4th/5th Gifted

Wow!!! What a fun day we have had learning. I was going to start including pictures of the students today but we were so involved in our learning that I forgot to take any!!!

We started our morning with our wake-up work and logic. The Logic always gets our brains working. It's so fun to see how the students solve the problems differently. :)

I think the kids have had a fun time today with our main lesson. They finished working on their "Rosie Copters" from last week and presented them to the class. The students were able to learn from each other and gather new ideas for how they would improve their Rosie Copter.

I presented a new stem challeng question to them: How can we modify a loop plane to fly the farthest? The students first made a regular loop plane using two loops and one straw. Each group then flew the plane three times, measured the distance that it flew and wrote it down. We then converted feet to inches and found the average of the three distances. The students are now working on how to modify their loop plane to make it fly the farthest. We will complete and present this project next week!

1st/2nd/3rd Grade Gifted - 9/26

We began class as usual working on our Wake-Up Work and getting our brains working. Then I did a "Creative Juices" activity with the students and made them a little frustrated as I kept changing what I was wanting them to do. I told them they couldn't erase but they had to keep following the directions. It's fun to see who follows directions well and who struggles to do just as they are told. :) I will try to post one of these activities in the coming days so you can see what they look like.

1st and 2nd Grade has begun a readers theater with Anansi and the Magic Stick. We first read the book aloud and then I passed out the script and we assigned parts. We read through our script a couple of times. We will continue to practice reading our script together and then we will begin acting it out. We will be work on a spider unit and spider themed activities this fall.



3rd Grade read aloud the book Weslandia. The main character, Wesley, was a misfit at school. He got made fun of and did not want to dress or act like the others. One summer, for his summer project, he created his own civilization. He had his own crop, his own goods to sell, his own games, own clothing etc. The boys that once made fun of him now wanted to be just like him. Third grade is now working on a project of creating their own civilization . Today, they planned out, drew and wrote about the different topics of their civilization. Next week they will make a rough draft of their brochure. Through this process they are using direction given them and information from the rubric to make sure they have everything that they need in their brochure. It is very important that they put enough information in their brochure so that the reader does not have any questions. I'm excited to read about "their civilizations". :)

4th/5th Grade Gifted - 9/23

This morning, our 5th graders worked on more of the Mensa puzzles for their "Wake-up Work". Today, they had to cut out these sets of numbers and arrange them where they read the same horizontally and vertically. I've put an example below of what they wanted. The puzzle obviously has different numbers and doesn't go in number order but whatever the 1st row across reads is the way the 1st column down should read, 2nd row & 2nd column should be the same, 3rd row & 3rd column should be the same and so forth so on.







4th grade worked on their Creative Juices. I would give them a set of instructions of an object to draw and then once they were finished I would say "Oh no, I meant to have you draw...". They would then have to combine the previous picture in with the new one. It was funny to watch as some of them got frustrated as I made them alter their design. This is all part of learning to go with the flow and that everything does not have to be perfect all the time. It's also a great time to work on their creativity. :)

Together, the classes read Rosie Revere, Engineer. Again we talked about ideas, designing things, PERSEVERING and improving on our design. Rosie's aunt always had a dream to fly so Rosie built her aunt a "plane" to fly in. It went up and then came back down. Rosie's aunt encouraged her to try again so that it would stay up, she improved her design and tried again.



Rosie Revere led us to talk about the STEM process listed below. We will be using this process in many of our projects this year.



We did a small STEM project together. The students were given this rectangular piece of paper with a slit down the middle and a paper clip. We called it the "Rosie Copter". Their challenge was to make the Rosie Copter land slower and softer. They will share their designs this next Friday.

4th/5th Boggle & Noggle Champs

Congratulations to RAY who received the highest score in our Boggle this week! I owe you some candy! :)

Congratulations to EZRA who received the highest score in Noggle this week! :) See me for candy also! :) 

Great work guys!!! I love to see you working on your Word and Math Smarts!!!

1st/2nd/3rd Gifted Class - Monday

 - This morning the students worked on their thinking-skills when completing their wake-up work. We've talked about how its okay to struggle and to have to think about things. Our "wake-up work" this year will consist of working on:
       - Analytical Thinking
       - Flexible Thinking
       - Problem Solving
       - Elaborative Thinking
       - Originality

 - We talked again about the different "smarts" and the students completed a survey shading in what applied to them. We talked about how it's okay not to be "smart" in every area and how we can all learn and work on being "smart" in areas where we struggle.

 - We read the book "What Do You do With an Idea?, a growth mindset picture book". We discussed big ideas and little ideas and how it is okay to have both kinds. We jotted them down on our notebook paper. We also talked about how people may make fun of our idea and how to persevere through that. We also discussed ways that we can make our ideas come to life. Then the students made "Idea Portraits" that we will use as their binder covers this year.

 - Those that completed all of their work early were able to work on Boggle and Noggle. A couple of the students completed at least one of those activities.

 -During Think Fun Time, those that had completed their work, enjoyed playing chess and marble run.

 - Below is an image of a paper that went home today about a Gifted Education Symposium that will be held on Tuesday, September 27, 2016. It deals with Understanding Your Gifted Child. I am planning to attend and hope that you will too.

- A very informal Meet and Greet will be during Open House on Thursday night, September 22, from 6pm - 8pm. A reminder should come home with your student this week. I hope to meet you then!

 - Please work on getting the Gifted Information Forms back to me soon. If you need another copy let me know.

4th/5th Gifted Class - Friday

 - This morning the students worked hard on their Morning Work.

4th Grade's questions dealt with the forest. They learned about simile's (we'll work more on those in the coming weeks), had a lot of describing to do (we'll be working on fattening up our writing and using descriptive words) and we had another problem involving fractions.

5th Grade's questions dealt with logic and paying attention. They had one difficult math problem that we worked on. There are 4 solutions to it. We found one. I have posted it below so that they can work on it over the next week. :) Congrats to Steven for finding one of the ways! Great job!!


 - We finished our Goal Assignment from last week and they are being displayed in the room.

 - We read "What Do You Do With An Idea", a growth mindset picture book. We talked about ideas, how people may scoff at our ideas and how we need to plan steps and do research to make our ideas become a reality. We made idea portraits to use as the cover of our binders. Your children are very creative! :)

 - Many students finished before others and they enjoyed completing Noggle (like Boggle but with numbers) and Boggle! I can't wait to total up their scores and see who had the winning boards this week.

 - Those that completed all of their work today were able to participate in "Think, Fun Time". Many of them chose to play Chess.

 - Below is an image of a paper coming home today about a Gifted Education Symposium  that will be held on Tuesday, September 27, 2016. It deals with Understanding Your Gifted Child. I am planning to attend and hope you will too.





















 - Next Thursday, September 22, will be a meet and greet Open House for those in the gifted program. I hope to meet you then!

 - Please be sure to send in the Gifted Emergency Form as as soon as possible. I sent additional copies home with students today. I'd love to have each child with their supplies by next Friday if possible.

2nd/3rd Gifted Class - Monday

 - Today the students enjoyed being back together! It was fun seeing them get excited as their friends came in!

 - We enjoyed completing our Interest Inventory Room Walk and learning more about each other.

 - We shared about ourselves at our morning meeting. The students enjoyed sharing some interesting facts.

 - The students learned about the eight different "smarts" and which "smarts" they are as well as the "smarts" they could work on.

 - We discussed making SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time bound) goals for the 2016-2017 school year and how it is important to persevere and keep going even when we may be discouraged.

 - We enjoyed playing together and learning from each other during Thin/Fun Time. It was so wonderful to see the students work together, help each other and teach others chess. :)

 - Please make sure that you ask your child for the Gifted Information Sheet to complete and the supply list for our class this year! 

I am so excited about having your child in class this year! I look forward to getting to know them and completing projects together! Please be sure to email me with any questions or concerns at branuml@duvalschools.org 

4th/5th Gifted Class - Friday

 - Today, we enjoyed playing, getting to know each other and making new friends!

 - We worked our brain this morning during our morning work on logic, patterns, anagrams and a math problem with multiple steps.

 - We enjoyed learning about eight different "smarts" (music smart, math smart, self smart, body smart, word smart, nature smart, people smart, art smart, body smart) through a power point and various activities.

 - We read the book, "The Most Magnificent Thing" and discussed how goals and achieving them are important, we discussed strategies she used to help her attain her goal as well as the barriers that affected her while trying to achieve them.

 - We set our own goals for the 2016 - 2017 school year and put them down on paper. We will discuss these more in depth next week.

 - Please be sure to ask your child for the student information sheet you need to fill out this weekend. I have also sent home a very short supply list for our gifted classroom.

 - It was a pleasure meeting your child and working with them today. I am looking forward to the great adventure of the 2016-2017 school year! Please email me with any questions or concerns at branuml@duvalschools.org

Welcome to GATE at Kernan Trail Elementary! I am so excited to have your child in my class this year. I grew up in Texas, Ohio and Florida, I spent the majority of my growing up years in Pensacola, Florida and graduated college from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. After graduation, I taught English at a University in China for a year before moving back to Florida and marrying my husband. We lived in North Carolina for seven years before moving to Tennessee for four years. We are so happy to be back in Florida! This will be my 12th year teaching. I have primarily taught third - fifth grades math and science/STEM. I am so excited to teach in the gifted classroom this year. I look forward to getting to know and working with your child this year! I have two daughters, Emma who is almost 10 and Ellie who is 4.