Dusting But Not Vacuuming

Here are a few of the things we've been up to... This Week (and last!) In Gifted.

Ballooning Prints

The students are now experts at taking their own fingerprints, both using ink and using graphite.  A couple of classes also got to put their prints on barely inflated balloons, which when fully inflated really magnified the prints!

Dusting for Latents

The next step was to be able to dust for latent prints.  We tried two different techniques; dusting a dark surface with talcum powder and dusting a light surface with cocoa powder.  We learned a number of things in the process:

- dusting and lifting good prints is challenging and takes persistence

- it was easier dusting with talcum powder (though perhaps it was the surface we were using?)

And some students (the ones who did not heed their teacher) discovered that cocoa powder, though it smells really good, doesn't taste great.

Mystery Prints

The Summerland AIM/ASPIRE class as well as the Penticton grade 2/3 class pulled out their magnifying glasses and got to work trying to figure out who the culprit was in the water bottle caper.  A latent print was compared to prints from our databanks and students were able to make a match pretty quickly.  It was an open and shut case!  

Five Card Photo Stories

The Penticton 5s came up with stories involving the images in the slides below (link).  

Students were partnered up and shared ideas to come up with their stories.  The stories were told / performed in front of the class.  Students did a fantastic job collaborating on their stories.  We saw a variety of formats--some students used props and acted out their stories, one pair's story was a race that was told in play-by-play format, and a couple of pairs summarized their stories in song!  The audience did a wonderful job of giving 'appreciations' at the end of each story; highlighting what each group did well.

Thanks for stopping by to see what we've been doing!