Communication Research

Here are a few of the things we've been doing this week (and last!) in gifted.

Deciphering

Last week the grade 4s and 5s learned how to encipher and decipher keyword ciphers.  They used letter frequencies to decipher keyword ciphers when the keyword and keyletter were unknown to them -- a pretty challenging task!  They then put these skills to work playing the game Rogue Computer.  

My favourite student quote last week came from a student in the grade 2/3 afternoon class.  The students were working on deciphering Caesar Ciphers in order to solve the clues in the game Desert Oasis.  It's pretty challenging work when you don't know what the shift is and have to use letter frequencies.  To no one in particular a student said, "This is hard!"  I waited and watched.  "This is hard!"  Again, I waited and watched to see if the student was hitting his limit and needed intervention before frustration took over.  "This is HARD... but it is so much FUN!"  Yes!

This week the students were introduced to a new cipher -- the Pig-Pen.  They were able to decipher the message on the board in short order!

Students in the Tuesday afternoon class tackling the Pig-Pen Cipher

The Wednesday afternoon class at work on the Pig-Pen Cipher

Body Spell

This week the Wednesday morning class played the game Body Spell.  Students were in two teams and each student had letters drawn on their hands and feet.  They were then given a word that they had to spell with the letters on their body -- crazy!  They handled the small 4 and 5 letters words quite well and easily progressed to the 7 letter word they are spelling in the photo below (the letter on the sideways foot is a 'T').

Communication Mini-Research Projects

This week all of the classes started doing research on topics related to communication.  These will be small projects just to whet everyone's appetite before we get into our bigger radio project.  Some of the topics students are investigating are: hieroglyphics, the Rosetta Stone, the Enigma Machine, American Sign Language, Braille, Morse Code, the telegraph, the history of emoticons/emojis, communication in different types of animals (bees, seals, whales...), codes used in WWII, computer coding... It's going to be fun sharing what everyone has learned!

Thanks for stopping by to see what we've been up to... This Week In Gifted!

Unexpected Visitors

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

Cheap Cheap!

The Penticton grade 1/2 class had some unexpected visitors this week.  At the beginning of class we were lucky enough to be visited by the new baby chicks that Dija's family had just picked up.  Who would have thought that 24 two day old chicks could be so noisy... and so cute!  Their stay was brief, but memorable.  Children were able to hold the little brown fluff balls.  The chicks were so noisy that they attracted the attention of the junior kindergarten class next door who ended up coming over and having a look.  Thank you to Dija's parents for bringing the chicks by.

Field Trip Forms Rolling In

As mentioned last week the Summerland ASPIRE class as well as the Penticton grade 3 - 5 classes will be visiting CBC Radio and Global Okanagan Television (CHBC) in Kelowna.  One group will be going up on April 29th (ASPIRE and Pen gr 5s), the other on May 1st (Pen gr 3s and 4s).  Thank you to everyone who has returned their permission forms and money.  Thank you also to those parents who have volunteered to come on the trip as chaperones.  I still need a few more parent chaperones, so if you are able to help out please contact me.  If your child hasn't returned their forms yet, please do so for the next class.  Thank you!

Radioland

We are nearing the end of our radio project; many students have completed a mini show and some are working on a second (or third!!) episode.  We've learned a lot during this project about how to edit audio, import music, fade music in and out and some classes have learned what the mysterious Auto Duck feature does.  

Pigpen Cipher

The past couple of weeks we've been decoding messages that were enciphered using the Pigpen Cipher, pictured to the left.  Enciphered messages look complicated, but the cipher is actually very easy to use and to remember.  The pigpen cipher is thought to have been used since at least the 18th century.  In popular culture the pigpen cipher shows up in the Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol, in the 39 Clues series of children's books, as well as some video games.  (Image and information from Wikipedia, accessed April 12th, 2014) 

To the right is a message enciphered using the pigpen cipher.

Can you tell what it says?  It is the name of a game that many of the classes played this week.  Students listened to the sounds below and tried to identify what they were.  We talked about how sounds can evoke other sensations and memories.  For example the sound of a lawnmower may remind you of a warm summer day or the smell of freshly cut grass.  

Below is the answer key, enciphered of course!

Thanks for checking in to see what we did... This Week In Gifted!