District
B
District B held their annual workshop on February
6, 2010 at the Oak Grove Middle School in Oak Grove. Sue Winter
talked about current events in Jefferson City and our (GAM's)
hope for better funding for our programs. Rose Ernst stepped
up next to ask the parents for their help in forming a parent
group for our district. The parents completed a survey and those
results and further information on the group will be coming
soon. (Watch the GAM website and district emails.)
Cindy Sheets, our guest speaker, was able to inform
the parents on some of the problems with praise and how to give
praise correctly. The parents seemed to get a lot from this
session asking many questions. Mrs. Sheets then followed up
with several excellent ideas involving technology and sites
and ideas for our students/children. Of course, after listening
to the parents questions and thoughts I'm led to believe that
a few of them probably went home to play too.
Our students were engaged on this morning with
several different types of activities requiring them to stretch
their brains. The students may have come out of their sessions
telling parents that they built towers, squished their hands
in oobleck, pantomimed stuff, or played with shapes. The teachers
will tell you they stretched their brains with divergent, convergent,
creative and logical thinking. And I will tell you that both
groups seemed to have a fantastic time.
The classroom teacher workshop this year involved
differentiation ideas for both gifted education and regular
classroom teachers and featured Rick Wormeli's book, Fair Isn't
Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom.
Ellen Wright and Sue Winter facilitated with ideas and practical
models the participants were able to take back and use in their
own classroom. This group was able to pick up several new ideas
and even hear from Cindy Sheets on the Response to Intervention
model.
I would like to thank all our teacher volunteers
for taking time from their busy schedule to come and play on
Saturday. And thank you to all our participants for another
successful workshop for District B.