Mugshots, Spaceman Spiff, & Fingerprinting

The first few weeks of classes are in the bag and here are some of the things we've been up to.

Getting To Know You

The first week of classes for students involved meeting new people and getting reacquainted with friends from last year.  During social time students connected and played games or built structures.  We also played a few name games.

Great structure!

Mugshots

With our theme being Operation Identification we started out with 'mug shots' of each of the kids.  The 'smiley' mug shots are now posted in the classrooms.  The serious ones will become a part of their TWIG Police Department file.

Part of the 'Most Wanted' wall in the Penticton classroom.

Spaceman Spiff and the Specimens from Planet Zorg

During our first class we imagined that intrepid Spaceman Spiff had returned from Planet Zorg with intriguing specimens for us to identify!  Students named the specimens and wrote out descriptions.  These were compiled into a Field Guide to Planet Zorg.  This week the challenge was to see if students could correctly identify the specimens.  We discovered that whether a specimen was easy to identify or not was often due to how unique it was and how much detail there was in the description. 

Fingerprints

Fingerprint done with graphite and tape.

We watched two short videos on fingerprints and then we got to work making our own fingerprints.  All of the students got the opportunity to take their fingerprints using graphite and clear tape--these turned out really well!  The Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon classes also took their fingerprints using ink pads (the other classes will get a chance to do this too.)  In future classes we'll be analyzing our own prints and learning how to take latents. 

Thanks for dropping by to find out what we did... This Week In Gifted!