Last school year, one of my students came running up to me at his fifth-grade Open House and said, “I know what I want to do my project on this year. I want to start a Lego Robotics Team.”
Wow, I said that’s an ambitious goal.
As part of his gifted program service, the student began researching what it took to start the team. We quickly learned it would take about $800 to pay for the equipment and registration as well as require finding a coach, place to practice,...
Several years ago, I had my fifth-grade gifted students stand up, one at a time, and share their dreams for the future. I asked them, “How do you plan to use your gifts and talents when you grow older?” Many answers were the kind a teacher would expect: to play professional baseball, to become a marine biologist, to go into law. Until one boy stood up and proudly announced:
“I want to create a virus that could be used to wipe out half the planet.”
The room...
It's a new school year and I'd like to share one thought...focus on the positive!
As a classroom teacher for 33 years, I know that there are days when this thought is difficult at best to accomplish, but it really is something to keep in mind...even on those difficult days. Take a walk during your break, have some photographs of your...
You can have big dreams and high expectations when it comes to having your students complete projects. But if they lack the skills necessary to complete those projects, you’re going to run into some trouble.
That’s where Type 2 activities come in. Type 2 activities provide students with how-to-think and how-to-learn skills. The term Type 2 falls within Dr. Joseph Renzulli’s Enrichment Triad Model (For a full description, visit...
The dedication to get an education displayed by these young teens is amazing!
How do you get to school? Do you walk , ride a bike or take a bus? Approximately 60 students in a rural village in India's Gujarat state, walk and WADE across a river each day to get to and from their high school! There isn't any public transportation and there isn't a bridge for them to cross the river. Their village is located across the Heran River from the Utavali High School. The river is...
Happy 200th Birthday to The Star Spangled Banner! September 14, 2014, is the 200th anniversary of Francis Scott Key's writing of the poem which became our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner.
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Here is a possible bell-ringing activity:
Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." What do you think about his quote? Is it better to have a creative mind that thinks about possibilities or a mind full of information that can make possibilities into reality?
Have a GREAT SCHOOL YEAR!
Gail
Check out my resources at EdWorld Exchange:...
This past summer, I had the opportunity to attend Confratute, a week-long gifted education training at the University of Connecticut. On the final day of the conference, a panel of experts formed to answer questions on how to implement all the great ideas that participants learned and how to change the culture of a school regarding enrichment and talent development.
I thought it would be helpful if I used this week’s blog to summarize what each expert said, thus sharing their...
Selfies--everyone seems to be taking them these days…even monkeys. And, a big legal fight is going on over just WHO owns a particular monkey selfie.
A wildlife photographer taking pictures of black macaques on the island of Indonesia had his camera swiped by one of the monkeys he was photographing.The monkey took lots and lots of pictures, with its selfie being remarkably clear. It went viral over the Internet and one site, Wikipedia, posted the photograph without the...
I had an experience this past school year that really got me thinking about whether the curriculum I was using was adequate to teach my gifted students to grow into creative, productive and responsible adults. As part of a research project, one of my students decided to start a teacher recognition program at the school, which would involve students each month voting on their favorite teacher and providing that teacher with a goodie bag and certificate. The project sounded innocent enough,...