The Roosevelt Island School Gifted and Talented Classroom

Finally some pictures from the wonderful classroom of the Gifted and Talented K003 class in The Roosevelt Island School.

Dress Attire for Winter Concert at The Roosevelt Island School

REMINDER: Winter Concert is next Wednesday, December 9th @5:30 pm.

According to the Music Director's note all children should wear:

- black socks

- black shoes or boots

- white shirts or sweaters

- black dress pants (or long black skirts for girls)

- a long black tie for boys

At the PTA meeting administration representatives mentioned that black dress alone (without white shirt) is also appropriate for the girls, as long as they don't wear any other colour. However, they wanted to verify this information and send the update / clarification later through the class parents. Not sure what happened here, we did not get any updates so far.

UPDATE: boys are NOT required to wear black ties, and girls are allowed to wear black dresses without white shirts.

Most Recent Sight Words List

Guest Speaker at the Roosevelt Island School PTA Meeting

At the PTA meeting at The Roosevelt Island School on November 19th, 2009 guest speaker Steve DeMeo gave presentation "Differentiated Learning, Differentiated Teaching: What It Means for Parents?" As a P.S./I.S. 217 student's parent and Associate Professor of Science Education at Hunter College holding a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Steve advises parents to:
- Follow up on homework.
- Check math/science work, and encourage seeking alternative methods of checking.
- Use "WSD" strategy for reading books: Write it out (summarize), Say it (put in other words, retell), Draw it (put in another modality).
- Work through word problems, and embedding qualitative and quantitative concepts.  Beware of memorizing algorithms without understanding the meaning of the foundational concepts.
- Involve kids in cooking - get boys in the kitchen too!  Following recipes prepares children to learning lab procedures later in their physics and chemistry classes.

Thanksgiving Lunch at The Roosevelt Island School

It was great to see so many of you at the annual Thanksgiving Lunch for the Kindergarten! The school once again satisfied our turkey cravings by organizing the Thanksgiving celebration. The corn bread and pies were delicious and we thank all of you who participated by cooking or buying and giving the food to P.S./I.S. 217 for this feast!

As always, you can view the pictures in our photo-blog. If you have not received an invitation, please email rigandt@gmail.com to request one!

Much-anticipated and rehearsed "Turkey Song" performance:

New York City Kindergarten Science Scope & Sequence

Below is the NYC Kindergarten Science Scope & Sequence for the second third of the school year provided by the Department of Education. Gifted and Talented acceleration will be provided in The Roosevelt Island School K003 class through curriculum compacting and differentiation of instruction to maximize learning for advanced students. As part of this module students in K003 class will complete in-class interactive activities to support inquiry-based learning.
UNIT 2
Exploring properties
How do we observe and describe objects?
Observe and describe physical objects using all of the appropriate senses:
- Size, shape, texture, weight, color, etc.
- Determine whether objects are alike or different
Observe and describe physical properties of objects using appropriate tools:
- Hot/cold (thermometer)
- Weight (pan balance)
- Measurement (nonstandard units) including bigger/smaller, more/less, capacity of liquids
- Observations (hand lenses)
Observe, describe, and identify the properties of materials (e.g., wood, plastic, metal)
Sort or group objects according to their properties:
- Texture, color, shape, etc.
- Sink and float
Complete New York State Elementary Science Core Curriculum is available online.

Queens Botanical Garden Trip

Throughout November our children have been studying the trees. They have learned the parts of trees, what trees need to live and why trees are important to people and animals.

A school trip to the Queens Botanical Garden was a perfect way to reinforce their understanding. Children had a guided tour of the Garden, observed different types of trees, and had a seminar on parts of the trees and their role in our lives. They even surprised the instructor with their knowledge of such words as "photosynthesis" and "chlorophyll"! Kids were particularly excited to see mini-trees in the pots with familiar names - coffee, banana, avocado and to plant the tangerine seeds to hopefully grow the trees of their own.

As usually, you can view all the pictures from this trip in our photo-blog. If you have not received an invitation to view this album, please email rigandt@gmail.com to request it!

Please join the class as a chaperon on the next trip to see the Nutcracker on December 11th!

November Birthday Lunch with the Principal

Our class has three students born in November - congratulations to Anja, Xavier, and Sophia! Kids received congratulations from the school Principal and enjoyed pizza, cake and juice at the cafeteria.

If you have not received an invitation to view pictures from the school celebration in our photo-blog, please email rigandt@gmail.com to request one!

REMINDER: Next month birthday lunch is on Wednesday, December 16 @1:30 pm. If you want help with setting up for the event, please come earlier - around 1:15 pm.

Update from "LINKS" (P.S./I.S. 217 The Roosevelt Island School Newsletter)

Class K003 has published their first personal narrative. They are continuing to write stories from their lives and will begin to write “small moment” stories.

In reading they have learned a variety of strategies to read new words. They are now working in guided reading groups to improve their fluency and comprehension.

In math they have finished their unit on Numeration and are beginning Sorting and Patterning with many open ended activities for the students to push their critical thinking and reasoning.

They have already become scientists this month and are studying the trees of Roosevelt Island. They have learned the parts of trees, what trees need to live and why trees are important to people and animals. This unit will continue throughout November.

Parents/Teacher Conference at P.S./I.S. 217 Gifted and Talented

As a part of the Parents/Teacher Conference this week at The Roosevelt Island School G&T class, we had a wonderful meeting with our teacher. Ms.C. have kept us updated throughout the school year, and during the conference she was able to devote each parent as much time as they needed to discuss their child's progress because our class is so small. We reviewed the report cards, and the teacher was very clear and specific about what is expected of the children in the gifted and talented program. You can see some scans of the categories the children in P.S. 217 are evaluated on at the bottom of this posting. We have also received separate report cards on how the students are doing in their "Special Areas" classes - music, arts, gym, computer lab, and library studies.

The parents I had a chance to talk to, myself included, are extremely pleased with the new Gifted and Talented program in The Roosevelt Island School. Our children learned so much during these first few months in the classroom! It's amazing to see how their writing, reading, math, and reasoning skills progressed in group of such talented peers.

Breakfast with the Principal at The Roosevelt Island School

Parents from the gifted and talented class in The Roosevelt Island School (P.S./I.S. 217) had a chance to discuss the school budged and this year's school goals during breakfast with the Principal on Friday, November 6^th. The Principal emphasized once again importance of the teachers' professional development, illustrating how it has benefitted the students in our school and helped the administration to make school-wide changes. All teachers in The Roosevelt Island School have masters degrees, or currently working on obtaining one. Great to know our children have highly qualified teachers, who receive annual training from professional teaching coaches!

Ms.Beckman told us about high involvement expected of the parents, and named numerous successful projects completed jointly by the school administration and Parent-Teacher-Association. The Principal also discussed various ideas about increasing parents' role in the school life.

Students of the Month

October students of the month in K003 class at The Roosevelt Island School are Zara and Shai. Congratulations!

Spirit Week at The Roosevelt Island School

The Spirit week on October 26-30 at The Roosevelt Island School was a huge success. The students enjoyed coming to school in their pajamas, representing their favorite teams, wearing our school colors of purple and gold or a school shirt and dressing up for Halloween.

Children in the gifted and talented program especially loved Pajamas Day. They also had amazing Halloween costumes. Congratulations to the winner of the costume contest - Xavier T.!