I decided to use this cold day when the students are hopefully all warm and cozy at home to communicate with you about the latest news for our Excellence in Youth program.  We spent a lot of time in December out of the buildings working on programming and the identification process.  Although I truly missed my time with students, I believe that we made some important progress in shaping the program.  We have been moving towards a  more inclusive program due to the fact that we feel that there are many students in our schools that would benefit from the opportunities that we provide and the testing that we use for identification may not reflect the strengths of all students.  We are working on a ways to challenge all.  This has proven to be quite a challenge for us!  🙂

As we begin the second semester, we are working to complete our history/timeline projects.  This is an exciting project, and I am eager to have the students share them with you.  I am hoping to have these done and  ready to share by mid January.  We will be setting due dates at the next EY meeting day.

Upon completion of this unit, we will focus on Science.  The students will be creating their own Science Experiment Video similar to Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show.  If you are not familiar with this website, please check it out at sylviashow.com  The students will be required to write a proposal for their video and then write a script before beginning production.  I am excited to see what they choose and what they will do with this!

We will also continue with the Math Olympiad Competition.  These are the math tests that we take each month, November through March.  I am really pleased with the number of students that are participating at my schools.  The meeting after the test is a great learning opportunity for the students. It is interesting to see how they approached the problems and to see the light bulb turn on as we discuss how to arrive at the correct answer using various methods.

We also have the Science Olympiad coming up on January 27th.  Please ask your child if they are planning to submit a plan for an edible car for a chance to attend this Science filled day.  Their plan is due on January 14th.  Here is the link to the activity https://ey.westside66.org/category/teachers/. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  Your child will be notified if they are chosen to attend. We will be looking at effort and creativity to determine attendees.

I  wish you all a very happy and safe 2015!  I look forward to the second semester working with your children  and their teachers to enrich their educational experience.

Sincerely,

Patty