Penn Manor Gifted Blog Grades K-8

Career Close-Ups are a series of one-hour interviews/webinars featuring Lancaster County professionals in emerging and innovative roles.  There is no cost to attend, and the webinars are open to community members.

Each of the 8 different careers will be highlight on Wednesday afternoons from 3:30-4:30. The first Career Close up will be this Wednesday October 21st and is titled, Logistics. Check out the flyer below for a list of topics and dates.

For more information, please contact Lauren Finn, lfinn@lancasterchamber.com

NASA is taking remote learning to the Moon! 2020 has been a year of working and living at a distance. Now consider what it might be like if you were living with a pod of astronauts 250,000 miles from Earth. Your challenge is to imagine leading a one-week expedition at the Moon’s South Pole – with the whole world cheering you on. Tell us about the types of skills, attributes, and/or personality traits that you would want your Moon Pod crew to have and why. How many would be in your pod? And of course you’ll need high tech gear and gadgets! In your essay, also describe one machine, robot, or technology that you would leave on the lunar surface to help future astronauts explore the Moon. Your entry must meet these requirements:

Grades K-4: Essay, up to 100 words

Grades 5-8: Essay, up to 2oo words

Interested students please contact Mrs. Orihuel at lori.orihuel@pennmanor.net for more information.

Welcome back students and families! Today marks the start of the second week of Penn Manor’s blended learning model. We know some of you are completely virtual, some of you are in school on A days and some of you are in school on B days. We also know that no mater what your school schedule looks like this year we look forward to seeing you! Here’s what you can expect:

Grades K-2 Students who are in school will receive face to face instruction with the gifted support teacher assigned to their building. Students who are virtual will receive instruction using Google Meet.

Grades 3-8 Students will receive instruction using Google Meet. Your child’s gifted support teacher will share specific start dates and meeting times in the next week or so.

In the meantime, I just learned about a wonderful virtual opportunity offered by Purdue University called Space Day for students in grades 3-8. The 25th Annual Purdue Space Day will be held Saturday, October 24, 2020.Registration is open to everyone in third through eighth grade and everyone will be accepted. Materials for the activities will be mailed to participants in early October. Purdue will supply a list of household materials that we will ask you to provide. Click HERE to register and learn more!

The IU13 is offering three online, at-home summer enrichment camps for students entering 1st-12th grades in the fall.  IU13 staff will connect in small groups with students for short periods of time before all the interactive learning and fun begins at home. Camp options include:

• The Incredible Mini-Sphero! (grades 5-8)
• Behind the Lens with Cass Storm (grades 9-12 and those 12th graders who attended her SEE Seminar last fall)
• Camp Invention Connect (grades 1-6)

Flyers for each camp, with the online registration links, can be found on the IU13 website (Summer Enrichment Camps).  The deadline to register for all three camps is June 22 (or when the camp is at capacity).  

I just watched an incredibly helpful video sponsored by Child Mind Institute. Child Mind Institute is an independent, national nonprofit dedicated to empowering parents, professionals and policymakers to support children when and where they need it most. Their most recent video, Racism & Violence: How to Help Kids Handle The News, features Kenya Hameed, a black therapist, and Jamie Howard, a white therapist, giving very specific talking points on how to address social injustice with black and white children. Together they emphasize how the recent events following the death of George Floyd present an incredibly important opportunity to talk to kids about systemic racism and how we can empower them to recognize social injustice.