Thank you for coming to open house this week and being so warm and accepting of me as one of your child’s gifted teachers. I already feel a part of the Stone Lakes family and look forward to a wonderful year ahead!
~Mrs. Mendez
This week was another AWESOME week in the Gifted Classroom! Tuesday, September 17, was Constitution Day, so to get the kids thinking about our government and “civic duty,” all classes looked at Fast Facts about the Constitution. We also continued to work in groups on problem solving and teamwork. Our students work so hard to do their very best in all that they do and we’ve seen great leadership, teamwork, and problem solving skills this week. We set the expectations high and will continue to help them strive to be their very best.
2nd Grade: This week we read an article in DynaMath Magazineabout student scientists and discussed data in respect to place value of numbers. We looked at numbers distinguished between the standard and expanded form of numbers as well as the word form of numbers. Our 2nd graders were identifying numbers in the millions! We also used our problem solving skills to revise the final products and used writing skills to explain our product for Open House.
3rd Grade: We completed a “cloze” activity to assess what we know after reviewing information about the Constitutional Convention. This week students were introduced to the Decision Making Process and what a decision making matrix looks like. Students created a foldable of the steps for decision making and next week will review and use a decision making matrix to evaluate a problem of their own. We ended our day with a problem solving activity, Paper Tower Investigation. Teams were given 10 pieces of paper and some tape to design and build the highest free-standing structure. They were to first brainstorm with teammates and then evaluate all ideas to determine which might work the best. Then when they had what they felt was the best design, they were to build it. The students were so engaged, and at times frustrated when they discovered their tower to be top-heavy. We had two structures that remained standing. Next week, the students will group again and discuss what they would do differently and maybe even get a second chance!
4th Grade: These students were using wonderful problem solving skills this week. They had a chance to revise their dance pads for Open House and after a quick mini-lesson on circuits, they were off and running in trouble-shooting their original designs. They used reasoning to recognize the relationships of the parts, and determined cause and effect as they retested and redesigned their electrical circuits. They completed a Scientific Process Lab Report for the product to analyze and draw conclusions as they tested their hypothesis. The teams were extremely excited to share the revised product with classmates and teachers! They evaluated how their team worked together and complimented each other on being a team player. We then began planning for writing, using the writing prompt: “If you could become any type of Scientist, explain which Scientist you would like to become and why?” We encouraged students to start with a strong hook, explain with three good reasons, elaborating to help us understand, and finishing up with a good conclusion.
1st Grade: Today, our students were learning new facts about the Constitutional Convention by showing their knowledge as they created an accordion book with the facts they learned and pictures to match what they learned. We then looked at cause and effect by beginning to develop a story to explain an event (cause) that is happening and what happened (effect). Our goal was to develop 7-10 sentences to explain/describe what is happening. Our prompt was a picture of trees, students were to pretend that they were standing at the bottom of the set of trees, and tell a story about the event that is happening. They are to describe how they got there and what will they do next. We finished our day by making a birthday card for Ms. Rudnick, whose birthday is Sunday, then delivering it and singing “Happy Birthday” to her when we returned the students for dismissal.