Landstown Mind Vine

     The Virginia Beach City Public Schools Department of Research, Evaluation, and Assessment (REA) is conducting an evaluation of the division’s gifted program. One component of the program evaluation includes gathering feedback from parents and students regarding their perceptions of the gifted program and their experiences in the program.  Near the end of June, a number of randomly selected students and their parents will receive notification by mail inviting them to participate in a survey regarding the gifted program. If you and your child receive a survey, please complete and return the survey as parent and student input is an essential and important part of the evaluation process. For additional information regarding the gifted program evaluation, contact Heidi Janicki, program evaluation specialist, via email at hljanick@vbschools.com or by telephone at 757-263-1103.

Speaking Horticulturally...

     Mr. Moore, a horticulturalist for the city of Virginia Beach specializing in turf, spoke with the students in Ms. Saunders’ and Gentry’s classes this week.  The students are wrapping up work on a gardening task in language arts as well as studying  plants in science.  The background knowledge from these studies, along with students’ completion of a frame for a horticulturalist in which they tried to identify the skills, language and products of the discipline, allowed them to compose very interesting questions.

     What kind of education do you need to become a horticulturalist?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of your job?  Is it a good idea to mix anuals with perennials?  Why do your eyes burn when you cut an onion?  Mr. Moore answered nearly 50 questions with ease and skill.  When stumped by the onion question, however, our guest pulled out his media phone and googled the question!   Now that’s 21st Century!

     Ms. Saunders’ students are currently working on the clever creation of a thank you in the form of a series of analogies/metaphors that tell the ways in which Mr. Moore/a horticulturalist is like the parts of a plant.  Now that’s creative thinking!

     Second graders in Ms. Haberdash’s room played with deliciously descriptive words today as they began the William and Mary unit Beyond Words.  They explored the poem “Fog” by Carl Sandburg and discussed his choice to compare fog to a cat. 

     The children were very interested in the work of the linguist and proclaimed their love of words.  If linguistics is the study of words and their structure, I think second graders meet the criteria–regardless of how tall they are!

     In future lessons, students will study similes and metaphors, creating imagery, using context clues and analogies.  They just might be Word Masters Champs in the making!

Landscape Architect, Joe S., creates a rough draft of his design

     Several areas of study have been woven together to create a task that students are digging into (no pun intended) in Ms. Gentry’s class.  The students have been given a request from their teacher to help her rescue her backyard from disaray! 

     Students were provided with photos of beds in Ms. Gentry’s yard along with details of light, preferred maintainance level, and additional client desires.  The students are required to think like a landscape architect as they use their understading of regions and their planting zones, plants, measurment, computer research, design and persuasive writing to create a proposal to improve their teacher’s secret garden (several students just finished reading the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett).

     Following spring break, a horticulturist from the community will visit the students to answer questions and give advice as they work on their final designs.  Will Ms. Gentry’s garden be revealed to the world?