I am so excited to start my blogging journey. This is my 3rd year as a gifted and talented teacher and running a school wide STEAM lab! When I started my current position, it was part of a new district initiative to implement STEM in all grade levels. My role was created to run a Steam lab for the entire K-2 school ( around 21 classrooms) and service the K-2 Gifted and Talented students. At the time, I only had ten 1st & 2nd grade GT students. There really was not a curriculum for gifted and talent and the Steam lab was brand new. To say I felt like a fish out of water, is an understatement. I remember going through hundreds of blogs to figure out how a Steam lab should work. I never really could figure out what would work for our campus, as most were designed for older elementary aged students. With trial and error, I finally figured out what would work. I have learned to step back and let the students figure out what does not work on their own. Fast forward 3 years and I currently have 40 GT students and our school population has grown to 27 classrooms.
How Steam lab works:
I rotate through grade levels weekly. I start with 2nd grade and work my way down. My first year, I completed the same challenge with each grade level, but changed up the building materials. Quickly I learned that teaching the same lesson 21 times for three weeks straight got old FAST! Now I do completely different challenges each week depending on the grade level. Check out my STEAM page to see updates on how my challenges work and see what we are working on weekly.
How Gifted and Talented groups work:
I currently and working with my 1st and 2nd grade students and push in the Kindergarten classes doing screening lessons. I will test Kindergarten in January to qualify for our Gifted program. My 1st and 2nd graders are pulled twice a week for 45 minutes. I try to keep my groups to 5-8 students per group. I have three 2nd grade groups and three 1st grade groups. Check out my G/T page to see what we are up to in class!
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