Saturday 28 January 2017

Journey Under the School

Journey Under the School

This week the Wednesday morning Penticton class got a rare tour under Wiltse School!  (I've been at Wiltse School as a teacher or parent since 2007 and I'd never been in the basement).  Vice Principal Mr. Holowaty was our tour guide and he showed us all the amazing nooks and crannies in the depths of the Wiltse basement.  We got a glimpse of the electrical system, geothermal heating system, heating ducts, hot water tank, water pipes and other mysterious mechanical systems.  Check out photos from our tour below (link).




Guest at Trout Creek

The Summerland gifted class hosted Mrs. Susan Thomson, SD 67 Director of Instruction for Student Services.  The Gifted Program is one of the programs she over sees.  Students did a great job of showing her some of the things we've been working on; programming the Sphero SPRK robot, Scratch Programming, and photo editing.

More Travels with Stick People

Students continued to hone their photo editing skills this week, sending their stick selves off to interesting architectural sites around the world.  Below are some photos from this week (link).  Check  past photos here and here.




Thank you for stopping by to see what we've been up to... This Week In Gifted!

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Saturday 21 January 2017

World Travels

Here are a few of the things students were working on... This Week In Gifted!

These Stick People Have Itchy Feet

Students are becoming very adept at photo editing.  They are able to get rid of backgrounds in photos, combine photos and add text to an image.  They've created stick people with their own heads attached and now these stick people are traveling the world!  Some of their adventures were presented last week here and here.  Things really got cooking this week!  Have a look (link):




Sphero SPRK

Students in the Tuesday afternoon Summerland class are getting the opportunity to work with the Sphero SPRK robot.  Trout Creek principal, Mr Redden, has provided the robot and students are learning how to program it.  Students are taking turns and completing coding challenges with this engaging little robot. 
Sphero SPRK

Thanks for checking in!

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Friday 13 January 2017

Head Transplants

Head Transplants

You knew it was going to happen some day--head transplants!  This week many students were very successful in transplanting their own heads onto a stick person body.  So far none of the stick bodies have rejected their new heads, which is a relief.  In fact, some of the transplant recipients are doing so well they have begun to travel the world.  Check them out below (link).

5 Card Photo Story

Students worked on their creativity this week with the 5 Card Photo Story activity.  Students were shown 5 images and then asked to come up with a short story involving all 5 images.  After each student told their story, their peers gave appreciations--commenting on what the storyteller did well in their story.  The stories the students came up with were diverse, interesting and often very funny!  The feedback they received from their peers was really positive and specific.  Below are the images the students had to work with (link).



Thanks for stopping by to see what we've been up to... This Week In Gifted!



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Saturday 7 January 2017

Shaking it up in the New Year

Here are a few of the things that we did... This Week In Gifted!

Two Truths and a Lie

After a month off from classes we were back at it this week.  We started out by playing 'Two Truths and a Lie'.  Each person says three statements about what they did in the past month.  Two of the statements are true, but one is not.  Everyone else tries to guess which one is the lie so your goal is to try and trick people into picking the wrong one!  As the saying goes "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

Designing Buildings to Survive Earthquakes

We watched this video which described some of the ways that buildings can be designed to resist earthquakes.  We also watched part of this video which demonstrated a base isolation system using a model and then showed the real thing in action.
The Tuned Mass Damper in Taipei 101.  See source of photo here.

Photo Editing

Students learned how to combine two images in Adobe Photoshop Elements.  Students are already adept at removing the backgrounds from photos.  This week they modified a photo of themselves so that they were just left with a floating head.  The next step is to add the head to stickman body and then make their stickman visit some of their favorite buildings and structures.  I look forward to sharing their creations here in the upcoming weeks!  



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