Forest North TAG Newsletter
September
Welcome Back!
Welcome back to an exciting new year! I'm excited to be teaching this year at Forest North Elementary part-time with Mrs. Stewart! I ended up starting my "summer" directing a summer STEAM camp with another TAG teacher, Mrs. Scallan, challenging students at Patsy Sommer Elementary.
I also got to spend a week in Connecticut this summer. It was an amazing experience! I had a blast collaborating with other gifted educators from all over the world. This picture is with my teacher friends from Pond Springs Elementary and my new Canadian friends. This "camp" experience (we slept in the dorms and ate cafeteria food) was generously paid for through funds raised at the other school I work at, Pond Springs Elementary, as well as Round Rock ISD funds. I got to be roomies with my other teacher partner, Mrs. Mulbry, from Pond Springs Elementary.
4th Grade ISP - Civic Mission
Now a word from my students:
We're sponsoring a black lab mix named Ryder. If you'd like to make a donation of money, we have a goal set of $100. We would especially appreciate it if you would donate ABOVE our goal knowing all proceeds go to help support Ryder before transitioning into his forever home. That might even be your home! Donate here!
Or check out the link below Ryder's picture. It's a link that will take you to the pledge page I've created for the students. The shelter is also looking for donations of ASAP needs. Click on the link and check them out:)
Late Work? Not Anymore!
To help students gain more organizational skills and independence of completing homework, I have created a planner for your son/daughter where they can track all of their assignments in one location. Please ask your child to show you this. It will be in their binder. This important tool is essential to helping develop organization and workload management. This is crucial especially for planning and working on ISPs. Your child should always bring his/her planner to class so that it can be properly filled out. This is also a good source of communication so that you will know what is happening also.
Habits of Mind
TAG - Where the Tough Get Going!
As always, we're in the thick of things and we're (Mrs. Stewart and I) are asking kids to
T (To) A (Adapt) G (grow). In order for students to grow, we strongly encourage them to adopt a "growth mindset" - a term coined by Dr. Carol Dweck noting that:
"Children who believed that a person's intelligence was fixed tended to believe that truly smart people don't need effort in order to succeed. By contrast, those who believed that intelligence could be developed were much more likely to credit hard work as a key factor in achievement."
So, YES, gifted students NEED strong study habits, too! Thank you, parents, who for having your child access their Google Drive, take responsibility for their own learning, and complete the homework daily. Hats off to you for supporting your child's academic success!
Third Grade TAG L.A. have been busily reading Regarding the Fountain and enjoying exploring thinking about literature on a deeper level facilitated by Kaplan's depth and complexity icons. Students in 4th Grade L.A. are reading Inside Out & Back Again, a book written in free verse. They're learning how to analyze poetry by using the "SoapsTONE" method. Ask you son/daughter about this!
Team Work Using Habits of Mind Allows for This Team's Success!
Team Building - Marshmallow Challenge
Making Friends with Failure
If you would like to learn more about this, I have attached a link to an article for parents: http://www.raisingchildrenwhosoar.com/wp-content/papers/parentsleaguereview.pdf
Your Son/Daughter Is a Sloooooow Typer? No Problem!
Now days, there are several free Chrome apps that you can find in the Chrome Web Store. I definitely think they're work checking out and having your child work on their keyboarding skills at least twice a week. But, what about now?
There's a new feature (or maybe just new to me - I've never seen this icon there before) in Google Docs that allows for voice to text. Click on the link and it will show you more. Now, I tried this feature out at school and it works great! Problem is, we don't have any microphones in our computer lab or on our laptops, so this feature is only available at home (unless I can hunt down some microphones).
What if your son/daughter is not in Google Docs and still wants to use a voice to text feature for other projects? Great question! I use Voice Note II that can be found in the Chrome Store. It's awesome! Just like in Google Docs, it will even add the appropriate punctuation for you. Just say question mark, for example, after your question and it will add it for you! Then, you just cut and paste what was typed out and transfer it to your assignment.