Scratch That!

Project Updates

Projects are rapidly wrapping up!  We had the following presentations this week:

• Oscar shared his Lego Stop Motion Mystery Movie CS Investigation and his BitStrip comic Bank Robbery
• Ben shared his BitStrip mystery comic Meow
• Jessica presented her interactive Smart Board mystery Who Ate the Bagel?!
• Kieran presented the mystery video game he created in Happy Wheels.
• Jimmy presented his BitStrip comic Mystery #1
• Ryan A presented his PowerPoint slide show on Mythical Creatures
• Ryan M presented his 3 part BitStrip comic Who Did It?

Many more students are ready (or almost ready!) to present.  

Through the projects all of the students have learned new information and/or new skills.  Prior to starting their projects, students were introduced to BitStrips and how to use it to create interesting characters and stories.  Some chose to use this tool for their projects, but in many cases students chose a different format.  Kudos to those students who took on a tool that was new to them, especially the grade 2s and 3s who chose to use PowerPoint even though some of them had never used it before and so were learning on the fly!  Katie D, Logan and Jessica took on Smart Notebook (software for the interactive whiteboard), with little or no exposure to it before.  Many others chose formats with which they were familiar but took it to a new level--using Comic Life and learning how to use image editing software or programming in Scratch and learning how to use more complicated commands or learning how to add audio to a PowerPoint slideshow.  Throughout this process, students are sharing their new skills with their peers.  We are a community of learners where skills that one person learns are celebrated and shared with others--it's pretty neat!   

Scratch That!

So what are the students who have completed their projects doing?  Well, some of the Penticton grade 3s are taking on computer programming using Scratch 2.  Scratch is a visual based programing application that introduces kids to programming concepts.  Students can create animations, video games, interactive stories, and much more.  There is a low bar for entry (ie users can quickly program something fun that works), but Scratch also allows for more complicated programming.  A number of the Penticton grade 5s had a short introduction to Scratch a few years ago in the Gifted Program, and many of them have used Scratch this year for their main project.  

Screenshot of Scratch showing the main screen on the left with the programing scripts on the right.

Field Trip Planning

Thank you to all the grade 3, 4 and 5 families who sent in the field trip forms and $.  A big thank you also to all those parents who have volunteered to chaperone on the trip--much appreciated!

Thanks for checking in to find out about what we've been up to... This Week In Gifted!

 

Taking a Bite Out of Crime

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

 

Chomp Chomp!

All of the classes did a bite mark activity similar to the first part of this activity.  We made impressions of our teeth by biting down on sections of styrofoam plates.  Then we placed acetate sheets over the bite marks and traced them.  This allowed us to overlay bite marks from two different students to see how they compared.  These bite mark samples will form part of our data bank and will be used next term when we start to stage crime scenes / mysteries.  Stay tuned!

 

5 Item Story

Last week the students were introduced to BitStrips, an online comic creation application, and they created their avatars.  This week they were assigned an activity similar to the 5 Card Photo Story described here.  Their task was to create a comic strip story that included:

- a chicken or duck

- a musical instrument

- a doctor (or nurse or dentist)

- water

- a vehicle

The strip had to be at least 4 panels long and characters had to have poses and expressions that suited the story.  The students all got a great start on their stories.  The learning curve is steep and we are all learning together how to manipulate characters and scenes.  Completed comics are shared (once approved by me) to the class gallery.  You can see some of the comics here.  There are some single panel comics from another activity called 'My Favourite Place' as well as the '5 Item Story' submissions.  More '5 Item Story' submissions we be added soon!  

 

Instructions on how to sign on to BitStrips were e-mailed home last week in case your child would like to log on from home (and has your permission to do so).  If your child has forgotten their individual password please send me a quick e-mail.  

 

Last Class

This week was the last class for the Wednesday morning Penticton grade 5 class and the Thursday afternoon Penticton grade 2/3 class.  Next week (December 7th - 11th) will be the last class for the Tuesday afternoon Summerland AIM/ASPIRE class and the Wednesday afternoon Penticton grade 4 class.  All Gifted Program classes resume the week of January 4th.  

 

Thanks for checking in to see what we've been up to!

 

Comics

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

Creating Avatars

This week all of the classes got to sign on to BitStrips For Schools.  This site allows students to create comic strips.  This week we started by creating our avatars.  Though it was tempting for many students to sport mohawks, pink hair or monocles their job was to make their avatar look as much like themselves as possible.  Here's our class pic (the blank characters are students who were away and haven't had a chance to log in yet.)

A pretty good looking group!  After creating their avatars students experimented with making other characters; some were outlandish and some were pretty good representations of family members or friends.  We will be using this site in the weeks to come to create stories related to our theme, Operation Identification.

Visitor

Todd Manuel, SD 67 Director of Instruction for Student Services, dropped by the Penticton grade 5 class this week.  He chatted with students, joined us for circle, and generally got a sense of what happens in class.  The Gifted Program is one of the programs under the big umbrella of Student Services.  We look forward to welcoming Mr. Manuel again later in the year.

Mystery Prints

This week it was the Penticton 4s and 5s turn to solve the water bottle mystery!  One latent print from the scene of the crime and 28 suspect prints in our data bank.  They made quick work of identifying the culprit!  Some students then took their own prints and determined which prints in our suspect data base belonged to them.  We also watched the following video (link) on comparing prints.

Classes Wrapping up for Winter Break

Classes will soon be winding down for the winter break.  Here are the dates for the last classes--due to our staggered start, not all classes are ending on the same week.

December 2nd -- Last class for the Wednesday morning Penticton grade 5 group

December 3rd -- Last class for the Thursday afternoon Penticton grade 2/3 group

December 8th -- Last class for the Tuesday afternoon Summerland AIM/ASPIRE group

December 9th -- Last class for the Wednesday afternoon Penticton grade 4 group

Thanks for checking out what we've up to! 

February 11th to 13th

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

Radio Shows

Students in ASPIRE and in the Penticton grade 3 - 5 class continued to work on their radio shows.  Some of the older students have finished their first shows.  Those that have are deciding what to do next.  Here are some of their options:

• create a new show
• record a station ID
• create radio advertisements
• create a logo (either for The Creation Station or for their own show)
• create a poster (either for The Creation Station or for their own show)

Non-Verbal Communication

In all of the classes we continue to explore the ways that we communicate non-verbally.  The ASPIRE class and the Penticton grade 5 classes watched a short Monty Python clip involving charades in the courtroom.  It was funny and a great introduction to playing Charades!

The Penticton grade 1/2 class continued to work on Bitstrips, a comic strip creator.  This week they were given the following comic strip and asked to pose or replace the neutral faced character in each panel with a character showing the appropriate expression.

Template Comic

Here is a completed comic by Jayda:

Jayda's comic

Thanks for stopping by!

And The Winner Is...

Here are some of the things we did... This Week In Gifted!

Voting

For the past few weeks we've been brainstorming names for the radio show which will contain all of the mini radio shows the students have been or will be working on.  Each class put forward their top two names.  This week it was time to vote!  Here are the names that made it onto the ballot:

• Cfeffial Radio
• Chatterbox
• Communication Army
• Container of Pickled Doves
• Crazy Communication
• Drive 2 the Town of Secrets
• Ducks in a Bucket
• Gifted Kids On Air (GKOA)
• I do not know what to call this
• It's Called... Communication!
• Niobium Radio
• Radio Times
• Sky Fi
• The banana toaster bo meatloaf dryer Philly bob match stick broom duster pocket money grandpa whopper hobbler hobbler hobbler ehhhht quack show 
• The Cool Kids Radio Show
• The Creation Station

Because there were sixteen names to choose from, instead of just voting for their top choice, students were asked to rank their top eight choices.  This is an example of Instant Runoff Voting.  In the first round of counting, everyone's first choice was tallied.  The names that were in first to eighth place after the first round of voting were kept and the rest of the names were eliminated.  In the second round of counting I then looked at the ballots that chose an eliminated name as their first choice and assigned their vote to their second choice (if that choice was already eliminated then I went to their next choice, and so on.)  After the second round of voting, the last place names (there were three names tied for last place) were eliminated and their votes assigned as above.  This process continued until there was one name that had more than 50% of the votes.

Every student in the gifted program was able to vote (100% voter turnout, not bad!)  It took seven rounds of counting to come up with a winning name.  Gifted Kids on Air (GKOA), The banana... quack show, and The Creation Station were the top three names right from round one of counting.

And the Winner Is...

The Creation Station came out on top, but it was a very close race!  Now that we have a name we can start working on, logos, posters, station ids and more.  

Communicating Emotions

This week the Penticton grade 1/2 class looked at the different ways that we communicate that we are happy, sad, excited etc.  We discussed body posture and facial expressions.  We then went on to Bitstrips to create characters showing different emotions.  Students are learning how to pose their characters and change their facial features to match different emotions.  

This and That

The AIM, ASPIRE and Penticton grade 3 - 4 students all spent time on Audacity recording their mini shows, some classes also did the storytelling exercise 5 Card Photo Stories.

The Wrap Up

Thanks for checking out TWIG.  I hope you'll check in again next week.