Year End Wrap Up Part 3

This is Part 3 in the series of Year End Wrap Up posts.

Paper Table Challenge
On the last day of classes the Wednesday morning class did the paper table challenge.  They were given 8 pieces of newspaper, one 8"x11" piece of cereal box cardboard, and masking tape.  The challenge?  To use those materials to make a table that is at least 20cm high that can support a textbook.  Check out the slides below (or follow this link) to see how they did!

Architect Visit

Here are a few of the things we got up to... This Week in Gifted!

Architect Visit

The Penticton Thursday afternoon class was visited by Penticton architect Calvin Meiklejohn.  Mr. Meikeljohn spoke to the students about the work of an architect and answered their many excellent questions!  Students were able to look at blueprints and other architectural drawings.  Mr. Meiklejohn also brought samples of different building materials such tiles, wood veneers, and cutaways of windows as well as a cutaway of the flooring system of a gymnasium hardwood floor.  A highlight of the visit was when Mr. Meiklejohn drew a scale drawing of the front of our students' dream house.  He explained how scale drawings work and, as he drew, he took in suggestions from the students as to window placement, roof style, siding, colours etc.  Below are some photos from the visit (link).

Paper Table Challenge Continued

The Tuesday afternoon Summerland class and the Wednesday morning Penticton class continued to work on their paper tables.  Check out last week's post for some background on this design challenge.   It is amazing how strong some of these tables were considering they were made from no more than 8 sheets of newsprint, masking tape and a 8" x 11" piece of cardboard!  Students did a lot of testing and refining.  I was really impressed with the persistence of many of the students; getting their table to support one heavy text book wasn't enough--they wanted to alter their design and see if could hold more--a lot more!  Check out the photos below (link).

Travels with Stick People

The Wednesday classes continued to work on their photo editing skills--sending their stick people off to visit more architectural sites.  Here are more photos from this week (link).



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

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Design Challenges

Design Challenges

This week we switched gears and all of the classes were given a design challenge to work on.  Before starting we talked about the design process.

The Design Process from the Design Squad Activity Guide (link) 

The Paper Table Design Challenge

The Summerland class and the Wednesday morning Penticton class were asked to build a table at least 20 cm tall that can support a heavy textbook.  The challenge?  The students were only allowed to use the following materials:

• 8 sheets of newspaper
• masking tape
• one 8" x 10" piece of cardboard 

Below are some photos of the building process (link):

Students will continue to work on this challenge next week.

Straw Bridge Challenge

The Penticton Wednesday and Thursday afternoon classes were given the straw bridge challenge.  Check out the pics below to see what the challenge was and how they approached it (link).

More Guests

This week we had two visitors form the School Board Office.  Mrs. Thomson (she visited the Summerland group last week) visited the Thursday afternoon class.  Mr. Manuel visited the Summerland group as they worked on the Paper Table Challenge.  Thank you for checking out what the students are learning about!

January 19th - 22nd

This Week's World of Treasure Slide Show

This week's slideshow is brought to you by Dija, Jayda, and Kailey from the Penticton grade 1 - 3 class (link)

Paper Table Building Challenge

The Penticton grade 5s had their first building challenge of the year.  Their task was to build a table using only the following materials:
8 sheets of newspaper
1 sheet of cardboard 8"x11" (cereal box cardboard)
masking tape

Their paper table had to be at least 20 cm tall and had to support a heavy textbook.  Prior to building their tables, we talked about how rolling the newspaper into tight tubes makes it fairly strong.  It is interesting seeing the different designs the students came up with.  The students worked in pairs or groups of three.  Agreeing on how to build the table and sharing tasks equally can be a challenge, but they all handled things quite well.  All of the groups were able to get their tables to hold one textbook.  Many of the students took up the challenge to see if they could strengthen their tables so that they could support multiple textbooks.  You won't believe how much some of the tables held!  Check out the photos below (link).  I love how excited the kids are with their creations.

5 Card Photo Stories

This week the Penticton grade 1-3 class tackled 5 Card Photo Stories for the first time.  How it works: I show the group 5 images, and then each student comes up with a story that involves all 5 images.  Prior to creating their stories we discuss what makes a good story.  This class really got into it, many of them wanting more time, so they'll be finishing them off next week.  The Summerland ASPIRE group also did this activity and they knocked my socks off (again!) with their amazing stories!  

My Favourite Thing!

The Penticton grade 4s played 'My Favourite Thing!'  It is a drama / storytelling activity where students are given an object and asked to make up a story on the spot explaining why it is their favourite thing.  Some of the objects used were a fox hand puppet, a plastic coat hanger, and a crystal ball.  We had stories involving lasers, aliens, aliens with lasers, aliens playing ping pong, Dr. Who, aliens and Dr. Who and much much more.  Honourable mention: Graham's Italian coat hanger hat story.  I'm not even going to try and explain it, you'll just have to trust me that it was hilarious (and that it didn't involve aliens).

MaKey MaKey

The ASPIRE and AIM classes used the MaKey MaKey kits.  With these kits students can turn various items into computer keys.  In the photo below Iain is using a banana as a space key.

We've also hooked people up to the MaKey MaKey and then opened up a piano program on the computer; when you touch each person a different note sounds on the piano!

Thank you for taking the time to check out a few of the things that we have been up to... This Week In Gifted!

Newspaper Tables & Intermediate Field Trip

From the sounds of things the students had a relaxing Spring Break.  They were ready to dive back into our activities though, and here are some of the things that we did... This Week In Gifted!

Field Trip 2014

It is time once again for the intermediate field trip.  The Summerland ASPIRE class as well as the Penticton grade 3 - 5 classes will be visiting CBC Radio and Global Okananagan Television (CHBC) in Kelowna!  The ASPIRE and grade 5 classes will go up together on April 29th while the Penticton grade 3/4 classes will go up together on May 1st.  Students took home information on the trip and permission forms.  I also e-mailed copies of the forms on Friday.  If you have any questions about the trip, please let me know.


Field Trip 2014

Newspaper Table Design Challenge

Last month the ASPIRE class took up the challenge (here), this week it was the Penticton Grade 5 classes chance to give it a whirl!  The challenge is to build a table that can support a heavy textbook.  The table has to be at least 20 cm high and you can only use the following materials:

• 8 sheets of newspaper
• masking tape (unlimited)
• 8.5" by 11" piece of cereal box cardboard  

Prior to receiving the materials, we discussed potential designs, and we looked at how rolling the newspaper into a skinny tube resulted in very strong supports.  Students then sketched out their designs and got to it!  Lots of students incorporated triangles in their structures, some cut their tubes into smaller lengths to make straightforward table legs, others went crazy with the masking tape.  Students who finished up fairly quickly challenged themselves further by seeing if they could fortify their structures so that they could hold up 2 or 3 heavy textbooks.  See below for photos of tables being constructed or click here.

Radio Projects

While the grade 5 classes did the paper table challenge, the other classes continued on with their radio shows.  The AIM students were putting the final touches on their shows as well as coming up with some funny advertisements.  The grade 1/2 class continued to explore using Audacity with a focus on importing in music.  Many students have got their first show "in the can" so to speak.  Soon I hope to be able to put together a couple of half hour episodes featuring the radio students have produced.  

Paper Tables, Improv Bingo, and The Dead Ringer

Lots of different activities this week!

Paper Tables: The Design Challenge

The ASPIRE class finished up the design challenge that they started last week.  The challenge was to build a table at least 20 cm high that would support a heavy textbook.  The trick?  Students only had access to 8 sheets of newspaper, masking tape, and one 8.5 x 11" sheet of card stock with which to build the table.  It was fascinating watching the students build their structures.  There were quite a variety of methods and designs implemented.  At times students were discouraged or worried that their design wasn't working out.  In the end though, success and lots of big smiles!  Below are photos of the different designs (link).

Improv Bingo and Funny Faces

The AIM class continued to hone their communication skills by playing Improv Bingo.  A character, place, goal, obstacle and object are chosen at random and small groups of students create skits incorporating all of these.   For example, one skit involved a rubber man at the library trying to cross the finish line but a book wouldn't open and he needed to use an egg beater.  One of the challenges is working together with others to agree upon a skit.  The students are getting quite good at positively sharing their ideas and compromising when necessary.

The Penticton grade 1/2 class played a different drama game, called Funny Faces.  It is very similar to charades and requires students to act out characters or activities while the rest of the class tries to guess who they are / what they are doing.  Students are getting quite good at using and interpreting non-verbal cues.

The Dead Ringer

The Penticton grade 5 groups looked into the story of the Dead Ringer.  In a previous class some students shared that they had heard a news story that stated the technician responsible for the Olympic ring that did not open in the Sochi Olympics opening ceremonies was killed by the Russian government.  This week we investigated this further.

Students read the original story (here) and discussed whether they thought it was true.   One student noticed that one of the witnesses in the article was Guy Lafleur of the Canadian bobsled team.  Wasn't Guy Lafleur a famous Montreal Canadiens hockey player?  Hmm.  Some other elements of the story seemed fishy too.

Eventually students started to search to see how this story was reported by other news agencies.  Other students decided to find out a little more about the agency that originally reported the story.  After some searching it was discovered that this story was a hoax and that the site that originally posted it, The Daily Currant, was a news satire site.

We discussed how easy it is today to forward on 'news' stories.  Often people do it without really thinking about what they are reading is true.  We talked about questioning the credibility of the source the story comes from.  We also talked about how easy it often is to do a quick search to find out if the story is a hoax or not.  It was a neat exercise in critical thinking that opened up a lot of discussion.

Radio Shows

Many of the classes continued to work on their radio shows.  Lots of students are finishing up their first show and starting in on a new project, whether it be another episode of their show, fake advertisements, logos etc.  Next week, members of Peach City Community Radio Society will be visiting many of the classes to talk about community radio.  We're looking forward to what they have to share!

Thank you for taking the time to read about what we've been doing... This Week In Gifted!

Logos, Design Challenge, 5 Card Photo Stories, and 'A Squash and a Squeeze'

Logos, tables made from paper, and 5 card photos stories.  These are some of the things we did... This Week In Gifted!

Logos

Last week the ASPIRE group and the Penticton grade 5s investigated good logo design and tried their hand and designing their own logos, either for their own radio show or for the Creation Station.  This week is was time for the AIM group and the Penticton grade 3/4 group to give it a whirl.  First we looked at logos that had been divided into 2 groups.  The students had to decide why the logos were placed into each group.  In the end we discovered that one group represented logos that followed good design principles (simple, few colours, images that related to the product) and the other group did not.  Below are the slides that we viewed (link).  Student then worked on their own logos.

Paper Table Design Challenge

The ASPIRE group was given the challenge of building a table that was at least 20 cm high and that would support a heavy textbook.  Their materials?  8 sheets of newspaper, masking tape, and a 22 x 28 cm sheet of thin cardboard.  We'll be finishing the tables next week, but the photos below show where we are so far.  Many different designs are being attempted, it will be interesting to see how they work out!  (link)

5 Card Photo Stories

The Penticton grade 5 groups knocked my socks off (yet again) with their creative stories that were based upon 5 photos that I showed them.  The stories were creative, dramatic, surprising and inspiring.

A Squash and a Squeeze

Last week the Penticton grade 1/2s did a great job on the radio play of the story of Chicken Little.  This week we tackled 'A Squash and a Squeeze' by Julia Donaldson.  I'll post the audio once it has been edited.  

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