Unexpected Visitors

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

Cheap Cheap!

The Penticton grade 1/2 class had some unexpected visitors this week.  At the beginning of class we were lucky enough to be visited by the new baby chicks that Dija's family had just picked up.  Who would have thought that 24 two day old chicks could be so noisy... and so cute!  Their stay was brief, but memorable.  Children were able to hold the little brown fluff balls.  The chicks were so noisy that they attracted the attention of the junior kindergarten class next door who ended up coming over and having a look.  Thank you to Dija's parents for bringing the chicks by.

Field Trip Forms Rolling In

As mentioned last week the Summerland ASPIRE class as well as the Penticton grade 3 - 5 classes will be visiting CBC Radio and Global Okanagan Television (CHBC) in Kelowna.  One group will be going up on April 29th (ASPIRE and Pen gr 5s), the other on May 1st (Pen gr 3s and 4s).  Thank you to everyone who has returned their permission forms and money.  Thank you also to those parents who have volunteered to come on the trip as chaperones.  I still need a few more parent chaperones, so if you are able to help out please contact me.  If your child hasn't returned their forms yet, please do so for the next class.  Thank you!

Radioland

We are nearing the end of our radio project; many students have completed a mini show and some are working on a second (or third!!) episode.  We've learned a lot during this project about how to edit audio, import music, fade music in and out and some classes have learned what the mysterious Auto Duck feature does.  

Pigpen Cipher

The past couple of weeks we've been decoding messages that were enciphered using the Pigpen Cipher, pictured to the left.  Enciphered messages look complicated, but the cipher is actually very easy to use and to remember.  The pigpen cipher is thought to have been used since at least the 18th century.  In popular culture the pigpen cipher shows up in the Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol, in the 39 Clues series of children's books, as well as some video games.  (Image and information from Wikipedia, accessed April 12th, 2014) 

To the right is a message enciphered using the pigpen cipher.

Can you tell what it says?  It is the name of a game that many of the classes played this week.  Students listened to the sounds below and tried to identify what they were.  We talked about how sounds can evoke other sensations and memories.  For example the sound of a lawnmower may remind you of a warm summer day or the smell of freshly cut grass.  

Below is the answer key, enciphered of course!

Thanks for checking in to see what we did... This Week In Gifted!