Del Prado Elementary- Shayna's School

A few weeks ago I attended the Curriculum Night at Shayna's school, in her 5th grade class taught by Mr. Mandel.

I was extremely impressed with the curriculum and wound up taking about 5 pages of notes. For one, the class is very advanced and is definately taught geared at the gifted child. Mr. Mandel has advanced training in gifted Ed. The main ways it is different from regular ed. is that its accerated, moves at a faster pace, has enirchment, they will go in more detail or on tangents on a subject (for example they read something having to do with prehistoric animals and then had an assignment to do a mini paper on a chosen animal).

We were given the results of the reading assessment, called SRI for Scholastic Reading Inventory. They get a lexile score. Mandel said most/some in the class were reading at a high school level. I looked up Shayna's score and while not an expert she seemed to fall at a high school level...and for myself the only hold back factor is the content/maturity level of certain books. One great thing, since all the children are gifted, the class is at a higher level overall with everything.

Here are some of the curriculum content.

Language/writing:

Will be doing writing in narrative, expository, persuasive forms. Will do book reports and research in science and social studies. Will do poetry. Concentrating on advanced skills as the kids "know the basics"- such as word choice (shayna's 2nd grade teacher was big with this, saying "jazz up your words and encouraging thesaurus use), personal voice, and organizing. For vocabulary THANK GOD finally on her level: not from the regular ed. book but words taken from the novels, science and social studies. When they are doing a novel and a word arises that they may not know, he will stop and write it on the board and ask if anyone knows what it means.

Reading:

They are doing novels, and go at a fast pace. Expect to do at least 20+ through the year. There is also a reading text and an FCAT prep book. They also seem to be doing some other reading besides the novels, xeroxed short stories, worksheets. Recently they had a "war of the worlds" reading topic. They also do scholastic news. To me these are too basic- I like to have Shayna pay more attention to current events, not that I follow up with it, it seems to be more of watching Oprah talk about an important news topic.

Social Studies:

They will be doing US History, Government, native people, environmental issues, map skills, economy, money and banking. Mostr recently they did a unit all about early exploration, Magellan, etc. Pretty detailed.

Science:

They are doing soooooooo much! Hurricanes, water cycle, weather, plants, animals, ecosystems, sound, electricity, solar system, rocks and minerals, human body, inventors, scientists, and more. will be learning scientific method, lots if hands on activities. There is a day later in the year where they have a science expo. A recent assignment she brought home with all the astronomy stuff included a star map and she is to go outside and use it. Coincidentally, I signed Shayna up for an astronomy night in November at the science explorium at the local Sugar Sand Park.

Math:

She has 6th grade math with Mrs. Root. Did not get intricate details since curriculum night is only with the main teacher. But so far they seem to be going at a fast pace, doing pre algebra and algebra. Found out the other day that it is the highest 5th grade math class. They get homework every night, Shayna seems to be doing well so far.

They have 4 planned field trips so far. I will write about them as they occur. The first was yesterday, october 16th.

let me say, I am extremely happy with this school. Granted, there is no gym, no choir and no free music lessons but that is not as important as the academics. Since its Florida, they get to have gym outside, walk in outdoor hallways, etc. I have had the chance to sneek a peek into a 2nd grade classroom and find out a bit about that grade, and it looks phenomenal. similar to private school. so I am on a mission to make sure Skyler attends this school starting in Kindergarten.

One thing having nothing to do with academics that I like is the way they do dismissal, while it is more inconvenient for parents, it is so much safer than her previous school which really irked me. here, they have a car line, and make sure every child goes with the proper parent/guardian. It is much safer. her old school let them loose, no supervision, and they blocked off the parking lot at pick up time.

They also have an amazing PTA. Honestly, I was so impressed at the open house before school started I was almost in tears with happiness and relief. They are also very pro parent involvement. There are room moms and very organized elaborate class parties akin to birthday parties (this is what I got talking to a mom from the class who has been with the school since K).