The Python Brainwave

Season's Greetings, parents and students-

I've been remiss in staying current with the monthly newsletters, so I'm determined to get back on track starting today. It's hard to believe the holiday season is upon us. While the trees in my yard are stilling dropping leaves, the calendar says we're two weeks from the Winter Solstice--and that means your students will be home for winter break soon!

It's been an incredibly busy fall, as is typical. FUSION, DCI, EDGE, and SEARCH are all humming along beautifully. Come January, we'll add a second-grade EDGE group. To maintain consistency, all EDGE groups now meet with me weekly--so that means comes January, I'll see 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade EDGE groups every week. The same is true with FUSION and DCI Math and Language Arts students. SEARCH lessons are still every other week for grades K-3. If you'd like to learn more about any of these programs, visit my Evergreen Mill web page here.

Besides wishing you all a wonderful holiday season, I'm sharing important information about: (1) the spring gifted eligibility cycle for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders; (2) insight into what we're working on across the programs: and (3) a list of gift ideas for advanced learners. Read on to find out more.

Cheers to you this winter season-

Martha Rombach

EMES Gifted Resource Teacher

The spring Gifted Eligibility window for parents to refer 4th or 5th grade students for evaluation is open between Tuesday, January 2 and Friday, January 26. Please remember, students who participated in the fall evaluation cycle are not eligible for evaluation again until fall 2024. LCPS policy is that students may be considered for gifted services once annually.

To learn more about the gifted eligibility process, what testing criteria is reviewed, and how the process unfolds, I encourage interested parents to review the following materials:

1. The Gifted Evaluation Process Explained - narrated by Wendy King, director of the LCPS Gifted Education Department

2. The LCPS Gifted Education website

3. Mrs. Rombach's Gifted Education/Evergreen Mill website

4. Permission to Evaluate forms

• Permission to Evaluate (English)
• Permission to Evaluate (Spanish)

To request that your 4th or 5th grade student be evaluated during the spring gifted eligibility cycle, send a signed Permission to Evaluate form to me, Martha Rombach, Evergreen Mill Gifted Resource Teacher. In addition, if you'd like to discuss whether the program may be a good fit for your child, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Reach me at martha.rombach@lcps.org.

Third Grade - Universal Screening is Underway Across LCPS

All LCPS third-grade students are evaluated for gifted services in the spring. Talent development lessons were provided in December--a sneak-peek and relaxed practice for the four Portfolio lesson in January and February. All students across the county receive the same Portfolio lessons, which are designed to elicit higher-level creative, critical, and quantitative thinking. In addition to student Portfolios, MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) and CogAT (Cognitive Ability Test) scores are examined as part of the consideration process.

Biweekly, in-classroom SEARCH lessons (25 minutes for KG/1st and 50 minutes for 2nd/3rd) foster a learning environment that encourages students to think critically, take intellectual risks, and develop a healthy curiosity for learning and discovering across a variety of thinking skills. Many lesson are centered on popular picture books, such as November's Turkey Trouble K-1 lessons.

Most recent lesson include:

KG - Turkey Trouble matching game, Which One Doesn't Belong attribute sorts, Ten Black Dots creativity challenge

1st - Turkey Trouble Squares, Think a Link attributes connection game, The Elves & the Shoemaker creative design challenge

2nd - Gratitude Attitude, Puniddles (creating compound words with pictures), and Cookie Capers logic puzzles

3rd - The Day the Crayons Came Back, Talent Development lessons, Holiday Go-Getter spatial reasoning challenges

EDGE (grades 2-5)

The EDGE talent development program identifies, nurtures, and challenges students from historically underrepresented populations who demonstrate advanced academic potential. EDGE is a pull-out service, so students visit Mrs. Rombach's gifted resource room for enrichment.

To maintain consistency and help everyone remember our meeting times, all EDGE groups now meet meet with me weekly--including 4th and 5th graders. This change started after Thanksgiving. Now all groups come see me for 30 minutes weekly in the Gifted Resource Room. We're focused on math and/or language arts enrichment activities each time we gather.

Recent EDGE lessons included: Balance Benders pre-algebraic math, Balance Beans, Round Robin holiday micro narratives, "Living on a 20-Bean Salary" game, Q-Bitz spatial reasoning challenges, Fall Fun writing prompts, and zombie menus.

In the past two years, the LCPS Gifted Education Department added a new level of gifted services for 4th and 5th grade students. It is called Differentiated Classroom Instruction or DCI. Students who demonstrated exceptional performance in one domain, language arts or mathematics, during the gifted evaluation process were found in need of DCI in their area of strength. Some students may have been identified for DCI mathematics and DCI language arts.

A quick overview of some of our lessons:

Language Arts - Who Dunnit Thanksgiving Readers Theatre, Fancier Figurative Language, Setting Sets the Tone, Paraphrasing Done Right, plus quick writes and word puzzles.

Math - Fibonacci Number Sequence & Golden Ration, Probability, Pre-Algebraic Balance Benders, Q-Bitz spatial reasoning challenges, Esti-Clipboards, Finding Average, Asumudi, Thanksgiving meal planning for 12 using grocery flyers, and Thanksgiving travel challenges

The school-based, collaborative FUSION program is a relatively new model for delivering gifted services to advanced 4th and 5th-grade learners. Its purpose is to enhance and to develop the intellect of students who have been formally identified for gifted services. Mrs. Rombach co-plans and collaborates with several classroom teachers so as to enrich and extend the general curriculum--in addition to integrating curricula developed expressly for gifted learners (e.g., William & Mary Literature Units, Jacob's Ladder, and Mentoring Mathematical Minds).

What has FUSION been up to recently?

Our overarching theme this year--across the entire county--is Leadership. We've studied four leadership frames--structural, human resources, political, and symbolic. Each week, FUSION students learn about famous leaders young and old, pivotal leadership traits, and we practice leadership through independent, partner, and small-group activities. Most recently, we went to space with astronaut Neil Armstrong and mathematician Katherine Johnson--then solved our own Apollo 13 problem (ask your students about their roles as astronauts, transmitters, and engineers). Students are busy designing their own leadership crests to showcase their passions and skills. They also learned about Socrates and participated in their first Socratic seminar on Lou Holtz's 10 Principles to Live By. Next up, we're diving into Plato and Platonic solids--with a take-home product sure to astound.

Email: martha.rombach@lcps.org
Website: https://www.lcps.org/Page/238200
Location: 491 Evergreen Mills Road, Leesburg, VA, USA
Phone: (571) 252-2900