Year End Wrap Up Part 2

This is Part 2 in the series of Year End Wrap up Posts.

The Wednesday morning class tried out the Marshmallow Challenge on the second to last class of the year.  The goal: support a marshmallow using only 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1 meter of masking tape and 1 meter of string--Go!



If the slides and not showing up for you, check out this link.

Field Trip, Marshmallow Challenge, and the Black Chamber!

Field Trip

This week the Penticton grade 3-5 classes and the Summerland ASPIRE class visited CBC Radio and Global Okanagan Television in  Kelowna.

At Global Okanagan our dynamic guide, Barbara Vanstone, showed us the ins and outs of creating news programs and television advertisements.  Some groups were able to talk to the news director who explained how he chose what was going on the news each evening.  We got to see what he had planned for that evening's news.  A couple of groups got to speak with Doris Maria Bregolisse.  Doris is an anchor and reporter at Global Okanagan and she spoke to the students about her job.  One thing we learned is that although the news set and anchors are in Kelowna, technicians in Vancouver or Toronto actually do the filming and produce the show.  They operate the cameras remotely and communicate with the anchors through headsets.  We got to go on the very green news set (see photos below).  The walls are painted green so that they can chroma key (green screen) in a computer generated background.

At CBC Radio, Daybreak South host Chris Walker was our guide.  He and Daybreak South producer Marion Barschel spoke to the students about how the show is put together.  Chris took the students into the studio where they got a chance to read a one minute news bulletin and the opportunity to operate the sound board.  We learned that it is not easy to read the news clearly, fluently, and in under a minute!  The news bulletins did not go on air, but I hope to get the recordings to share with students and their families.  A few lucky students from the last group on Thursday's trip were chosen to read the Mind Breakers quiz questions for next week's show.  The questions should be aired each day next week at approximately 6:55am.

Thank you to the parent chaperones who joined us; Tammy Drobe, Sharon Herman, Sarah Larsen, Julie MacIntyre, Dave Singleton, Sherralee Sailes, Michelle Kincaid, Heather Allen, Keith MacIntyre, Joy Wang, Jo-Ann Apolzer, and April Smith.  Your help was greatly appreciated!

Below are some photos from the trip or check them out here.

Marshmallow Challenge

This week the AIM students took on the Marshmallow Challenge!  Their task was to build the tallest structure they could out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1 metre of tape and 1 metre of string.  They did not have to use all of the materials, but their structure needed to be freestanding and be able to support a large marshmallow on top.  They were given the materials and 18 minutes to complete the task.  What we learned, among other things is that a marshmallow is heavier than it looks!

Welcome to the Black Chamber

The Penticton grade 1/2 class operated their own black chamber this week.  What is a black chamber?  Black chambers are secret rooms operated by nations where they attempt to decode messages sent by their rivals.  The students first set about deciphering some messages that were enciphered using the Pigpen Cipher.  We then looked at, and listened to Morse Code.  Students enciphered their names using Morse Code, the Pigpen Cipher and the Caesar Shift Cipher.   Perhaps Room 32 is becoming the current day Bletchley Park?! 

Upcoming Events

May 5th: AIM Open House.  AIM parents/guardians are invited to join us for all or part of the class.  The class runs from 12:30 - 2:30pm.
May 7th: Penticton Grade 1/2 Open House.  Parents/guardians are invited to join us for all or part of the class.  The class runs from 12:30 - 2:30pm.
May 12th - 15th: Last Week of Classes
Parent Meetings: Dates and times to be announced.

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

First Term Winding Down

This week was the last week of gifted classes for everyone except the AIM class (Monday's AIM class will continue up to and including December 16th.)  It has been a great first term!  Here are some of the things that we did to wind things up.

Marshmallow Challenge with the ASPIRE Group

20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti, 1 metre of string, 1 metre of masking tape, 1 large marshmallow, and 18 minutes in which to build the tallest structure that will support the marshmallow.  This is the challenge that the ASPIRE class faced.  Working in pairs they attacked the task with enthusiasm!  The first successful towers were erected after just over half the time had elapsed.  Interestingly enough, these were the only successful towers to be built within the time limit.  Marshmallows, it seems, are heavier than they look!

After the challenge we discussed the difficulties the task presented and what worked for the two successful groups.  The Marshmallow Challenge and the lessons learned from how people tackle it are described in this TED Talk by Tom Wujec.  Interestingly, recent MBA graduates do consistently poorly on this challenge, while recent kindergarten graduates do consistently well.  Last year the Penticton classes did the Marshmallow Challenge and I wrote about it here.

Radio Shows

The Penticton grade 3 to 5s continued to work on turning their communication research into a short radio show.  Many of the students are close to completion.  We listened to some great work by the following students:

• 'Bug Talk' by Jordan and Braiden on how ants communicate
• Connor's show about binary and ASCII
• Nicola's breaking news about Braille

Each of these projects demonstrated key aspects of audio recording that we had been learning about; providing appropriate music / sound effects, speaking clearly, and making the material interesting and engaging.  There are lots of other great projects nearing completion, and others we just didn't have time to listen to this week.  Students will get to hear those when we meet again in January.

Flag Construction

As I've mentioned on earlier posts, the grade 1 and 2 class has been doing a lot of work on flags.  Last week they designed their own flags and drew sketches.  This week we attempted to recreate their flag designs, first using construction paper and then using felt.  This was more ambitious than I had anticipated, but the students were very patient and did a great job.  We just didn't have quite enough time to finish all of the flags, but hopefully we will complete them in our next class in January.  Below are photos of two completed flags.

Gerry's flag

Katie's flag

Research, Audio and Storytelling

The AIM students continued with their communication research this week.  Some of the students also started to learn how to use Audacity; the software we are using to record audio.

AIM students also tried their hand at writing and presenting 5 card photo stories.  In previous weeks the ASPIRE class as well as the Penticton grade 5s did this same activity.  Students were shown the photos below and asked to come up with and present a story to the class that involves all five of the images.  We talked about the basics of a good story and then the students got down to it!  We were treated with some very funny stories.  After each story students were asked to give appreciations; pointing out what the storyteller did well in their story.  Students are getting quite good at giving specific, positive, and constructive feedback!

Below are the photos that were the basis of the stories (link).

Schedule

The ASPIRE class and the Penticton classes have wrapped up for the first term.  AIM class (Summerland grade 1 - 3) will continue up to and including December 16th.  Classes for everyone resume the week of January 6th which is the first week back at school after winter break.  You can view a calendar with key dates for our classes here.