Advertising our Inventions

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

Sell That Thing!

The Tuesday afternoon and Thursday classes looked at different strategies that advertisers use to try and get you to buy their products (the Tuesday morning class did a similar thing a few weeks ago).  We watched a number of different TV ads and identified different strategies.  Students then played 'Sell That Thing!'  They went forward in time 5 years using the portal and were charged with creating advertisements for some of the inventions that their peers from the other classes had designed and that were now ready to be marketed.  Students had 5 minutes to come up with an ad that they then acted out.  The ads were creative, funny, and did a great job of using the different strategies!  This type of activity is challenging as students have a limited time to come up with a skit and often team members have quite differing views on what they'd like to do.  I was impressed in particular with the Tuesday afternoon class in terms of their ability to work collaboratively, solve problems and include all team members.   This group of grade 2 and 3s has come a long way since the beginning of the year!

Inventions

The Wednesday afternoon class continued to work on their playground inventions.  Students are either creating 3D models of their inventions using craft supplies, or making a Pivot Stickfigure animation of their invention.  Some of the inventions are whimsical and others packed with adventure! 

The other classes continued to work on their inventions.  The focus now is on deciding how to advertise their inventions; poster, TV ad (as a skit), Power Point presentation, Scratch animation, poster...

Cubism Art Projects

Students in the Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon classes finished up their cubism drawings.  You can view student artwork from these classes as well as the Thursday afternoon class in this post.  For slideshows of the Picasso style portraits created by the Tuesday afternoon class see here and the Wednesday afternoon class here.

Reminders

There are a number of important events occurring in the upcoming weeks:

• Field trip to UBC-O Engineering labs Wednesday May 1st.  This field trip is for students in grades 3, 4 and 5.  
• Regular Elementary Gifted Classes Cancelled Tues April 30, Weds May 1st, Thurs May 2nd.
• Open House Tuesday May 7th and Wednesday May 8th during the afternoon classes.  Parents of students in those classes are invited to join us for all or part of the class.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about anything mentioned here please contact me, Claire Thompson, at (250)770-7694 ext 6283 or cthompson at summer dot com.

Thursday Guest Artist

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

Cubism and a Guest Artist 

The Thursday morning class was treated to an art session with local artist and Gifted Program parent Jo-Ann Apolzer.  The class started with us using the Inventors' Portal and going back in time to visit Gertrude Stein in her salon in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century.  Students heard about the various famous artists who used to gather there.  They also saw many of Picasso's paintings, focusing on his cubist work as well as the work of other cubist artists.  Students shared their observations about the characteristics of cubism.

After that, we returned to the present where Jo-Ann introduced a number of techniques for the students to try in order to make their own cubist works.  Students used chalk pastels and / or pencil crayons on white printer paper.  They experimented with:

• mixing colours
• blocking off areas using Post-It notes or painter's tape
• creating sharp, dark edges

Some students traced images which they then started to 'fragment' in the cubist style.  Others created abstract pieces. 

The Thursday afternoon class went through the same process, though without Jo-Ann.  I learned a lot from Jo-Ann in the first class which I was hopefully able to pass on to the students.

Next week I will post images from both classes of each student's favourite piece. 

The Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon classes finished up their Picasso portraits.  Photos of the Tuesday afternoon class portraits can be seen in last week's post (now all student work is represented) and the Wednesday afternoon portraits below (some students still need to finish theirs and they will be added soon).

Advertising Strategies

The Tuesday Morning class explored the different strategies advertisers use to sell products, referring to the list on the last page of this document.  They then went forward in time 5 years using the portal and were charged with creating advertisements for some of the inventions that their peers from the other classes had designed and that were now ready to be marketed.  Students had 5 minutes to come up with an ad that they then acted out.  The ads were creative, funny, and did a great job of using the different strategies!