Winter Wonderland Enhances Learning
(January 26, 2015)
About 70 students in the Allen County School District’s Gifted and Talented program and the Primary Talent pool participated in Winter Wonderland last Saturday at the Allen County Intermediate Center.
“Winter Wonderland is mirrored after the Super Saturday’s at Western,” explained Vicki Cooper, the director of the Gifted and Talented Program for Allen County Schools.” It’s gives students challenging and enriching project activities to extend their learning in many areas. This year our focus was on STEM---Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.”
Multiple workshops were held with the classes ranging from animated storytelling to flashlight building, from computer programming to sculpturing. Teachers from across the district shared their time and expertise while several classes were led by special presenters from the community.
“Rick Roberts and some of his computer programming students done some computer programming,” Cooper explained. “With younger kids, we built flashlights. Paul Curasi, who is a retired Walt Disney Animator and Songwriter, presented a workshop on characters in storytelling. Andrew Wielawski is a stone sculptor who introduced sculpturing to our students. We had other workshops as well.”
Students in the Gifted and Talented program or in the Primary Talent pool interested in participating in the day’s activities were required to fill out an application which included a list of 19 possible classes.
“Each student got to pick their top five choices,” Cooper explained. “Then I tried to make sure they were in their top two if possible but definitely in two of their top five.”
Winter Wonderland also included a workshop for the parents of the Gifted and Talented students.
“Dr. Tracy Inman, the Associate Director for Gifted Studies at Western, led the worship,” Cooper explained. “She talked about the importance of challenge outside the classroom and offered tools and strategies. This educates parents to hopefully help them be the strongest advocates for their children.”
Students were in each session for 75 minutes with a 30-minute snack break built into the schedule of the three-hour event.