Advocating for Gifted and Talented Students

Gifted and Talented students have unique needs and their best advocates are parents. How does a parent best address problems or issues with educators? The first thing parents need to do is establish a good line of communication with their child's teachers. Make sure you know how that educator will communicate with you and the most effect method to communicate to that educator. Educators and parents are overloaded with responsibilities and sources of information. Being able to determine whether notes, phone calls, emails or face to face meetings is the best, will save a lot of time and frustration.
Both parties also need to recognize that what one member of the team (parent-educator) may deem to be highly urgent and of top priority may not be so for the other member. A family may be going through a crisis and a missing homework may seem petty. On the other hand, your child's trauma over hurt feelings, may not be a priority for an educator who has other students experiencing violence, divorce or poverty. All parties need to be respectful and recognize that we come to the issue from different perspectives.
Both parties should try to communicate directly. Educators and parents can be very difficult to get in contact with, but working through a third party can cause more problems. Every effort should be made to work together first. Third parties such as Principals, Special Education Directors, Superintendents, and State Department officials should be a back up when the issue is not settled to satisfaction. Many issues can be easily solved by working in cooperation with the educators serving your child.
Lastly, how should parents and educators deal with the intense emotions involved. When our children are involved, people can get very emotional. Parents love their children and want to protect them from hurt and disappointment. Educators want to do what is best for children as well. We got in the business, because we feel called to help children grow and develop. The child's best interests is why both parties should work together and develop a solution that respects both sides. Try to look at the issue from the other party's view point and don't get stuck in only one possible solution. There may be a compromise that will work for all.
Issues and problems will occur. It takes a whole community to raise a child. We each have strengths, talents and roles that help in raising a child. Respecting each other and addressing the issues with an open creative mind will ensure that your child has the best possible advocates for them- parents and educators.

Simple Machines Essays

Here are some simple machines. A screw twists and keeps things together. A pulley is round and can lift a heavy load. Wheels and axles can more things more easily and roll smoothly. A wedge is shaped like a triangle and separates things. A lever has one side that goes up and one side that goes down, and the middle is called the fulcrum. An inclined plane makes things slide and the higher the inclined plane the faster the object goes.

~Trevor

There are six simple machines. The screw, which keeps things together. There is also the pulley which lifts heavy loads. The wheel and axle move smoothly. We aren’t done yet! Who could forget the wedge? The wedge separates things. Now the lever looks like one side is up and one side is down. Last, but not least, inclined planes make things slide. Simple machines are important to life.

~Madeline

A simple is in every machine on earth and in space. They’re silent helpers in life. Take a screw, people think without a screw life would be normal. No, life would be very different. Without a pulley, maybe your house wouldn’t exist. A pulley helps you lift extremely heavy loads. A wheel and axlel are very important today. Without wheels and axles, cars, buses, trains and bikes wouldn’t exist. The wedge is very important to lumber jacks. Without wedges almost every wooden thing on earth wouldn’t exist. I don’t know much about levers, but I do know that levers help lift things up. Last but not least, inclined planes help take stress off of lifting loads. See, simple machines are important to life.

~Logan

There are six simple machines. The first one is the screw. It helps keep things together, and it twists when you use it. The next one is pulleys. They lift heavy load and are round. The wheel and axlel roll things smoothly and can move things easily. The wedge separates things pretty well. It is a cool triangular shape. Levers are pretty nice. One side goes up while the other side goes down. What is interesting is that the middle is called a fulcrum. The last is the inclined plane. When you use one, things slide, but if you make it taller the faster it slides. Simple machines are important to life.

~Chloe

There are six simple machines. A screw is a simple machine and it keeps things together. Another simple machine is a pulley and it lifts heavy things. The next simple machine is a wheel and axle. It rolls smoothly. The other one is a wedge and it separates things. Then, there is a lever. One side goes up and one side goes down. Last but not least, the inclined plane makes things slide. Simple machines are important to life.

~Harlie

January Happenings

We have been busy finishing up our units for the first semester. Third graders made inventions. As part of the inventions unit, the students learned a lot about simple machines. They used Kidspiration to organize their learning and wrote an essay, which we decided we will post to this blog. The third graders are finishing their unit on Five Traits of Giftedness as well. We are making file folder books to show how each student demonstrates the five traits of above average ability, task commitment, creativity, courage and caring.

Fifth graders finished their robotics unit and competed in the FIRST Lego League. We have started Record Breakers, a math unit on world records. Lots of fun. We have also been working on Autobiographies. We have read autobiographical pieces by prize winning children's authors and analyzed them using Paul's reasoning web, and the literary analysis web. We have begun working on our own autobiographical pieces which will focus on a theme.

Fourth grade finished their unit on natural disasters. One of the classes built a model for their solution and explained the model with a poster. The other class created a website using Publisher. Hopefully we can get our computer tech to add the website to the school website soon! We are also working on our mathematical analysis skills through the unit, Analyze This! The students are learning about representing and interpreting data. They love collecting the data through surveys and other activities.

Creativity

I have been reading the book, Different Minds by Deirdre Lovecky. This book is geared toward twice exceptional gifted children, or gifted children who have an accompanying disorder.

Chapter Five: Finding Flow: The Wellspring of Creative Endeavor has some suggestions on enhancing creativity. This is helpful for all gifted children so I thought I would summarize the suggestions.
1. Have quiet places where children can retreat to daydream
2. Creativity depends on both divergent and convergent thinking skills. Children need to develop both.
3. Creativity is correlated to big-picture thinking. Children may need help in making connections to larger themes or issues.
4. Creative work has often been inspired by witnessing the pain and hardship of others. It is okay for children to see age appropriate issues and develop their empathy.
5. Creative work can be used to overcome obstacles. Use your creativity to bolster a weakness or embellish a mistake.
6. Special interests can lead to or impede creativity. Computer games, Pokemon or Game Boy are not creative activities. Limit non-creative activities and spend more time on open-ended activities.
7. Much of the research on the early lives of creative people suggests that reading is an important activity.
8. Adults should model their own creative work. Discuss the joys and hardships of living a more creative life.
9. Have adults work with children to help them get started on projects. Let them see that the process of flow in doing something creative, feels good.
10. Help creative children who never finish anything by selecting one of their ideas to work on.

"Gifted people who are creative do not stop being creative, even if they achieve little in the way of recognition. It is not recognition that makes them creative but their own inner connection to their material. The process of becoming one's whole self, of using all of ones' potential to benefit oneself and others, should be the goal of gifted people." (Lovecky, 2004)

November Happenings

Third Grade is busy learning about inventions and simple machines. The students have investigated levers, pulleys, inclined plane and wheels. We will add the gears and screws later in the month. Creative Problem Solving was used to address a school problem, noise in the cafeteria. Next students will look at problems and the inventions developed to address the problem. Then the students will find a problem and invent their own solution.

Fourth Grade has been using Creative Problem Solving to look at the issue of natural disasters. One of the classes has decided to create a website to help others learn about natural disasters and how to manage the problems they create. The second Fourth grade class will create a PowerPoint presentation to show their solution to the Sound Tunnel problem

Fifth grade has been working hard to get ready for the FIRST Lego League qualifier on November 19th. They have investigated food contamination and invented a solution that they will present. The students have also worked hard in learning to program, and in addressing the missions.

FIRST Lego League

We are in full gear to get ready for our FLL qualifier in November. Fifth graders will program an NXT robot to navigate the challenge field. We could use any adult help in building the lego components of the field kit. This is one thing adults can do for the group. Since our preparation time has been reduced, I am not using students to build the field set up. Their time can be better used programming and preparing our presentation on food contamination.

We have used the IIM model for researching food contamination. We set our research goals, gathered notefacts from government websites, videos and food experts, organized our notefacts, and evaluated our goals. Next we will use Creative Problem Solving to identify the problems, pick an underlying problem, list solutions, use criteria to decide on the best solution and then create a presentation for the competition.

Time is our biggest challenge. In order to give us more prepartion time, we will have practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 to 3:30. Adult help is welcome.

September Happening

Third Grade-
Third grade SPACE classes finally get to start the week of September 12. For about a month, we will have one SPACE day until Ms. Laymon can finish Second Grade Child find activities. After those are complete, students will have SPACE twice a week so they can get 3 hours of GT service.
We will begin learning Talent Unlimited Thinking skills, logical thinking and the Creative Problem Solving process. We will soon start our Invention Unit

Fourth Grade-
Ms. Laymon received a grant for Power Up: Inventive Thinking. Students will learn the Advanced Systematic Inventive Thinking Model, get to use new software to develop their creative and critical thinking, and get to practice creative thinking through Science Olympiad practice problems.

Fifth Grade-
Fifth Graders have begun the FLL Robotics 2011 Food Factor Challenge. We have begun to research food contamination, the problems and solutions. We will begin building our robots and learning how to program them with Labview software. Lots to do!