Gifted and Talented Math

School's barely out in some areas of the country, but we know that many of you dedicated teachers are already thinking about what you need to do to be ready for the start of classes in the fall. Changes in curriculum, new content standards to address, and reassignments to a new grade level can often leave teachers feeling frazzled when it comes to preparing for a new school year.

That's why Kendall Hunt's Professional Development team created its summer eConference program, which provides program-specific training by KH curriculum specialists. By using eLearning tools and digital delivery for our professional development programs, we can bring you the training you're seeking in an affordable, accessible way. There's no need to spend time and money traveling -- just pick the sessions you want and use your internet-ready computer to both register and attend! 

The summer eConference program has three tracks: Talented and Gifted, Math Trailblazers, and High School Science.  All sessions are interactive, include hands-on activities, and provide time for curriculum-related Q&A. 

The eConference program is just one more way that Kendall Hunt is working to meet the unique needs of its customers. We hope you'll continue to make us your single source for innovative digital publishing solutions and cost-effective, convenient professional development that ensures those solutions are implemented with fidelity. 

Enjoy your summer!

Those of you who are faithful readers of our KH blog (and we appreciate that…thanks!) know that you will frequently get not only my Kendall Hunt perspective, but also my perspective as the mom of a fifth grader who is in gifted classes. This post is one of the latter. 

I received a phone call the other day from my son’s math teacher. She proceeds to tell me that he’s breezing through math, so they gave him the sixth grade math inventory test and he only missed five out of 45 questions. They’re moving him from fifth grade high math to the sixth grade high math group on Monday. I interpret this to mean three things: 1) I will not be able to help him with his math because his math abilities have now surpassed mine (there’s more than one reason I’m not an accountant!); 2) he’s pretty good at math, obviously; and 3) his school really needs a strong gifted and talented math program.

We’ve spoken many times about the lack of talented and gifted resources in some schools. But I’m wondering, even in schools that use accelerated learning resources like Kendall Hunt’s Project M³: Mentoring Mathematical Minds our newest curriculum, Project M²: Mentoring Young Mathematicians, are there still students who are moved up a grade? Or is moving them up a grade the substitute for a curriculum for high-ability learners? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Yes, I am still alive. I know I've been MIA a bit the past couple weeks, but with good reason. I've been madly building content for the new, improved Kendall Hunt Web site (seriously, I've been like a troll in the basement just clicking away).

But it's finally done. You can view it at the same place: http://www.kendallhunt.com, but you'll find it easier to navigate with improved functionality. You can now set up an account, check your order history, and when you come back and login after you've ordered the first time, you won't have to re-enter your shipping and billing info every time!

You'll find our same great products, high school biology textbooks, our online math curriculum, gifted and talented resources and all kinds of elementary education books. We'll be continually updating and improving the new site, hopefully incorporating more social media, more online learning opportunities and expanded professional development choices, so check back in often!

In the meantime, you'll find that some of the links in older blogposts might not work anymore because of the new configuration. I'll try to change some of them, but the search tool on the site is really intuitive, so if you can't link to something from an old post, just head to the site and give the search a try!

So we’ve decided to add a couple of new topics to our blog discussions here: math and online learning. Specifically in the online learning area we want to discuss what, if any online science curriculum you’re using, and what, if any, online math curriculum you have in place. As the PreK-12 world turns increasingly toward at least one online elementary curriculum and certainly as many as several high school programs online, I’m interested in your feedback on those you currently have.

And if you aren’t using any online curricula, do you want to? Have you looked at any? What’s keeping you from using them, or what’s the one thing that would make you jump into the online learning world?

Now, I also said we’d be talking about math, specifically grade school mathematics and gifted and talented math. Okay, math genius I never was and never will be, but I love math…the basic kind, anyway. And if you haven’t checked out our two gifted and talented math programs, Project M²: Mentoring Young Mathematicians, and Project M³: Mentoring Mathematical Minds, please do so. Project M² is geared toward Kindergarten through grade 2 and Project M³ is designed for grades 3-5. These outstanding, research-based, inquiry driven programs offer everything you need to implement a gifted program into your grade school mathematics.

 

Have you visited our Professional Development area? KH offers professional development support for many of our programs, including our accelerated learning resources. Here’s some news on a recent conference from our Professional Development Manager, Laura Lottes:

The Talented and Gifted Professional Development Conference held in Columbia, South Carolina November 18^th and 19^th was a big success! 

The conference was designed to provide training to both users and non-users of Kendall Hunt talented and gifted resources and curricula for high ability learners.  Eighty-six teachers from 29 elementary schools and administrators from the South Carolina Department of Education participated in the two-day event.  The participants had four topics to choose from including Math, Science, Language Arts and Social Studies.  Our author groups from Project M3 and the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William & Mary provided us with the resources for content of the workshops.

We are so grateful to our dedicated customers, as well as our future customers, who believe in life long learning and continuing education for their staff!

They’re here, they’re here!! The 2009-2010 PreK-12 catalogs are now available on our website! Chock full of high school science textbooks, primary school textbooks, accelerated learning resources, and much, much more. 

There are two catalogs, available via pdf download: the first showcases our outstanding elementary school textbooks for grades PreK through 8^th grade. The second catalog covers our offerings of high school science textbooks and programs, math, health & fitness, and talented and gifted resources. Best of all, you can be green and still see the catalogs if you just download them here: http://www.kendallhunt.com/index.cfm?PID=5970&PGI=0.  From this page you can also download our Reading Resources and Gifted Education catalogs. Check them out!

School started today for my 4th grader.  Last night we went to "Back to School Night" so he could meet the teacher, take his supplies and start to get settled in.  First thing I went for, being in the science textbook publishing business, was the elementary school science textbook sitting on his desk.  Felt like a brand new one too.  Love those new books!

Then we stopped by the GATE room where the teacher showed me some of the new accelerated learning resources that she was able to purchase with some stimulus funds, including a few Kendall Hunt items from our Project M3 program, a math curriculum for high ability learners.  She also found some new lesson plans for gifted and talented classes that she's going to try out this year.  Project M3 has some great modules, like "At the Mall with Algebra" that let students use real life experience to learn math.  They're not just gifted education books, they're gifted education adventures.

It seems like the last few years there has been a veritable explosion of accelerated learning resources flooding the market. Maybe it’s because our own offerings in books for gifted student have grown so much. We now have talented and gifted resources available for:

• Math
• Language Arts
• Science
• Social Studies

And I’m not just talking about a book or two for each subject. Each is a robust curriculum for high ability learners. What about your talented and gifted resources? Are they books…curriculum programs? And how does your school choose…does the gifted teacher decide on his/her own? What role do the principal and the district play? 

When looking for talented and gifted resources, it is important to meet the needs of all of your TAG math students.  The following article by M. Katherine Gavin, Ph.D. from Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, Univeristy of CT,
really embraces the issues to consider regarding books for gifted learners. 

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/projectm3/meeting%20the%20needs.html

The following article is a great example of how a curriculum for high ability learners is making a difference. 

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/projectm3/Hartford_Courant_Article.pdf

It was not mentioned in the article that the materials the club is utilizing are from the Project M3: Mentoring Mathematical Minds program which is a accelerated learning resource for mathematics.   If a student is this interested the mathematics used in this program during an after-school club, imagine what it would do for him as a TAG math class curriculum?