CFUZ Visit and Zip Line Challenge

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

CFUZ Station Visit

The students in the Tuesday afternoon class from Summerland hopped in Ms. Thompson's van for a visit to the CFUZ Peach City Radio Station.  We toured the small station and got to sit in the studio with the headsets on and speak into the microphones.  It was a small taste of what we'll see on our field trip to CBC Radio and Global Okanagan. 

We were not actually on air at the time, but we were using the microphones.

Radio Production

In all of the classes students are in the process of finishing up recording and editing their radio segments.  The segments will be aired later in May and early June.  More info to come!

Zip Line Design Challenge

Students in the Wednesday morning class were given the challenge of designing a carrier that could transport a ping pong ball down a 4 foot long zip line made of fishing line.  They were allowed to use the following materials:

• bamboo skewers
• plastic straws
• metal washers
• small paper Dixie cups
• masking tape

Prior to starting their designs we discussed how the design process involves:

Some students were lucky enough to come up with a design that worked well right off the bat, but everyone, regardless of how successful their initial design was, went back to the drawing board to improve their design.  Some went over and above -- designing carriers to transport 2, 4, 8, 10 and even 22(!!!!!) ping pong balls!  Check out some of their handiwork in the slides below (link):

5 Card Photo Story

Here are a few things that students got up to last week in the Gifted Program:

5 Card Photo Story

The Wednesday afternoon class exercised their creative storytelling chops by playing 5 Card Photo Story.  Students were shown 5 photos and given 5 minutes to come up with an interesting story involving all of the photos.  The stories were presented orally to the class.  Students worked individually or in groups of two or three.  Here are the photos they had to work with (link):



We ended up with some very outlandish, and very funny, stories!  Some stories were even acted out.  After each story the audience was asked for their appreciations -- letting the storytellers know what they did well.  The students did a great job, both as storytellers and audience members. 

Radio Production

All the classes continued to work on their radio segments.  We now have the following segments:

• Animal Fun Facts episodes 1, 2 and 3
• Cinderella Fractured Fairy Tale
• Humpty Dumpty Fractured Nursery Rhyme
• Fake Ads
• Noah's Mechanical
• Smart Jacket
• Jam Ad
• Cheat Chip
• Polly's Perfect Popcorn
• Auction Ad

• Marlowe's World of Ice
• Iain's House of Jokes
• Pancakes vs Waffles Debate
• Name that Sound 
• Roberto Baggio story
• Rose Angevin story

These segments, as well as others that are just wrapping up production, will be stitched together into a number of half hour episodes that will air on CFUZ - Peach City Community Radio.  Students and their families will all be informed prior to the episodes airing.  The episodes will also be archived and a link to the archive will be sent out once the episodes air.

Coming Up...

This week the Tuesday afternoon class will be heading over to the CFUZ - Peach City Community Radio Station in Penticton.  Students will get a chance to sit down in a bona-fide radio studio and see how the magic happens.

Next week on Tuesday April 30th all of the grade 3, 4 and 5s will be going on a field trip to Kelowna to tour the Global Okanagan television studios as well as the CBC Radio station!  Regular gifted program classes on Tuesday April 30th and Wednesday May 1st are cancelled.

Gifted Program classes wrap up in mid-May; the Tuesday afternoon group has their last class on May 14th and the Wednesday groups have their last class on May 15th.  Shortly after that progress reports will be sent out and parent meetings will take place.  The goal of the meetings is to review how the year went for your child and to plan for next year.

Two Truths and a Lie

Last week was our fist week back after Spring Break.  Since it had been three weeks since we were together it seemed like a good time to play...

Two Truths and a Lie!

I'm always amazed at how popular this game is with students.  The students were told to tell the class two true statements about their break and one false statement.  The group had to vote on which statement they thought was the lie.  Before choosing their statements we talked about different strategies to make it difficult to determine which statement was the lie.  I have good news and I have bad news; some of the students were very good at tricking us...

Interview Skills

The Tuesday afternoon group watched part of a short video (link) with tips on interviewing people.  We then got some practice interviewing each other.  Students were paired up and asked to find out 3 interesting things about their partner, but they couldn't outright say "Tell me three interesting things about yourself".  Some great questions were: What do you want other people to notice about you?  Where do you dream of travelling?  What is an unusual thing that you can do that most of your friends cannot?  

Work continues on our radio segments for the Creation Station.  We have not aired any of the segments yet, that will be happening later this month (hopefully).  All students and families will be informed prior to shows airing so that you, and all our other fans, can listen live or access the link to listen on demand.  Stay tuned!

Field Trip

Every year the grade 3s, 4s and 5s in the program are invited to attend a field trip related to our theme.  Classes will get info on this year's trip during their class this week and field trip forms will be sent home with them.  Just like our theme, I like to keep the details of the field trip top secret until the last minute.  Thus, no info will be leaked at this time!