Category: Gifted Strategies

Exploring the nerve center of the blog

Challenge #6 for the Teacher Challenge involves embedding media. I thought I would share with you the unit I wrote for my gifted endorsement last year. In order to share it with our endorsement class, we had to “sell” our unit and also present information on what we taught and how students reacted. I created… Continue reading Exploring the nerve center of the blog

The Great Rock Mix Up: An Inquiry Approach from Day 1

I am about to wrap up the second week of school with my kids. From the first day, I reinvented my usual first two weeks of school lessons to get rid of the introductory science process skills lessons and replaced them with inquiry based lessons surrounded by the content (geology – classifying rocks by their… Continue reading The Great Rock Mix Up: An Inquiry Approach from Day 1

Establishing a Culture of Inquiry during the First Days of School

I am trying to reinvent my class for next year – especially the first week of school. Here is an outline of what I did last year on the first five days of school: Day 1 – Classroom expectations, basic overview of what is covered in the course Day 2 – Lesson on observations, inferences,… Continue reading Establishing a Culture of Inquiry during the First Days of School

Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors: A Reading for Meaning Lesson

Two days before spring break, and the next lesson style in my solar system unit was a reading for meaning lesson on comets, asteroids, and meteors. If you are not familiar with the the reading for meaning strategy, students are given an organizer with statements on it. Students decide whether they agree or or disagree… Continue reading Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors: A Reading for Meaning Lesson

The sun is like a factory: A new metaphorical lesson

After we finished our jigsaw assessment, the next concept up was to learn about the sun. In my state curriculum (GA) learning about the sun, it’s parts, and how it works is an extension. Personally, I think knowing about the sun is important. One of the lesson styles I had to use for my gifted… Continue reading The sun is like a factory: A new metaphorical lesson

After the Jigsaw

I spent five days on my jigsaw lesson doing the following activities on each day: Explain concept and work in expert groups Work in expert groups Work in jigsaw groups Work in jigsaw groups and class discussion Assessment (test) In most of my classes, the expert groups and jigsaw groups worked well together. However, there… Continue reading After the Jigsaw