What we've been doing this week in G/T...

My main goal for this blog is to inform parents of what we're doing in class each week.  It's too hard, (and a waste of paper), to send a newsletter home with every student in every grade that I teach, but I know parents still want to know what's going on.  So my goal is to give you a little rundown every couple weeks of what we're doing in GT.

5th grade - Our GI, Leadership, and Creativity classes started this week.  In GI, we started a massive logic grid about Summer Vacation.  This one's going to take us a couple weeks to finish.  :)  In Creativity, students filled out a paper telling about themselves filling in the blanks of the first thing that comes to their mind.  Boy, are they creative!  :)  In Leadership, we discussed a few things we're going to do this year and we discussed 3 committees we're going to have for 5th grade Leadership this week.  The kids wrote down which committee they'd like to be on and I divided them into the groups based on that and their personalities. 

4th grade will start next Tuesday

Right now I'm doing whole-class lessons for grades 1-3.  Pull-out groups for Primary Talent Pool will start after Christmas.  I use a curriculum called "PETS," which stands for Primary Education Thinking Skills.  These are really neat lessons that allow students to learn how to think in different ways from the "normal" thinking that goes on in the classroom.  Even though it's hectic to go to all of the 1st-3rd classes in 2 days, I really enjoy these lessons and getting to be with all of the kids!

Paperwork

Please be sure to turn in any paperwork I sent home with your child.  ALL students in 4th and 5th grade must turn in the Parental Response form and Parent Acknowledgement forms.  If I sent home a GSSP, (service plan), to be signed please return that as well.  If you need a new copy or want to know the status of your paperwork, feel free to send me an email any time. 

5th grade parents - YOU ROCK!!  When I went to file and check off all of the paperwork into the kids' files, I had every single 5th graders papers...every single one!!  Makes my crazy heart happy!

GSSP Explanation

Sometimes our "GSSP," or Gifted Student Service Plan is hard to understand, so I thought I'd explain a couple things.  First of all, the service options chosen for MOST students are "Collaborative Teaching" and "Resource Services."  Collaborative teaching is when I go into the classroom and teach a lesson with the classroom teacher.  Resource services are when the students come to my classroom to do a lesson or project.  That's all those mean...nothing too hard, those are just the official terms for the service plans.  Some GSSPs may have a line about "Extension Lesson" which are just lessons that I've taken from the classroom teacher and made them a little more difficult or added onto the lesson to make it more challenging for your child.

Also, the reason there is no GSSP for Leadership, Creativity, or any of the Arts is that students are not officially qualified for those areas until middle school.  In elementary school I provide lots of opportunities for students to grow and strengthen these areas and create a portfolio of experiences, but they are not formally identified in those areas until middle school.  There is no official test score for these areas like there are for General Intellectual or any of the subject areas.

If you received a GSSP in your child's packet, please be sure to sign it and return it to me as soon as you can.  Thank you for always being so great about returning paperwork!

Welcome!

Welcome, WES parents and kids!  I've decided to do a blog this year to try to have better communication with my parents.  I'll update this at least monthly to let you know what we're doing in each class.  With servicing MANY kids throughout the school, it's very hard to get newsletters every week or month to all of my students, plus that's a big waste of paper.  I'm also a mom, so I know that the paper gets read over, (with great precision of course!), and tossed in the trash or recycling bin!  So I'm also trying to do my part to save paper.  Hopefully this works and this becomes a place for parents to refer to for any information about Gifted & Talented.

I'm excited for a great school year with your kids!