Illnesses

There is a nasty stomach virus going around in our classroom.  It seems to hit the kids pretty quickly and there were already three children out with the virus from our class today.  I know that sometimes gifted children are particularly worried about being absent and are afraid to stay home and miss school.  While of course I want them to be at school whenever possible, please reassure them that if they are sick they should stay home and focus on getting better.  Anything important that they miss can be made up when they return.  This includes tests but also fun projects.  The most important thing is that they get healthy so that they can do their best work when they return to school.  I don't want them to worry about missing school when they are truly ill.  I hope that these icky germs will pass soon!

Reading Log

Time for another post, I tend to do most of my work at night after my baby is asleep... I can really appreciate the amount of time, love, and energy that all of you parents put into raising your gifted children!

I have noticed a pattern that most of my students love to read but many resist writing.  It makes me sad to see students who think writing is "hard" because it's such an essential means of expression.  I want them to build the habit of writing at least one good sentence outside of school daily reflecting on a book of their choice.  This helps them to practice mechanics and printing but more importantly process their independent reading using the skills that we practice in class.  Often they don't even realize that they are using these skills already as part of what good readers naturally do.  I like to help them recognize this.  Here are some nice examples from our first batch of reading logs.

At this point in the year I want my students to focus more on the content of their writing so I won't be correcting their spelling or punctuation YET.  Don't worry, that will come later.  For now I want the reading log to be something that they are comfortable with.  It shouldn't be taking more than 5-10 minutes at most.  If it becomes a battle at home, please let me know so I can help your child to manage this.  If your child "doesn't know what to write" start by having them tell you about the book out loud.  Let them talk to you about what they liked, what was funny, what they learned (if it was a nonfiction book), or what the story was about.  Talking about the book will help them to organize their thoughts before they begin to write.

The two biggest problems that I see on reading log assignments are either simple sentences ("I like this book" "It was cool" "You should read this book") or students who always use the same type of  sentence ("I like this book because it is funny" "I like this book because I like to read about insects" "I like this book because...").  If your child begins to do that, try to stop the pattern of lazy writing.  For my "simple sentence writers" I require them to use the word "because" and highlight it.  This means they will have to provide some sort of evidence.  For repetitive writers, I require them to start their sentences differently each day.

If your child wants to write more than the lines allow, they can always write on a separate sheet of paper and staple it to the reading log.  I will return reading log assignments in Friday Folders although it sometimes takes me more than a week to grade them.  I try to be thoughtful with my feedback so it takes me a little longer to grade these than math pages.

I will share more about reading log assignments at Back to School Night.  I hope this helped to clarify my expectations.

Class Dojo

I decided to try using Class Dojo as a management/communication tool and so far I am very happy with it.  Class Dojo is a software program that I can access in class via my laptop or iPhone app to instantly award points to students for particular behaviors.  These can be positive points (such as +1 for checking work carefully, +1 for good carpet manners) or negative points (-1 for not being prepared with materials, -1 for being off task).  When I award points, there is a happy or sad "ding" noise that alerts students that points have been awarded to someone.  This serves as a quick reinforcement that does not disrupt class.

The Class Dojo program keeps a record of the points awarded to each student and parents can access their child's record at any time.  If I have your email address I have already sent you an invitation to link to your child's account.  You can log in and view their record, as well as change their monster avatar.  I recommend trying some of the different report options because you can see their percentages of positive and negative behaviors for that day, week, month, or other time periods and track their progress.  I believe that you will receive a weekly summary of your child's points in your email each Friday as well.


Parents, this is something new and I would appreciate your feedback.  From talking to some of you today I heard that you like being able to check their progress and found the site easy to use.  Some others were worried when they saw negative behavior marks.  Please don't worry too much about one or two negative marks, the important thing is your child's overall behavior.  I have only been using it for two days now but the scholars seem to really enjoy it and I have seen an improvement in behavior already.  I hope that it will continue to work well and I will discuss Class Dojo more at Back to School Night next Thursday.

http://www.classdojo.com/

Depth and Complexity

The past week was a great week in room 8.  The weather began to cool down and the scholars felt more comfortable with our classroom routines and what to expect from a GATE class.  They are beginning to understand that gifted education doesn't just mean more work, it means work that makes us think in a different way where the answer isn't always obvious right away.  Sometime students can have a hard time adjusting to academic contexts with more than one right answer, but these scholars seem excited about the opportunity to think critically.

Sometimes parents wonder if GATE means their child is skipping ahead and doing work for the next grade level.  GATE is not about pushing ahead or just doing more work, it's about recognizing capable young minds who are able to take the same grade level standards to a deeper, more complex level of understanding.  Rather than spending our class time asking and answering surface level questions (what, where, when...) we can explore a text's meaning and make more meaningful connections to academic content (why, could, should, what if....) to provide more appropriate challenge.

During the past week we began exploring the icons of depth and complexity, which we will apply to all subject areas throughout the year.  These icons are consistent throughout the GATE program and are used in all grade levels.  Last week we discussed Language of the Discipline, Details, Unanswered Questions, and Rules.

Language of the Discipline means the specialized vocabulary required to understand a subject, topic, or text.  For example, some of the language of the discipline for our classroom would be "scholar," "1, 2, 3 eyes on me," "reading club," and "compliment can."  These are terms specific to my classroom.  A student in room 8 would understand what these terms mean and how they are used in our class.  Similarly, a paleontologist has language of the discipline in their career that relates to fossils, while a doctor's language of the discipline would contain medical terms.  This icon will help your child become more observant of academic vocabulary.  Language of the Discipline is represented by a picture of lips.

Later this week I will post some information about the other icons, as well as answer some questions you may have about the reading log homework.  Thank you, parents, for your warm response to my classroom website!

First week of school wrap up

This has been a great first week of school.  I wanted to share a few photos with you of what we have been focusing on this week in addition to the regular back to school curriculum.
Of course, we have spent a lot of time this week practicing our classroom rules and routines.  There are many individual behavior expectations for our classroom, but I group them under two "umbrella" rules:  Use good scholar manners and always try your best.  We discussed why it's important to follow these rules at school and some examples of what that would look like.

We have also been spending some time discussing ORDER, our Universal Theme for this year.

 

The scholars really enjoyed discussing the universal theme and looking for examples.  Throughout the year we will look for order across the curriculum.  As we find examples of order, we will record them here:

You may be noticing some of the icons of depth and complexity among the pictures from our classroom.  Those are integral to the GATE program.  The flower represents details, the Z with dots represents patterns, the square with lines extending out is my quick way of drawing the symbol for rules, and the "house" with the columns represents the big idea.  I'll be explaining those more as the year goes on.  They are not just decorations, they are tools used to help scholars make connections and further their understanding.

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend!

Universal Theme: Order

We had a great first day of school today!
In your child's backpack there is a large envelope of paperwork from the school for you to complete.  Please return this to me tomorrow.  Your child also has a homework assignment related to our universal theme.  In GATE we use a universal theme each year across the curriculum.  This year's theme is order for both first and second graders.  Today in class we discussed order and looked at some examples of what order is and is not.
Your child's homework tonight is to find or draw a picture of something that shows order.  You can help them by looking around your house for examples.  For instance, in my kitchen my silverware drawer has order because the forks, spoons, and knives are all separated.  My cabinet with pots and pans does not have order because they are just thrown together wherever they fit.
Please help them to do their best with their assignment.  Thank you and please remember that tomorrow (Wednesday) is our early dismissal day.  School ends at 2:00 every Wednesday.

School birthday policy

In case you missed the Jump Start meeting, I want to inform you about Allen's policy for celebrating students' birthdays.  Celebrating a birthday at school can make children feel very special, so we want to honor that without going overboard.  Our school policy is that if you would like to bring treats for your child to share on their birthday, you may send store bought cupcakes (not homemade) and juice boxes with your child in the morning or drop them off in the school office.  We will use the last 15 minutes of the school day for the celebration.  I also request that if you are going to send treats that you also send napkins or paper plates.  You certainly don't need to send treats if you don't want to!
There are a few reasons for this policy.  First of all, we don't want to lose our valuable instructional time by taking too long celebrating birthdays.  With 27 first graders, we like to keep the celebrations short and sweet.
The purpose of having "store bought" cupcakes only is so that there is an ingredient list available for me to check for my students with allergies.  The last thing any parent or teacher wants is for a child to become ill.
Dr. Heughins would like us to please remind all parents not to send other items such as pizza or treat bags.  Save those fun things for your child's birthday party outside of school.
If you have any questions about Allen's birthday policies, please feel free to contact me.  I am open to the possibility of sending healthy snacks such as apple slices instead of cupcakes, but please contact me first.