Help me give my students opportunities to develop emotionally and socially through STEAM activities with supplies such as straw builders, wooden blocks, and a self esteem game.
I travel to 5 different schools to work with the gifted in grades k-8 in St. Johns, Florida with a focus on their social and emotional needs. I see 424 gifted students over the course of most weeks. Our school district is one of the top achievers within the state because the needs of the individual students are valued.
My students' strengths and weaknesses are highly varied.
My students are from affluent families and are homeless, are high achievers and struggle academically, are creative thinkers and are rigidly logical, are from diverse cultures, and they all exceptionally excel in one or more areas of cognitive ability but struggle somewhere else. My students yearn to be challenged. They need support in controlling anxiety, perfection and organization.
I am the luckiest teacher alive because I get to work with them all! One commonality among my students, regardless of their special populations, they all love learning and have a right to be their academic and emotional best!
My Project
Weekly, I work with our diverse gifted populations to meet their goals to develop social and emotional strengths. I plan to use these STEAM activities to challenge my learners. Through each challenge my students are developing grit, learning how to utilize failure to improve a plan, and be effective leaders.
I hope to develop grit.
With each of these activities, I expect my students to struggle. Our gifted students may be able to coast through academics because they are so bright. However, in real life there will be times when they struggle. It is so important that they learn the skill of persevering through a difficult task. With the planks and the straws, they will be given a building task and will then need to re-create it. It may take several attempts but when they finally reach their intended outcome, there is a real sense of accomplishment - the grit paid off.
I hope to develop leaders. With Team Challenges and STEM challenges, I expect my students to develop effective leadership skills. When a group is working to goal, a leader is crucial to the success. I hope to teach my students that leaders encourage the best from each team member, to organize the strengths of the group, and keep the tone positive.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Earnshaw and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
