Excellence in Reading - An Enrichment Opportunity!

The Mensa Foundation recognizes and encourages education, gifted youth, and lifelong learning. 

To encourage the joy of reading, the Mensa Foundation has developed the Mensa for Kids Excellence in Reading Program. Students of all ages can participate and it's FREE!  Membership in Mensa is not required.

To participate, students select a book list on the Mensa for Kids website. Students are encouraged to read at the level of their ability and interest, regardless of age or grade level.

Students track the books they read on a recording sheet. (No reading response required!!)  Once finished, students send the completed form to Mensa. Students can earn a commemorative certificate in recognition of their outstanding achievement and get a free Excellence in Reading T-shirt, too!


The books may be read aloud. Readers can also listen to audio books or read the books online. Teachers may also read to their classes.


To learn more about this free program and see the book lists, visit the Mensa for Kids website here.

If your child decides to participate, please let me know! I would love to encourage his/her efforts!

Science Fair!

There's still time to enter the Bradley Creek Science Fair! 

Don't miss out on all the fun!  

Contact me with questions. :-) christen.howe@nhcs.net

Animal Soup

Students in 1st grade are working with Isabel the Inventor.  When we think like Isabel, we are using our imagination to see ordinary things in new ways.  One of our whole group activities includes making "Animal Soup," a fun, lift-the-flap book written by Paul Doodler.

Let's check out how it works!  Below are two sample pages from the book.  After considering the question, students can lift the flap to see the 3rd page.  Give it a try:

What would you be if you had wings to fly like a bird . . .

and walked slowly like a turtle?

A BiRdLe! 

Seriously, this book cracks me up every year!  My favorite combination is the flamingo and monkey. (A flamonkey :-)  

Once we read the story as a class, students use their imagination to create their own animal.  Each student selects two animal cards.  

Students then glue the cards to the activity sheet below.

From here, students combine elements of each animal's name to create a new animal species.  Some examples might include:

alligator + gorilla = gorillagator

lion + dinosaur = linosaur

monkey + kangaroo = monkaroo

puppy + hippopotamus = puppyotamus

Because the goal is to develop divergent thinking skills, I frequently remind students that there is more than one correct answer. For example, if you were part alligator and part octopus, you could be an allipus, an octigator, or a gatorpus.  The possibilities are endless.

Then they draw a picture to illustrate their animal soup creation.  Here are a few examples from one of my first grade nurturing lessons:

Oftentimes, I compile the student pictures and make it into a class book.  Most times, the kids are too eager to take them home right away to share :-)

If you have a specific topic or grade level that you would like me to address on the blog, please leave a comment and let me know.  I'd love to hear from you :-)
Christy

Science Fair 2016!

The Bradley Creek science fair, open to all 3rd-5th graders, will take place on Friday, January 8, 2016.  Information about the school fair and how to register will be sent home shortly.  For a sneak peak, on the letter coming home, click here.  If you have any questions, please let me know.

Stay tuned for more information and updates!

Think Lab!

Woo hoo! 1st and 2nd grade students began THINK LAB this week!

Think Lab provides an extension to the activities we do in our whole group nurturing lessons.  (To learn more about whole group lessons and the K-2 nurturing program, click here :-)  EVERY K-2 student has the opportunity to participate in Think Lab. Classrooms are divided in half and the two small groups visit the Think Lab on different days.

During Think Lab students play nonverbal games that enrich the higher order thinking skills we've been working on in class.  This session of Think Lab focuses on convergent thinking or Dudley the Detective.  Dudley the Detective teaches us how to analyze the clues to reach one correct answer.

In whole group nurturing lessons, students learn to organize clues and eliminate options to reach the one correct answer.  During Think Lab, students practice these skills with hands-on games.

Some of the games we play include Sudoku . . . 

Castle Logic . . . 

Rush Hour . . . 

And many more! 

Check out one of our 5th grade mentors assisting below :-)

Be sure to ask your 1st or 2nd grader what they are working on in Think Lab!  Students will participate this week and all of next!  Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for checking in to the BC AIG blog!

Kindergarten News!

The K-2 AIG program is designed to help students develop higher order thinking skills. 

Students are introduced to Dudley the Detective, Yolanda the Yarnspinner, Isabel the Inventor, Max the Magician, Sybil the Scientist,and Jordan the Judge. Each character represents a higher order thinking skill used in his or her job. Each character guides students series of activities to introduce and reinforce their type of thinking. 

In the first nine weeks, students met Isabel the Inventor (Divergent Thinking).  She helps us to use our imagination to see ordinary things in new ways.

Below you will see our "Brainfocals!"  When use these special glasses to help us see ordinary things in new ways!

  

After reading Not a Stick, by Antoinette Portis, students used their imagination to brainstorm new uses for this everyday object.

 a swingset

 a unicorn

a  straw

the letter "e" for Edwin

Students also turned ordinary bubbles into extraordinary creations and used polygons to devise an invention that could move and help people.  Be sure to ask your child about the Isabel the Inventor projects we are working on in class! 

To learn more about the K-2 nurturing program, visit the BC AIG web site here. :-)

GIS Day!!!!

Geographic Information Systems Day! 11.19.14

On Wednesday of this week, Mike Arkinson and Eliza Baldwin came to Bradley Creek to introduce and celebrate GIS Day with our 4th and 5th grade AIG students.  Let me tell you . . . It was amazing! 

Our presenters shared a series of short videos about maps, including their history, uses, and global applications. Students learned that maps not only provide information about our geographic location, but also about our climate, economy, and humanitarian needs and efforts - just to name a few.  Below are links to the videos shared.  Each one is under 4 minutes and totally worth watching!

What is GIS?

Dr. Richard Alley - Using GIS to teach the world about Global Warming & Climate Change

Geospatial Revolution - Food Deserts

Then students were given guidance to explore maps using an interactive tool designed by National Geographic.  You can check it out here!

Using GIS, students were asked to make a map.  They could select from the a series of choices, such as, map the human "footprint" in North Carolina, or design their own challenge.

As you can see from the photos, no one was interested in the assignment :-)

It was an eye opening experience for the students (and their teacher)!  The visual power of GIS is astounding, on a personal, local, and global level!  Be sure to ask your child more about this great presentation and effective ways to use the software provided.

Thank you so much to Ms. Baldwin and Mr. Arkinson for sharing their expertise with our class!!  Can we put you on the schedule for next year, please? :-)

Science Fair!!

Hi All!

Science fair packets will be sent home tomorrow with those of you who requested more information.  If you have not yet had a chance to return your slip (it's on blue paper :-) and would like to participate, just let me know!

Please contact me if I can be of help in any way!!!

Christy

Film Festival on November 16th!

Our short film SHOT REVERSE SHOT will be shown at the 20th annual Cucalorus Fim Festival on Sunday, November 16th.  The film will premiere along with other nominated youth films starting at 1:00pm at the City Stage Theater downtown.  

Click here view the film.

Our director, Mr. Hackler, has secured FREE admission for all of our Academy participants. Hooray!  Tickets will be distributed to students next week.  Tickets for family members and friends are $10 each. 

We hope that you will join us to celebrate this amazing accomplishment!  If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.  

Please see the link below for additional details.

http://cucalorus.org/film_Detail.asp?id=2409

Dudley the Detective

In Kindergarten through 2nd grade, the AIG program is designed to explore ability and nurture talent among all students. I push in to every K-2 classroom to provide whole group lessons that encourage critical, creative, and higher order thinking skills. All activities are hands-on and address multiple intelligences. 

The scope and sequence of the K-2 program is grounded in Primary Education Thinking Skills (P.E.T.S.). Primary Education Thinking Skills (PETS) is a systematic enrichment thinking skills program for K-3 students. Its purpose is to help primary aged students develop higher level thinking skills. PETS follows the taxonomy of thinking skills outlined by Benjamin Bloom, presenting lessons in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. 

Students are introduced to a series of characters; each one serves as a guide, as well as a memory trigger, for the higher level thinking skill they represent. Each character guides students through a story and a series of activities to introduce and reinforce their type of thinking. 

Dudley the Detective is the first of six characters that students will “meet” throughout the year.  Dudley specializes in convergent thinking.  He teaches us to use clues to find one correct answer.  Characteristics of convergent thinking, or “detective work,” as we call it, include the ability to grasp concepts quickly, reason logically, recognize flawed reasoning, see the interrelationship of clues, defer judgment, and intuitively identify answers without intermediate steps.  

During the unit, students will work with Dudley the Detective to evaluate visual and verbal clues and solve various “mystery” situations.   Using hands-on activities and concrete thinking maps, students will tackle cases such as "Tricky Treats,” "The Mystery Animal," and “Max’s Magic Number (or Aces, Jumble, Zilch!).”  Other hands-on activities, which require deductive thinking and logical reasoning, include Logic Links, attribute stacks, “Problem Solvers,” logic line-ups, and more!  

The first set of pictures below show 1st grade working in pairs to solve Jr. Sudoku puzzles.

The second set of photos shows 2nd grade working on a non-verbal puzzle called PETS silhouettes.  It is similar to, but more challenging than, the super fun ThinkFun game Clever Castle.

The final set of photographs show second grade playing Aces, Jumble, Zilch, which is similar to the classic game of Mastermind.  In this game, students use clues to find the correct 3 or 4-digit number.

Be sure to ask your child about the mysteries he or she is solving in class!  Until next time! Thanks for checking in :-)

What Makes a Great Hero?

In 4th grade ELA, students are engaged in Problem Based Learning.  Each student is tasked with creating their own superhero and writing a "pitch" to Marvel Comics to explain why he or she will be the next great hero.  In order to prepare for this, students are reading a series of non-fiction articles about the characteristics of a great hero.  After reading our first article, students answered text-dependent questions such as, "According to the article, identify one characteristic of a great hero.  Explain how this characteristic contributes to making the hero great."  Students then used our reading response goals to color-code their answers.  In purple, students underlined, where they used "part of the question in their answer."

In orange, they underlined where they provided specific evidence from the text to support their answer.

Once students demonstrate mastery of the first two reading response goals, we will add a new goal (and colors) to our board.  Some of our future goals include:

• I use "because" or a variation of it.
• I use a variety of sentence types and lengths.
• I use interesting words and advanced vocabulary.
• I extend my answer with my thoughts and ideas.
• I use proper conventions.

Next week, we will continue exploring our essential question, "What makes a great hero?" through non-fiction articles, advertisements, and a short documentary.  From there, students will be ready to create their hero and write their pitch.  Stay tuned to learn more about the writing criteria involved and the rubric students will use to craft and reflect upon their work.