It's A Wrap!

Gifted Program classes wrapped up last week.  Here are some of the activities we did in the final classes.

Design Challenge

In our second to last class, the Tuesday afternoon group and the Wednesday morning groups were given rubber bands, sheets of paper and tin foil and asked to use them to design something to solve the problem "I need to create a safe light source for a home with no electricity."  The solutions students came up with were creative and varied.  Many involved using the reflective properties of the tin foil to reflect sunlight into the home.  Check out the construction process in the slides below (link).

Name That Noise

Students from the Tuesday class, as well as a small group from the Wednesday morning class, took the field recorders and recorded some sounds from around the school.  The sounds were played back to the class to see if they could... name that noise!

Mustache Ceremony

Wait, what?  Mustaches?  All I can tell you is that on the final class for the grade 5s, we do the Mustache Ceremony.  It involves mustaches.  It also involves highlighting the accomplishments of each grade 5 student for the years they have been in the Gifted Program.  It may also include some funny dancing and waving of objects by Ms. Thompson.  Pictures of mustachioed grade 5s are in the slide show.

Party

On the last class you definitely have to have a party!  Depending on which class we're talking about there was; cake, muffins, cookies, watermelon, chips, pretzels, cheezies, pickles, doughnuts, juice...  Thank you to everyone who brought something to share.  We had an abundance of food!  See the slides for some party pics. 

Reports and Parent Meetings

At the beginning of June year end progress reports will be sent out.  I will also be scheduling parent meetings  to review how the year went and to plan for next year.  Information will be sent out in a week or so. 

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.

Year End Wrap Up Part 1

I'm in the process of adding photos and the students' projects to this site.  Here is part one in the series.

Straw Bridge Challenge -- Tuesday Class

Below are some shots from the last class of the Tuesday group.  They did the Straw Bridge Challenge.  The Challenge: build a bridge that spans 30cm and can hold a coffee can filled with golf balls.  You only have 15 straws and 25cm of tape.  Go!



If the slides aren't showing up, click this link.

Mustache Madness

A strange thing happened with the grade 5s this week.  They all sprouted mustaches, I'm not sure what's up with that...

Sleuthing

This week the Wednesday classes performed ink chromatography on the ransom note and suspect pens as part of their sleuthing for the Sabotage on the Spaceship Forensic Mystery.  (See more on the mystery in this post.)  The Summerland AIM/ASPIRE class, as well as the Penticton 2-3 and 4 classes compiled all of the evidence and made their conclusions as to the identity of the persons responsible for stealing the computer chip that runs the life support systems on the Spaceship Forensic.  The culprits were quickly apprehended, the chip was restored and disaster was averted!  The Penticton grade 5s will solve their version of this mystery next week.

Last Week of Classes

Next week (the week of May 16th) is the last week of Gifted Program classes.  The Gifted Program covers grades 1 - 5, so it is time to wish the grade 5s well as they move on to grade 6 in the fall.

Open House

Parents of students in grades 1 - 3 are invited to drop in on our last class for open house.  For Summerland grade 1 - 3 students the class is on Tuesday May 17th from 12:30 - 2:30pm at Trout Creek Elementary room 32.  For Penticton grade 2/3 students the class is on Thursday May 19th from 12:30 - 2:30pm at Wiltse Elementary in room 32.  Parents are invited to drop in at any time during the class and stay for as long as they are able.  Our class starts with 25 minutes of social time, followed by circle and then we move into class activities.  Students will show you the different activities we have been doing including their identity projects.  We hope you can make it!