Dear Parents,
Thank you so much for coming out last night for the Gifted Information Session. We had an incredible turn out. If you get a chance to scan the QR code on the bookmark with my information on it, please do. Your feedback is appreciated. I wanted to share some information regarding the circle charts and questions you responded to with dots and post its. The fourth graders have done similar activities so I wanted to share the parent perspective and how it compares to the student perspective.
I was hoping that these questions might spark a parent/child conversation about learning preferences. All of these questions help provide insight into work habits and can help us better understand how to meet your child’s individual needs. The collaborative teachers and I will be reading over your comments. “It is important for my child’s teacher to be…kind, patient, supportive, encouraging, engaging, approachable, and firm.” We continue to strive to be our best for our students and your feedback is always helpful. “I hope that my child…gains self-confidence, can find comfort in discomfort and growth, continues to love school, is respectful and encouraging, is patient through struggles, is challenged, accepts failure, and tries his best!” Thanks for sharing! The slides from last night and the video can be found HERE on my website. Thanks again for your support and I look forward to working with you this year. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns. Dear Parents,
The third nine weeks was a busy blast. I can’t believe that we are counting down until the SOLs and end of the year. I have included some highlights for grades three through five and some pictures. Check them out. In third grade we have gone from Stop Motion to Shakespeare. I hope you all got to check out the Julius Caesar videos. Thank you to those parents who donated supplies and sent in sheets. We are just beginning the Animal Adaptations project and should be working on that for the next few weeks. Third grade math has focused on division, Mean, Median, and Mode, elapsed time, factors, and multiples. Mrs. Lawson does an amazing job of keeping me informed about skills areas where I can offer challenges. She is the BEST! Fourth graders completed GRIPS projects and lots of really creative poetry. Their Listen to… poetry turned out beautifully and I especially liked the choral rain storm. In math we tackled geometry, fractions, and probability. The Kandinsky geometry art and trashketball were my favorite activities. We are currently completing the measurement unit and will begin review for the SOLs shortly. As I am able I will be supplementing the review with 5th grade content. Be on the lookout for math challenges over the next few weeks. Fifth grade GRIPS was a huge success this year. We got to share our topics of interest with each other. Mrs. Dwyer and I have really enjoyed watching them grow as writers. The recent debate really highlighted how far they have come in their ability to express themselves and support their assertions with evidence. In math, we have completed all new content this week and will move into review. Mrs. Eastwood and I have loved having Ms. Durr with us. It has meant tons of small group instruction and one on one assistance. The new collaboration model has been a true blessing. I love getting to be a part of the kids' math and language arts instruction everyday. That consistency and co-planning has allowed my instruction and service time to be meaningful and engaging. Thank you all for your support and positivity as we try new things. Take Care. Mrs. Gemmill Dear Parents,
Let me begin by thanking you for the generous Christmas gifts. I was overwhelmed. I have written personal thank you notes that should come home this week. 2021 was quite a year and although it came with its challenges, I am thrilled with the new collaborative format. With the altered schedule I am able to be a part of both math and ELA for third, fourth, and fifth grade at least 4 days a week. I co-plan with each of my collaborative partners and my support is directly linked to their daily goals and content. Some highlights include novel studies (Bunnicula, Ruby Goldberg, Chasing Vermeer, My Side of the Mountain), Socratic Discussions in all grade levels, and many art integration opportunities. In math, I have time for small group instruction as well as team teaching as we introduce new skills. The winter MAPs assessments showed promising growth and we will be adjusting flexible grouping if necessary. I will continue to offer enrichment opportunities for second graders whose MAPs scores show readiness. I have planning from 7:45 - 8:15 in the morning and I have always encouraged students to come down and check in with me. During the second nine weeks, I noticed that many students began to come ask questions, ask for extra practice, or just simply say “Hi!”. It has been a joy to build those relationships throughout this year. One of the reasons I love my job so much is that I get to maintain those connections year after year. I was able to join most of the parent conferences and loved meeting you to touch base about your child. I feel so grateful to work with such incredible students and talented teachers. I look forward to all that 2022 will bring. Thank you for your support. Check out some highlights from 2021! I hope that you are following my escapades through the homeroom teachers' communication. We are really starting to get into a grove and I am able to differentiate more and more. Switching classes has meant I get to see students all the time and be a part of both math and language arts.
Second graders have worked on rearranging addition problems to make them more friendly and playing Race to 100. We will continue that work this week. Third graders completed the Multiplication City project. A Dinosaurs Go To School Project and we work on integrating the study of North America with ozobot challenges. We will be attempting our first Socratic seminar. Fourth graders have focused on writing and started a Invisible Boy project. We are hoping to complete that soon. We have also been stretching our place value brains by solving and creating mixed up place value challenges. Fifth graders started a novel with a breakout box. They also participated in the Order of Operation ER. The math skills in the compacted class come fast and furious. Please make sure they are studying math and completing math homework every night. We are working hard to make sure the amount of reading and reading related work is not overwhelming. We are easing into a grove. They are doing great. Enjoy these pics.... I will check in periodically. I am obviously not good at posting on my insta and twitter but I will keep working on it. Hello All!
I am thrilled about the opportunity to collaborate this year. Because of the change in format, communication will look a bit different. The weekly teacher emails will include any important weekly updates on assignments and assessments. You will hear from me when specific gifted communication is necessary. Check out my Instagram and twitter for pictures and brief glimpses into the activities and lessons throughout the week. You should receive a letter on Tuesday the 7th about flexible grouping. This will let you know where your child will be during math and language arts. We will start switching classes at the end of this week. Should you have any questions about the new model or your child's grouping, please feel free to email me and I will give you a call. Here are some pictures from the first two weeks in case you haven't checked out my Instagram yet. Dear Parents,
Over the past couple of weeks I have heard from a few parents regarding the information sessions for next year. I am thrilled that so many parents want to attend and I want to make sure that the meeting is as accessible as possible. With that in mind, we have decided to hold the Parent Information Sessions virtually. They will be held the same day and times. If you are unable to sign on during the session, we will be recording each grade level presentation and posting it on my website the next morning. Sign in and learn about what gifted services will look like next year. For example: If you have a current second grader make sure to attend the Rising Third Grade meeting. Thursday, June 3rd Rising Third Grade 1:00pm - 1:45pm Rising Fourth Grade 2:00pm - 2:45pm Rising Fifth Grade 3:00pm - 3:45pm Gifted Parent Meeting Google Meet Link meet.google.com/xbw-exvx-mhv Gemmill Time - 2nd Grade Update I have a few more sessions with second graders that will include the Case of the Litterbug Math Mystery then Chess for my virtual learners and Free Choice for my in person learners. It has been a joy getting to know them this year and I can’t wait to be a part of their instruction next year. Gemmill Time - 3rd Grade Update I have planned an end of the year lesson with all of the third grade teachers. In person students will be rotating through exploratory STEM stations. Virtual learners will be animating their third grade year using Chatterkid. I am booked for the next two weeks and will see a different class each day. It will be so fun to get to know everyone better. Gemmill Time - 4th Grade Update Over the next two weeks we have an Animate Your 4th Grade Year planned for my virtual learners and a Vacation Virginia Ozobot Adventure for the in person students. They will also get to participate in exploratory STEM stations in my room. I am hoping all will get to visit the Energy Wall in my room as they finish the year with the electricity unit. Gemmill Time - 5th Grade Update I will be spending time with your students over the next few weeks as I collaborate with their homerooms. Some folks will be using Bloxels to create a video game, some Creating a Theme Park with hummingbird programming, and others will be programming Spheros for a Mystery Summer Road Trip. I will also get a chance to play in the Kickball Game and be with them during the graduation activities. Thank you so much for your understanding and support throughout this year. I am so excited about the next year and have already started to plan with teachers for the first weeks of school and the first units of the year. I hope that you can all attend the information sessions or at least watch the videos. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out so that I can give you a call. Have a great summer! Dear Parents,
Thank you so much for all of the wonderful treats and surprises for Teacher Appreciation Week. I told my fifth graders that I felt so spoiled. They corrected me saying it was not spoiling me, it was appreciating me. You were all so generous and I can’t thank you enough! This week continued to review and practice for the SOLs in all grade levels. We used Test Nav to do a practice test and use the online tools in addition to going over the most frequently missed questions. Students have the review packets, BOOMs, and SOL quick checks to use as they review. I will be administering the Math 4 SOL to my in person students and the Math 6 SOL to my in person students. Students taking the Math 3 and Math 5 SOL will be taking it with their homeroom teachers. Monday will be the last day that I will be pulling math groups for the year. After the SOLs are over, I will be collaborating with each grade level to develop and implement a special integrated project for the end of the year. I will be meeting with grade level teachers in the afternoons over the next couple of weeks in order to plan. I will email you an update to keep you informed at the end of May. Please SAVE THE DATE. We will be gearing up for next year so we want to keep you in the loop. On the afternoon of Thursday, June 3rd, we will be meeting with parents of gifted students from each grade level. We want to share information about next year and the collaborative model. We will be answering some frequently asked questions and passing along sample schedules and sharing sample lessons. The meetings will be in person and will be an excellent time to get excited about the new year! Please see the times below for each grade level. Upcoming Third Grade Parents (current second graders) 1:00pm - 1:45pm Upcoming Fourth Grade Parents (current third graders) 2:00pm - 2:45pm Upcoming Fifth Grade Parents (current fourth graders) 3:00pm - 3:45pm I hope to see you all then! Dear Parents,
Another STEM challenge in the books to honor Earth Day. IE time for both fourth and fifth grade was an interesting dive into experimentation, invention, and following directions. Some of you may see the results on Mother’s Day so I will refrain from sharing what we did. During third grade IE time they solved the Case of the Litterbug and then had a chance to share some stories and a game made by our transition group. For the next two weeks in all three IE blocks we will be working on a Mother’s Day writing project. This will be the last update for a while as we will continue to review. During the SOL period, I will be administering and proctoring every day. This means I will not be able to pull math students during those two weeks (May 10-21). Students will remain in their homerooms for math when they are not SOL testing themselves. Gemmill Time - 2nd Grade Update Virtual Group - Solving Pentomino Puzzles and Number Jar challenges. In Person Group - Learned how to play Set and Rush Hour Gemmill Time - 3rd Grade Update We continued to review this week. Students completed nightly SOL review homework and we began to touch on each SOL in class. I was able to meet with small groups and assign differentiated word problems. Hopefully, we can play their favorite new game “Chips” next week. Gemmill Time - 4th Grade Update Computation Cards, a Conversion Quiz, Place Value Review, and Pattern Booms… We are in full review mode. Next week, we will continue to practice computation and word problems and move onto fractions review. Gemmill Time - 5th Grade Update Teams continued to work on the Geometrocity projects. Some even moved onto programming the ozobots to travel their city blocks. Practice this week went well and on Thursday they took the first SOL quiz on 6.1-6.6. I shared their scores and on Monday we will go over the quiz and allow them to schedule extra help if needed. Students will be encouraged to submit corrections and quality corrections will be used to help improve scores. Dear Parents,
I hope that you had a wonderful and relaxing spring break! We started to review in all grade levels. Look out for homework problems every night and a variety of content. During enrichment time this week, students participated in a fun STEM challenge and some teams and individuals met the criteria. Their names and heights of the towers are posted on the Wall of Fame in my classroom. Thank you to all those parents at home who helped their virtual learners gather supplies. It was so much fun to watch everyone build. We will be exploring another engineering challenge this week related to Earth Day. Gemmill Time - 2nd Grade Update Fruit Bowl Brain Busters really stretched their thinking and forced them to analyze the relationship between numbers. Following up on that skill, students worked on the website https://logiclike.com/. It offers a variety of challenges that tap into algebraic thinking. We did not use an account. Students worked together on my account. Please check it out if you are interested. It might be a good supplement to ST Math. I will be meeting with in person second graders on Monday and Tuesday and have already communicated with those parents summarizing the remaining lessons for the school year. Gemmill Time - 3rd Grade Update Growing and Shrinking patterns were our focus at the beginning of the week. Some students even took the opportunity to challenge themselves by working on extending patterns. We followed up by playing Roll a Rule with dice and I loved how students suggested creative ways to make the game more challenging using multiplication and two digit numbers. Seesaw homework was given at the beginning of the week. Students should be creating new slides in order to show their work. I saw students using fingers every day this week. Please have them work on fact fluency. Gemmill Time - 4th Grade Update We started off the week revisiting elapsed time. Students practiced measurement conversions and we ended the week becoming word problem experts and coaching one another through tricky situations. Most hiccups came as students were faced with double digit multiplication and long division. We will continue to practice basic computation this week to keep these skills fresh in their minds. Homework will be assigned every night as we continue to review concepts and prepare for the SOLs. Gemmill Time - 5th Grade Update Practice and Projects… We are working to balance the tedium of practice with an engaging mathematical project called Geometrocity. Students worked in teams to complete SOL review and then once checked by me they could move into Phase One of the project. Most are finishing Phase Two the design phase and beginning Phase Three as they build the 3D nets for their buildings. We will pause the project in order to practice the next section of review. Students will finish what they can on the projects by the end of the week and we will attach our city blocks and hopefully program ozobots to travel through our Geometrocity streets. Dear Parents,
We had a wonderfully productive week. We used IE time to share GRIPS projects and reflect on the process. Check out the GRIPS Projects page, GRIPS Expert page, and GRIPS Reflection page to learn more. I hope that you had time to have a “viewing party” with your student. We will not be having IE time this week. I will use that time to prepare all the paperwork for spring gifted eligibilities. We will begin to review for SOLs when we return from spring break. This will include note taking, quick check practice, and open ended independent projects that relate to their math content. I will not update my blog at the end of this week as I am sure we are all ready to enjoy spring break. I wish you all a restful and safe week off. Gemmill Time - 2nd Grade Update We used the Boom platform to explore fractions and equivalent fractions this week. Gemmill Time - 3rd Grade Update The highlight of their week was mustache measurement. Students took pictures of themselves and friends and added mustaches. They then measured those mustaches using inches and centimeters. How fun! This week we will be reviewing graphing and line plots in addition to introducing mean, median, and mode. Gemmill Time - 4th Grade Update Centimeter City was a way we could practice calculating area and perimeter and use higher level thinking skills in order to determine how to label the buildings. On Friday we discussed problem solving and the importance of showing mathematical thinking. They will be using area and perimeter and showing their thinking on Monday in order to solve the Puppy Problem. We continue to do review homework each day and record our work in our notebooks. I have already seen improvement in neatness and organization with this weekly check in. Gemmill Time - 5th Grade Update Circle Graphs and Mean as a Balance Point were on the agenda this week. Circle graphs rely on their knowledge of fractions, decimals, and percents so students felt comfortable quickly. Mean as a Balance Point, as opposed to the mathematical mean, was a new and different way to represent the mean. Ask them to show you the dance move! The students have done such a wonderful job of listening and following directions that I have prepared a Breakout Day for them. A physical breakout for in person learners and a virtual breakout for virtual learners. I hope that they enjoy it. |