Enrichment
An education at Convent Elementary is already a tremendously enriching experience on many levels, however the "enrichment program" here aims to provide students with additional opportunities to excel in areas of individual academic strength or interest. This is accomplished through a variety of engaging activities in math, science, social studies and language arts that allow students to stretch themselves. Students are challenged to develop their critical thinking skills by experimenting with problem solving techniques, manipulating and re-organizing the knowledge that they already possess and challenging themselves to take risks with new materials and ideas.
- A Note to Students Hide
Take a listen to the first grade podcast on traditional forms of Japanese poetry.
- A Note to Parents Hide
REGARDING ENRICHMENT MATH ASSIGNMENTS:
The girls are not required to complete these worksheets as homework; rather I ask the girls to play with these problems and ponder them over the week. Some weeks they will be able to complete the entire assignments and other weeks, either because of time constraints or because of the difficulty of the problems, girls will not be able to make much progress. I expect this, and we always spend the first part of the following session going over the previous week’s assignment.
Regarding assistance, I encourage the girls to get help wherever they can find it, but only as long as these interactions are fun and interesting, rather than frustrating. I understand that many of these math problems appear to adults to be algebraic, but all of the math can be done using an age-appropriate problem solving strategy. If you choose to help your child, try to follow her lead on strategies to try – draw a picture, use a chart, guess and check.
Neatness does NOT count. I call these assignments Messy Math, because I want the girls to learn to take chances and to experiment with their problem solving. They are free to try things and then scribble them out if they find one strategy isn’t working for them and start fresh again, as long as they can follow their own track of thought and then explain it to me or someone else.
Ultimately, I am more interested in the process of problem solving than in students getting correct answers to these problems. I want these girls, for whom many things come easily, to get experience struggling with problems and experimenting with different solutions. I think there is great value in the experience of manipulating information, and working and reworking a problem to finally achieve a satisfactory solution.
If you have any questions about future assignments or about the enrichment program in general, please contact me by phone or email.