High Ability Update

HA math ended last week, and HA language arts ended this week. I will be spending the remainder of the year with the elementary HA team at Liberty Elementary. The HA students and I had a wonderful year together! I've enjoyed getting to know them, and I absolutely cherish working with these kids that crave knowledge. Our time together was brief, but we sure did give our brains a workout with every second we had. So much fun!

Hieroglyphs are much more complicated to write than our alphabet, but all the students were able to write their names in hieroglyphics. One of the students requested I play "Walk Like an Egyptian" again, so I did. A couple students were absent last week when I introduced hieroglyphics, so they were able to join the silly fun and try walking like an Egyptian too. We finished the year with a nice activity where we shared things about ourselves. One thing kids like about HA is being in here with students from other homerooms, so our last activity gave them a chance to hang out and enjoy being together one last time. It was a special way to wrap up our time together.

Most of the students were able to finish their persuasive paragraphs, but a few took home the paragraphs incomplete. I wanted to allow time for us to have some nice end of year activities versus working until the very end. Students like being in HA with students from other homerooms, so I wanted to end the year enjoying one another's company. They've worked hard in here all year and deserved to take a break.

We spent our last two days together wrapping up Fairy Tale Tic Tac Toe. Students presented their projects to the class. Unfortunately, a couple students were absent and missed out on the presentations. We weren't able to postpone since this was our last week of HA. The students that were here did a wonderful job of compensating for their absent partner(s)! As you may recall, each student completed three projects. Sharing their projects with the class was a fun way to wrap up the year in HA!

After the presentations, we had about ten minutes left of class. We spent that time doing an activity that helped us get to know one another even better. Kids like being in HA with students from other homerooms, so it was nice to just spend some time together enjoying one another's company. They worked hard in HA all year and deserved to end on a casual note.

What a twist!!! The entire book was about the will of Sam Westing, but he hadn't even passed away! We finished the book together in class. A few students said they had suspected Sam Westing was still alive. Impressive!

We played Jeopardy as our last activity. The students love it and enjoy the competitive nature of the game. The theme of our last Jeopardy game was prepositions. For any of you in education, I'm a big fan of Jeopardy Labs site. It's free and quick & easy to set up a game. Plus, there are many games already in the system you are able to access.

If any of your students are looking for summer reading and enjoy mysteries, I recommend The Greystone Secrets books by Margaret Peterson Haddix. I have read the first two books, but there are three books in the series now. It is important a person starts with the first book. My daughters loved them when they were younger, and they're the ones that first recommended I read them. Unlike The Westing Game, the main characters are children.

Greystone Secrets:

Greystone Secrets #1 The Strangers

Greystone Secrets #2 The Deceivers

Greystone Secrets #3 The Messengers

I'm thankful I had the pleasure of getting to know all of these amazing kids! Although I will miss them greatly, I know they are ready for intermediate school. I look forward to bumping into them in the years to come and hearing about their lives after Jackson.

On Monday, May 1st, the window for our last NWEA test of the school year opened. Remember this is another pathway into High Ability in addition to CogAT. I will be working with the HA team to input scores for the district K-4th. Our High Ability Cadre will use data from CogAT, NWEA, and teacher input for placement into HA for next year. The top 10% of the grade level are identified as high ability or having the potential to be high ability. The NWEA window closes the week of May 12th, so final decisions will be made the last week of school. It's a very busy time for the HA department!

Letters will be sent to current kindergarten, first, second, and third grade students who qualify for High Ability next school year. The letter will denote if they qualify for Language Arts, Math, or both. For those who qualify, a permission slip in the form of a Google Form will be sent to your email address. Letters will also be sent to students currently in second grade who did not qualify for HA in third grade. *Current first and third grade HA students will automatically be in the program next year.

If you have a fourth grader, you will be able to see class placement when their schedule comes out prior to next school year. High ability and advanced classes look different at the intermediate level. While we identify the top 10% for High Ability at all levels, additional students are placed in the classes beginning after elementary school. Honors classes are a good fit for many students who don't have the label of HA. Questions pertaining to their schedule next year can be directed to either WIS or LIS. Duneland's HA page is listed below. It goes into more detail and will likely be a good resource for you as your child continues on to intermediate, middle, and high school.

NWEA is the achievement test which all students take three times a year. There's a great opportunity to support your child's learning based on their NWEA scores. In addition to supporting what's going on in the classroom, you can encourage students to go on Edmentum (AKA Exact Path). Many students are familiar with it already! It's a program they access through Clever. Edmentum gives your child what they need to work on based on their most recent NWEA scores. NWEA is a great measure for high ability identification because it will give students above grade level questions as they answer correctly. For our achievement measure we use the grade level percentile. If you have questions about Edmentum, your child's teacher will be able to help.

Email: kapeterson@duneland.k12.in.us
Location: Jackson Elementary School, North 400 East, Valparaiso, IN, USA
Phone: 219-983-3680