A Hint of Presentations to Come

Our CSG for fourth grade have been working on personal presentation with Google. Although not everyone has completed recording, I thought I'd float one for you to check out! Look for the others early in 2015! Thanks!!

Set Champion

After completing and presenting her story about being lost on the moon (more to come!), Tess was able to solve the daily Set puzzle in 3 minutes 27 seconds. Wow!

AIG Update

Here's a copy of the AIG Update for December:

Dear Parents and Supporters:

We wrap up the year on high notes noted below. Thanks so much for all your support in 2014! I’m fortunate to work with such great students, teachers, and families. Here’s a snapshot of what our AIG groups have been up to. Happy Holidays!

Advanced Subject Group in Reading

4:  Fourth grade completed our work with the Junior Great Books (JGB) introduction to shared inquiry or seminar learning by kicking off a ‘book club.’ This group read Coraline by Neil Gaiman. We are still in the process of wrapping up this work as we complete Letters about Literature – a national contest sponsored by the Library of Congress. Students have begun writing letters to the authors of books that changed their lives. We’ll wrap those up in January as the deadline for entry is 1/14. Look out for permission slips, if you’ve not already seen them.

5:  Fifth grade readers continued with fluency activities including a reader’s theatre about Benjamin Franklin. We’ll wrap this up in the New Year  - as well as the same letter writing contest as fourth grade. Fifth are further along in the process. It has led to very interesting discussions about our favorite books.

A list of books chosen by 4/5 ASGR students has been included on the blog.

Advance Subject Group in Math

Both fourth and fifth grade math groups have focused on perseverance in attending challenging math work. To this end, both groups have worked on a variety of math puzzles including

Magic Squares (where rows, columns, and diagonals have the same sums)

Problems with Operations (incomplete equations where the operations (+,-,/,x) must be added)

24 (manipulating random numbers to solve for a specified sum)

In addition, fifth grade also worked with Gang of 15 – where they had to track a mysterious organization all over the world – discovering and converting international currencies all the while! Fifth grade is also currently working with the Fibonacci sequence – one of the most famous mathematical concepts.

Fourth grade wrapped up the year with an introduction to expressions and equations which will inform our work with Hands On Equations (more later but think algebra!) in January.

Comprehensive Study Group

4:  Fourth graders reflected on multiple intelligences and what their prominent intelligence might be. They then completed an online survey to determine which they may most reflect. This work is based on research by Harvard’s Howard Gardner. Students then integrated this knowledge into personal profile Google presentations which we will record for inclusion on the blog. Only a couple are complete at this point, so look forward to seeing more in the New Year!

5:  Fifth grade CSG students took part in a brief simulation where they ranked the value of items to be used in a crash landing on the moon. Their individual and group responses were compared to NASA’s ranking – which led to great conversations. Students then wrote short stories about their journey. These are still in the works, and we’re looking to publish in January!

Enrichment Study Group

4:  Our simulation work with The Great Solar System Rescue continues. As of this, these students have located and saved the first of four lost space probes. To do this, they have had to understand a specific science through reading, process a ton of information from video transmissions and more reading, and, most importantly, share and work with each other to form consensus decisions. There are three teams overall, so we’ll see how they rate at the end of our work in the New Year!

5:  These students completed an interest inventory to help drive independent projects. Everyone is engaged in this work which varies from computer and sports research to original works of fiction. Although drafts are certainly in the process, we won’t be sharing out until the spring. 

Happy Holidays!!

Holiday Hospice Trees

An alumnus shared this photo of a tree from Claxton in its good, new home. I am so proud of our Student Government for taking part in this endeavor! 

Books That Changed Our Lives

Fourth and fifth grade ASG Reading students have begun writing letters to authors of books that changed their lives.  This work is part of a contest sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Center for the Book.

Students have been brainstorming which books about which to write. Here's a list of their choices:

Walk Two Moons  Sharon Creech

Hope for the Flowers      Trina Paulus

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone     J.K. Rowling

Pie     Sarah Weeks

Where the Wild Things Are   Maurice Sendak

Popular   Maya Van Wagenen

Wonderstruck   David Selznik

Will Grayson, Will Grayson    John Green / David Levithan

The Blood of Olympus    Rick Riordan

Walk Two Moons   Sharon Creech

Hope for the Flowers      Trina Paulus

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone     J.K. Rowling

Pie          Sarah Weeks

Where the Wild Things Are  Maurice Sendak

Popular         Maya Van Wagenen

Wonderstruck   David Selznik

Will Grayson, Will Grayson     John Green / David Levithan

The Blood of Olympus    Rick Riordan

Deep and Dark and Dangerous  Mary Downing Hahn

Never Say Die    Will Hobbs

Red River Stallion    Troon Harrison

Captain Underpants    Dav Pilkey

My Life as a Book     Janet Tashjian

Doll Bones  Holly Black

The Maze Runner   James Dashner

Dork Diaries     Rachel Renee Russell

I think it's interesting to think about these choices. I've only read a few of them, so it also gives me ideas for my own reading. 

Claxton Student Government

Claxton Student Government's first service learning project was to decorate trees for Hospice. Here's a snap of trees from many Claxton students. 

4th ASG Reading

Our ASG Reading group for fourth grade complete introductory seminar work from Junior Great Books. I have compiled their reflection work (including an assessment at the end) as well as participation maps from our discussions.
Here are the goals they identified for our future work:

a.  Look at the person who is talking and NOT raise our hand!!
b.  Less out of turn talking
c.  Listen to others respectfully instead of blurting out
d.  Not to talk when other people are talking, and listen to other peoples' ideas
e.  To not interrupt each other and NOT raise hand!
f.  Focus on Book, not distractions
g.  Pay attention when other people are talking
h.  Not disrupting each other (saying stuff more often - sometimes)
i.   Pay attention

From the mouths of babes...
Actually, I do think we are making some sure (if slow) inroads to communicating better as a group. Not raising hands is kind of a biggie, evidently. It's tough (in a good way!) when you've got students who are SO willing to share.

We met today (11/7) during lunch to try to keep up with our missed class from last Tuesday. Next Tuesday is a holiday, so we'll pull together when we can.

I really appreciate students (and especially fourth grade teachers!) being patient with a flexible schedule!

We're continuing to read Neil Gaiman's Coraline. They should read to page 126 by next Wednesday. They have the schedule.

Thanks!

Student Government Officers

Here's a snap of our newly-elected student government officers. Today the officers were presented to Principal Dechant in preparation for this year's work.

5th Grade ASG Reading

Our fifth grade advance subject group in reading will be working on reading fluency in the coming weeks. To this end, they will be presenting a readers theater play called A Spark of Genius. This play presents the facts around Benjamin Franklin's experiment with key and kite. As a pre-assessment, students were asked to demonstrate what they know about Franklin's experiment using words and pictures. 

Please understand that as pre-assessment this work should accurately reflect student understanding and prior knowledge. If a student knew little/nothing about Ben and his experiment, that's completely okay. 

The following are their responses. We will begin the play in earnest throughout November and then have another similar (if not exactly the same!) assessment at the end of our work.

Happy Halloween!

Lost on the Moon (5 CSG)

Our fifth grade CSG has been working with an activity called Lost on the Moon. In this work, students must rank the importance of 15 items they have while lost on the moon. FYI, their ship crashed, and these were the only things surviving - save themselves! Students must rank the importance of the items and then rank them again as a group.

We will look at how NASA would rank the items and then determine 'error points' for their decisions, both individual and as a group. Should lead to some interesting discussions!

We'll wrap up with a little writing assignment - more about that upon its completion.

At any rate, here is a video of some of the initial discussion about group ranking. Enjoy!

Election Today

Here is a snap of our candidates for student government - save for the absent Malena. We are very proud of the efforts of these students. Officers will be announced on Thursday afternoon.

Election Speeches

Thanks to Mrs. Eggett for her help in preparing candidate speeches for Claxton's student government election on Thursday, October 22.

Duke 4th/5th Talent Search

Duke University has long worked to provide enrichment opportunities for gifted students. Formally the Talent Identification Program, Duke's 4th-6th Grade Talent Search is available to students scoring at the 95th percentile or better on a number of approved tests. As site coordinator for Claxton Elementary, I recently sent home letters from Duke to qualifying students. One point I would make is that the ACS AIG program considers testing criteria at the 85th percentile or greater. This means that not all AIG students qualify for the Duke program. Another point is that this program is not free. However, there is needs-based assistance available from Duke. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this program. There is also a toll free number on the application form which may be helpful. One other request I would make is to let me know if you find (or have found) this program to be helpful. I have some experience through my role as well as with my own children, however, I'm always interested in other perspectives. Congratulations to these students!

Junior Great Books

Both fourth and fifth grade reading groups have been working with materials from Junior Great Books. JGB is an offshoot of the unbelievably brainy work from the University of Chicago after World War II. Researchers such as Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler stressed "the need for academic rigor based on the intellectual traditions of the human community." What this means for our students is carefully managed seminar discussions on shared 'texts.'

What follows are pictures of participation maps from fourth and fifth grade seminars. Tally counts represent student responses to open ended questions  One caveat is to NOT equate high numbers of responses with success. Students set goals for their own participation which MAY include limiting their responses.

Lines between students note polite agreement of disagreement. This work is crucial to our future goals of literature studies.

You may recall a list of "Do's and Don'ts" posted earlier from this process. Check out the blog for 9/23/2014 to see specific examples of expected (and discouraged!) behaviors. Both groups are making progress to the kind of dialogue JGB expects!

More Set Champions

More Perseverance

Here are some snaps of fourth graders completing the daily SET challenge. The first finisher for this class, btw, was 8 minutes 59 seconds. She is pictured immediately below.

Perseverance

Our fifth grade CSG has been working with the attribute game SET. Part of this work is to reinforce perseverance in the face of challenge. Here are some photos of students completing the setgame.com puzzle for 10/9/14. BTW, the first photo below is a young gentleman who solved for six sets in less than five minutes!

Research

Here's a snap of some of our fourth graders researching four sciences for an upcoming simulation.

Do's and Don'ts

Here are some simple guidelines for participation in ANY of our groups!

Attribute Game

Here's a couple of snaps of fourth grade CSG playing a challenging attribute game!

AIG Meeting September 23 5:00-5:30

Hi! I'm hosting an AIG informational meeting the night of Claxton's open house -

                                                     September 23 from 5:00-5:30.

This meeting will be an overview of qualification and services for AIG students in grades 3-5. It will be a broad stroke to inform parents about current services and the ongoing qualification of Claxton's third grade.

Please attend if you are able! I am happy to schedule times to chat more specifically at your convenience!

Quick Notes

Currently there are 9 different 4th/5th grade AIG groups at Claxton. I want to use this blog to try to highlight activities in these groups. To try to keep you abreast of what might be pertinent for YOUR student(s), I will try to send "Quick Notes" home with students to bring attention to blog postings or other informative sources.
We'll see how this works out. Please let me know how I can help inform you about our activities!
Thanks!

4th Grade ESG Assignment (in class)

Hola fourth grade ESG students!

So if you had to choose between the following careers, which would you choose?

meteorology
geology
astronomy
history

Take a few minutes to research and define each. Collect your work on a Word document - use words and pictures! After you've made some notes decide which you'd like to be. Write no less than five (5) grammatically correct sentences describing the ONE you'd like to be and why! Your very best writing is expected!

After you've saved your work (in My Document is fine), print a hard-copy for Mr. Pruett. No longer than two (2) pages, please.

Your completed work will help decide your assignment over the next few weeks.

Did I mention your best writing is expected? Good.

Bon chance!

LOGOS

Here's a snap of the logos many of our AIG students have created. They represent fourth and fifth grade work. It has been interesting to see how students view themselves!
This bulletin board is outside the AIG room, 304. Check it out the next time you're on campus!

Math: Collaborative Problem Solving

Our math groups in both fourth and fifth grade have been working with collaborative problem solving activities. Students each have information that is helpful in solving specific problems. They must share with each other and work together to solve the problems. And, yes, they do get more challenging!
Here's some fourth grade conversation about their first attempt. I'll share some post-solving video later - but not the answers!

Seminar!

Fourth grade advanced subject group in reading have been working with Junior Great Books to introduce the concept to seminar learning. We'll be reading some short selections and then having discussions with specific participation goals. Stay tuned!

Bland Blog

The blog's been looking bland! Here's a shot from the third floor. Compare it to my post from February 18th!

How Exciting!

How very exciting it is to be back to school! With awesome new staff in place, it will be another outstanding year at Claxton!

Speaking of new staff, I've met most of the new folks and look forward to working with them. Seasoned veterans, especially in the upper grades, will be working with me this week and next to plan and schedule for AIG students. We are also wrapping up referral work for our alumni who have started at Asheville Middle School. AMS students will re-evaluate for services specific to middle school. Our fifth grade teachers had a big hand in this review.

You may know that my current assignment now includes our sister school, Jones Elementary. I'll be in both schools throughout the week. More specifics for my schedule are forthcoming.

Thanks for your patience as we prepare to kick off AIG services in fourth and fifth grade. It is important to note that ACS does not formally identify AIG students until the second semester of third grade. The referral process has already begun for our current third grades, so we're looking forward to some assessments this fall to aid in this effort.

Feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns you may have! I'm still at

john.pruett@asheville.k12.nc.us
828.350.6512

Hope to talk soon!

Wrapping Up / Looking Ahead

The official swirl of graduations and celebrations have begun. With just three days left I wanted to thank everyone - students, teachers, parents - for making this an incredible year. Check out the last couple of weeks of postings for some cool videos and notes to wrap up our year.

For fifth grade students, Asheville Middle will work with all AIG students in transition groups as their plans for middles school services are rewritten. Mrs. Jo Landreth has already met with these students and is looking forward to seeing them as sixth graders.

Fourth grade AIG students will have services in place very early in the 2014-15 school year -as fifth graders, wow! I'm working with the fifth grade team to ensure this is a smooth transition.

Current third grade AIG students will also have services in place for next year. As in current fourth grade students, I depend on classroom teachers to work with me to provide differentiated services for these students.

Thanks a million. It remains an honor for me to work with great kids at a great school!

3rd Grade Update

Here's a copy of some third grade letters going out this week - along with some work samples:

Dear Parents and Supporters,
 Our Enrichment Study Groups read Megan McDonald’s Insects are My Life. In this book, a young girl expresses her interest in insects. Third graders often have such interests, and we chose to display them in this book. Each of our students illustrated their own. I am attaching their work and have made all available for you to view at: 
http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/interests/claxton-s-3rd-grade-esg-10617159?vk=mK4wXkUjgU

We have also completed work with “You Be the Jury.” In this work, students adopted the role of jurors and listened to cases and testimony - complete with evidence. The job of each jury was to put information together to correctly identify the guilt or innocence of defendants. This activity provides students an opportunity to use their brains and practice communication skills among the group. A positive social outcome is as important to me as the skills involved.

I have attached worksheets that helped students organize their thoughts. Please ask them about their work in our AIG study groups.

 As we move toward fourth grade please understand that AIG services will be up and running in the first couple of weeks of school. I’ll work with fourth grade teachers to ensure their needs are being met! Thanks for your continued support of the AIG program. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns. Sincerely, John M. Pruett AIG Specialist, Claxton 350-6500 john.pruett@asheville.k12.nc.us

5th Grade Reflections

As our days wind down, our Thursday enrichment study group took some time to reflect on our time together over the last months and years. Today I remembered to record our conversation. Although the light from the window blacks out some of the video, that which remains - and the soundtrack - made for some pretty interesting viewing.

Check it out. It's bittersweet to see these students grow so much. None of this group realized how much they had changed until we looked at pictures and videos from last year. We were all amazed at how much folks had grown!

Hey, thanks for letting public school teachers work with your kids. It means more to all of us than we sometimes realize.

Readers in 4th Grade

Here's a couple of shots of ASG Reading projects from our novel study of The House with a Clock in Its Walls. 

Tuva Musicians

Brooks Butler brings some pretty awesome stuff to Claxton. Here's a performance from Tuvan musicians that visited earlier in the year. Cool!

Intrepid Scientists

Here's a shot of a couple of our intrepid scientists on the Great Solar System Rescue. Students in our fourth grade CSG put their heads together to learn about astronomy, history, geology, and meteorology in this engaging simulation. With two teams at two schools, we'll see which can solve their four missions for the least money!

4th Grade ASG Math

Our fourth grade advanced subject group in math tackled a couple of activities to reinforce their understanding of geometry. The first was constructing Venn diagrams that classified all the shapes we could think of. Here's a snap of their work - still on display on the third floor:

In addition, students were charged to design a golf course that included a myriad of shapes and angles. Here's a quick video segment of Sally's reflection on this work:

3rd Grade ESG

Our Enrichment Study Groups in third grade read the book Insects Are My Life by Megan McDonald. This book presents the intense interest in insects of a young girl. I share this with students to highlight their own, often intense, interests.

Our first group assignment was to communicate their interest by rewriting and illustrating the title with their own ideas. In days past, I made a hard-copy of book of this work to share. In lieu thereof, I am using a North Carolina company called Mixbook to present this information. The following link should take you to an online 'book' where you can scroll through the pages and check out student work.

http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/interests/blank-canvas-10617159?vk=mK4wXkUjgU

Enjoy the work of our ESG!

AIG Advocacy

Our AIG Advisory Board met this evening with Caroline Doherty, a representative from PAGE - Partners for the Advancement of Gifted Education. Ms. Doherty mapped out benefits from developing a PAGE chapter, long a goal for our AIG Program.

If you are interested in this fine organization, check out the following link:

http://www.ncagt.org/nc-page/about-page

See me with any questions! Hopefully we'll be moving ahead with this worthy organization.

FYI: NC Assessments

Many of you are familiar with NC's 4 point assessment system for achievement based on EOG testing. You may be interested to know the state is adding a level to this scale with allowances for both on-grade proficiency as well as college/career-readiness. Here's a look at the new info:

Achievement Levels	Meets On-Grade-Level Proficiency Standard	Meets College-and-Career Readiness Standard
Level 5 denotes Superior Command of knowledge and skills	Yes	Yes
Level 4 denotes Solid Command of knowledge and skills	Yes	Yes
Level 3 denotes Sufficient Command of knowledge and skills	Yes	No
Level 2 denotes Partial Command of knowledge and skills	No	No
Level 1 denotes Limited Command of knowledge and skills	No	No

MANY THANKS!

I greatly appreciate all the kind remembrances for Teacher Appreciation week! I got lots of really great cards from students. That is so kind!

Thank you!!

Thinkamabobs

Comprehensive study group (aka CSG) has been meeting on Tuesday afternoons. These students qualified on an aptitude measure. As visual thinkers, they've been discussing attributes through a challenging game called Set. Here's a couple of snaps of them playing.

Oh, I don't know that CSG or its elongated version has any particular zing, so we're going to go with Thinkamabobs, an infinitely cooler name suggested by Jackson.

Simulations

Team HF (incidentally, from another school) has successfully completed the Great Ocean Rescue for the least money spent. It was a close race with Claxton's Team R, but they prevailed.

Congratulations to all participants. Students kept "action plans" recounting their decisions for each mission. I'm sending these home this week with a cover letter which also contains the final results.

In a related matter, our fourth grade CSG (comprehensive study group - qualification based on aptitude) group has begun The Great Solar System Rescue. This simulation allows students to find and save space probes lost in the solar system. There are two teams, as they are pitted against a similar team from that same other school.

At any rate, these simulations incorporate reading and reasoning skills within the framework of collaborative work that's a great workout for students.

AIG Update

The following was emailed on May 1, 2014. If you are not on my contact list, please send an email to the following address:

john.pruett@asheville.k12.nc.us

Hola! Here’s a couple of notes from what’s been happening in AIG programming for Claxton Elementary!

5^th Grade

All Claxton teams have completed The Great Ocean Rescue, a simulation where students solve ecological problems by taking scientific roles. There’s one team left at my other school to determine this year’s champion. I will say that of the Claxton teams, Thursday’s group of girls sailed to a victory. We’ll see how they stack up with one final competitor.

4^th Grade

Math groups continue to complete a geometric golf course. It’s been more challenging than I thought – which is a good thing! Our readers will probably work through a funny adaptation of King Lear as a readers’ theater play.  We’ll use this as an introduction to an even more advanced version. Our thinking group on Mondays has begun a simulation where they’re scientists charged with locating and saving lost space probes. All good stuff!

3^rd Grade

We’re finally up and running! Our Enrichment Study Groups began meeting this week – with some fun get-to-know-each-other-and-ourselves work. We’ll move to more formal activities in the coming weeks. Hats off to third grade teachers (and parents) who have had great patience – both with qualification AND working with me to provide materials and experiences for students in math, reading, and thinking work! Always more to come!

I’ll remind you that there are some additional third grade cases that we’ll wrap up soon.

Thanks for your continued support! Thanks especially to all parents who have returned ‘permission to serve’ forms. I appreciate your time!!

As always, PLEASE contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns!

Lear Today, Gone Tomorrow Scene 5

This is the final installment of "Lear Today, Gone Tomorrow." I hope you enjoy the readers' theater play. The students, as you can see, had fun and did a great job! Lots of kudos to lots of performances.
It's been a blast to work with these students!

Lear Today, Gone Tomorrow Scene 4

Scene is up and running. We should wrap up with scene five this week.

Lear Today / Gone Tomorrow Scene 3

OK! Here it is! enjoy the latest scene from our second grade thespians! Only two more to go!

3RD GRADE SERVICES

I am pleased to announce that 95% of third grade AIG referrals have been reviewed by the AIG Services Committee and actions have been mailed to parents. There ARE about half a dozen cases requiring additional information. I expect them to be reviewed in the next week or so. Thanks to all the patience from all the players. It has been an unexpectedly long and unusual process for qualification. I am looking forward to working with third grade teachers to provide services for these students. Should ANYONE have any questions, comments, or concerns about this process, please contact me via phone (350-6512) or email (john.pruett@asheville.k12.nc.us) Thanks again!

LT/GT Scene 2

Here's scene two! Shoot me an email if you have questions or comments. Or you should be able to comment through YouTube - where these videos are 'housed.' Enjoy!

Lear Today / Gone Tomorrow Scene I

After the introduction already shared via this blog, here's part one of our second graders' production of "Lear Today, Gone Tomorrow." Enjoy!

"Lear Today, Gone Tomorrow"

An informal group of second graders has been working on a Readers Theater version of Shakespeare's King Lear. This writing is included in Terry Deary's excellent Top Ten Shakespeare Stories.

Here's an introduction to the play. We hope you stay tuned for additional installments!

Star Party Cancellation

Due to cloudy skies and a chance of thundershowers, tonight's UNCA event is cancelled! I'm bummed, too! We'll reschedule asap. Thanks!

Star Party Details

Hey, here are some more details about the April 4th Star Party.

Claxton AIG students are invited to be on the UNCA campus at 7:45 p.m. on April 4th. In room 119 of Robinson Hall (on the quad, to the left if you're facing away from the library) from 7:45 to 8:30 UNCA staff will present information about the moon, it's phases and craters.

At 8:30 everyone will go outside for some celestial viewing using lots of telescopes from UNCA and local enthusiasts.

This should be a lot of fun. A similar event last fall was awesome. The telescopes and their views are AMAZING!

Hope to see you there!

STAR PARTIES! NC Science Festival

Our good friends and colleagues at UNC-Asheville are contributing to the North Carolina Science Festival with a Star Party on April 4th!

UNCA and local astronomy enthusiasts will have telescopes set up on the UNCA quad. There will be presentations in Robinson Hall - room 119 or close - prior to the viewing. I'll let you know a specific time asap, but you can bet it's around sunset!

Also on the UNCA quad on April 11 from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm is a solar viewing party. If you've never looked at the sun through a specially adapted telescope, you're in for a treat! Kind of crazy hours for school kids and their families, but if you can make it . . .

If you're interested in the North Carolina Science Festival, an event that spans the state, check out:
http://www.ncsciencefestival.org/

Click on the western region for a map with dates and locations for many cool events in our region!

Science!!

Fourth Grade Personal Profiles

Here are the fourth graders presenting the PowerPoints for their personal profiles.

5th Grade Scale addendum

So, all 5th graders have completed their self-assessments for our scale work. I'm sending the assessments home as they're completed, but all video presentations should be available on the 2/6/14 blog post. All videos are through Vimeo, although the shift to YouTube is nigh.

Fourth grade personal profile presentations should be coming on line soon. My hope is to feature them through YouTube.

Here's a snap from our recent weather.