Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Introduction to Gifted Education Course

Hi everyone,

This summer I took part in an Introduction to Gifted Education Course at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO. It has been a wonderful experience and I would love to share some of what I have learned with you.

Before this course, I had heard of Glogster, but never really used it. One of my favorite things is that it has an extension called Edu Glogster that is safe for student use. It would be awesome for students to complete a Glogster instead of the traditional poster. I love that you can add multimedia, such as music, videos, hyperlinks, graphics, and more! It is a great resource to use in your classroom. Also, if you create an educator page, you can have twenty student accounts link to your home page for free! By paying a yearly subscription that number jumps to 500 students! Check this out!


Below are two links to my Edu.Glogster pages that I completed during this course. One is related to curriculum and ways to best benefit gifted students, the second is effective program options for gifted education, and the other is about a book that I found helpful for middle school gifted learners.

Curriculum Options for Gifted Learners
Program Options for Gifted Education in Schools
101 Success Secrets for Gifted Students

This course has also sparked my interest in becoming a gifted education specialist. If you know of anyone or have any suggestions, please let me know! I would love to hear from you!


Sunday, June 10, 2012

First Week of Summer School!

Hey everyone!

This summer I am finishing up some Masters classes and therefore, I am teaching summer school! I am working with special education students from third to fifth grade. They are awesome! 

During this experience, I would like to keep a list of ideas and things around our classroom that work for us. If you have any suggestions on ideas for teaching reading, writing, or math, please let me know! 


Our first suggestion or idea that we put into our classroom was a cute, colorful bulletin board! The crayon tops are paint chips from Crayola. They can be found at stores such as Home Depot or Lowes. If you let them know that they will be used in a classroom, they will typically let you have as many as you would like!


This is what we use to control noise levels in our room! It is super easy to make and works so well!


We decorated one wall with motivational posters!


This year's summer school is around the world themed, so we decided to make a "Mt. Everest" behavior chart! We were inspired by the multiple similar charts on Pinterest, so we thought it would be cute to make it match our theme! Borrow if you wish! We just used poster board and laminated it. Each student has a clothespin with their name on it that they move themselves when told by the teacher. It is great for reinforcing good or bad behavior in a classroom setting! 

Here is everything we have done this week! Check back next week for lesson plan ideas and strategies for working with students!