Talented and gifted (TAG) students in grades K-4 at Mount Vernon’s Washington Elementary School are learning through fun activities provided by their teacher, Kari Martin.
Martin, who previously taught fourth grade for six years, this year began teaching ELP talented and gifted students building-wide in the school’s elementary TAG Program.
The four main groups in the program include Identified ELP (Extended Learning Program) students in third and fourth grades, Enrichment for every grade level (K through four), News Team for fourth grade on a two-week rotation, and Fun Fridays for every grade level (rotating clubs for various combinations of STEM-type groups—science, technology, engineering and math—in grades one through four).
Cross-curricular unitsAll the TAG groups in third and fourth grade do cross-curricular units of study using traditional school subjects, such as math, reading, writing, poetry and art.
For example, this year the fourth graders used those subjects to learn about games around the world and about ancient Greece, as well as to plot locations on a world map. They also used trial and error to create, play and revise their own games and to play each other’s games.
The third graders started with creating mazes, using lots of trial and error to do so. They have also used trial and error as well as math, reading, writing, poetry and art to learn about ancient Egypt, and learn about and do podcasting—which they will continue after winter break.
A second third grade group has just been learning about and doing their own podcasting, which they will continue with after winter break.
EnrichmentMartin also teaches Enrichment units for students in every grade level based on that grade level’s needs as identified by their teachers. Criteria for inclusion in the units include such things as those who finish work quickly in their classrooms or who already know the material being taught in their general classrooms.
These Enrichment projects are usually single subjects based on each student’s needs and grade level units. The projects go deeper into topics for students who have already mastered their unit topics.
For example, enrichment projects this year included first and second graders doing a book club that included reading and activities, grades K-2 doing a social studies unit on maps, grades K-4 doing an English/Language Arts reading and writing unit, and grades 2-4 doing a math enrichment unit in which they talked and worked together to do a lot of problem solving and to go deeper into their grade level units.
Fractured fairy tales Also, in a Fractured Fairy Tales unit this year, every grade level K-4 studied traditional fairy tales as well as fractured versions of them. The
students then created a new version of a fractured fairy tale, with second through fourth graders using new forms of technology to do so.
News TeamFourth graders participate in a rotating two-week News Team that plans, films, edits and puts together the news for a Friday newscast. Teachers then play the newscast instead of playing announcements. Interested students this year had to fill out a short application and sign up for what roles they wanted to play in their news unit.
Fun FridaysA new activity this year is Fun Fridays, during which students plan topics and then do filming and editing every Friday. Teachers then play the film on Friday.
On Fun Fridays, single grades, or younger and older grades—such as Grades K-2, 1 and 3, and K and 4—work together so the older kids can take on a leadership role and help the younger kids with an activity. Fun Fridays focus a lot on teamwork, leadership skills, and coding and STEM projects.
These projects have included Coding Club for grades K-2, as well as optical illusions, testing candy corn shapes, stacking cups by working with a rubber band that has strings tied to it, and figuring out which shape that students create with folded paper is the strongest and can hold the most books.
Student commentsStudents involved in ELP had glowing things to say about it, such as:
It helps you learn more than you would learn in class.
My favorite part about ELP is: I like Coding and I also liked Ancient Greece.
My favorite thing I learned was Roman numerals.
I think what’s important (about ELP) is you learn but you have fun.
My favorite thing is that we learn about a subject and do fun activities.
In my opinion, ELP feels like a learning recess.
You learn stuff that you probably haven’t learned before.
I like coding robots.
My favorite things is that we get to read books, have fun, do a lot of coding. It’s really enjoyable.
We just do awesome, fun activities.
I think it’s important because it helps other people learn more and makes it a lot more challenging for people.
I like ELP because it teaches us stuff that we wouldn’t have learned without ELP.
I learned more about ancient Egypt, a lot of the possibilities of how King Tut died.
You don’t notice that you’re learning things but you actually are, and I don’t get how, but you are just learning. So it’s fun.