Enrichment News

Gifted Enrichment Update

• School Spelling Bee DATE CHANGE
• December Enrichment Pictures
• Accelerated Math Guest Teacher
• Class Spelling Bee Pictures
• New WIN Schedule
• Brain Bowl Update
• More Rubik's Cubes!
• Winter Testing
• DesignLAB Update

In Every Issue - General Information:

• Enrichment Pullout Groups
• Accelerated Math Program
• Gifted Education 101
• Great Sites to Check Out
  
• TEMOTAD :-)
  

The School Spelling Bee has been changed from Tuesday, January 21st to Friday, Januay 24th.

It was a short month, but I still was able to get some great pictures of students.

On Monday December 16th, my daughter Madeline (the new Dr. Bonfield) presented a lesson on scientific notation to my accelerated 7AA math class. The students really enjoyed having a guest teacher who combined the math they were learning with real-life science applications. Madeline just completed her PhD in Immunology and so her lesson focused on using scientific notation to grasp the enormous number of cells living in and on our bodies.

PRM Spelling Bee

During the first two weeks of December, all enrichment sessions were on hold as Mr. David and I conducted 23 classroom Spelling Bees in the Library. This year we had 335 students participate, a terrific increase over last year's 299! Each classroom champion and runner-up were given an expanded word list to study over winter break.

The Spelling Bee to determine the school champion is scheduled for Tuesday, January 21st.

The new WIN (What I Need) schedule impacts my enrichment offerings for the second semester. Unfortunately, I will only be able to pull out students that I am serving for SCA (Superior Cognitive Ability) and Creativity. I will try to create digital lessons for the students that I am unable to pull so that they can do enrichment during their WIN time if they choose. The lessons would be similar to what we have been doing, but independent. Their teacher might also offer some enrichment or differentiation during WIN time. Anything I offer would be optional, and above and beyond what their teacher(s) might assign.

On Wednesday, December 18th, PRM played CANS (Clifton Area Neighborhood School) in a scrimmage match. We were "playing to learn" to give everyone that was new to Brain Bowl a chance to work through the learning process. Both teams did a great job, and many points were scored!

Special shout out to my co-coach David Woerner, who moderated the match and helped to prepare our players! We have a small team, but they are an incredible group of kids.

I am looking for more Rubik's Cubes for our Enrichment Program. If you have one collecting dust or would like to purchase one to donate to our program, it would be greatly appreciated.

My goal is to have at least 500 cubes in our collection so that students can design and build more mosaics.

CPS uses various assessment instruments to test for giftedness in specific academic areas.

MAP, i-Ready, and the Iowa Assessments are approved by the State of Ohio for gifted identification in Reading and Math. Students in grades 2-6 who score at or above the 95th percentile on a reading or math assessment will be identified as gifted.

Winter i-Ready Math and Reading assessments for 9-12 level students are taking place in December, and in January for the 6-9 level students.

With the new WIN schedule, I had to make the difficult decision to withdraw our school from the official DesignLAB program.

Students will still participate in weekly enrichment similar to the DesignLAB program. I am working on developing a STEAM (Science, Technology, Ecology, Arts, & Math) curriculum that fits with our Montessori philosophy, so stay tuned.

In Ohio, public school districts are required to identify students in grades K-12 for gifted identification in the following areas:

• Superior Cognitive Ability
• Creative Thinking Ability
• Specific Academic Ability - Reading
• Specific Academic Ability - Math
• Specific Academic Ability - Science
• Specific Academic Ability - Social Studies
• Performing Musical Arts: Instrumental
• Performing Musical Arts: Vocal
• Performing Visual Arts
• Performing Arts: Dance
• Performing Arts: Drama

Unfortunately, school districts are not required to provide any form of service or enrichment to those identified students. In most cases, it is the responsibility of the classroom teachers or fine arts specialists to provide differentiation or enrichment opportunities to meet the needs of our gifted students during the school day.

Education Standards for the Classroom

Educators are expected to follow the state learning standards for the grades and content they teach. At PRM, our teachers also follow a Montessori curriculum which often provides gifted students the opportunity to explore content and express their understanding in unique and creative ways.

Gifted Education Standards for Enrichment

I use the National Standards for Gifted Education to develop my gifted and enrichment programming. These standards focus on creating and providing learning environments that encourage awareness and understanding of interests, strengths and needs, along with the development of cognitive, social, emotional, and psychosocial skills.

Gifted & Enrichment Pullout Groups

Students are pulled out of their regular classrooms for enrichment activities and gifted services. Some groups meet weekly, some monthly, or quarterly. Groupings and schedules are determined based on grade levels, area(s) of gifted identification, and need.

Superior Cognitive Ability

Students identified as gifted in Superior Cognitive Ability have unique characteristics and needs, often requiring additional support to fully develop their talent potential. Enrichment options and expectations are tailored to meet the specific needs of each student.

We are expanding our gifted services to include accelerated math!

In the 6-9 Montessori setting, informal math acceleration can occur naturally for first and second grade students but it becomes difficult to meet the needs of a third grader who is performing consistently above grade level. Formal math acceleration is most often the best option to meet the needs of these students. Starting this year, third grade students participating in the acceleration program will take fourth grade math with our Math Specialist, Ms. Alexa Fulmer in a daily 40 minute pullout class. Ms. Alexa will be the math teacher of record for these students, and will be responsible for providing math lessons, grades, and differentiation as needed. These students will take the fourth grade Math OST in the spring.

When these students rise to the 9-12 level classrooms, they will take fifth grade math as fourth graders, and sixth grade math as fifth graders. In sixth grade they will be enrolled in the middle school math class 7AA which is an accelerated math class covering both 7th and 8th grade math. The 7AA math class is taught by me in our gifted & enrichment room.

Eligibility for the program is determined through scores on a state mandated rubric, the Iowa Acceleration Scale. This instrument evaluates academic achievement in math, participation, attendance, academic self-concept, and completion of assigned work on time to a high standard.

A student can be referred for math acceleration at any time during the school year. If you are interested in learning more about math acceleration please reach out to me.

We have a beautiful new space for our gifted and enrichment program! This space will allow me to build the program that I have dreamed of for the past ten years. I am in the process of redesigning my curriculums and overall program model, so it will take a bit of time for all the pieces to fall into place. Once I have it worked out, we will have a program that will set standards of excellence for gifted programs in a Montessori setting.

I am so happy to be torturing, er, I mean working with the amazing students, staff, and families of Pleasant Ridge Montessori. I consider it a great honor to be given the opportunity to enrich the lives of this community and to help guide our future scholars, leaders, and creatives.

Since 1999, I have worked with more than 2000 gifted students in grades K through 8 in various public school settings.

Email: bonfiej@cpsboe.k12.oh.us

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