JANUARY 2007

4th and 6th graders (and occasionally our 5th graders) are continuing with chemistry. Through a series of experiments, they are learning about compounds, solutions, variables, elements, reactions, and more.

5th graders are just about complete with animal projects and are preparing supplies and notes so that they can teach another class what they have learned. Research, organization, preparation, knowing your audience, and public speaking are some of the skill areas that we have been targetting.

6th graders have taken a break from chemistry to discuss King Tut, artifacts, and time capsules. This lesson is a fun way to learn more about the ways in which historians use documents and artifacts to study the past. Each student is responsible for choosing and supplying approx. 20 items (including a letter "to the future") to represent who they are now, what the world is like now, and what they hope or plan for the future. These items will be going into individual time capsules which will be sealed until ???

The goal is that Ms. Sandmeyer-Bryan will "bury" them until these 6th graders graduate from high school or beyond...

(Some students mentioned that they just aren't sure the teacher will be alive to follow thru on this project if they go beyond high school graduation..... Thanks, students. At least you think I can make it six more years!?! )

Don't forget to check-out some of the WONDERFUL websites

that are available.

Get connected with these suggested sites:

"If we were TV sets, some of us would only get five channels. Others are wired for cable (the general population) and some of us (the gifted) are hooked up to a satellite dish. That makes these gifted children capable of making connections that others don't even know exist! Teaching those types of voracious minds in a regular classroom without enhancement is like feeding an elephant one blade of grass at time. You'll starve them." - Elizabeth Meckstroth

"Until every gifted child can attend a school where the brightest are appropriately challenged in an environment with their intellectual peers, America can't claim that it's leaving no child behind." -Jan and Bob Davidson with Laura Vanderkam, in Genius Denied

This newsletter is available in hard copy or online at http://www.capemaycityschool.org/Teacher/Sandmeyer/sandmeyer1.htm

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