Local Weekend Programs for Gifted Learners

The Center for Gifted/Midwest Torrance Center for Creativity (a Northern Illinois University partner) is now accepting registration for its fall offerings. These are one day programs held at 5 different Chicagoland locations. Click here for more info and to register! Workshop titles are:

Engineering Egg-Stravaganza!

Harry Potter Festival

Harry Potter Free Movie Night

Makers Mania!

Science Wonders!

STEM with STEAM: What Would Rube Do?

The Center for Talent Development through Northwestern Illinois University is also accepting registration for 8-week Saturday OR Sunday programs that will run from October 1st through November 20th at 5 different Chicagoland locations. Click here for more info and to register!

September 20, 2016

QUEST Reading 4/5
Last week we added some information about identifying the setting and character traits to our interactive Reading Notebooks. These notebooks will be developed by the students and used throughout the year as a reference to the skills on which we will focus. Getting these notebooks up and running at the beginning of the year take a bit of time and patience, but they will be a valuable tool moving forward. We practiced applying these skills to our City of Ember text, and will continue to work on that through chapter 5.


QUEST Reading 3
3rd graders have also begun creating interactive Reading Notebooks. These notebooks will be developed by the students and used throughout the year as a reference to the skills on which we will focus. Getting these notebooks up and running at the beginning of the year take a bit of time and patience, but they will be a valuable tool moving forward. Last week we practiced answering questions completely by restating the main idea from the question in our response. The students also completed a readiness activity to help guide my instruction for the upcoming weeks. This week we will be practicing summarizing using the texts Going Places by Reynolds & Reynolds and Boy by Mayhew.


Math 4
In 4th grade math we have established and practiced group norms for holding math talks. We have also spent a bit of time reviewing estimation techniques to ensure our solutions are reasonable.


Math 3
Third graders are in the middle of a project that asks students to consider which school supplies would be the most useful to purchase if their teacher was awarded a grant to purchase additional materials. The project will culminate with the students creating their own bar graphs to display their thinking.

September 8, 2016

In QUEST Reading 4/5 this week we finished up sharing our Summer Stories in the format of a book cover, and did some pre-reading activities for our novel The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. We also finalized our behavior expectations for our time together. Next week will dive into the story and focus on using text evidence to make inferences and answer questions.

3rd grade reading groups also finished up their Summer Stories and started the book Frindle by Andrew Clements. We also finalized our behavior expectations for our time together. Next week we will use picture books to begin exploring the concept of theme. We will also practice using text evidence to answer questions and to identify character traits for the main characters of Frindle.

This week math groups established guidelines for holding Math Talks and reviewed some place value concepts. After reviewing these guidelines we held our first successful Math Talk followed by a game to review place value.