Visitor
The Wednesday morning class was treated to a visit by Gifted Program parent Paul Adolph. Paul has a background in drafting and home design and his company, Deckworks Contracting, designs and builds decks. Paul showed the students blueprints and technical drawings for homes that he has designed. Students were able to compare hand drafted drawings with those made using AutoCAD. They were impressed by the level of detail required when designing a home! After his presentation, students showed Paul the projects they were working on. A big thank you to Paul for sharing his expertise with the students! Field Trip Info
Every year Gifted Program students in grades 3 - 5 do a year end trip that links to the year's theme. This year the theme is ArKIDtechture and for our trip we are visiting 3 sites:
The Jim Pattison Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation at Okanagan College in Penticton. We have been learning about sustainable building techniques and at the Centre we'll see them in action! The building uses many sustainable building technologies including solar panels, geothermal heating and sola tube lighting (yes sola, not solar). We will get a tour of the Centre and hopefully also see one of the tiny homes that the students at Okanagan College built.
Our next stop is the Structurlam Manufacturing Facility in Okanagan Falls. The above video (link) shows some of the mass timber products Structurlam makes. In class we have been learning about Tall Wood Buildings. The tallest contemporary tall wood building in the world is Brock Commons at UBC in Vancouver. It is 18 stories tall and Structurlam made the wood floor panels and posts. This video (link) shows a time lapse of Brock Commons being built. Structurlam has also built the wood components in the 6 story addition to the Penticton Lakeside Resort.
After a picnic lunch at Kenyon Park in Okanagan Falls, we will head to the architecturally stunning Outma Squilx'W Cultural School (pictured above). We will learn about how the design of the building reflects the culture of the Okanagan People as well as the landscape and the building's function.
The field trip will take place on Monday May 8th. An information package was sent home with all grade 3 - 5 students. Permission slips need to be signed and returned by Thursday May 4th. Parent chaperones will be needed; if you are able to chaperone, please let Ms. Thompson know. It promises to be an interesting and fun trip!
Projects
Students continued working on their projects, with a few more students finishing theirs. We look forward to presentations of finished work in the next two weeks!
Classes Winding Down
It is hard to believe, but there are only a few weeks of classes left! Here is the schedule for the rest of the year:
Week of May 1st: regular classes
Week of May 8th: Field trip on May 8th for grades 3 - 5. No regular classes this week.
Week of May 15th: Last week of classes
Week of May 30th: Parent Meetings to review the year and plan for next year
Thank you for stopping by to see what we've been up to.
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