--Students are served through the following:
- –Differentiated Instructional Units
- –In-Class Flexible Grouping
- –Cluster Grouping
- –Co-Teaching
A variety of resources are used to provide appropriate instruction to students with gifted needs.
Some of these resources include:
Some of these resources include:
Language ArtsAutobiographies
In this unit, students study the concept of change by reading autobiographies of writers and by looking at change in the lives of writers and other artists. As they examine life stories and self-portraits, they study literature and examine works of art from various cultures. In order to gain insight into the development of talent, students are encouraged to explore their own identities as talented learners through discussions, research, oral presentations, and reflective writing. Autobiographical writings from authors including Beverly Cleary, Eloise Greenfield, Isaac Singer, and Lawrence Yep are explored. 1997 Winner of a National Association for Gifted Children Curriculum Division Award for Outstanding Curriculum Literary Reflections: While all four language arts strands of literature, writing, language study, and oral communication are integrated into this unit, the core of the unit involves students interacting with literature while enhancing reading comprehension and textual analysis skills. The literature selections, including The Secret Garden and world class short stories by such authors as Tolstoy and Singer serve as a basis for discussion. 2000 Winner of a National Association for Gifted Children Curriculum Division Award for Outstanding Curriculum Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program The Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Program targets reading comprehension by moving students through an inquiry process from basic understanding to critical analyses of texts, using a field-tested method developed by the Center for Gifted Education at The College of William and Mary. Students will learn to comprehend and analyze any reading passage after completing the activities in Jacob's Ladder. |
Math
The Swift Stay Hotel (adapted from http://www.byrdseed.com) Students work in groups to furnish a hotel with 330 standard rooms and 10 suites. They use the IKEA app on the iPads to select the items for each room. They have a budget of $100,000 with the ability to borrow more at a 15% interest rate. This unit requires students to use several math skills such as decimals, estimation, percentages, and adding/subtracting. The students also enjoy using the available technology to work on their projects. The next step will involve independent projects where the students will be responsible for marketing their hotel rooms in an attempt to make their hotel profitable! Disney Land Parking Data Investigations (adapted from http://www.byrdseed.com) Students begin by viewing a bird's eye view image of the parking desk in California's Disney Land. The use estimation skills to estimate the number of cars that can park in the garage. Technological tools on the iPad are used to make their estimates: EduCreations and Google Earth. Next, students develop multiplication strategies to determine the number of spaces. Finally, students determine the capacity limits that Disney Land must maintain for the garage in order to make a return on their investment. Becoming a Problem Solving Genius: A Handbook of Math Strategies by Edward Zacarro "Every math student needs a tool belt of problem solving strategies to call upon when solving word problems. In addition to many traditional strategies, this book includes new techniques such as Think 1, the 2-10 method, and others developed by math educator Ed Zacarro. Each unit contains problems at five levels of difficulty to meet the needs of not only the average math student, but also the highly gifted." |