Going Above and Beyond (4th and 5th Grade)

After conference week and report cards, I had several 4^th and 5^th grade students drop by and ask about the “takes initiative to go beyond requirements” indicator on the report card.  Oftentimes, students with an otherwise perfect report card find that they have not met this particular indicator and they begin to wonder what they can do to meet the requirement.  The idea behind this indicator is that the student takes the initiative to do something outside of class that has not been assigned and shows self directed learning based on our topic of study.  Some examples of taking the initiative to go beyond requirements might include: finding and reading articles in the newspaper and sharing them with the class, watching a documentary about robots or space travel and taking notes on the information presented, building a model of one of the rockets we are studying and learning a little more about it, or researching a particular space/robotics topic that the student finds interesting.  The most important thing is that the student has the desire and takes the initiative to do the extra work; this should not be something you require of your child, nor should you be the one to cut out articles and tell your child to bring them to class.  It is perfectly acceptable to make your child aware of opportunities, but it should be his or her decision as to whether or not to take advantage of those opportunities.  One way to find some great ideas is to check out the NASA website and look under the student section; there are oftentimes contests or fun learning activities that students can try.  I am providing the link to that page as well as a link to a current contest which provides the opportunity for students to design an experiment that might be chosen to fly on the International Space Station (ISS).  Participating in a contest like that is a great way to go above and beyond requirements, and a couple of years ago, several Vaughan students actually won and had their experiments flown on the ISS!  You can take a look at the "Kids in Micro-g" page for more details on their winning experiments.

ISS Competition

NASA Student Page