Storytelling and Project Work

5 Card Photo Story

This week the students exercised their storytelling muscles with a round of 5 Card Photo Story.  Given the five images below (link) students were tasked with telling a story that included all of the images.  We talked about the elements of a good story and then the students had 5 minutes to plan their story.  Each student had a turn telling their story and the audience's job was to provide positive feedback.  The stories were wonderful and the feedback was excellent!

Project time

Students continued to work on their projects this week.  Ryan A, in the Wednesday morning class, has been showing his peers how to make really professional looking floor plans using the drawing pane in MS Word.  You can see some of these floor plans, as well as other student work, below (link).

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Designing and Researching

This week students were all busy working on their projects.  Many students have decided to design a house or other building and spent their time on drawing up plans and searching for ideas on the internet.  Other students are gathering information on a specific architect or building.  It is exciting to see things taking shape!  The photos below are of students from the Wednesday afternoon class at our 'drafting' table.

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Storytelling

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

Storytelling

All of the classes exercised their storytelling skills this week.

My Favorite Thing

The Summerland AIM/ASPIRE group and the Penticton 2/3s made up some amazing stories on why some of these objects were their favourite thing:

- a tape dispenser

- a long cardboard tube

- a plaque magnet with two small birds on it

You'd be amazed at some of the stories; I know I'll never look at a tape dispenser the same way again!

Improv Bingo

The Penticton 5s did a great job coming up with skits.  They have had a little bit of practice with this drama / storytelling activity already.  In the past students chose their groups, but this time around students were randomly assigned to groups of 3 or 4.  It was a stretch for some students, but in the end everyone contributed to and participated in some great skits! 

This week was the first time the Penticton 4s participated in Improv Bingo and they did a wonderful job!  This is a small group, so we were able to work through two different scenarios.  I look forward to doing Improv Bingo with this group again.

With both 'My Favourite Thing' and 'Improv Bingo' we debrief to discuss what made the stories successful.  With 'Improv Bingo' we give appreciations--talking about what each group did well with their performance.  Students are getting good at giving specific, positive feedback.

Project Sneak Peek

Below are a few screen shots from Marcus' Operation Identification project on DNA.  He is creating it in Minecraft and I can't wait to see the final project!  More sneak peeks from other projects in the weeks to come!

Thank you for stopping by to see what we've been up to!

Project Progress

This week students continued to work on their projects. Here are a few sneak peeks from the Summerland AIM/ASPIRE class:

A screen shot from the planning page for Iain's CSI board game.

Niamh researching fingerprints for her BitStrips comic.

Three screen shots from Oscar's Lego Movie.

I look forward to sharing more project work in the weeks to come!

Some other things we did this week:

• The Penticton 5s and 4s copied out extortion notes for our upcoming CSI mystery.
• The Penticton 4s, 2-3s and the Summerland AIM/ASPIRE classes played the charades game 'Heads Up'.
• The Penticton 2-3 class excelled at their first time doing the drama activity 'My Favorite Thing'.

Thanks for stopping by to see what we did... This Week In Gifted!

Quick Update

Just a quick post this week. We have been spending a lot of time the Identification Project. Students are finding good resources, putting things together and learning a lot along the way on using their desired format. Students using BitStrips are learning how to create nifty effects and how to pose their characters, students using scratch are finding out new coding tricks, and our youngest students who are using Power Point for the first time are becoming adept at adding photos. As always--thanks for checking in!

Geocache Madness!

This past week it was all about final project presentations and geocaching!

Projects

The Monday AIM class (grades 1 - 3) finished up their mapping projects.  All of the students have created interesting treasure maps and many of them have stories or instructions to go along with them.

The Tuesday ASPIRE class presented their projects to each other; they each created a map, 3D model of their booby trapped treasure, and then either enciphered directions to the treasure or a story to go along with it.  We ran out of time so are looking forward to a couple more presentations in the last class; these ones will involve deciphering some pretty tricky messages!

The Thursday AIM class presented their projects; treasure maps and enciphered directions.  We are still working our way through deciphering some of the messages (Iain used a keyword cipher, Caesar cipher and a letter to number cipher so he's keeping us pretty busy!)

Geocaching

Even though we were short on time, the Penticton 4s and 5s and the Summerland AIM and ASPIRE classes were all able to build, hide and record the coordinates for their geocaches.  Thank you to everyone who brought small toys to put in the geocaches.  During the last week of gifted classes we will get the opportunity to search for the caches!

Dates to Note

This Week (May 4th - 8th)

• No classes
• Field trip for grade 3 - 5s on Tuesday May 5th to Scandia in Kelowna.  
• Thank you to the parents who were able to volunteer to come as chaperones.  We wouldn't be able to do the trip without you!  

Next Week (May 11th - 15th)

• Final week of classes
• Open House for the AIM (grade 1 - 3) classes on Monday afternoon (Penticton) and Thursday afternoon (Trout Creek). 
• Parents are invited to drop in and see what we've been up to.  Stay for all or part of the class.

Dates To Be Announced

• End of year parent meetings

More GPS Adventures!

More GPS Adventures!

Students were introduced to or received more experience using the GPS units this week.  The Penticton students hid tokens around the school playground and set waypoints on the GPS units at their locations.  The GPS units were then swapped around and students had fun finding the tokens that others had hidden.  The Summerland AIM and ASPIRE students did a scavenger hunt.  Students received the GPS units with waypoints already set on them.  The goal was to try and identify the 'landmarks' that the waypoints were marking.  The GPS units aren't terribly accurate, so hints were given to help narrow things down.

Penticton grade 4s using the GPS units to search for hidden tokens.

Projects

The Summerland ASPIRE class continued their work on their Treasure projects.  Finishing touches were put on the 3D models and some students were able to finish their encrypted treasure clues or  stories.  We're in the final stretch!

Field Trip

Permission forms were given to the grade 3, 4 & 5 students for the upcoming field trip to Scandia Golf and Games on May 5th.  Please return the forms and money as soon as possible.  

Thank you for checking in and finding out about a few of the things that we did... This Week In Gifted!

November 17th to 20th

X-Marks the Spot Research Project

This week all of the grade 4s and 5s had at least some time to work on the X-Marks the Spot research project.  Students are investigating famous people, places or things associated with treasure.  Once students have gathered their information they will be putting it together in a format to present to their peers.  More on this in the weeks ahead!

World of Treasure Slideshow

The grade 1 - 3s have also been busy doing research for their 'World of Treasures' slideshow.  Students are searching for images and information on a wide variety of 'treasures'.  The images and information are being added to collaborative slideshows.  Students have found images and information on some of the following:
- gems (emeralds, topaz, diamonds)
- gold
- money
- treasure chests
- shipwrecks (e.g. the Titanic)
- friendship

My Favourite Thing

STOP! by Michael Gil, on Flickr

Some of the classes this week played the drama game 'My Favourite Thing'.  In this game students are given a prop and asked to tell a story as to why this prop is their favourite thing.  Students are encouraged to be creative and think outside the box.  One prop we used was a hand held stop sign like flag people use.  It was used to; stop a comet from crashing into Earth, defeat an alien robot in a game of ping pong, flip another alien out of someone's house (using it much like a pancake flipper) and so much more!  Through this activity students not only get the opportunity to be creative, but they also benefit from hearing their peers' stories and talking about what worked well in each story.

December 1st to 4th--Last Week of Classes Before the Winter Break

Gifted Program classes will wrap up the week of December 1st to 4th and resume again in January.  The classes wrap up a few weeks prior to winter break in order to let students fully participate in any special activities that may be going on in their classroom or school.  It also provides me time to assess students who have been referred to the Gifted Program.  

Thanks for checking out what we did... This Week In Gifted!