November PARENT UPDATE
Has your child ever asked you why leaves change colors? Many students understand that chlorophyll is the reason for the beautiful fall colors during these months, but why do different leaves change different colors? Why are leaves not all red or yellow, or since we are in Knoxville, orange? To help answer this question and get your student curious about the natural world, try completing the Leaf Chromatography Experiment. This experiment will teach kids about the different pigments within leaves and help them to visually see the different colors that leaves offer this time of year. Click on the photo to visit this website for more information.
Christian Lucas | 5th Grader | Pleasant Ridge Elementary School
For the month of November, our department is shouting out and highlighting student Christian Lucas. Christian is a 5th grader at Pleasant Ridge, and although he tends to be on the quieter side, he shares BIG ideas! His thinking, collaboration with peers, and overall attitude highlight his love of learning and willingness to persevere when challenged! Christian, you have excelled in thinking and problem solving, and the GT Department celebrates YOU!
KIT BASED GAMES
Ready to really level up learning? GT classrooms can easily be transformed into a Breakout Room using the Breakout EDU Kits to unlock a truly immersive hands-on learning experience! Each Breakout EDU Kit comes with all the materials to bring puzzles to life as players work together to discover the clues that unlock the box!
Second Grade
Second Graders will get their first introduction to our grade level competency, Perspective Taking, through a literature experience between a boy and an ant. Students will learn how the characters in the story “see” a situation differently. They will organize their thinking with a Thinking Map–the Multi-Flow map. The thinking process for this map is cause and effect. We will wrap up the month with a super engaging book, “They All Saw a Cat” by Brian Wenzel. In this book we again focus on Perspective Taking as the illustrations of the book beautifully portray how different animals “see” the cat very differently! The students will learn about another new Thinking Map with this lesson–the Bubble Map. The Bubble Map is used whenever the thinking process required is describing.
Ask your child to draw a bubble map to describe something for you!
Third Grade
Third Graders will be focusing on thinking all month! They will start the month with critical thinking in Math as they work through a module called “Clue Me In.” The students will use logic puzzles and place values to determine the identity of a number. With each puzzle, students will learn and practice the four components of critical thinking: analyzing, making a judgment about something, avoiding assumptions, and drawing conclusions. Later in the month, the focus will be on creative thinking, through a module called “Let’s Get Creative.” The students will learn about real innovators in our world and investigate how creative thinking is vital to their success. Then, they will have the opportunity to practice their own creative thinking by choosing a scenario to solve.
Fourth Grade
Fourth Graders this month will spend several weeks learning about delayed gratification which ties beautifully into their competency of self-management. By watching the popular Stanford Marshmallow Experiment from the 1972 study, students will reason through the objective of this experiment, ways to improve it, and further explore the idea of delayed gratification via a Concept Capsule. Students will participate in a Socratic seminar to debate their view of delayed gratification and share their learning supported by research. How fun would it be for them to set up something like this at home for an unsuspecting family member?! You could also just ask them their thoughts surrounding delayed gratification.
