We've been busy! Scroll down until you see your child's group in bold letters. But wait! Read this first! since hopefully a lot of people will be looking at this site, I'd like to add in a plug for Maker Faire! IT's coming up on April 19th. we'd love for your child(ren) to participate. Remember, anything you can make has a place in the maker faire! design a robot, invent a new snack food, take apart some old toys and hack a new one, the possibilities are endless! check out our website for all the info you need. Proposals are due March 2nd. 3rd Grade Reading We wrapped up 2017 by reading the classic allegorical fantasy, The Phantom Tollbooth. one of the most fun features of this book is the word play. We talked about puns, portmanteau words (we created our own- my favorite was imagibration-a celebration of imagination), figurative language and imagery. We had great conversations about Milo, the main character's, discoveries about higher thinking and appreciating learning. To give students a bit more time in their classrooms to familiarize themselves with the many nuances of standardized testing, I'm currently meeting with this group once a week. We've been reading articles from one of my favorite kid magazines, Ask. Each month, the magazine focuses on a different science topic and features a variety of non-fiction articles. By reading several articles that relate to one topic, we're able to deeply explore the subject and use higher order reading/thinking skills such as synthesizing information from several sources, analyzing common traits, and evaluating different solutions to a problem. 4th Grade Reading 4th graders just wrapped up a huge project on renewable and non-renewable energy sources. They researched energy sources by reading a variety of articles. They also read about the essential infrastructure needed to run and maintain a city. Groups then designed "cities of the future" that ran completely on renewable energy sources and were designed to maximize wellness, fun and safety. Check out the photos below to see your child's city! Now, we're checking out other people's ideas of the future with a little time travel. We're going back in time by reading old science fiction (1980s or earlier) and seeing how author's visions of the future are spot on or totally off. we're working on drawing inferences to understand the setting and the characters, and analyzing the technology described to see if it's obsolete or still relevant and/or possible. (small portable typewriters got some laughs!) 2nd and 3rd grade Math We're delving into the exciting world of current brain research on math learning. Each week, we do an activity that is designed to increase brain connectivity and fluency in mathematical thinking. 2nd graders examined the different ways we all see numbers and also worked on exercises to increase finger discrimination (shown to directly correlate with brain development in math). 3rd graders worked on visualizing numbers in a way that encouraged brain crossing and discussed how strong brain pathways are formed. For more on this exciting topic, check out www.youcubed.org, Week of Inspirational Math. (we're currently on week 1 since there are 5 lessons and we only meet once a week.) 5th Grade REading 5th graders are currently working on a decade project that combines fiction and historical fiction reading. I'm sharing this project and group of kids with Ms. Rohl. In her group, groups of 4 or 5 kids will research a decade from the 1930s to the 1970s. They'll focus on important american political events and lifestyle and culture. In my group, students will focus on fiction titles written about their decade. I've selected historical fiction novels in verse, song lyrics and poems so students have fairly condensed snapshots of their decade. The poetic nature of all the pieces also allows us to have some great conversations around poetry-what is it, is all poetry good and worthwhile, is the novel in verse genre valid? Students will integrate all this info about their decade into a prezi, a unique slideshow tool.
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Here's a glimpse of what's been going on in my groups:
Welcome to an exciting new school year!
There's been an ongoing effort at Foothill since I started in this position last year to change the perception and harmful effects of labeling kids as "TAG." Many parents are happy to have a label for their child if it has a positive connotation. However, the more brain research I read about helping students have growth mindsets, the more I understand that this label often leads to perfectionism and a fixed mindset because students who've been told they're academically gifted and talented can be so crippled by a fear of failing that they hold themselves back. I love the idea of communicating to our children that every human has gifts and strengths-academic, social, artistic, etc. It's important for all of us to think about our gifts and truly nurture them-a personal gift is not like a present that you just get and have. A personal gift is something that needs to be practiced and carefully cultivated. I found this quote by Mary Dunbar that sums up my feelings: "We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light." Along that theme, I feel a lot of support in our Foothill community around the notion of all kids having unique gifts and talents-I'd love my position to be viewed as a resource teacher who can help any and all kids, teachers and parents set high expectations and capitalize on strengths. So, I thought I'd call my classroom "The Lightbulb Lab" (I know, cringing from hokey-ness, but oh well!) and hopefully get kids to realize that everyone is welcome here and everyone's strengths and special light should be celebrated and nurtured. I've given my room a distinctive lightbulb theme to help with this. :) I don't think I need a label at all, I can just be Ms. Weisman who helps with groups and the Makerspace...and is happy to help any kid discover his/her gifts and will also certainly keep helping academically strong students set goals, receive challenging instruction and advocate for their needs. I believe very strongly in setting high expectations for all students and helping them find the appropriate tools to achieve them. Let's raise the bar this year for bright students, high achieving students, bright students who haven't always been high achieving... We all know there's not a cookie cutter that shapes our kids, so we'll work together to make sure every student is challenged, curious and excited. And we won't call them TAG kids; let's just call them kids who can achieve great things if they set their minds to it. |
Welcome!I will use this site to keep you up to date on what's happening with enrichment at Foothill as well as opportunities in the greater Boulder area. If you have resource ideas or know of events, please let me know so I can add them! Archives
February 2018
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