching their topics, and many have begun to build the projects and displays that they'll use on March 4th during conference night here at South. The projects should display their learning and educate others about their topics; in addition, many students are adding a fund-raising aspect to their projects. All money raised during the project night will be donated to the local Fisher House, a place for veterans and their families to stay while the veteran from out of town receives services from the Jefferson Barracks VA Hospital.

I know that not every student will be able to attend our project night, and that some students will only be able to attend part of the evening. I am telling students that their grade is not dependent upon their attendance at the project night. The majority of students have indicated that they want to have the projects on display for the entire conference night from 3:30 to 7 pm, so that they are able to reach as wide an audience as possible for fund-raising purposes. To that end, students are welcome to recruit a friend to help with their projects that night. That way, students will be able to leave their own booths to visit those of their classmates to play their games and learn about their topics. Again, recruiting a friend is not a requirement.

Students will present their projects to their classmates in the days after the project night, so I will encourage all students to bring their projects from the cafeteria to my classroom that night. I'm hoping it will spare families from having to make arrangements to bring projects back to school another day.

The dates for established upcoming assignments are listed below. I have pushed back the article quizzes until after our final project night. Articles, instructions, and scoring guides are all posted in Google Classroom.

Final project - 3/4/2020
Works Consulted document of research sources - 3/4/2020
Final Project Night - 3/4/2020 - during conferences - in the cafeteria
Final project class presentations - 3/5/2020 through 3/12/2020
Reading quiz on "The Home Front" - A-Day students, 3/11/2020 - B-Day students, 3/12/2020
Reading quiz on discrimination-on-the-home-front primary sources - A-Day students, 3/27/2020 - B-Day students, 3/26/2020

I hope your weekend with your students is both terrific and healthy, and please contact me with any questions, concerns, and good news you'd like to share.

2020-02-14

Hello Academic Stretch families!

We've been busy researching independently selected topics related to WWII in preparation for creating projects which we'll display the evening of 3/3 during conference night here at South. Most students have an idea of the project they want to create to display their learning and educate others about their topics. Others are still learning more about their topics in order to select a fitting project. Many of the projects involve games or products for which the students will charge money. All money raised during the project night will be donated to the local Fisher House, a place for veterans and their families to stay while the veteran from out of town receives services from the Jefferson Barracks VA Hospital.

Three of the four classes have also taken a reading quiz on the History Channel article called "The War in the Pacific." The last class will take the quiz on Tuesday. While some students earned perfect scores on this ten-question quiz, a number of students were disappointed in their performance. I have reminded the students that they are able to drop their lowest quiz score for this semester, just as they did first semester. Quite a few students confessed that they didn't put much effort into studying this time but promised to prepare more thoroughly for the next quiz. We will discuss how they might be more prepared during their classes next week.

The dates for established upcoming assignments are listed below but could change in the event of a snow day. Articles, instructions, and scoring guides are all posted in Google Classroom.

Reading quiz on "The Home Front" - A-Day students, 2/26/2020 - B-Day students, 2/27/2020
Final project - 3/3/2020
Works Consulted document of research sources - 3/3/2020
Final Project Night - 3/3/2020 - during conferences - in the cafeteria
Reading quiz on discrimination-on-the-home-front primary sources - A-Day students, 3/11/2020 - B-Day students, 3/12/2020

I hope you have a wonderful long weekend with your students, and please contact me with any questions, concerns, and good news you'd like to share.

2020-02-07

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Fisher House, a home for out-of-town veterans and their families when visiting a VA hospital for treatment, is the organization the Stretch students selected as the recipient of any money we earn during our final project night. They made this choice after viewing 38 student-produced commercials, and it was a difficult choice as 4 Paws for Humanity ran a close second!

We are holding our final project night on March 3rd during student-led conferences. Students will set up their displays in the cafeteria right after school to be ready to greet visitors before or after their conference appointments. Our goal is to educate our visitors while simultaneously raising money to donate to Fisher House.

Student final projects will be the result of their current independent research into any WWII- or 1940s-related topic that piques their interest. I am teaching the students how to use NoodleTools, an online works consulted (think bibliography + online sources) builder, and they will have this evidence of their research on display at the project night.

Students are investigating topics as varied as 1940s music, the statistics of pro football players who interrupted their careers to go to war, the use of animals during the war, 1940s fashions, victory gardens, various military vehicles, the Holocaust, and even candies invented during the war. Instead of writing traditional research papers, students are going to apply their newly acquired knowledge to create games, write magazine articles, and make products that they will sell during the project night.

Beginning on Monday, I will be distributing History Channel articles to the students for them to read closely during the week as homework. They will have brief reading quizzes at the end of the week to confirm that they understood what they read. The article for this coming Monday is called, "The War in the Pacific." I will be available during class each day as well as after school most days to answer any questions the students have about the reading. The reason for this assignment is that students still need a broad overview of the various aspects of the war, but I don't want to take time away from their final project work.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your students! I know I've written it before, but it bears repeating: please contact me with any questions or concerns you have about the class, and know that you will find a receptive audience in me if you choose to tell me about the wonderful things your children are doing outside of class.

2020-01-24

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Students are finishing up their commercials promoting a veteran-related charity. Students are finishing up their editing and checking to make sure they haven't overlooked any of the requirements listed on the assignment sheet and scoring guide. These commercials are due no later than Tuesday morning, 1/28/2020.

You are cordially invited to our "film festival" which will take place in the South library on Tuesday, January 28th. The 7th graders will view and vote for their favorites during first block (7:50 am) and the 6th graders will do the same second block (9:35 am). Whichever charity receives the most votes will be the recipient of the money we earn during our final project night on March 4th during spring conferences.

We will begin our independent research projects on Wednesday of next week. Students will select a topic of interest that ties in some way to WWII or the 1940s. As they research, they will be considering different ways they could educate the public about their topics in a fun and profitable manner. The methods they select will become their final projects.

Have a wonderful weekend with your students, stay warm, and please reach out to me with your concerns or questions.

2020-01-10

Hello Academic Stretch families!

We’re kicking off our new semester with students identifying, researching, and selecting various veterans’ charities. Individuals and pairs of students have selected the charities they are going to promote to be the recipient of our future fundraising efforts. Students are currently researching to write scripts for brief commercials they will produce to persuade their classmates that their charity is most deserving of our donation. Next week they will prepare their scripts and storyboards; afterwards, they will begin film production. Commercials need to be complete by Friday, January 24th when we will view them all and vote for their favorite charity.

Charities Under Consideration

Air Force Aid SocietyArmed Services YMCA of the USABugles Across AmericaDisabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust4 Paws for AbilityFisher HouseFreedom Service Dogs of AmericaGary Sinise FoundationGateway Chapter, Paralyzed Veterans of AmericaHire Heroes, USAHope for the WarriorJefferson Barracks Heritage FoundationNational Veterans’ FoundationOperation HomefrontOperation Second ChancePuppies Behind BarsTunnel to TowersUSOWolves for WarriorsBob Woodruff Family FoundationWounded Warriors Family ProjectWreaths Across America

Once we know who we’re working to support, students will begin their independent research projects on WWII-related topics. They will later create products to educate the public while raising money for our charity. I will provide the date for our final project night as soon as I’m able to confirm it.

I have suspended weekly logic puzzles for the next two weeks so that students may focus all of their attention on their commercials.

Aren’t you glad that the rain we’re experiencing isn’t snow?! Enjoy your weekend with your students, and please reach out to me with any questions or concerns you may have. I’m always happy to hear about your students’ good news, too!

2019-12-13

Hello Academic Stretch families!

With one week left in the semester, students should be checking Infinite Campus to make sure they have turned in everything. I have left notes next to their scores when they have the chance to improve their work and resubmit it. Since they were working on so many projects simultaneously (because we could only have one student at a time trace using the overhead projector), students completed assignments at different times. If your child is missing an assignment other than a logic puzzle, please encourage him or her to complete it and submit it right away. They'll also need to send me an email letting me know to look for it.

We have one more article quiz next week. A-Day classes voted to take the quiz on Thursday, and the B-day students will have their quiz on Wednesday. The materials for the quiz are the History Channel article called "D-Day & the War in the Pacific--The War in Europe" and a primary source called "Recollections of Richard Scudder, Paratrooper at D-Day." Students have a vocabulary list as well as copies of the articles.

The reading strategy for these articles is listening to an audio-recording of the text of each article. The recordings are posted in Canvas (another internet platform Rockwood has adopted for school assignments). I've also posted in Canvas some maps of the Normandy region of France and an interesting article about the strategies the Allies used to trick the Germans about their invasion plans. These maps and articles are supplemental materials--they will not be on the quiz--but they may help the students to better understand the topic.

The 7th graders have completed their final logic puzzle of the semester. Next week I plan to show them a new type of puzzle, and they will begin solving a cryptogram puzzle each week when we return in January.

We are continuing with our WWII movie lunches for both 6th and 7th grade lunch periods. Right now we are watching The Longest Day, a 1962 winner of two Academy Awards about the D-Day invasion from the perspectives of the Germans, the French, the British, and the Americans. Some of the students are experiencing subtitles for the first time. While they found the movie a little slow to start, now they are gushing about how good it is. If your child isn't watching it during lunch, I highly recommend encouraging him or her to watch it over break. It is rated G, stars John Wayne, and is historically pretty accurate.

Thank you everyone who has reached out to me with questions; I'm eager to know your concerns so that I can address them before they grow larger. Please know that I want all the best for your children, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend with them.

2019-12-06

Hello Academic Stretch families,

This week and next week are about finishing up a bunch of projects that students are completing. Three students are still using the overhead projector to trace their images, quite a few more are in the process of coloring or painting the images, and others are simply waiting for theirs to be laminated. As they come back from lamination, I photograph each student holding the art, so they have evidence that they've completed the assignment.

Expect to see new assignments in Infinite Campus for these art contributions to the mural honoring veterans, writing assignments from their thank you letters and from their reflections on our assembly, presentations of sketchnote summaries of the primary sources we read two weeks ago (sketchnoting was that article's reading strategy), and the cards they made for the veterans. In addition, each student should have read and annotated our next article called, "D-Day & the War in the Pacific: The War in Europe." We will discuss it next week, apply a new reading strategy to add to their repertoire, and possibly have a quiz on it either on Thursday and Friday of next week or on Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week. I'd prefer the earlier date because student minds traditionally find it more challenging to focus on school work during the week before an extended break, but I also want to make sure they are prepared.

We also began an introduction to our next major unit--the independent research project. Currently, we're looking at a wide variety of WWII-related topics, and a huge variety of project ideas to present the results of their learning. You'll hear lots more after the break--right now, I'm just trying to get them thinking about possibilities.

Our logic puzzles continue, and next week the 7th graders have "Science Friction." A-day class puzzles are due on 12/13/19 and B-day puzzles on 12/12/19.

I am continuing with movie lunches each day, and a number of students have taken advantage of the chance to see Casablanca and The Sound of Music. This week we've begun The Longest Day (rated G, 1962 winner of 2 Academy Awards). If you think this movie is something your student would enjoy, please encourage him or her to come to my class at lunchtime.

Thank you to the parents who have reached out to me with questions, and I hope everyone is comfortable checking in with me with any concerns. Please know that I want all the best for your children, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend with them.

2019-11-22

Hello Academic Stretch families,

This week students took an open-notes quiz in which they used the maps they researched and labeled last month to label 10 countries on a blank map. Students who did a good job on their map assignment in class did very well on their quiz.

We continued to read and discuss some primary sources including a German telegram sent to the Nazi leadership about the Kristallnacht attack on Jewish-owned businesses and on synagogues and a letter Winston Churchill sent to President Roosevelt to persuade him to bring the USA into the war. I also shared with the students a poem about the importance of remembering and honoring our veterans. The poem was sent to me by a woman who watched our Veterans’ Day presentation. She thought the poem supported the work your students are doing to honor veterans and to remember our history. Finally, I provided the students with a vocabulary list for the articles they’re reading to help them prepare for the next articles quiz. On Friday and Monday, they will try two new strategies to support close reading: text annotation and illustrating a text. We won’t have the articles quiz until December 4th at the earliest, and we’ll review in the class before the quiz.

Students are still working on their art contributions to the wall of honor mural we are creating. We will begin to print the photos of veterans that the RSMS community sent in to place on the honor wall. We'll also be making labels indicating the kind of service and the relationship to the RSMS student. These labels will be placed with the photographs.

Since the weather cooperated this week, we managed to finish spray painting all of the CDs for our flag. We have some more assembling to do, and then we’ll hang it outside to coat the painted sides with polyurethane. We are making progress!

Because of the brief week, students won’t have logic puzzles due next week. We will continue with our logic puzzles on Thursday, December 5th and Friday, December 6th. On those days, the 6th graders have due the puzzle called "NESMA" and the 7th graders "Prevarication Place."

I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your students. Please feel free to email or call me with any questions or concerns you have, or just to brag about the amazing things your children are accomplishing.

2019-11-15

Hello Academic Stretch families,

We did it! The Veterans' Day Assembly was a big success. I'm collecting the feedback I've received from faculty and staff here at South, from parents and grandparents, and from the veterans to share with the students, and everyone has been very generous with their praise. I hope that seeing these comments will emphasize to the students how appreciated their work was. I am bursting with pride in your students and their commitment to this project. Stretch students have stayed after school for weeks working on the flag of CDs, the ornaments, the hand-made cards, and the letters. We had twenty students and parents come to school on Saturday and Sunday to decorate, to create the gift bags for the veterans, to finish the ornaments we made, and to finalize the agenda for the event. Thank you to everyone who helped in some way with this worthwhile, albeit gigantic, project!

We are continuing to learn about WWII as we read and discuss some primary sources. "The Recollections of Margrit Fisher," a German woman who was 13 when Hitler came to power, helped us to understand why the German people would find hope in his leadership. Fisher's reference to German unemployment led us to an examination of a very basic model of a healthy economy and a depression economy. Next week we will read a German telegram sent to the Nazi leadership about the Kristallnacht attack on Jewish-owned businesses and on synagogues. We'll also review a letter Winston Churchill sent to President Roosevelt to persuade him to bring the USA into the war.

I plan to introduce the independent research project to the students next week. If the weather cooperates, we will spray paint some more CDs for our flag. We continue with our logic puzzles, as well. On Thursday and Friday of next week, the 6th graders have due the puzzle called "Better Late" and the 7th graders "Recovering Soap Addict."

2019-11-08

Hello Academic Stretch families!

You might guess, since I'm writing this update at 9:29 pm here at Rockwood South, that things have been a little busier than usual in Academic Stretch this week. First things first--thank you to the many parents who have helped in so many ways this week! Donations of butter, mints, ornaments, CDs, stickers, and money have been vital to our work this week. Parent drivers made the Thursday performance possible. Loans of blow dryers and kitchen tongs have allowed multiple students to work on creating ornaments at the same time. I am in awe of your generosity and your enthusiasm. Thank you so much!

Weekend Assembly Work: I will be here at South on Saturday from noon until 4:30 and will be thrilled to have help from any students interested for any part of that time. We'll be setting up the cafeteria and gym, decorating, and making more ornaments. If we don't finish on Saturday, I'll be back at the same times on Sunday. Come knock on the outer door nearest my classroom if you come to help, and try the main doors if no one is in the room to hear you. It'll mean we're decorating in the cafeteria.

Monday Morning: We will begin filling balloons with helium around 6:30 am in my classroom. Feel free to drop your student off to help out.

Assembly Preparation: Our frenzied work continues as we try to get everything ready to honor our veterans on Monday, November 11th (light breakfast at 7:45; program at 8:10). Thank you cards are all created. Formal thank you letters have all been edited, printed, and glued into the cards. I'll get grades posted after Monday. We've iced over 100 cookies (baked by the wonderful FACS classes using the butter you so generously donated) that will be in the gift bags for the veterans. We've created 19 ornaments so far, and some students are coming into school on Saturday and Sunday to finish. Check out the photo to see how pretty they are. We have finished creating backdrops for two photo stations to take pictures of the veterans and their families. We have a student-generated form for keeping track of each photo with the name and email address of the person to whom we we will send the jpeg. We've filled gift bags with cards, mints, flag pencils, and ornaments. We have procured the helium tank to fill balloons early Monday morning--I'll be here at 6 am to get started. Students have worked with Mrs. Eisenreich in the office and with the custodial staff to make sure we have chairs, microphone, and podium in the gym, and breakfast items in the cafeteria. We're meeting with Mr. Geary early Monday to hook up the computer to the system in the gym. We invited the school to participate in a door-decorating contest in honor of Veterans' Day, and some students created custom tickets to give veterans so they can vote for their favorite door. We've assembled costumes, created posters, prepared slides to follow the assembly, and borrowed American flags for the program. One student is still working on a video montage of photos of our community's veterans. Students have rehearsed skits, poems, speeches, and songs. Finally, thirty students who are on stage for the assembly had the chance to perform to a women's group at a local church. It was an educational experience for the ladies who praised our students to the skies. The students learned a lot as well, and they made adjustments to our program for Monday after seeing how things went Thursday.

CD American Flag Progress: We made some adjustments to our flag plan after noticing that the proportion of blue to red and white seemed inaccurate. After lots of real-life mathematical problem-solving, we came up with flag plan 2.0 which requires 904 CDs! Believe it or not, we have fewer than 200 discs left to paint. We have 15 of the 37 columns of the flag of CDs ready to go. Again, refer to the photo.

The classroom is a mess of creativity right now, but I'm thrilled with the sense of ownership and excitement your children are demonstrating. I'm so proud of them; they're working hard and learning lots of life skills.

It's 10:46 right now, and while I'm sure I've forgotten something I want to tell you, I suspect I won't remember until after I get some sleep. Have a wonderful weekend, stay warm, and reach out to me with your questions, news, and ideas.

2019-10-31

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Happy Halloween! I enjoyed getting to see many of you at conferences last night. This week’s update is very similar to last week’s because we’re still working furiously to prepare for the Veterans’ Day presentations, cards, gifts, and the 20 foot by 12 foot US flag of compact discs. I want to let you know how much I appreciate the donations you have made, your children’s willingness to stay after school to work on these projects, and your willingness to pick up your students after our work sessions.

Assembly Invitation: You should have already received an email from Dr. Birkenmeier inviting you to our assembly and providing details, but if you didn’t see it, please mark your calendars for 11/11/19 from about 7:45 am until 9:20 am. We are also seeking the following information from you:

* If you have a LIVING friend, relative, acquaintance who is a veteran or in active duty in the military:

Please invite him or her or them to our Veterans' Day Assembly on Monday, Nov. 11. We’ll begin at 7:45 am with a light breakfast and photos, and then move into the gym for the assembly. We’ll conclude no later than 9:20 am.

* If you have a friend, relative, acquaintance--LIVING or DECEASED--who you would like included on the “Why Should We Remember? Wall of Honor”:

Please send me as much of the following information as possible:

name, rank, branch of service, war (if applicable), relationship to you, job title, awards/commendations, photo in uniform or current pic if possible (I can scan it and return it to you if you would prefer, or you can send me a jpg).

Assembly Preparation: We are working like crazy people to get everything ready to honor our veterans on Monday, November 11th. Most students have completed their thank you letters to the vets. Once I’ve graded them all, I will post the grades in Infinite Campus. Almost everyone in the class has completed or is in the process of creating hand-made thank you cards inside which they're gluing their letters. Our plan is that each veteran will receive a letter at the assembly. Students in skits are still coming to the Stretch classroom at lunch to rehearse each day, and other students are coming down to help with assembling the flag we're building. They're also working on posters for the skits, grating crayons to make ornaments to give the veterans, and collecting material for the video they are making. They have researched to find the best prices for any materials we will need, and they've generated a list of items for which we're seeking donations. We will be grateful for help with any part of any of the following items:

* 9 more pounds of unsalted butter to make the patriotic cookies for the veterans’ gift bags. Thank you for the donations of 3 pounds as of today!

* $60 to purchase clear glass ornaments to make gifts for the veterans’ gift bags or the ornaments themselves (we need 80 non-iridescent clear glass balls approximately 2 inches across). Thank you for the donations of $21.50 and a box of ten ornaments!

* $18 to purchase Black Posca Pens (@ $3.81 each) and Uni Posca Paint Marker PC-1M Gold & Silver, 2 pens per Pack ($5.40 for 1 set) to write on the glass ornaments or the pens themselves (the prices listed are from Amazon). Thank you for the donations of $12 towards these pens already!

* Mints to include in the veterans’ gift bags

* Patriotic ribbons, stickers, etc., for the ornaments and to decorate the cards the students are making

Field Trip Permission Slips: Students who are a part of the skits have received and taken home (hopefully!) their permission slips indicating your willingness to have your child ride in a parent-driven car. I need these signed permission slips on Monday—please! Thank you.

* Parent drivers needed! We are seeking parents of students who are performing in the skits, song, and flag ceremony on Thursday, November 7^th, leaving school from room 100 at 9:00 am and returning to school by 11:15 am to transport students to Manchester United Methodist Church (intersection of Manchester & 141). We need to transport 31 students. Thank you for considering this request. Thank you to the 5 parents who have volunteered as of now and who are able to bring about 20 students!

CD American Flag Progress: As I write this update, your students have completed the first 13 columns of painted CDs for our flag. All of the stars and the stripes below them are done. That leaves 25 columns of 23 CDs each to go! Every donated CD has been drilled, and many were painted before we ran out of spray paint. More is on order, and we’ll continue as soon as it arrives. Having the flag completed by 11/11 will depend largely on the weather, though. We've learned that neither cold temperatures nor friendly breezes are compatible with spray painting compact discs, and we've got a lot of painting yet to complete. Here's hoping we get a couple of warm, still days in the next week.

Logic Puzzles: 11/7/19 (A-DAY CLASSES) – 11/8/19 (B-DAY CLASSES)

“Knitted or Crocheted” for 7^th grade
“May I Cut In?” for 6^th grade

Please be sure to continue to contact me with any questions or concerns you have. I hope you enjoy this Halloween and long weekend with your students.

2019-10-25

Hello Academic Stretch families!

I enjoyed getting to see many of you at conferences last night and look forward to seeing more next Wednesday.

Assembly Invitation: You'll receive an email from Dr. Birkenmeier inviting you to our assembly and providing details, but please mark your calendars for 11/11/19 from about 7:45 am until 9:20 am. We are also seeking the following information from you:

* If you have a LIVING friend, relative, acquaintance who is a veteran or in active duty in the military:

* If you have a friend, relative, acquaintance--LIVING or DECEASED--who you would like included on the "Why Should We Remember? Wall of Honor":

Please send me as much of the following information as possible:

Assembly Preparation: We are working like crazy people to get everything ready to honor our veterans on Monday, November 11th. Students are in the process of writing thank you letters to the vets. Once their letters are complete, they are able to begin creating hand-made thank you cards inside which they'll glue their letters. Our plan is that each veteran will receive a letter at the assembly. Students in skits are coming to the Stretch classroom at lunch to rehearse each day, and other students are coming down to help with assembling the flag we're building. They're also working on posters for the skits, grating crayons to make ornaments to give the veterans, and collecting material for the video they are making. They have researched to find the best prices for any materials we will need, and they've generated a list of items for which we're seeking donations. We will be grateful for help with any part of any of the following items:

* 12 pounds of unsalted butter to make the patriotic cookies for the veterans’ gift bags

* $80 to purchase clear glass ornaments to make gifts for the veterans’ gift bags or the ornaments themselves (we need 80 non-iridescent clear glass balls approximately 2 inches across)

* $30 to purchase Black Posca Pens (@ $3.81 each) and Uni Posca Paint Marker PC-1M Gold & Silver, 2 pens per Pack ($5.40 for 1 set) to write on the glass ornaments or the pens themselves (the prices listed are from Amazon).

* Mints to include in the veterans’ gift bags

* Patriotic ribbons, stickers, etc., for the ornaments and to decorate the cards the students are making

Assembly Rehearsal Field Trip: A ladies’ group at Manchester United Methodist Church called Lydia’s Circle asked if we would present a program about Veterans’ Day on Thursday, 11/7/19. We thought it would be a good practice run before the big assembly on 11/11/19. I will be sending home field trip permission slips with the students who are performing--unfortunately, this trip is to provide a program for others, so only the students who are in the skits will be able to attend.

* Parent drivers needed! We are seeking parents of students who are performing in the skits, song, and flag ceremony on Thursday, November 7^th from about 9:30 am until 1 pm (I will have confirmation on the times on Friday evening) to transport students to Manchester United Methodist Church (intersection of Manchester & 141). Thank you for considering this request.

CD American Flag Progress: As I write this update, your students are completing the 9th column of painted CDs for our flag. That leaves 29 columns of 23 CDs each to go! Having the flag completed by 11/11 will depend largely on the weather. We've learned that neither cold temperatures nor friendly breezes are compatible with spray painting compact discs, and we've got a lot of painting yet to complete. Here's hoping we get a couple of warm, still days in the next week or two.

WWII Maps: Some students still haven't submitted their maps of Europe and the Pacific that were due more than a week ago. I am still accepting them because I want each student to have a working knowledge of where events occurred during the war. I have indicated in Infinite Campus if a student's map is turned in or is missing. Please encourage your student to complete this assignment.

Logic Puzzles: 10/31/19 (A-DAY CLASSES) – 10/30/19 (B-DAY CLASSES)

“Soldiers & Sailors” for 7^th grade

Please be sure to continue to contact me with any questions or concerns you have. I hope you enjoy this weekend with your students.

2019-10-11

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Article Studies: Next week we will read a new article called “D-Day: The War in Europe.” We will continue with new strategies to improve the students’ close reading skills so that they’re better able to understand and analyze the information.

Mural Progress: Students in each class are taking turns using the overhead projector to trace their images. A few students in each class are drawing their images freehand, as well.

We are still seeking a photo (digital or hard copy) or a scan of a photo of any veteran you would like us to honor on our mural. Their information will be placed on stars that will be displayed throughout the mural. We’ll display photos, too, if you provide them. We’ll scan them in class and return the originals to you, or you can email the photos to us. Please email pictures along with name, rank, service branch, war or place of service to me at tauserterri@rsdmo.org or have your student deliver it to me during class. It will also help us if you spread the word to others you think would be interested. Thank you!

Primary Sources Quiz: Quiz results are posted in Infinite Campus, and by and large, your children are doing better with each quiz. For this past quiz, I encouraged students to create flash cards, and many students said they found that study aid most helpful.

WWII Maps: All students have unlabeled copies of maps of Europe and of the Pacific theater. They are working in class to identify and label the countries with their pre-WWII names. This assignment is more complicated than the students expected, so I have provided them with lists of countries, cities, states, islands, and bodies of water that they should locate and label on their maps. We will finish them next week.

CD American Flag Progress: Student mathematicians have determined that we will need 874 CDs to complete our project. We have currently collected 562, so we’re looking for 312 more. Please ask family and friends if they have any old CDs lying around that they are no longer using. We’re spray painting them, so pictures and writing won’t be a problem.

At this point, students have spray painted about 100 red CDs, all 50 stars with blue backgrounds, and 100 blue CDs. We’re waiting for the weather to cooperate to continue with painting next week.

Veterans’ Day: Please mark your calendars and invite your veterans to our school's celebration of veterans on November 11th at 7:30 am. We'll be providing coffee, juice and a light snack as well as honoring the veterans with an assembly that our WWII Academic Stretch students are currently planning. Students have begun rehearsing their skits and speeches during lunch and we’ll continue with that practice next week. Some students are researching the history of the celebration and others are looking for new poems and skits we can use in the assembly.

Lunchtime Movie Progress: I sent an email to parents of the students who want to continue watching movies requesting that they indicate if their children have permission to watch PG-13 movies. If you haven’t already, please email me back indicating that your child does or does not have permission to watch movies. We are not currently watching movies because we’re using my classroom for assembly rehearsals.

Logic Puzzles: 10/17/19 (A-DAY CLASSES) – 10/18/19 (B-DAY CLASSES)

“Heavy Betting” for 7^th grade

Please be sure to continue to contact me with any questions or concerns you have. Enjoy this weekend with your terrific students - I’m enjoying them during the week. Let’s go, Cards!

2019-10-04

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Article Studies: Students read Charles Lindbergh’s “America First” speech in which he argues against the US involvement in WWII. Then they read an editorial response from the New York Times presenting arguments counter to Lindbergh’s. Finally, they viewed and then read FDR’s December 8^th, 1941 declaration of war speech. They identified all of the unfamiliar words, and then I created and distributed a vocabulary list for those words. They also identified the reasons each party gave for his stance regarding the war, and we discussed why they would have such different opinions.

Mural Progress: Almost every student has identified an image they would like to create for our mural honoring veterans, and students in each class are taking turns using the overhead projector to trace their images.

We would love it if you would send in a photo (digital or hard copy) or a scan of a photo of any veteran you would like us to honor on our mural. Their information will be placed on stars that will be displayed throughout the mural. We’ll display photos, too, if you provide them. We’ll scan them in class and return the originals to you, or you can email the photos to us. Please email pictures along with name, rank, service branch, war or place of service to me at tauserterri@rsdmo.org or have your student deliver it to me during class. It will also help us if you spread the word to others you think would be interested. Thank you!

WWII Maps: All students have unlabeled copies of maps of Europe and of the Pacific theater. They are working in class to identify and label the countries with their pre-WWII names.

CD American Flag Progress: Student mathematicians have determined that we will need 874 CDs to complete our project. We have currently collected 528, so we’re looking for 356 more. Please ask family and friends if they have any old CDs lying around that they are no longer using. We’re spray painting them, so pictures and writing won’t be a problem.

The math for this project has been a challenge, and a number of students have worked overtime trying to figure out the best size for the flag. The trickiest part has been figuring out how best to maintain the proper proportions while painting as few CDs with fractions of stripes (or even more difficult, stars) as possible.

Students have been researching the cost of spray paints, plant hanger wall brackets, PVC pipe, fishing line, wide tip Sharpies, and other items we will need for this project; in addition, they’ve been trying to determine what materials the items are made from in order to make the best choices regarding durability for an outdoor display.

They have spray painted about 100 CDs blue and cut out 50 star stencils and attached them to CDs. They’ve also come up with ways to keep the stencils flush against the CDs so the paint doesn’t bleed under the stencils.

Veterans’ Day: Please mark your calendars and invite your veterans to our school's celebration of veterans on November 11th at 7:30 am. We'll be providing coffee, juice and a light snack as well as honoring the veterans with an assembly that our WWII Academic Stretch students are currently planning. Students will begin rehearsing their skits and speeches during lunch next week in preparation for the assembly, so your attendance will be truly meaningful to them.

Birthday Celebrations: As we begin October, we have celebrated the birthdays of 10 students thus far by serenading them with “Happy Birthday.” I have also tried to give each birthday boy and girl the candy bar each identified as favorite as a birthday treat. Students with summer birthdays will be honored on their half-birthdays instead so that no one misses out.

Lunchtime Movie Progress: Students who choose to come to the classroom during lunch to watch WWII movies have completed Casablanca this week. I am sending a separate email to parents of the students who want to continue watching movies requesting that they indicate if their children have permission to watch PG-13 movies.

Quizzes and Homework

Primary Sources Quiz: 10/8/19 (B-DAY CLASSES) – 10/9/19 (A-DAY CLASSES)

· Students have the vocabulary list and the articles with the information they need to study highlighted. I have also posted my annotations for the articles in their Google Classroom folder along with the vocabulary sheet. Students are urged to make flash cards of the reasons Charles Lindbergh, the New York Times, and Franklin D. Roosevelt identified for and against entering the war. The quiz will require that they match each reason with the person who made that point.

Cricut & Printer Ideas: 10/8/19 (B-DAY CLASSES) – 10/9/19 (A-DAY CLASSES)

· 3 project ideas for a printer and 3 more for a Cricut due by the end of class. I am applying for a grant to purchase these items, and I want to be able to specifically identify how students would use these items for their projects for a final project night fundraiser

Logic Puzzles: 10/10/19 (B-DAY CLASSES) – 10/11/19 (A-DAY CLASSES)

· “Summer Employment” for 6^th grade & “Dear Sophie” for 7^th grade

Please be sure to continue to contact me with any questions or concerns you have. I hope you get to enjoy the lovely fall weather this weekend with your terrific students (and maybe get to root on the Cardinals, too!).

2019-09-27

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Can you believe September is almost over? I'm having so much fun with your students. We've completed our study of the article about Pearl Harbor with a quiz and the student creation of slideshows that visually represent the concepts in the article.

Students have begun to create their pictures for our mural. The mural is meant to honor our veterans from all branches of the military. Students who are uncomfortable free-handing their drawing have the option of using an overhead projector and transparency to trace their picture.

We're also working on labeling maps of Europe and the Pacific as they were represented before WWII began. Students will have the option of using Google Draw for their maps or to label the paper copies I have given them. We will refer back to these maps repeatedly as we follow the changes as the war progressed.

We have begun painting the CDs for our flag and will continue next week. In addition, students are completing one logic puzzle per week.

During lunch, some students are coming to my classroom to watch Casablanca. We see about 15 minutes per day. I'll offer other WWII-related movies in the future, but after we finish Casablanca, some students will spend lunch rehearsing skits for our Veterans' Day assembly.

Please be sure to continue to contact me with any questions or concerns you have. I hope you have a lovely last weekend of September with your terrific students!

2019-09-20

Hello Academic Stretch families!

We have been so busy in Academic Stretch this week! Over thirty students came to a lunch meeting to begin planning for our Veterans' Day assembly on Monday, November 11th. Many of them also volunteered to work on the presentation about Veterans' Day that we will present to a women's group at Manchester United Methodist Church on Thursday, November 7th. This presentation will serve as a practice run for our big celebration on Veterans' Day. We'll be needing some parents to volunteer as drivers on 11/7 to get us to the church at the intersection of Hwy. 141 and Manchester Road, so if you are able to help with driving, please let me know.

We completed our study of some of the anti-Semitic laws enacted in Germany between 1933 and 1945 so that students could see how people could be fooled into remaining in Germany as they lost their rights until it was too late to escape. Ask your children to tell you about the activity. I would be interested in hearing how they describe it to you.

Additionally, we have read our third History Channel article called "Pearl Harbor & America's Response." The students will have time in class next week to work in small groups to create visual slide shows that would accompany the text of the article. The close reading this assignment requires, along with the search for useful visual images, should help students to understand and remember the information within the article.

Students will be independently working on a number of tasks during the next two weeks. They'll be labeling maps of Europe and the Pacific with the names the countries had before WWII began. They will be selecting images that they will draw (the use of an overhead transparency is optional but reduces the stress for many students) for the mural we will display in the hallway to demonstrate why it is important to remember and honor veterans. Students will begin taking turns to trace their images Students will also begin creating thank you cards that we will give to the veterans who attend our program on 11/11. I will be teaching the students how to write a formal letter, and they will then apply that knowledge to write letters thanking the veterans for their service. Those letters will be inserted within the handmade cards.

Homework for next week includes writing two sample test questions based on the "Pearl Harbor" article. These are due on Tuesday (9/24) for the B-Day classes and Wednesday (9/25) for the A-Day students. We'll use them to review for an article quiz which we will take on Thursday (B-Day) and Friday (A-Day), so the homework for Tuesday and Wednesday nights is to study the article. Finally, the students have a new logic puzzle, "Physicians' Foursome," due on Thursday (B-Day) and Friday (A-Day) of next week.

Have a wonderful weekend with your students, and as always, please contact me with any questions or concerns you have.

2019-09-13

Hello Academic Stretch families!

We've had a productive and busy week learning about the Holocaust, and you'll see in Infinite Campus that your students certainly learned a great deal. Students reported that writing the practice quiz questions helped them as did the article images slideshow I created to accompany the reading. Everyone improved on their second reading quiz, so I was able to drop their lower grade before completing progress reports for the first reporting period. Can you believe we've already arrived at progress reports!?! Our next article, "Pearl Harbor & America's Response," is scheduled for next week. We will use the same techniques to learn about this topic, but this time the students will work in pairs to create the images slideshow.

Today we began logic puzzles in the A-Day classes; the B-Day classes will receive that lesson on Monday, 9/16. Based on student feedback from last year, I distributed a packet that contains all of the puzzles, but only one puzzle will be due each week. Just as we did last year, they will be assigned the puzzle on Thursday/Friday, and it will be due on the following Thursday/Friday, at which time we will review the solution. In addition to the packet, I will post each week's puzzle assignment in a Google Classroom folder called Critical Thinking: Logic Puzzles so that students may print a copy if they lose their packet or leave it at school. Along with the puzzles, I am posting in this folder documents to help students solve the puzzles, but these are strictly for reference purposes--they don't have to do anything with them. We reviewed my expectation that they demonstrate evidence of effort to solve the puzzle, and that their grade is not dependent on arriving at the correct solution. We are developing skills here, and that takes concentrated, self-correcting practice, not perfection! Students should never spend stressful hours trying to solve one puzzle. I am again encouraging students to take a picture of their completed homework with their ChromeBook or phone so that they may show me the image if they forget the packet at home. We discussed the acceptance of these assignments as late work, and the students determined that they should not receive credit because we will be reviewing the solution on the due date, so late submissions won't have the benefit of the new learning that the assignment is intended to develop.

Finally, the A-Day students participated in an activity designed to help us to understand how Hitler introduced laws that gradually took away the rights of the Germans he regarded as enemies of the state. Please ask your student to describe the activity; it really demonstrated how people can be led by small increments to accept injustices that would be met with outrage if they were implemented all at once. This will be Monday’s activity for the B-day students.

Thank you for your support, and please contact me with any questions or concerns. I hope your weekend with your children is terrific!

2019-09-06

Hello Stretch families,

This week in Stretch we completed our reading of our second History Channel article. “Genocide & the Holocaust” briefly describes Hitler’s use of prejudice to unite the German people. The authors are careful to keep descriptions of the Holocaust to a minimum and provide no salacious details. I am giving you this heads-up because your students might ask you more about the topic. Their homework for the weekend is to write two possible test questions based on the article. The assignment is in Google Classroom, as is a copy of the article for students who have lost theirs. Writing test questions requires a closer, more analytical reading of the text, and it’s my hope that it will increase their comprehension, and thus their performance on the article quiz. To avoid weekend memory loss, we will take the quiz on Wednesday and Thursday. I postponed the quiz from yesterday and today because I wanted to give the students more time to ask questions so they feel better prepared for the quiz. Generally, the conversations where we answered these questions were highly engaging with everyone participating. I loved hearing students asking and answering one another’s questions!

We also participated in our first talking circle this week. We set group norms for the circle (things like the need to listen and to avoid being critical of one another). Our topic was patriotism versus nationalism, and the purpose was to give students a clearer understanding of the differences and to determine if we are experiencing nationalism in the USA today, as we often hear in the media. Once our students know the history of WWII, they will be able to make informed judgments about current events and the degree of oppression in our nation today.

Next week, in addition to the review and the article quiz, we will participate in an activity meant to demonstrate how skillfully Hitler used legislation to insidiously strip “enemies of the state” of their rights as citizens. It will help students to answer the question, ‘Why didn’t the Jews just leave Germany before they were sent to concentration camps?’ We will also read and discuss a children’s book called Terrible Things by Eve Bunting. It is an allegory of the Holocaust that demonstrates how people can become victims through their inaction as bystanders.

I will also begin assigning logic puzzles for homework to improve students’ critical thinking skills. Students will receive full credit for these assignments as long as they demonstrate that they made an honest attempt to solve the puzzle. Coming up with the correct answer, while our ultimate goal, is not a requirement to earn points. The puzzles are challenging and are supposed to require effort; however, I do not want students to spend excessive amounts of time and anxiety struggling to derive the solutions. They should just give it an honest try.

We’re still collecting old CDs for our flag project, so if your extended family or neighbors have any, we’ll be thrilled to take them off your hands. Have a wonderful weekend with your children, and please contact me with any questions or concerns you have.

2019-08-30

Hello Academic Stretch families!

It’s been a busy week at South for the Stretch students. We took our first reading quiz on the article called “The Rise of Fascism: Germany, Italy & Japan.” Scores ranged from perfect to disappointing, and some students were anxious about their grades. I have promised them that I will drop their lowest quiz score, so this grade will not automatically hurt their average. We’ll have another quiz on Thursday and Friday of next week, and I will drop the lower score immediately so it doesn’t remain in Infinite Campus causing worries. We also discussed the reasons for poor performance and how to adjust their study strategy. Some admitted to failing to study, and others simply read through the article a couple of times. Some students said they hadn’t paid enough attention to the article discussion we had in class after we had read it aloud twice. Finally, some students failed to recognize the connections between the three countries that the article was trying to highlight. We will read the new article--”Genocide and the Holocaust”--on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I expect the students will be much more focused, take better notes, and ask better questions this time. Also, since the quiz will be in the same week, they won’t have a weekend in between in which to forget the article. Additionally, I have been telling your children that I am available during lunch, homeroom, and after school to help them study. They just need to let me know they’re coming so that I can get back from the high school by 2:39 if they want to stay after school.

We still are in need of more old CDs to begin creating a giant American flag that we want to have on display in time for our Veterans' Day assembly. Just a heads up--Veterans' Day is Monday, November 11th this year, and you're all invited to attend our morning assembly. Additionally, the students who volunteer to play a part in the assembly will be invited to present it during a field trip to a women's group the Thursday before (November 7th), so we'll get a chance to rehearse before the actual assembly.

I am still encouraging your children to turn in their time capsule flash drives from last year. They should load the drives with photos, scans of programs, tickets and cards, school projects and anything else that documents their 6th grade year. They're basically creating a digital memory box or scrapbook that represents everything important that they experienced during their 6th grade year. They'll get those flash drives back in May of their 8th grade year so they can see concrete evidence of their growth and maturity. It helps them to learn how time changes everything and maybe gives them hope when they're going through a rough patch in their lives.

Please encourage them to study for the genocide quiz on Thursday and Friday, to save their 6th grade memories and work onto their time capsule flash drive, and to ask family, friends and neighbors for old CDs.

Have a wonderful long weekend with your students, and please contact me right away if you have any questions or concerns!

2019-08-23

Hello Academic Stretch families!

The Academic Stretch students took the WWII pre-assessment and reviewed their results. Because of your students' insatiable curiosity, we spent a lot of time discussing the correct answers. Students concluded that they don't know enough about the war, so we won't be wasting their time by studying it.

We began our study by reading, annotating, and discussing an article from the History Channel called "The Rise of Fascism: Germany, Italy & Japan." We will take a quiz on the information on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Throughout the semester, we will use a series of articles from the History Channel to obtain a basic understanding of the war, and then students will delve more deeply into self-selected topics.

In preparation for our Veterans' Day assembly, we've collected quite a few old CDs to begin creating a giant American flag, but we need lots more. Your children may be asking if they may bring a can of spray paint--any color, mostly used up is fine--to school for one day. We want to test a variety of paints on the CDs to see what type works best (glossy, matte, polyurethane, etc.). The student will bring the can home that same day. Then we'll purchase cans of whatever works best in red, white and blue to create our flag. Just a heads up--Veterans' Day is Monday, November 11th this year, and you're all invited to attend our morning assembly. Additionally, the students who volunteer to play a part in the assembly will be invited to present it during a field trip to a women's group the Thursday before, so we'll get a chance to rehearse before the actual assembly.

I am encouraging your children to turn in their time capsule flash drives from last year. They should load the drives with photos, scans of programs, tickets and cards, school projects and anything else that documents their 6th grade year. They're basically creating a digital memory box or scrapbook that represents everything important that they experienced during their 6th grade year. They'll get those flash drives back in May of their 8th grade year so they can see concrete evidence of their growth and maturity. It helps them to learn how time changes everything and maybe gives them hope when they're going through a rough patch in their lives.

Please encourage them to study for the fascism quiz on Monday and Tuesday, to save their 6th grade memories and work onto their time capsule flash drive, to ask family, friends and neighbors for old CDs, and to bring in spray paint if there's any available at home.

Have a wonderful weekend with your students, and thank you for entrusting part of their education to me. I am enjoying seeing how much they've grown up just over the summer!

2019-08-16

Hello Academic Stretch families!

Welcome back to Rockwood South and Academic Stretch. I am so happy to be your student's teacher again this year, and I anticipate we will have an exciting year of learning and growth. This week, we took photos and reviewed class expectations, drill procedures, and the clubs I sponsor. We participated in a variety of activities designed to illustrate the Falcon Creed (safe, responsible, respectful) in situations the students will encounter on a daily basis. I reminded your students that, as the specialist for gifted education in our building, my role is to be both their teacher and their advocate. I encouraged them to seek my help when they run into any problems here at South. If I don't know the answer, I will be sure to find out for them. Please encourage your students to use me as a resource.

This year we are going to examine the overarching question of why it is important to remember the past, and we’re going to use the vehicle of World War Two to find some valid answers to this question. We will view the topic from every angle we can. The A-Day students took a pre-assessment today, and the B-Day students will do so on Monday. The purpose of this test is to provide me with a sense of their general knowledge of the topic. The grade will be posted in Infinite Campus as a formative grade, which means that it will not be used in calculating their actual course grade. At the end of the year, the students will be able to see their growth when they compare their post-assessment to this initial test score.

The only homework right now is to bring in a canned food item and any old CDs you have. We are going to be using them to create an American flag, and we're going to need a bunch! Thank you, and have a wonderful weekend with your students. Please contact me with any questions or concerns you have--I'm a resource for families, too.

2019-05-17

I can’t believe this is the last Friday of the school year! Time has surely flown, but so will summer vacation.

Stretch Signature Soirée

Thank you to the many families who were able to attend our Stretch Signature Soirée Monday night! Your presence made the evening much more meaningful for our students. Many commented on how much they enjoyed the chance to tell interested people about their 20-hour projects. I also need recognize the families who, though unable to attend Monday night, made the extra effort to have their students’ projects here on display. Thank you for your help despite the inconvenience. I am in the process of reducing the size of the photos I took so that I am able to email them to students and parents, but these may not be complete until after school lets out.

Meeting of the Minds Debate & Luncheon

We have one more event to invite you to attend this coming Monday and Tuesday when we will experience a Meeting of the Minds. You are invited to attend our Meeting of the Minds debate/luncheon which is scheduled for your child’s class period:

Monday, May 20th, A-Day: 6th grade class 7:47 - 9:22, 7th grade class 11:31 - 1:03, and 7th grade B-Day class 1:07 - 2:39.

Tuesday, May 21st, B-Day: 6th grade class 7:47 - 9:22, 7th grade class 11:31 - 1:03.

Students have signed up to bring refreshments associated with their decade or their influential person to share at the debate.

All of the Stretch students should have completed the reading of the biography/autobiography of the person they deemed most influential from the decade they selected. Most have also completed writing their position statement that responds to the following question: Should the United States serve as the police and emergency services provider for the world? These statements, which should take between 60 to 90 seconds to read aloud, must be written from the point of view of the subject of their biography. The statements must include details from the person’s life that support their position on the topic. Rarely will students find a statement in their reading that spells out the influential person's opinion on this issue; instead, the students need to infer from the choices their people made, the people with whom they associated, the charities they supported, the careers they pursued, the educations they received, and the hobbies and interests on which they spent their time how their people would have answered this debate question.

A printed copy of the position statement and of the notes the student took while reading the book are the admission tickets required for our event. If the student doesn’t have these materials, he/she will spend the class period in the library writing these assignments so that he/she is able to submit them for a grade before the class ends.

Impromptu Speeches & Logic Puzzles

We have completed our one-minute impromptu speeches. Students have recorded all of these speeches and uploaded them to Google Drive. Please ask your children to show them to you. I think you’ll be pleased with their growth in confidence and communication skills over the course of the year. Their very first speech, describing their mandalas, should also be saved in Google Drive and will really show you how far they’ve come in public speaking. We have also completed critical thinking logic puzzles. Students submitted "Looking for Direction" this Thursday and Friday and reported that they found it very easy to solve.

Final Thoughts

Academic Stretch is so named because the gifted program goal is for us to stretch our students in ways they might find initially uncomfortable in order to help them to discover new abilities, new knowledge, new confidence in their abilities, and new excitement for learning that encourages them to take risks and pursue new interests. My hope is that students will find the work sufficiently challenging that they won’t always succeed on their first try. I want them to learn that an initial failure or mistake should only spur them on to try harder, not to let the setbacks discourage them so that they choose not to pick themselves up and try again. This year I have undertaken that same challenge myself. I have grown a great deal as a teacher as I have designed, implemented, and participated in these self-knowledge learning experiences for your students. I have not always been successful in meeting my personal goals, but the enthusiasm, curiosity, and understanding your students have consistently shown me inspired me to keep trying. I have learned so much this year about your students and also about myself, about my limits and abilities, and about improving myself as a teacher, and it is my fervent hope that your children have experienced similar growth.

Finally, on a practical and purely entertaining note, I want you to be aware that I am in the process of posting links to all of the photos I have taken during classes this year in your students’ Google Classroom Academic Stretch folders. Please ask your students to open the folders so that you can see photos of them and their projects and presentations for the past school year.

Thank you for entrusting part of your children’s education to me and for sharing with me students who make me happy to get up and come to school every day! I have had a wonderful two years working with your students, and I know they are capable of wild success in 8th grade. Have an amazing summer, and I look forward to seeing your students in the hallways and in clubs next year.

PROGRAMS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST TO STRETCH STUDENTS

Gifted Resource Council Summer Programs

(I included the elementary grade programs as well for families with younger siblings.)

June 10-21

· Math, Marvels & More (completing grades K-2): Adding Light to the Subject

· ECO Academy (completing grades 3-8): ECO-nomics + ECO-logy

June 24-July 5

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Dinosaurs to Tropical Rainforests

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Peasant to Crown

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Return to the Moon: Lunar Living & Leisure

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Return to the Moon: Outposts & Orbiting

July 8-19

· Academy Americana (completing grades 1-3): Who (Was) Were…Early 20th Century Stars?

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Ocean Depths to Outer Space

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Castle to Village

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Beyond the Moon: Sailing into Space

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Beyond the Moon: Science of Lunar Launching

Held at Wydown Middle School, 6500 Wydown Blvd, Clayton MO 63105

Cost: $500 per 2-week session (scholarships available)

9:00-3:30 Monday-Friday (extended care available)

Go to the GRC Web site: https://www.giftedresourcecouncil.org/index.php/summer-academies/

Call: 314-962-5920

Email: info@giftedresourcecouncil.org

2019-05-10

On Monday, May 13th between 7 and 8 pm, you are cordially invited to attend our Stretch Signature Soirée in the RSMS cafeteria. Similar to the final project nights at the CCL, this evening is an opportunity for your children to display the results of their skill acquisition and research projects. You'll see a wide variety of projects and topics that reflect the varied interests of our gifted students. Because our theme for this year of study was self-knowledge, I encouraged students to pursue subjects they find fascinating but never had the chance to pursue. I hope you'll find the results of their learning as interesting as I have. Students will be able to set up their displays beginning at 6 pm.

If a student is unable to attend the Stretch Signature Soirée on Monday night, I have asked him or her to make arrangements with a classmate or with me to have the project here at school so that we are able to display it at the event. The students helped to select this date in early March, and they based it on what seemed a reasonable amount of time to complete twenty hours of focused, self-correcting practice of their skills.

Almost all of the Stretch students have presented to their classmates a dress rehearsal of their 20-hour learning project in preparation for the Stretch Signature Soirée. Their presentation purpose is to demonstrate their growth in the skill that they selected. They are also providing us with their project logs that indicate where and when they worked on the skill and what activity they did during that time. Videos, slide shows, photographs, and portfolios provided evidence of growth. We’ve even seen the notes, outlines, charts, character sketches, and completed chapters a student has created for the novel she has spent more than twenty hours writing. Their classmates and I provided feedback to help the presenters with ways to best showcase their work at the presentation night. All students should have a minimum of a sign with their name and project topic displayed. Many students report that they are working on tri-fold display boards on which they plan to display information about their 20-hour skill and their related research project.

All of the Stretch students have selected the person they deem most influential from their decade about whom they are reading biographies or autobiographies. Only one or two students still need to get their hands on an actual book, and it is important that they do so immediately. You are invited to attend our Meeting of the Minds debate/luncheon which is scheduled for your child’s class period on the last Monday and Tuesday of school:

Monday, May 20th, A-Day: 6th grade class 7:47 - 9:22 and 7th grade class 11:31 - 1:03.

Tuesday, May 21st, B-Day: 6th grade class 7:47 - 9:22, 7th grade class 11:31 - 1:03, and 7th grade class 1:07 - 2:39.

Students will be bringing refreshments associated with their decade or their influential person to share at the debate.

At this point, the students should be reading and taking notes about their influential person both at home and at school during CCLA. The debate topic is, "Should the United States serve as the police and emergency services provider for the world?" The academic challenge that makes this assignment "Stretch-worthy" is that the students will need to determine the position their historical figure would take on this question and be able to provide evidence from their lives to support that opinion. It is extremely rare for a student to find a statement in their reading that spells out the influential person's opinion on this issue. Instead, the students need to infer from the choices their people made, the people with whom they associated, the charities they supported, the careers they pursued, the educations they received, and the hobbies and interests on which they spent their time how their people would have answered this debate question.

Students completed and submitted their final journal entries for the year, and I am in the process of grading them. For the past couple of weeks, I have reminded students during journal time to check that EACH of their entries meets the following requirements:

a minimum of five sentences in length,
free of spelling errors,
no two sentences in an entry may begin with the same word.

Students have had ten to fifteen minutes at the beginning of each class period to respond to the journal prompts which are also posted in Google Classroom. Students know they are expected to make up any entries they miss due to absences. Because of the amount of class time dedicated to these entries, no student should have had any journal-related homework.

Have a wonderful Mothers’ Day weekend with your children, and please contact me with any questions or concerns you have.

PROGRAMS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST TO STRETCH STUDENTS

Gifted Resource Council Summer Programs

(I included the elementary grade programs as well for families with younger siblings.)

June 10-21

· Math, Marvels & More (completing grades K-2): Adding Light to the Subject

· ECO Academy (completing grades 3-8): ECO-nomics + ECO-logy

June 24-July 5

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Dinosaurs to Tropical Rainforests

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Peasant to Crown

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Return to the Moon: Lunar Living & Leisure

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Return to the Moon: Outposts & Orbiting

July 8-19

· Academy Americana (completing grades 1-3): Who (Was) Were…Early 20th Century Stars?

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Ocean Depths to Outer Space

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Castle to Village

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Beyond the Moon: Sailing into Space

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Beyond the Moon: Science of Lunar Launching

Held at Wydown Middle School, 6500 Wydown Blvd, Clayton MO 63105

Cost: $500 per 2-week session (scholarships available)

9:00-3:30 Monday-Friday (extended care available)

Go to the GRC Web site: https://www.giftedresourcecouncil.org/index.php/summer-academies/

Call: 314-962-5920

Email: info@giftedresourcecouncil.org

2019-05-03

On Monday, May 13th between 7 and 8 pm, you are cordially invited to attend our Stretch Signature Soiree in the RSMS cafeteria. Similar to the final project nights at the CCL, this evening is an opportunity for your children to display the results of their skill acquisition and research projects. You'll see a wide variety of projects and topics that reflect the varied interests of our gifted students. Because our theme for this year of study was self-knowledge, I encouraged students to pursue subjects they find fascinating but never had the chance to pursue. I hope you'll find the results of their learning as interesting as I have. Students will be able to set up their displays beginning at 6 pm.

Stretch students have begun presenting their 20-hour learning project to their classmates in preparation for the Stretch Signature Soiree. Their presentation goal is to demonstrate their growth in the skill that they selected. They are also providing us with their project logs that indicate where and when they worked on the skill and what activity they did during that time. To this point, we have seen videos, slide shows, photographs, and portfolios as evidence of growth. We’ve even seen the notes, outlines, charts, character sketches, and completed chapters a student has created for the novel she has spent more than twenty hours writing. Their classmates and I are providing feedback to help the presenters with ways to best showcase their work at the presentation night. All students should have a minimum of a sign with their name and project topic displayed. Many students report that they are working on tri-fold display boards on which they plan to display information about their 20-hour skill and their related research project.

Monday, May 20th, A-Day: 6th grade class 7:47 - 9:22 and 7th grade class 11:31 - 1:03.

Tuesday, May 21st, B-Day: 6th grade class 7:47 - 9:22, 7th grade class 11:31 - 1:03, and 7th grade class 1:07 - 2:39.

Students will be bringing refreshments associated with their decade or their influential person to share at the debate.

Decade research in preparation for building the timeline has paused while we view one another’s 20-hour skill presentations. We’ll pick up with research as soon as the class finishes the presentations. All assignment sheets and scoring guides for both the Decades Unit and the Meeting of the Minds event are posted in Google Classroom.

Yesterday and today, students have completed and submitted their final journal entries for the year, and I am in the process of grading them. For the past couple of weeks, I have reminded students during journal time to check that EACH of their entries meets the following requirements:

a minimum of five sentences in length,
free of spelling errors,
no two sentences in an entry may begin with the same word.

We continue with daily one-minute impromptu speeches. These brief and informal speeches provide students with the practice necessary to become accustomed to speaking before an audience. We are also continuing with our critical thinking logic puzzles. Students submitted "Home Improvement" this Thursday and Friday, and they received "Reunion Lunch" which is due next Thursday and Friday. I created and posted a grid in Google Classroom that will prove very helpful as students work to solve this puzzle, and I have informed all of the classes about it. If they seem to be struggling, please encourage them to use the grid.

Have a wonderful weekend with your children, and please contact me with any questions or concerns you have.

PROGRAMS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST TO STRETCH STUDENTS

St. Louis County Library

Saturday, May 4, 2019

All branches of the St. Louis County Library are giving away comic books to interested students while supplies last!

Greater St. Louis Book Fair

Queeny Park, Greensfelder Recreation Complex

May 2 – 5, 2019

Friday, May 3 & Saturday, May 4 – free admission, 10 am – 8 pm

Sunday, May 5 – free admission, 11 am – 6 pm, ALL ITEMS ½ PRICE!

www.stlouisbookfair.org

Spend your summer at Wash U!

We still have space available in the following programs:

· High School Summer Scholars Program

· Humanities Institute

· Young Leaders Institute

· Middle School Summer Challenge (select courses)

Application deadline is April 1st!

Summer Experiences

Washington University in St. Louis

Campus Box 1145

11 North Jackson Road, Suite 1000

St. Louis, MO 63105-2153

summerexperiences.wustl.edu

Gifted Resource Council Summer Programs

(I included the elementary grade programs as well for families with younger siblings.)

June 10-21

· Math, Marvels & More (completing grades K-2): Adding Light to the Subject

· ECO Academy (completing grades 3-8): ECO-nomics + ECO-logy

June 24-July 5

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Dinosaurs to Tropical Rainforests

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Peasant to Crown

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Return to the Moon: Lunar Living & Leisure

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Return to the Moon: Outposts & Orbiting

July 8-19

· Academy Americana (completing grades 1-3): Who (Was) Were…Early 20th Century Stars?

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Ocean Depths to Outer Space

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Castle to Village

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Beyond the Moon: Sailing into Space

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Beyond the Moon: Science of Lunar Launching

Held at Wydown Middle School, 6500 Wydown Blvd, Clayton MO 63105

Cost: $500 per 2-week session (scholarships available)

9:00-3:30 Monday-Friday (extended care available)

Go to the GRC Web site: https://www.giftedresourcecouncil.org/index.php/summer-academies/

Call: 314-962-5920

Email: info@giftedresourcecouncil.org

2019-04-26

On May first, students will begin presenting the results of their 20-hour learning project in Academic Stretch. They will provide us with evidence that demonstrates their growth in the skill that they selected, and they will show us their project logs that indicate where and when they worked on the skill and what activity they did during that time. Evidence will vary by student and type of skill selected. Students may have photos, videos, audio recordings, statistics, or written descriptions of their level of competence when they began the twenty hours and where their proficiency was after twenty hours of deliberate, mindful, self-correcting practice. It is my sincere hope that your children have developed the following characteristics as a result of this assignment:

1. a new hobby or skill that they enjoy and/or value,

2. a recognition that grit, or perseverance, will help them to be successful even when they meet with initial difficulties,

3. a greater confidence in their ability to learn something on their own, and

4. an increased willingness to take sensible risks--to challenge themselves with classes, projects, and activities that are initially a little beyond their current abilities.

On Monday, May 13th between 7 and 8 pm, you are cordially invited to attend our Stretch Signature Soiree in the RSMS cafeteria. Similar to the final project nights at the CCL, this evening is an opportunity for your children to display the results of their skill acquisition and research projects. You'll see a wide variety of projects and topics that reflect the varied interests of our gifted students. Because our theme for this year of study was self-knowledge, I encouraged students to pursue subjects they find fascinating but never had the chance to pursue. I hope you'll find the results of their learning as interesting as I have. Students will be able to set up their displays beginning at 6 pm.

This week, all of the Stretch students should have selected the person they deem most influential from their decade. They need to locate a biography or autobiography about that person to read for our Meeting of the Minds debate at the end of the school year. You are invited to attend that event, which is tentatively scheduled for their class period on the last Monday and Tuesday of school:

Monday, May 20th, A-Day: 6th grade class 7:47 - 9:22 and 7th grade class 11:31 - 1:03.

Tuesday, May 21st, B-Day: 6th grade class 7:47 - 9:22, 7th grade class 11:31 - 1:03, and 7th grade class 1:07 - 2:39.

Refreshments in the form of food and drink associated with a decade or an influential person will be served.

Right now, the students should have or be in the process of getting their books to read and take notes on both at home and at school during CCLA. The debate topic is, "Should the United States serve as the police and emergency services provider for the world?" The academic challenge that makes this assignment "Stretch-worthy" is that the students will need to determine the position their historical figure would take on this question and be able to provide evidence from their lives to support that opinion. It is extremely rare for a student to find a statement in their reading that spells out the influential person's opinion on this issue. Instead, the students need to infer from the choices their people made, the people with whom they associated, the charities they supported, the careers they pursued, the educations they received, and the hobbies and interests on which they spent their time how their people would have answered this debate question.

Students will come to class in costume or with a prop and remain in character as their person for the entire class period. They'll each provide position statements, after which they'll argue one another's logic using knowledge of their decade and person to support their arguments. Some of the characters you will get to see interacting with one another at the debates include the following movers and shakers of the 20^th Century in the USA: Orville and Wilbur Wright, Helen Keller, Ronald Reagan, Bill Gates, Amelia Earhart, Oprah Winfrey, Charles Lindbergh, Barbara Bush, Gerald Ford, Neil Armstrong, Richard Nixon, Jane Addams, Zelda Fitzgerald, Jeanette Rankin, J. Edgar Hoover, Franklin, Eleanor, and Teddy Roosevelt, Matt Groening, Henry Ford, Gloria Steinem, Martin Luther King, Jr., Al Capone, Woodrow Wilson, Rosa Parks, Claire McCardell, Sally Ride, Jackie Kennedy, Lucille Ball, Jack Johnson, Jackie Robinson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Warren G. Harding, Sandra Day O'Connor, Walt Disney, and Emily Post.

Students have also begun researching their decade in preparation for building a floor-to-ceiling timeline. They have partners in this project from all of the other 6th and 7th grade Academic Stretch classes. All collaboration will be via email and shared folders and documents in Google Drive. The groups have identified ways to keep themselves and their partners accountable and all will have the opportunity to evaluate themselves and their group members at the end of the unit. All assignment sheets and scoring guides for both the Decades Unit and the Meeting of the Minds event are posted in Google Classroom.

Students will complete their 19th and 20th journal entries in class next week and then submit the journal documents to be graded. Each entry needs to be a minimum of five sentences in length and free of spelling errors, and no two sentences in an entry may begin with the same word. Students have had ten to fifteen minutes at the beginning of each class period to respond to the journal prompts which are also posted in Google Classroom. Students know they are expected to make up any entries they miss due to absences. Because of the amount of class time dedicated to these entries, no student should have had any journal-related homework.

We continue with daily one-minute impromptu speeches (one speech per class per day) and many students have completed their second speech. These brief and informal speeches provide students with the practice necessary to become accustomed to speaking before an audience. We are also continuing with our critical thinking logic puzzles. Students submitted "Karaoke Queens" this Thursday and Friday, and they received "Home Improvement" which is due next Thursday and Friday.

I hope your weekend with your children is lovely. Please contact me with any questions or concerns you have, and thank you for trusting me with a part of your students' education.

2019-04-18

Stretch students have spent this abbreviated week beginning the Decades Unit. They've examined books dedicated to their decade to get an overview and to identify their decade's most influential person. They should be looking for a biography or an autobiography of that person to read and take notes on. They'll have time in Mrs. Barrett's CCLA class to do some of their reading as they prepare for our Meeting of the Minds lunch and debate at the end of the year.

Over this long weekend, students should be working on their 20-hour learning projects which are due at the end of the month. They will be presenting the results of that project at the Stretch Signature Soiree which is scheduled for Monday, May 13th from 7 until 8 pm. We will begin setting up the displays at 6 pm. Our version of the CCL final project night, the Soiree is a chance for students to demonstrate their growth in skill in the 20-hour project they selected for the semester. Students will also have their research projects available for parents and friends to see. If it is at all possible, please have your student purchase (or locate one to re-use) a tri-fold display board. If not, a table easel or some other way to inform visitors about their station will be helpful. As we draw nearer to the Soiree, the students will determine what information they will need to display on the board as an introduction to their work.

Finally, they have a new logic puzzle--Karaoke Queens--that is due on the last class of next week. Finally, it would be great if they could identify the biography or autobiography they want to read and request it from the public library (or school, if we own it). I hope you have a wonderful four-day weekend with your children!

2019-04-12

The Academic Stretch students are finally finished presenting their research projects. I am reviewing some of their videos and slideshows before I enter their grades into Infinite Campus to make sure I didn't miss anything from their presentations, so you should be able to see their posted grades next week. Students are currently writing reflections on the quality of their projects and performances, the amount of information they learned that was not common knowledge, their use of the approximately 650 minutes of class time we dedicated to research, and their attention to detail in terms of proofreading and visual appeal. I want students to examine their work as honestly as they are able in order to improve next time.

We have moved onto a second set of impromptu speeches, and I am seeing great improvement in public speaking skills as well as in the comfort level students are exhibiting as they get up to give another speech. We will continue with these through the end of the semester.

Students have also completed their 16th logic puzzle and have received a new one called "NESMA (National Extremely Smart Minds Association) Exam." As always, the puzzles are posted in Google Classroom for students who lose the paper copy. Also, I encourage them to take a photo of their completed puzzle with their phone or Chromebook as insurance in case they forget the assignment at home. These puzzles are always due on the last Stretch class of the week.

The Stretch Signature Soiree is scheduled for Monday, May 13th from 7 until 8 pm. We will begin setting up the displays at 6 pm. Our version of the CCL final project night, the Soiree is a chance for students to demonstrate their growth in skill in the 20-hour project they selected for the semester. Students will also have their research projects available for parents and friends to see.

If it is at all possible, please have your student purchase (or locate one to re-use) a tri-fold display board. If not, a table easel or some other way to inform visitors about their station will be helpful. As we draw nearer to the Soiree, the students will determine what information they will need to display on the board as an introduction to their work.

Again, I want to reiterate how important it is that you or your student reach out to me if your student is struggling with an assignment or worrying about something. I'm their advocate here at South, and I want to help them. Have a wonderful spring weekend with your students!

2019-04-05

Academic Stretch students were busy this week with research project presentations. We still have a few remaining, and when they are done, everyone's grades will be posted in Infinite Campus at once. If students are unhappy with their grade, they may meet with me to discuss how to improve the project, and we'll set a date for a second presentation. At that point, they will need to work at home to make significant changes to their project. They won't have additional class time because we will be working on our next unit, the Decades Project.

Some classes have already reviewed highlights of the 10 decades of the 20th century in the United States and submitted their top three choices for the decade they want to research. By the end of next week, everyone will be assigned a decade, and they will know who their partners are in the other Stretch classes. Students will work cooperatively via Google Drive to research their decade and build their section of the floor-to-ceiling timeline that the classes will create.

Finally, the next logic puzzle is called "Better Late;" in addition, we continue to perform impromptu speeches each day and to write responses to journal prompts at the beginning of each class. Anytime a student is absent, he or she will be able to find both the journal prompt and the logic puzzle in Google Classroom. I hope you have a wonderful Cardinals home-opening weekend with your children, and please, I cannot stress this enough, contact me with any questions or concerns. If you have a worry about your child, let me know. I want to help!

PROGRAMS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST TO STRETCH STUDENTS

Greater St. Louis Book Fair

Queeny Park, Greensfelder Recreation Complex

May 2 – 5, 2019

Thursday, May 2 - $10 admission, 4 pm – 9 pm

Friday, May 3 & Saturday, May 4 – free admission, 10 am – 8 pm

Sunday, May 5 – free admission, 11 am – 6 pm, ALL ITEMS ½ PRICE!

www.stlouisbookfair.org

Spend your summer at Wash U!

We still have space available in the following programs:

· High School Summer Scholars Program

· Humanities Institute

· Young Leaders Institute

· Middle School Summer Challenge (select courses)

Application deadline is April 1st!

Summer Experiences

Washington University in St. Louis

Campus Box 1145

11 North Jackson Road, Suite 1000

St. Louis, MO 63105-2153

summerexperiences.wustl.edu

Gifted Resource Council Summer Programs

(I included the elementary grade programs as well for families with younger siblings.)

June 10-21

· Math, Marvels & More (completing grades K-2): Adding Light to the Subject

· ECO Academy (completing grades 3-8): ECO-nomics + ECO-logy

June 24-July 5

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Dinosaurs to Tropical Rainforests

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Peasant to Crown

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Return to the Moon: Lunar Living & Leisure

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Return to the Moon: Outposts & Orbiting

July 8-19

· Academy Americana (completing grades 1-3): Who (Was) Were…Early 20th Century Stars?

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Ocean Depths to Outer Space

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Castle to Village

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Beyond the Moon: Sailing into Space

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Beyond the Moon: Science of Lunar Launching

Details:

Held at Wydown Middle School, 6500 Wydown Blvd, Clayton MO 63105

Cost: $500 per 2-week session (scholarships available)

9:00-3:30 Monday-Friday (extended care available)

Go to the GRC Web site: https://www.giftedresourcecouncil.org/index.php/summer-academies/

Call: 314-962-5920

Email: info@giftedresourcecouncil.org

2019-03-29

This week Stretch students have been diligently working on presenting the results of their research into some aspect of their 20-hour learning project topics. We’ll finish up the last five or six presentations per class at the beginning of next week and then begin our 20^th Century American Decades Unit, one students have consistently rated their favorite in years past. Students will work with partners from other class periods to research their decade to learn about the most significant occurrences in the following areas: fads & fashions; the arts; science, technology & medicine; sports; history; famous quotations; and, movers & shakers. They will display their learning through the construction of a floor to ceiling timeline in the hallway outside our classroom. In addition, they will select the American they deem most influential during their decade and read a biography or an autobiography of that person’s life. In mid-May, we will have a “Meeting of the Minds” lunch and debate. Students will come to class in costume or with a prop and will remain in character as that influential person they read about in their biography. They will bring a food to share that represents their decade or person, and they will present their prepared response to a debatable topic I will provide. Their statements will be from the position of their characters, and after everyone has made known their positions, a debate will ensue in which students will draw upon their knowledge of their person and their decade to present logical arguments and responses. As soon as we determine dates for this event, I will let you know because, of course, you are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Students should be continuing their work on their 20-hour learning projects and logging their time in their project logs. At this point, they should definitely be considering the best way to present the results of their learning to their classmates and to all of you on Monday, May 13^th from 7 to 8 pm (set up begins around 6 pm) in the school cafeteria at our Stretch Signature Soiree. You’ll have the opportunity to see not only your own student’s research project and 20-hour project but also those of the other Stretch classmates. Please mark your calendars so that you’re able to drop in for this event!

We are continuing with our journal writing, logic puzzles, and impromptu speech performances, as well, so things are hopping in Academic Stretch. Below this message I am including information about a number of programs your students might enjoy. As I learn of others, I will continue to provide the information to you. Have a wonderful spring weekend, and feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns you have.

PROGRAMS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST TO STRETCH STUDENTS

St. Louis County Library – Meramec Valley Branch

Tuesday, April 2, 7:00 p.m.

Poetry Night

Enjoy a creative and relaxed space where you can write and perform different poems in honor of National Poetry Month. Refreshments provided.

Ages 12-17. Registration required. More info.

Greater St. Louis Book Fair

Queeny Park, Greensfelder Recreation Complex

May 2 – 5, 2019

Thursday, May 2 - $10 admission, 4 pm – 9 pm

Friday, May 3 & Saturday, May 4 – free admission, 10 am – 8 pm

Sunday, May 5 – free admission, 11 am – 6 pm, ALL ITEMS ½ PRICE!

www.stlouisbookfair.org

Spend your summer at Wash U!

We still have space available in the following programs:

· High School Summer Scholars Program

· Humanities Institute

· Young Leaders Institute

· Middle School Summer Challenge (select courses)

Application deadline is April 1st!

Summer Experiences

Washington University in St. Louis

Campus Box 1145

11 North Jackson Road, Suite 1000

St. Louis, MO 63105-2153

summerexperiences.wustl.edu

Gifted Resource Council Summer Programs

(I included the elementary grade programs as well for families with younger siblings.)

June 10-21

· Math, Marvels & More (completing grades K-2): Adding Light to the Subject

· ECO Academy (completing grades 3-8): ECO-nomics + ECO-logy

June 24-July 5

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Dinosaurs to Tropical Rainforests

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Peasant to Crown

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Return to the Moon: Lunar Living & Leisure

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Return to the Moon: Outposts & Orbiting

July 8-19

· Academy Americana (completing grades 1-3): Who (Was) Were…Early 20th Century Stars?

· Jr. Science Searchers (completing Kindergarten): From Ocean Depths to Outer Space

· Ancient Academy (completing grades 3-8): Medieval Times: From Castle to Village

· GRC’s Space Academy (completing grades 1-5): Beyond the Moon: Sailing into Space

· GRC’s Advanced Space Academy (completing grades 6-8): Beyond the Moon: Science of Lunar Launching

Details:

Held at Wydown Middle School, 6500 Wydown Blvd, Clayton MO 63105

Cost: $500 per 2-week session (scholarships available)

9:00-3:30 Monday-Friday (extended care available)

Go to the GRC Web site: https://www.giftedresourcecouncil.org/index.php/summer-academies/

Call: 314-962-5920

Email: info@giftedresourcecouncil.org

2019-03-14

We have had our first week of research project presentations in Academic Stretch, and by and large, they’ve been very well done; however, those students unhappy with their grade or dissatisfied with their product/performance have the option to do further work to improve their project. They will then set a date with me to do over their presentation. Our presentations will continue for the week after we return from break. FYI--since we won’t have all the presentations completed before the progress reports are due to the registrar, I plan to omit that grade for progress reports, and then enter the scores in as students present to their classes. So, the most up-to-date grade average will be the one that includes the research presentation score.

The only homework Stretch students have during break is to continue working on their 20-hour skill. Also, some students may determine that they need to work further on their research projects. I have not assigned a logic puzzle for homework, but would you believe I’ve had a handful of students ask for the next puzzle in advance? True story! I’m glad they’re enjoying the critical thinking challenges.

Finally, a reminder to please mark your calendars! The Stretch students will be hosting a Stretch Signatures Soiree (our name for a final project night) on Monday, May 13th in the RSMS cafeteria between 7 and 8 pm. At our event, your students will display their research projects and 20-hour skill growth and answer all your questions. While we know May is a busy month, we still hope to see you there.

I hope you all have a wonderful break with your students, and as always, please feel free to call or email with any questions or concerns.

2019-03-08

Please mark your calendars! The Stretch students will be hosting a Stretch Signatures Soiree (our name for a final project night until we come up with something better) on Monday, May 13th in the RSMS cafeteria between 7 and 8 pm. At our event, your students will display their research projects and 20-hour skill growth and answer all your questions. While we know May is a busy month, we still hope to see you there.

This week our Academic Stretch students completed their research of their self-selected topics. They made decisions about how they would present the results of their research to the class, and selected the date of their presentations. Some students will be presenting next week, and others elected to wait until after Spring Break. You can find their presentation dates in Google Classroom in the Stretch folder called "Research Project & 20-Hour Skill Commitments" which also contains the scoring guide for the presentations. Students are trying to use their creativity to come up with ways other than slide shows to demonstrate their learning. Some are making movies, others games, still others models and other interactive projects that will engage their audiences. Parents are welcome to come to school to view their students' presentations. Once a class begins presentations, no more class time will be used for research and preparation; instead, we will begin the Decades unit with any class time that remains after the day's presentations are complete.

The daily routine for our class activities has been as follows: 1) impromptu speech, 2) writing responses to a journal prompt, 3) update lifetime reading lists and 20-hour skill project logs, 4) check Infinite Campus for grades and missing assignments, 5) Q & A for research requirements, 6) research &/or create project, and 7) reminder of the continuous homework assignments of weekly logic puzzles and 20-hour skill practice. Beginning next week, we will replace numbers 4 and 5 with student presentations.

I enjoyed meeting with many families Thursday evening at conferences and look forward to seeing more of you next Wednesday between 3:30 and 7 pm. If you're unable to attend, please feel free to call or email with any questions or concerns.

2019-03-01

This week marked the conclusion of in-class work time for the independent research projects. If Stretch students need to complete further research to find enough information to prove their thesis, they need to be working at home. Some students have already begun creating the projects they will use to teach the class about their topics. I am encouraging students to think beyond the basic slide presentation to create something they find more fitting for their topic and more interesting to make and share with their audience. Some students are making movies, others games, still others art displays.

Next week, students will have class time to work on the projects they are going to present to the class. It is my hope that we begin presentations no later than the following Monday, March 11th.

Students should be continuing to practice their 20-hour skills and to make a record of their practice in their project logs. Their project logs are located in Google Classroom, and I encourage you to ask your children to show them to you. Collecting evidence of their growth is another homework task tied to the 20-hour skill. So, the students who are learning to cook might photograph the dishes they prepare, collect the recipes into a file, and collect quotes from family members about the quality of the foods they prepared.

Finally, we continue to perform daily impromptu speeches and complete weekly logic puzzles. Next week's puzzle is called "Bear with Me." Enjoy your weekend with your children.

2019-02-22

We have spent eight hours of class time on research, so the students in Academic Stretch should be deep into their research of their self-selected topics. They only have one week left for researching in class, and then we'll begin presenting our projects. I am encouraging students to teach the class what they've learned and what they can prove about their topics using media and formats that are congruent with their topics. Students are not required to write a paper to display their research; instead, they might make movies, teach lessons and test learning through games they create, write songs, or many other means of demonstrating their knowledge. They are all required to submit a works consulted document that lists all of the sources they looked at for their research.

Students have completed their second set of lists through their daily List Yourself activity. If your student has this assignment marked "missing" in Infinite Campus, it means he or she has yet to attach it to the Google Classroom List Yourself folder or to share it with me so that I have access to it.

We are now opening class by writing five-sentence (or more) responses to journal prompts. The prompts fit into our self-knowledge theme by helping them to recognize certain personality traits. The first prompt indicated whether the students are risk-takers or more cautious. Other prompts will help them identify what they care most about.

We are also practicing our public speaking skills through the use of daily impromptu speeches. The students wrote topics on note cards, and the speakers take turns drawing a card from the deck. They then have one minute of quiet out in the hall to organize their thoughts about the topic. When the students return to class, they give a one-minute (or more) speech which we film with their ChromeBooks.

At home students should be working on the skill they selected to pursue through twenty hours of focused, self-correcting practice. I have told students that they need to have their twenty hours completed by the third week of April in order to prepare for our Signature Project Expo Evening when you will be invited to come see the research projects and skills the students have pursued this semester. If you're wondering if your child has been working toward a skill, ask your student to show you his or her project log where we record the time we've spent practicing and the progress we've made each session.

The other work you might see your students laboring through at home are the weekly logic puzzles we are completing to improve our critical thinking skills. Students are not solving them quite as quickly these days as the puzzles have increased in difficulty. I am encouraging the classes to regard the puzzle as a personal challenge and to develop the grit to persevere until they solve/defeat it.

I am completing all of these assignments alongside your children, so I am aware of the time and effort they require. I also know that if they chose a research topic and a skill they are truly interested in, then the time spent on it seems more like play than like homework, and that is my hope for all of my students. If you find that your children aren't interested in their work, please do two things: first, have a conversation with your child to identify why the topic is no longer interesting and what he or she would rather pursue; second, let me know about the situation. I may be able to help the student adjust the workload and due dates so as to attain success even with a late start on a new topic. I will certainly be able to help find resources to speed up their progress.

Please enjoy your weekend with your children, and know that I am grateful for the opportunity to be their teacher because I truly enjoy watching them learn and grow.

2019-02-15

Academic Stretch students spent the majority of this week researching their self-selected topics that are tied to their 20-hour skill projects. My goal is that they complete their research by the end of February and complete their presentations by March 14th, the last day of school before spring break. I am encouraging students to teach the class about their topic using the format that best matches their topics, so I expect we'll see a wide variety of projects.

Students learned about thesis statements this week and worked on finding something they can prove with their research. Now they are taking notes on the facts they find that support their thesis statements. I am encouraging all students to use the note cards tool in NoodleTools for their note-taking. I am researching along with them, and I'm finding that the note card tool makes research easier than any other method I've used and/or taught in the past. Additionally, the students are continuing to use NoodleTools to add sources to their works consulted (new term for bibliography) pages.

Students completed the "Philosophers & Stooges" logic puzzle and received the "Summer Employment" puzzle to complete for next week. Ask them to show you their puzzles--some families are making a competition out of solving them. The complexity of each week's puzzle increases, so students will find them becoming more fun as we continue to hone our critical thinking skills.

The first progress reports of the new semester were posted this week, but grades have already changed in Infinite Campus as students submitted their logic puzzles this week. In addition, some students saw their progress report grades and made haste to submit late work which I am currently grading.

Enjoy your long weekend with your children, and thank you for entrusting part of their education to me.

2019-02-08

Information processing, critical thinking, and communication process skills were the focus of this past week in Academic Stretch. Students worked on completing and submitting their parent-signed 20-hour skill acquisition contracts. These contracts outline their plan of action so that they have a clear picture of how they are going to fit in 20 hours of self-correcting, intentional practice of their skill. They identified the resources they'd need, the parental and possibly financial support the projects would require, the obstacles they predicted might impede their achievement of the 20 hours, and possible methods they could use to overcome those obstacles. They should be practicing their skills now and recording their practice sessions in their project logs which you can view in their Google Classroom folders. I have told students to plan on completing their 20 hours of practice and creating a way to demonstrate their learning no later than mid-April. We will have our exposition (think final project night) in late April or very early May. I will provide more details about the exposition in the future.

Students have also identified their research topics this week. The only requirement for the topic was that it tie somehow to their skill project. For example, the skill I am working on is photography. I want to learn about f-stops, apertures, and other technical aspects of photography. My research project is not about how the camera works, though, because there is nothing I can prove about that topic. Instead, I am focusing my research on the influence on society of iconic photographs that have been taken during my lifetime. I hope to prove that these amazing photographs change the way we understand historical events.

All students should have identified a book, preferably fiction, which relates in some way to their selected skill or research topic. They will read their books and use them for assignments in CCLA as well as to gain a broader understanding of some aspect of their skill or research topic. I am reading a suspense novel that features a protagonist who is a skilled photographer. Framing shots and using a dark room for photo development are not the focus of the novel, but the details the author includes teach me a little more about what photographers consider when they're taking pictures.

I introduced the students to Noodletools, an online research tool to which our district subscribes. It formats bibliographies as well as helping students to create and organize online note cards. At this point, students have set up two projects in Noodletools--one for their 20-hour skill and another for their research. I expect them to enter any resources they consult for either their skill or their research into the appropriate Noodletools project list of sources.

Next week we will continue our research. I will teach students some more about note-taking, and I will introduce to them the concept of the thesis statement. While students do not have to write a formal research paper for this assignment, they do need to identify what they can prove as a result of their research. Instead of papers, students will choose a method of presenting what they've learned in a medium of their choice, similar to the work they did with their self-help book study projects. It is my plan to complete the research process by the end of February so that students can create and present their projects before spring break.

Finally, we continue our efforts to hone our critical thinking skills with logic puzzles. "Kicking the Habits" was due this week, and "Philosophers & Stooges" is due on Thursday (B-day)/Friday (A-day) of next week. These 5-point assignments are the only items I do not accept as late work, unless the student was absent on the due day, of course. We review the puzzle solution on the due day so completing the puzzle after the due day does not result in learning. I am also hoping to instill a respect for due dates with this small weekly assignment because they will find that their education, now and in the future, is much easier and more successful if they simply get the work done on time. To avoid losing points, I provide a number of options: 1) I hand out the homework at least a week before it is due; 2) I do not require that they find the solution, just that they show me that they've made a sincere attempt to figure it out; 3) I accept completed puzzles early if a student is concerned that he/she will lose the paper before the end of the week; 4) I have extra copies available so students can grab one during homeroom and re-do it before they come to Stretch class; and 5) I accept a photograph of the completed puzzle, and I encourage students to take a picture with their phone or Chrome Book because they manage never to forget to bring their phones to school.

Stay warm this weekend and feel free to contact me with concerns, questions, or good news!

2019-02-01

During our abbreviated week, the Stretch students finalized their decisions on the skills they want to spend twenty hours developing. In addition, they planned how they will attain the skills and recorded those plans in a 20-Hour Skill Acquisition Contract. Their plans include identifying their motives for learning the skill, the resources, expenses, and time they might need from their parents to accomplish their learning, their plans for how to practice for twenty hours, anticipated obstacles they will face and ways to overcome them, and the types of evidence they will collect to demonstrate their growth as they acquire the new skill. Some students have already brought their contracts home to review and discuss with their parents. If the parents accept the project proposal, they signed the contract; if not, they discussed with their children modifications or even entirely new project ideas. These contracts were supposed to be submitted today, Friday, February 1st; however, we are extending the deadline to next week due to the "polar vortex days."

Students are also identifying fiction books that deal with their selected skills to read for credit in both CCLA and Stretch. Mrs. Barrett gives them some reading time in class, but the students know that they are responsible for reading at home, as well.

We have also identified research topics that are related in some way to the skills the students are pursuing. Students will research these topics in Academic Stretch and prepare projects to teach their classmates about their topics. We will use NoodleTools to create works cited pages and note cards so that students will receive the instruction in research that they'll need for high school; however, we will not be writing research papers. Instead, students will determine the medium that is most appropriate to present the results of their research to the class.

Next week we will begin learning how to use NoodleTools. Students will begin their research in class and should be reading and working on their twenty hours of skill practice at home. All students have project logs in Google Classroom in which they should record the details of their practice (date, minutes, progress, next step) each time they work on their skill.

Finally, students have received a new critical thinking puzzle called "Kicking the Habits" which is due on the last Stretch class of next week. Please contact me with any questions or concerns, and enjoy the unseasonably warm weather in store for us this week.

2019-01-25

Students have been working to select the focus for their Signature Projects this week. The Signature Project, so-named because each student’s project will be based on his or her unique interests, encompasses both a traditional research project and a 20-hour skill acquisition project. We've spent a lot of time up front trying to identify genuine interests because we found that the success or failure of last semester's 20-hour projects really hinged on how interested the students were in learning the skill they selected. This time around we want everyone to select a worthwhile goal that they are truly committed to achieving.

To that end, we have completed our interest inventories in Academic Stretch and students are in the process of identifying 10 skills they would like to spend 20 hours learning. They are also finding research topics related to those skills. Within the next week, they'll narrow down their ideas to one skill they want to pursue. At that point, they will complete a contract identifying the skill and research that they are committing to performing for this assignment. The contract will include their plans for accomplishing that goal, as well.

Students are also searching for books, preferably fiction but not necessarily so, that deal in some way with their topics. Reading these books will help with their research and knowledge of their topic in Stretch and will also count towards their reading requirements in Mrs. Barrett's CCLA class.

The students worked in groups this week to identify the criteria that needed to be included in a contract and to write drafts. We then combined their ideas to create the contract that they will bring to you next week. Please read their contract and sign it if you find their plans acceptable; if not, they'll tweak their plans so that you find them more realistic, or they will return to their list of 10 ideas to identify their next preferred project choice. These contracts need to be completed and signed no later than Friday, February first. Students will have approximately 3 months to complete the 20 hours of learning their skills at home, and they will begin working on their research in class immediately.

Our plan is to host a project night similar to those at the CCL. The students will each have a "booth" to display the evidence of their skill acquisition and their research, and they will be available to answer your questions about their work. We are in the process of identifying the date for this event and hope to let you know in next week's newsletter.

Finally, your children have completed their sixth logic puzzle this week and have the puzzle titled "Shelf Published" for next week's homework.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

2019-01-18

This week students have been busy completing a number of interest inventories as well as writing autobiography riddle poems as they work to identify the topics they want to study for their 20-hour skill acquisition and their research projects. We will finalize their choices next week and begin our research. Additionally, students will be identifying fiction or nonfiction books to read for CCLA that will also help them with their understanding of their research topics. Finally, students are working on On the Job, their sixth logic puzzle, which is due on the last Stretch class of the week.

Stay safe and warm, and enjoy our three-day-weekend!

2019-01-11

Students presented the results of their 20-hour learning project this week, and the variety of interests and skills the 7th graders explored was wonderful. We saw projects focused on learning to cook, figure skating, drawing, language acquisition, playing new instruments, developing new skills for sports, touch typing, playing chess, model building, crocheting, hair braiding, contortionism, physical fitness, distance running, bike riding, sign language, photography, and even make-up application! The most amazing presentations occurred each time students took a risk and chose a skill with which they truly had no prior experience. The growth we saw was inspirational! A number of students identified growth in their belief in their ability to learn difficult things as a byproduct of this project. They said that the requirement that they keep trying for twenty hours forced them to work past the point when they would have usually given up and moved onto something that came more naturally to them. In truth, I wasn’t as concerned with the skill they chose as I was with them learning that lesson. Grit, the willingness to put forth effort in the face of repeated failure, is a characteristic many gifted students don’t have the opportunity to develop when they’re young. So many things come so easily to them that they don’t learn how to accept setbacks and keep trying. If our students manage to develop grit, their future achievements will be unlimited. Angela Duckworth provides the following formulas to explain the power of grit:

TALENT X EFFORT = SKILL and SKILL X EFFORT = ACHIEVEMENT.

Our gifted students already have talent, but according to Duckworth, effort counts twice as much as talent. If they have the grit to persevere with their efforts even when things get difficult, their achievements will be inspirational.

In the pursuit of grit, we will spend next week completing a number of interest inventories to aid in selecting a new 20-hour learning goal. This time the goal will be tied to an independent research project which the students will work on in class while they pursue their skill at home. It’s my hope that everyone will have identified a new goal and related research topic by the end of next week.

Finally, students have received the new logic puzzle for the week--Sports Match. It is due on the last Stretch day of next week.

Stay safe and warm over the approaching winter-weathered weekend!

2019-01-04

Students who wanted to continue to work on their self-help book projects over break had the chance to present their new and improved projects this week. Additionally, we solved the prom dresses logic puzzle and began the presentations of the 20-hour skills projects.

Next week we will finish the 20-hour skills project presentations and complete a new logic puzzle called “Test Cars MPGs.” We will also introduce the next unit which will combine a new 20-hour skill with a genius hour research project. My hope is that students will take advantage of this opportunity to select a topic and related skill in which they have tremendous interest and curiosity. I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your students after this brief week at school!

2018-12-21

The final projects for the self-help book study unit have all been presented, but that doesn’t mean they are complete! Any students who are not satisfied with their performance have the opportunity to read the notes Mrs. Barrett and I provided and use them to make revisions to meet the criteria requirements for the assignment. They will need to be ready to present on Thursday, January 3rd, their first day back. We teachers must have final grades posted the next day.

Additionally, students may submit any missing work that they complete; however, I won’t know to grade it if they do not send me an email letting me know 1, which assignment they’ve completed, and 2, where it is located.

On a related topic, I am currently working on grading late assignments and resubmitted work, so you may look for changes in Infinite Campus over the break.

Happy holidays, and I hope your break with your children is filled with joy, fun, family, and rest! I will be glad to see your children back here in 2019!

2018-12-14

The final projects for the self-help book study unit are due on Monday! Students have been working in class every day on projects they selected to use to educate others about the challenges described in their self-help books. Students read the books, wrote responses to journal topics about their reading, met in small groups to discuss their books, and tried out some of the strategies their books recommended. Now they will use the knowledge they’ve accrued as a result of these activities to teach to audiences they’ve identified as needing to know this information. Teachers, counselors, families, and peers have been some of the audiences they have selected. Audience members will be asked to complete a project feedback form, and students presenting to family members received the feedback forms today to bring home to you. All projects need to be in class on Monday, and we will begin the peer presentations immediately. Some students will be adding finishing touches to their projects this weekend, and they should be sure to use the project scoring guide located in Google Classroom as a checklist to confirm that they aren’t omitting any of the project requirements.

The Academic Stretch students have also been working on logic puzzles to strengthen their critical thinking skills. Their homework for this coming week is called Prom Dresses, and it’s due on Thursday for B-Day students and Friday for the A-Day classes.

I hope your weekend with your children is wonderful.

2018-12-07

I have postponed the due date for the 20-hour learning projects until we return from winter break so that students may focus on completing their self-help book study projects for December 17th. Students spent this week working on those projects in both Academic Stretch and CCLA; however, some students have undertaken ambitious projects that will require additional work at home in order to finish up by the last week of the semester.

Students completed their first homework logic puzzle, and I was thrilled with the number of students who had completed the assignment early or on time. Their next logic puzzle is called Birthday Gifts and is due Thursday and Friday of next week. I have reminded them that these puzzles are posted in Google Classroom so that they have access to them even if they lose the paper copy I handed out.

We also completed another self-assessment that categorized learners as sequential or random, and wrote two more lists for our list yourself projects. We have had the first couple of impromptu speech performances, as well. I am still accepting late work or corrected work from students. If they take advantage of this option, they must send me an email or give me a paper note asking me to regrade the specific assignment they worked on.

Have a terrific weekend with your children!

2018-11-30

The Academic Stretch students have been busy working on their self-help book projects this week. Students do have some class time each day to work on their projects in both CCLA and Stretch, but my expectation is that they will need to work on the projects at home as well in order to complete them before the end of the semester. All of the content for the projects should be available in the journal responses and lit circle assignments they've completed over the past month, so they should only need to create their product.

Students have received their grades for their List Yourself assignments along with the procedure for making corrections and requesting that I re-grade their improved work. Of primary importance is that they send me an email requesting that I go back to look at their work again. I've also explained that re-grades go to the back of the line, so they'll need to have patience. In addition, we've begun a new set of lists that won't be completed until sometime next semester.

I have also introduced to the A-Day classes logic puzzles as a way to develop the skills necessary for critical thinking; the B-Day classes will receive that lesson on Monday, 12/3. I will post each week's puzzle assignment in a Google Classroom folder called Critical Thinking: Logic Puzzles so that students may print a copy if they lose the one I hand out each week. They will receive the puzzle on Friday/Monday, and the puzzle will be due on Thursday/Friday at which time we will review the solution. I am also posting in this folder documents to help students solve the puzzles, but these are strictly for reference purposes--they don't have to do anything with them. I have explained to the students that their grade is dependent on evidence of effort to solve the puzzle, not on arriving at the correct solution. We are developing skills here, and that takes concentrated, self-correcting practice, not perfection! Students should never spend stressful hours trying to solve one puzzle. I am encouraging students to take a picture of their completed homework with their Chrome Book or phone so that they may show me the image if they forget the paper at home. We discussed the acceptance of these assignments as late work, and the students determined that they should not receive credit because we will be reviewing the solution on the due date, so late submissions won't have the benefit of the new learning that the assignment is intended to develop.

Please encourage your students to finish up their 20-hour learning projects. They are due no later than December 17th. We have had a couple of students present their projects already, and it's been fun to see how much they've grown with 20 hours of intentional, self-correcting practice. Next semester we will select new goals, and we will have a showcase similar to a CCL final project night where students will display their achievements.

Finally, we have introduced a new public speaking activity called Impromptu Speeches. Each class, one or two students will draw a card from a deck of student-generated topics. They will go out to the hall to prepare for one minute and then will return to class and give a one-minute (or longer) speech about their topic. If they manage to reach the one-minute mark, they receive credit for the speech. If not, they'll try again another day. We are filming all of the speeches so that students are able to see their growth as public speakers. In the past, students have approached this activity with great trepidation, but they quickly discover that it feels more like a game, and then they clamor for more speeches each day. That shift in their attitude is the first step toward becoming stronger public speakers, and I am thrilled each year to see that change.

Have a wonderful first weekend of December!

2018-11-16

The Stretch seventh graders have had a busy week, despite yesterday’s snow day. On Monday morning, the 7^th graders who volunteered hosted the Veterans’ Day Assembly. Six students came to school on Sunday afternoon to decorate for the event, and ten students came in at 6 am on Monday to inflate helium balloons before the veterans arrived. Stretch students greeted our guests at the front doors, served coffee, juice and pastries, and performed in the program. Students created a patriotic photo backdrop to take photos for the veterans and their families. Three Stretch students who are also Boy Scouts performed the opening and closing flag ceremonies. We had a student emcee the event, and two students led us in both the “Star-Spangled Banner” and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” A pair of students performed an explanation of the Pledge of Allegiance before leading us in the pledge. Small groups of students performed the “It Is the Veteran” poem and the story of the six soldiers featured on the Iwo Jima Memorial statue. Two student trumpeters performed “God Bless America” and “Taps.” Students also distributed homemade cards, cookies, and postcards to the veterans to thank them for their service. Finally, the Stretch volunteers remained after the assembly to clean up the cafeteria. They put in a lot of work on behalf of the veterans, and I am incredibly proud of them.

I provided your children with a brief lesson on executive functioning skills. The lesson included a brief video clip and a story of a person who possessed little skill in executive functioning planning a vacation. Students took a self-assessment to determine their strengths and weaknesses in executive functioning. Finally, each student selected one skill on which he/she will work to improve.

The students should be finishing their self-help book reading and should have nine journal entries completed by Monday/Tuesday of next week. After Thanksgiving, they will begin working on self-selected projects to demonstrate their learning about their topics.

Have a great weekend!

2018-11-02

Self-knowledge and self-improvement have been the focus of Academic Stretch this week. Students have had time to read and journal about their book selections during Academic Stretch as they prepared for their literature circle discussions in CCLA. Additionally, we have finished up the last public speaking mini-lessons and will begin our impromptu speech activities next week. Finally, we are still plugging away with our List Yourself projects. This week’s lists included our first thoughts upon awakening in the morning, times we departed from the beaten path, and the elements of a perfect vacation.

We are returning to our learning styles tests with “Are You Right-Brained or Left-Brained?” today and Monday as a homework assignment. Before taking the tests, though, we are reading an article about brain hemispheres, the common misconceptions about their functions, and how puns involve both hemispheres. We’ll continue with one or two learning style inventories each week and chart the results in a spreadsheet in preparation for a CIA dossier project.

I have been soliciting volunteers from among my 7th graders to participate in the Rockwood South Veterans’ Day Celebration this year. Please ask your children if they are participating, and encourage them to volunteer if they haven’t done so yet. Many students identified that program as a highlight of our studies last year, and I think they’ll enjoy helping out again this year.

Nancy Bonn-Winkler, the school counselor at the CCL, is coming to Rockwood Summit on Wednesday, November 7th at 6:30 pm to present to anyone interested on the topic of stress and anxiety in gifted teens. The program description follows:

The inability to reduce and cope with stress and anxiety can negatively impact different facets of a teen’s life. Come join us at Rockwood Summit High School for the "Helping Gifted Teens Work Through Stress and Anxiety" Workshop to learn about stress and obtain some coping strategies.

Location: Rockwood Summit High School's Flex Room

Date: November 7th

Start Time: 6:30 PM

I am attempting to attach a link to the Google Form for RSVP purposes; however, if, by chance, it doesn’t work, please feel free to shoot me an email, and I will add you to the list: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/10cI9GLEcPw67MW1-ge0QRb2UUuLDo9Ujdz2_ucjnsww/edit?ts=5bd21fd9

The program is aimed at parents of gifted students and teens themselves. Anyone who is a parent of a gifted student of any age will find her presentation both relevant and highly interesting. Nancy is a terrific presenter. I was fortunate to both work with Nancy for five years and to be an audience member for one of her presentations a week ago.

Below is a repeat of last week’s appeals for help:

A personal request: I am a member of an honorary teacher sorority of Rockwood teachers who provide professional support and work on altruistic projects. Our biggest focus is to provide a number of scholarships each year to Rockwood students who intend to become teachers, but we do lots of other projects, as well. Right now, we’re working on a School Supply Scavenger Hunt. We are seeking new and gently used school supply donations for an elementary school in St. Louis city. This school is in need of hand sanitizer, tissues, disinfecting wipes, paper, pencils and pens, markers, colored pencils, crayons, notebooks, folders, dry erase markers and erasers, children-size scissors, pencil boxes, and the like. We are calling it a scavenger hunt because we aren’t asking anyone to purchase anything; rather, if people have in their homes spiral notebooks that were hardly used, crayons in good shape, pencils that still have erasers, etc., we’d be thrilled to take them off your hands. Please feel free to send anything you have in with your student.

A second personal request (I know, I’m being greedy here): I am seeking seven wooden baseball bats for a craft project for the class. I want to turn them into an American flag to display in our classroom, and I’ll have any interested students help me with its creation. So, if you have an old baseball bat lying around that you don’t anticipate using for America’s pastime, I will be happy to take it off your hands.

Thank you for entrusting your children to me, and have a great weekend with them!

2018-10-25

This week has been busy, especially given its brevity! Stretch students have selected and secured the self-help books that they feel best meet their needs. They’ve written their first journal responses to explain why they think they would like to grow stronger in their particular area. Next week they will begin writing journal entries in which they analyze the text for the nonfiction elements that Mrs. Barrett has been teaching them.

Each class has completed two more lists in their “List Myself” documents. I think that if they keep these lists, they will get a great deal of pleasure and amusement from reading them as high school seniors or even later in their lives. They will provide a great marker for their current intellectual and emotional maturity.

Most classes completed a creativity assignment called “Different Ways to Think about Fractions.” It required that they apply three different methods (analytical, practical, and creative) methods to solve a math problem involving fractions. I hope it opened their eyes to the many different ways to solve a problem. They identified which method best suited their learning strengths.

Nancy Bonn-Winkler, the school counselor at the CCL, is coming to Rockwood Summit on Wednesday, November 7th at 6:30 pm to present to anyone interested on the topic of anxiety in gifted students. The program is aimed at parents of gifted students and high school gifted students. Anyone who is a parent of a gifted student of any age will find her presentation both relevant and highly interesting. Nancy is a terrific presenter. I was fortunate to be an audience member for one of her presentations on Monday.

Thank you for entrusting your children to me, and have a wonderful long weekend with them!

2018-10-19

The 7^th grade Academic Stretch students will begin our self-help book study this coming Wednesday, so it’s important that everyone have a copy of the book they want to read by that time. The book choices, listed below, are also posted in Google Classroom with summaries. Mrs. Barrett and I have been encouraging students to discuss their ideas with you before making final decisions, and we would greatly appreciate your help in leading them to final decisions.

Our school owns a limited number of copies of the following book choices for this unit. The number in parentheses indicates the number of copies we possess. The listing of SLCL (St. Louis County Library), Amazon—Kindle, Paperback, Hard Copy, Audio indicates other places and formats you might find for these books; furthermore, I have read these books and found them useful for our students.

Adderholdt, Miriam. Perfectionism: What’s Bad About Being Too Good? (13 copies; Amazon—paper)
Cain, Susan and Gregory Mone. Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts. (13 copies; SLCL—paper, audio, electronic; Amazon—Kindle, paper, CD, Audible)
Covey, Sean. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. (we own sufficient copies for every student; SLCL—paper, CD)
Galbraith, Judy and Jim Delisle. The Gifted Teen Survival Guide: Smart, Sharp, and Ready for (Almost) Anything. (9 copies; SLCL—paper; Amazon—Kindle, paper)
Hipp, Earl. Fighting Invisible Tigers: Stress Management for Teens. (30 copies; Amazon—Kindle, paper)
Morgenstern, Julie and Jessi Morgenstern- Colón. Organizing from the Inside Out for Teens. (26 copies; SLCL—paper; Amazon—Kindle, paper)

· Adderholdt, Miriam. Perfectionism: What’s Bad About Being Too Good? (13 copies; Amazon—paper)

Our school owns no copies of the following five book choices for this unit. I explained in last week's newsletter the reasons I have added them to the list, and I am not limiting the students to these choices, either.

Allen, David and Mike Williams. Getting Things Done for Teens: Take Control of Your Life in a Distracting World. [AVAILABILITY: Amazon—Kindle, paperback, Audible]
Bure, Natasha. Let's Be Real: Living Life as an Open and Honest You. [AVAILABILITY: St. Louis County Library; Amazon—Kindle, paperback, hard cover, Audible]
Manecke, Kirt. Smile & Succeed for Teens: A Crash Course in Face-to-Face Communication. [AVAILABILITY: Amazon—Kindle, paperback]
Schab, Lisa M., LCSW. The Anxiety Workbook for Teens: Activities to Help You Deal with Anxiety and Worry. [AVAILABILITY: Amazon—Kindle, paperback]
Schab, Lisa M., LCSW. The Self-Esteem Habit for Teens: 50 Simple Ways to Build Your Confidence Every Day. [AVAILABILITY: St. Louis County Library; Amazon—Kindle, paperback]

I am in the process of grading the first twenty lists for each student in their List Myself documents. We determined that I’ll be reading 1340 lists in the near future! Expect to see those grades in Infinite Campus as I plow through them. I am learning a lot about your children and suggest that you have your students show them to you. They are definitely entertaining!

We have almost completed our public speaking lessons and will begin applying the information about stage fright, organizing a speech, finding interesting ways to open a speech, etc. in the near future in class. Your children will be able to tell you more about upcoming speeches in the near future.

Finally, please encourage your students to practice the skill or activity they selected for their 20 hour learning projects. As of today, we have 59 days left until everyone should have completed their projects. In class we calculated how many minutes per day we need to engage in “focused, self-correcting practice” in order to meet the 20-hour requirement by December 17^th. Some projects lend themselves to daily practice while others require larger chunks of time to be performed less frequently. I keep reminding your children to collect evidence (photos, video clips, notes about newly learned techniques or facts, etc.) to use during their presentation in order to demonstrate how much they have grown in skill or knowledge by the end of the 20 hours of learning.

I enjoyed meeting many of you during conferences Tuesday and Thursday, and I thank all of you for entrusting part of your children’s education to me. I hope you enjoy your weekend with your children!

2018-10-12

We began a series of lessons addressing various aspects of public speaking this week in Academic Stretch. At this point we have addressed the physical aspects of public speaking including eye contact, body language, gestures, rocking and pacing, and the vocal issues of volume, vocalized pauses, risers, conversational tone, and enthusiasm. Next week we will review stage fright and the organization of the content of speeches.

To further address stage fright, we spent part of one class trying out breathing, stretching and balance techniques presented in a yoga video. I intend to also show students some exercises they can perform at their seats before they present that will help them to burn off some of the excess adrenaline that can hurt a presentation.

In addition, the Stretch students have completed their 18th (B-Day) and 19th (A-Day) lists for our List Yourself project. I have encouraged your children to place a copy of these lists into their digital leadership portfolios to share with you during conferences next week; however, you can ask your students to open the documents in their Google Drive any time that's convenient.

Your students should also be working on their 20-hour learning goals. Please ask them how many minutes they have logged. They should be documenting their growth via writing, photos, or video as they learn this new skill or interest. December 17th is the last day for them to log minutes, and they'll present that week if they haven't finished early and already presented.

I will be asking your children to commit to a book next week for our self-help book study. What follows is a list of titles and authors, along with the number of copies we own and other places they are available to borrow or purchase.

Adderholdt, Miriam. Perfectionism: What’s Bad About Being Too Good? (13 copies; Amazon—paper)
Cain, Susan and Gregory Mone. Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts. (13 copies; SLCL—paper, audio, electronic; Amazon—Kindle, paper, CD, Audible)
Covey, Sean. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. (we own sufficient copies for every student; SLCL—paper, CD)
Galbraith, Judy and Jim Delisle. The Gifted Teen Survival Guide: Smart, Sharp, and Ready for (Almost) Anything. (9 copies; SLCL—paper; Amazon—Kindle, paper)
Hipp, Earl. Fighting Invisible Tigers: Stress Management for Teens. (30 copies; Amazon—Kindle, paper)
Morgenstern, Julie and Jessi Morgenstern- Colón. Organizing from the Inside Out for Teens. (26 copies; SLCL—paper; Amazon—Kindle, paper)

Allen, David and Mike Williams. Getting Things Done for Teens: Take Control of Your Life in a Distracting World [AVAILABILITY: Amazon—Kindle, paperback, Audible]
Bure, Natasha. Let's Be Real: Living Life as an Open and Honest You [AVAILABILITY: St. Louis County Library; Amazon—Kindle, paperback, hard cover, Audible]
Manecke, Kirt. Smile & Succeed for Teens: A Crash Course in Face-to-Face Communication [AVAILABILITY: Amazon—Kindle, paperback]
Schab, Lisa M., LCSW. The Anxiety Workbook for Teens: Activities to Help You Deal with Anxiety and Worry [AVAILABILITY: Amazon—Kindle, paperback]
Schab, Lisa M., LCSW. The Self-Esteem Habit for Teens: 50 Simple Ways to Build Your Confidence Every Day [AVAILABILITY: St. Louis County Library; Amazon—Kindle, paperback]

I have posted into your children's Google Classroom folders a presentation that includes summaries from Amazon for each of these books as well as hyperlinks to Amazon so that you can read reviews and the "See Inside" portions of the books that Amazon provides.

I hope you enjoy with your children this first weekend that actually feels like autumn.

2018-10-05

Academic Stretch students completed a major challenge this week by generating a list of 100 goals they would like to achieve in their lifetime. During our conversation about the goals, the process, and what they learned about themselves, many expressed pride in finishing the hardest assignment they'd ever had for homework. I'm proud of them, too, and I plan to have them refer to these lists often throughout the year. Please encourage them to print a copy so that they can review them every week or so. Experts in the field of goal-setting recommend the frequent reviews; they also suggest that we regard the list as a living document that we will add to and adjust as interests and circumstances change. Finally, they recommend making goal-setting a habit. Each time they run into an obstacle, they should make overcoming it a new goal. It changes our point of view from passivity to empowerment which is an amazing way to approach life.

Next week, your children will begin a self-help book study unit that we will address in both Stretch and CCLA by reviewing a list of books for teens. They will then go home and discuss their choices with you after which they will ask you to sign a permission slip indicating that you are aware of and comfortable with their choice. The list contains 12 titles, only 7 of which we own copies. It also includes the summaries that Amazon provides. I will post this list in Google Classroom. Please ask your child to open it to show you. Additionally, students are not limited to these titles. For example, Amazon lists some terrific faith-based books written for teens working on self-improvement that you may find preferable. If your student does have another book in mind, please have him or her bring the book (or at least the title and author) to class so that I can review it to confirm it meets the requirements for our unit activities.

I am providing this list of alternatives to the books listed above for two reasons: first, because I want to make this unit as meaningful to each student as possible so they need books that address their concerns, and second, because my limited number of copies of six of the books may lead to an unavailability of a particular book choice; therefore, please speak with your child about his/her thoughts about a book selection. If he/she prefers a book not listed above, please be sure to read the reviews on Amazon (each title is hyperlinked to its Amazon summary) as well as the section included in the “See Inside” option to confirm that you are comfortable with your child’s selection.

Finally, a note about grades and homework. First, everyone has the homework assignment of working on their 20-hour learning project (due December 17), so no one should tell you they have no homework for Stretch. Second, if students receive grades with which they are unhappy, they always have the option of going back and doing a better job and then re-submitting it for me to review and reconsider in terms of the grade. Students must send me an email alerting me to look back at the work; otherwise, I won't know that there's anything else to consider for that assignment. I also need students to be patient about that re-grade, as I need to finish grading current work before I return to the previously graded assignments. To help parents to know what's going on, I will try to send a confirmation email letting the student know that I have received the work and will look at it as soon as I'm able.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your children!

2018-09-28

Academic Stretch 7th graders spent time this week thinking about and writing their 100 lifetime goals. They're also identifying the categories within which each goal fits. They need to finish this assignment for Monday and Tuesday of next week. Be sure to ask them to show you their work which is located in Google Classroom. You can also find an explanation of the assignment in GC. I suggested that students view maps, Google lists of monuments and national parks, and even view The Great Courses website for ideas of places they'd like to visit and things they'd like to learn or do in their lifetimes. They should also go back and review John Goddard's website for other ideas.

The A-Day students have now completed 14 lists in their List Yourself documents and the B-Day students, 13. Ask your students to show them to you--they're enlightening and offer great topics for future conversations. I am also encouraging the students to review those lists because, many times, they provide clues to the things they want to do in their lifetimes and so are helpful in completing their 100 goals list.

The A-Day 7th graders also began recording their reading onto lifetime reading lists. B-Day will start this assignment Monday. A complete explanation of the assignment is posted in Google Classroom. Briefly, I have been keeping such a list for the past 22 years and it’s now a 40-page long Word document. Some of the reasons I am encouraging the students to develop this habit follow: prevents me from re-reading a book UNintentionally; gives me a list of authors to choose from when looking for a new read; gives me a resource when a student or a friend asks for a recommendation; serves as a diary of an important way I spend my time; reminds me that I actually did something over the summer; gives me a sense of achievement; helps me to remember information about a book I read in the past; makes me happy. I am requiring students to maintain this list for this school year, and I hope some of them will see its value and continue the practice throughout their lives. Previous students have reported to me that they have gained great satisfaction and insight into themselves by maintaining this list as an archive of their life history.

Next week students will be discussing these lists, identifying priorities within them, and writing paragraphs explaining their thinking. Additionally, they will take another self-test. I will also begin discussing our next unit, the self-help book study, which they will work on in both Stretch and CCLA. Please expect to receive a book list for the unit next week.

Have a wonderful weekend with your students and, if feasible, consider beginning one of their goals with them. Also, remind them of next week’s homecoming spirit day contests which are listed below:

RSMS’ Spirit Week

Monday: Monster U Monday (Wear your favorite college or university gear)

Tuesday: Hakunama Tuesday (Oh, we can’t wait to see your jungle or safari clothes!)

Wednesday: Colors of the Windsday (6th Grade Yellow - 7th Grade Red - 8th Grade Green - Staff Blue)

Thursday: Moana go to the Beach? (What can I say except, “You're welcome...wear beach clothes!”?)

Friday: Happily Ever Homecoming (Black Out! Wear your Falcon Gear)

2018-09-21

We have spent this past week reading articles about goal-setting. Students chose a mini-goal, something they wanted to have done but were struggling to make themselves begin doing. They wrote one- or two-sentence descriptions of their goals and then broke the task down into a list of small steps they needed to take in order to achieve these goals within the following two days. On Thursday and Friday, students reported on their efforts. The majority said that they had achieved these mini-goals. The few who didn’t succeed identified the problems they’d encountered and described their plans to overcome those obstacles before our next class.

Students have also begun to commit to their 20-hour learning project selection. The point is for them to select a skill or knowledge or talent that is currently truly unfamiliar or extremely challenging to them but which they honestly want to possess. They will track the time they spend in learning and in focused, self-correcting practice until they reach 20 hours. The deadline for this assignment is Monday, December 17th, but I anticipate that many students will finish well in advance of that deadline. They have spreadsheets in Google Classroom for tracking purposes and which they can show you at any time in the process. They will document their beginning skill level with photos, video, or written descriptions which they will post into their project folders in Google Drive. They will periodically add evidence of their progress and struggles, culminating in their level of achievement when they reach the 20-hour mark. Then they will come to class for a show and tell-style presentation in which they tell the story of their project. In addition to the satisfaction they will earn through their acquisition of a skill/knowledge/talent of genuine interest to them, it is my hope that they will also benefit from this project through their growth in confidence, in willingness to take appropriate risks, and in their desire to try new things.

Finally, we have examined the life list of John Goddard, a man who, when he was fifteen, wrote a list of 127 goals he wanted to achieve in his lifetime. He succeeded in reaching 111 of the goals, and came very close in some of the others. This review was in preparation for an assignment the students will receive next week to identify 100 goals they would like to achieve in their lifetimes. This assignment is difficult, so we are beginning this weekend with a homework assignment to identify ten goals they want to attain. Next week, we’ll look at categories of goals to help them to consider areas they might have overlooked.

Goal-setting is an optimistic, spirit-lifting exercise, so I hope you get to enjoy that life outlook with your students this first weekend of autumn!

2018-09-14

This week your students studied learning styles to determine their preferred sense--visual, auditory, or kinesthetic--for taking in new information. They took three self-assessments and posted their results into their class spreadsheet. They also read a couple of passages that suggested strategies for taking advantage of their preference when learning. Finally, they responded to a couple of questions meant to help them reflect on how they could apply their identified preference to their lives to help them to be more successful.

Our List Yourself topics for this week included our most frequent wishes and what we believe we could not live without. Your student’s list is in his/her Google Drive Stretch folder. You might have an interesting conversation with your child if you take a look at his/her lists.

To continue our focus on goals, the students read excerpts from Melodie Beattie’s book called Codependent No More. I pulled some of her passages about goal setting because she views setting goals as a practical way to approach, “...everything we want and need, all the problems we want solved, all our desires, and even some of our whims…” and encourages us to not limit ourselves when considering goals. In addition, we discussed five keys to goal setting: count the cost, put it in pen, just do it, use momentous moments, and rope up. Finally, we viewed a brief TED Talk by Josh Kaufman called “The First 20 Hours--How to Learn Anything,” in which he debunks the 10,000 hour myth and outlines how to become reasonably competent at anything with twenty hours of dedicated, deliberate practice. He outlines the requirements of the practice and then demonstrates how he learned enough about playing the ukulele to perform a song during his talk. I’ve included the hyperlink for your viewing pleasure.

At this point, students should have eight self-assessment results posted in the class spreadsheet. They should have submitted a reflection piece for their learning styles results, completed a questionnaire called “Who Am I?”, and have ten lists in their List Yourself documents. They should have also turned in an analysis of their performance in their first speech as well as the mandalas they created. The seventh graders have also submitted their responses to the questions I assigned from “The Shadow Scholar” article. All of these assignments could and should have been completed during class, so they should not have had homework for Stretch class if they used their time wisely. The one exception would be drawing their mandalas. Some students put a great deal of effort into creating beautiful mandalas, so they probably spent some time at home to complete them. If your child has had homework, it might be due to not using the class time I provide to get the work done. If they are missing any of these assignments, it is not too late for them to submit them to me.

Have a wonderful weekend with your students!

2018-09-07

Our 7th grade Stretch students have been busy this week on a variety of activities. They completed their final multiple intelligence inventories; next week, they will take some tests about their visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning preferences. Students also completed their self-evaluation of their mandala speeches. These speeches and evaluations will serve as the baseline from which we will measure future growth in public speaking. Furthermore, we held our discussions about “The Shadow Scholar” article. It was gratifying to see the pride your children took in realizing they were discussing an article from a college freshman composition textbook. I was pleased with the higher-level thinking they displayed as they drew justifiable conclusions from nuances in the article. You might enjoy a conversation with your child about the article.

Additionally, the students continued to add to their List Themselves documents, adding a list of all the extravagant goods they'd purchase if they had unlimited funds, and all of the numbers they have memorized (not to worry--they only listed the number categories rather than the actual numbers, and we had a brief discussion about identity theft, as well). I'm creating a list with them for each prompt, and I'm finding them to be truly revealing. They are indicative of their values, imagination, memory, creativity, problem-solving, and depth of thought. All of these revelations will aid them as we begin goal-setting. To that end, we conducted a tennis ball activity that was a metaphor for goals. They were able to compare the activity to achieving goals the set for themselves versus those set by other people as well as the benefits and drawbacks of focusing on one goal or many. Their first listing prompt for next week will be to list all of the goals other people have for them, and the second prompt will be to list their own goals for themselves. We'll also be reading articles about goal setting and working on some goal-setting activities.

Stay dry and enjoy your children this weekend!

2018-08-31

The 7th grade Academic Stretch students continued to list themselves this week as they identified the things they'd do if they weren't afraid and the compliments they regularly receive. We discussed how these lists reveal characteristics of themselves they might not have previously considered; for example, the compliments lets them focus on how other people perceive them which might vary from their own self-perceptions. Students will be receiving grades for their responses to these list prompts in the near future, so you'll be able to see that in Infinite Campus soon.

Students have also presented their mandalas to their classes in their first public speaking assignment for the year. Each speech was recorded using the Chromebooks, so your children will be able to show you their performances. I did not grade these speeches because I want them to serve as a baseline to measure their growth over the course of the year. The students worked on reviewing their speeches to complete self-evaluations of their performances. These self-evaluations are due at the beginning of next week. I will grade these assignments for the thoroughness and the depth of their analyses. I have explained that I want to see genuine consideration of their strengths and weaknesses as well as ideas for how they might improve.

Lastly, students should have completed their reading of "The Shadow Scholar" article. They will have 15 to 30 minutes at the beginning of their next class to complete and submit their responses to the article questions, and then we will discuss the article. I will grade their question responses which are due on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thank you families who donated a canned item for our class intruder drills. I am still gratefully accepting donations and appreciate your consideration of this request. I hope you all enjoy this three-day weekend with your terrific children.

2018-08-24

The Stretch 7th graders spent the first weeks of school learning more about themselves through a number of different methods. We began a series of brief writing pieces in which the students respond to prompts asking them to list their answers to various topics. Thus far, we’ve listed the promises we keep making to ourselves, the things we have made by hand, and the things we’d rather be doing when we’re at school. I only had one item on that last list--sleeping! They had more. In addition to getting a better idea of themselves, they’ll also be using their responses to these prompts to help them to select Genius Hour topics for exploration later this semester. The students have also created mandalas in which they’ve drawn symbols and images of six of the most important events in their lives that have helped to shape them into the people they are today. Next week they will be presenting these mandalas to the class as their first public speaking assignment. They’ll video record these speeches with their Chromebooks so that they can watch them and evaluate their performances. They’ll be saved to their Google Drive folders, so you should ask to see them. Finally, the students have read a nonfiction article from The Chronicle of Higher Education about the prevalence of cheating in college. It was an eye-opening and disturbing article to which your students responded in writing via answers to a number of questions. After our mandala presentations, we will have a class discussion about the article. I think they'll be proud of themselves when they learn that I discovered the article in my son's college composition textbook! They can show you the article in Google Classroom if you're interested in checking it out.

I love having your students in class for a second year and have really enjoyed getting to know them a little better. It's fun to see the changes in maturity that one summer wrought in them, and I thank you for trusting me with part of their education. Have a wonderful weekend with your terrific children!