WINGS

A sixth grade WINGS class has constructed this web page with the intention of giving visitors and kids a view of our program.  WINGS begins when students are in the fourth grade.  One year the fourth graders investigated ancient cultures and designed flowers pots with drawings that reflected the culture. Then the students presented their culture along with their pot.  The next step was really fun.  Each pot was put into a plastic bag and dropped to the floor.  The pots broke into many pieces!  Then the students switched roles and became archeologists and their assignment was to put another group's pot together and decide which culture it reflected and why.  I thought that was going to be hard for them, but they had really paid attention during the presentations so most of the students  identified the culture fairly quickly.  Our activities are very different than those in a typical class.

   This was a really good project for fourth grade because the research prepared them for their fifth grade Independent Study project.  This component of WINGS requires the student to select an area of study that is really interesting to them.  Then they do research and try to find unique ways of extending their study and presenting their findings.  For example, one student is investigating the effect of different kinds of music.  He made up worksheets with math problems, and other academic tasks.  Then S put on three different kinds of music- classical, jazz, and hard rock- and compared how each student performed under the different conditions.  S had hypothesized that hard rock would be very distracting and he expected a poorer performance during the times that the music  was playing.  Contrary to his expectations, many kids actually performed better or equally well while listening to the rock music!

    One of the most challenging components of WINGS is our Mock trials. The students study real cases and research the strengths and weaknesses of the plaintiff and defendant.  When the teams are ready, we conduct a mock trial in front of parents and the whole grade.  The spectators serve as our jury, bailiff, journalists and cameramen.   This involves the students' peers in our program.  

    Once a year, the fifth and sixth grade classes participate in the Odyssey of the Mind competition.  This is truly a very exciting component.  The children brainstorm solutions to "long-term" problems and  create costumes, scenery, scripts, structures that bear weight, and mechanical devices.   They also learn to think fluently and creatively during the spontaneous problem solving portion of the competition.

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