Tabernacle Elementary School AIG

Fourth Grade reading AIG students spent some time learning about kid inventors through our Jr. Great Book nonfiction text and some research about kid inventors. Some common inventions were created by kids. After reading the nonfiction texts, students worked with The PBL project: The Next Great App lesson where they learned a little about mobile apps before brainstorming ideas for their own “next great app”. Students had to come up with two ideas then conduct some action research from their peers to help them narrow it down to one. Once the chose their best idea, they created the icon, explained what it was used for, how users would interact with it and the intended audience. Each student presented their idea to the class and we voted for some “awards” (most useful, most creative, biggest time waster, etc.). Students had to really think this through in order to convince us that their app was “The next great app”. The apps are now displayed in our class on a giant phone/tablet.

Third grade AIG students took on trying to figure out Tangrams as we read “Grandfather Tang’s Story”. We began our lesson with trying to figure out if a square or rabbit made with tangrams had the same area. As we explored the text and students created the animals presented throughout they began to see that each time we use all 7 pieces to build the different animals. This was a great visual spatial reasoning activity that allowed students some productive struggle.

One of our Tabernacle 4th Grade AIG students is really interested in the number pi. Pi Day was on Saturday, March 14 and since we were not in school, we celebrated the following week.

In reading we read about the history of pi and learned some fun facts. Did you know Albert Einstein’s birthday was March 14? In math we explored measuring a circle with sticky notes and determining that we can use a little more than 3 but less than 4 to measure (3.14). Each student also got their own sweet treat (a pie of their choice). This was such a fun exploration!

What a great start to the 2025-2026 school year! I was able to do some whole group SEL lessons in 3rd grade and worked with my 4th and 5th grade students to kick off the new year.

Today we examined how our gifted brains work. After getting some background information and validation about themselves as a gifted learner, students were tasked with creating a 3-D model of the brain. With this model, students were to choose three of their gifted traits and add symbols to their brains to represent these traits. Students then wrote about the symbol and connected it to the trait it represented.

I definitely witnessed some of that creative thinking during this activity.