AIG Update (October Edition)

Hola! Here’s some of what’s happening in our AIG groups:

ASG Reading:

Fifth grade students continue to work on the readers’ theater play Spark of Genius. This play about Ben Franklin’s experiments with electricity is a great opportunity for students to practice reading fluency and learn about history and the scientific process. We completed recorded rehearsals and will move forward to share a completed presentation in the coming weeks. These students will also be working to present “Poems for 2 Voices” – specifically using a collect from the Newberry Medal-winning poet, Paul Fleischman.

Fourth grade has wrapped up introductory work with Junior Great Books. We have used a ‘do’s and don’ts’ list to help inform our discussions. We are moving to a more formal literature study with resources from the Jones Media Center –thanks Ms. Page!

ASG Math:

Both fourth and fifth grade students have been working with collaborative problem solving. In this work, students each have a piece of a challenging math problem. There’s a lot of discussion about how to work together – as you may imagine! (They’re also looking at math analogies!) We have also taken to playing a math fluency game called “24.” In this game students use randomly generated numbers and four operations to get the answer 24.

Fifth grade are moving into a webquest called The Gang of 15. In this work, students have to locate a criminal organization around the world by researching global sites they’ve visited AND discover/exchange the currency from each place. The new Chrome book lab has been instrumental to this work!

Comprehensive Study Groups:

You may remember these students qualify based on an aptitude measure. To that end, we’ve been talking about what that may look like. One way is for students to exercise their gifts for visual puzzles. To this end, we’ve been playing a visual attribute game (SET – you may know it) and discussing mathematical analogies. Initially, both fourth and fifth graders were put-off by the challenge of the analogy work, but they seem to be coming to the conclusion that, with some perseverance, they can really show success!

I’ll be rewarding student effort with photos on my blog (see address below). Definitely check it out!

In the coming weeks, these students will review multiple intelligences and begin work on personal profiles.

Enrichment Study Groups:

Fourth graders prepare for a simulation by researching four sciences – meteorology, astronomy, geology, and history – in preparation for a simulation in which they will ‘be’ these scientists. Ms. Sorenson, our awesome instructional technology facilitator, has been crucial to our connection to web research AS WELL AS a great introduction to Google Docs. Students should complete their research and vie for scientific assignments as we move into the simulation proper.

Fifth grade had some initiative to redesign the AIG room (13, now shared with a math specialist) to suit our needs. They are still working on scale models with paper/pencils to not only show their design but also to pitch their ideas to stakeholders. We’ll see where this one leads us! I sense more structure in the near future, but who knows? I am looking forward to their pitches!