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!

Word Link and Encrypted Scavenger Hunt

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

Two Truths and a Lie

The Penticton grade 1 - 3 class played Two Truths and a Lie; a game that allows students to share a few of the things they got up to on the break.  Each student tells the class two true things that happened to them and one untrue.  The class has to decide which statement is untrue.  Students had fun trying to trick their peers!

Project Presentations

More students in the Penticton grade 4 and 5 classes presented their treasure research projects; George demonstrated the Indiana Jones board game that he made, Jessica and Logan shared their Power Point presentation on treasure in Minecraft, Marcus shared his Scratch animation on diamond mines, and Max, Jimmy and Graham shared their Scratch animation about Blackbeard.

Word Link

The Summerland ASPIRE class and the Penticton grade 4 and 5 classes played Word Link.  The group sits in a circle and one person starts by saying a word.  The next person has to say a word that links with the first word, the next person says a word that links with the second word and so on.  It is interesting to see where you end up.

Project Time

The Penticton grade 1-3 class continued to work on their treasure directions.
The Summerland ASPIRE students also worked on treasure directions.  (Josh has been creating some really interesting clues--I wish I could tell you more about it, but they are top secret!)  The ASPIRE class also worked on putting finishing touches on their 3D models.
The Penticton grade 4 and 5 classes worked on wrapping up their research projects, and those who are already done created mini-projects in Scratch or Audacity.

Enciphered Scavenger Hunt

Deciphered Clues

With the Easter weekend coming up and with our theme focused on the search for treasure it seemed like a good idea for the Summerland AIM class to do a scavenger hunt!  I created enciphered clues using the Treasure Hunt Clue Generator on cryptoclub.org.  Students worked together to decipher Caesar Ciphers, Letter to Number Ciphers, and a Keyword Cipher.  They had had practice using the Caesar Cipher before, but not the other two which they quickly picked up.



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

Before the Break

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

Treasure Directions

Many of the classes have been creating old looking treasure maps.  Now they are working on coming up with directions to go along with those maps.  The Summerland ASPIRE class looked at some examples of real life treasure clues; the Beale Papers and the poem with clues to the whereabouts of the Forest Fenn Treasure.  The Beale Papers are a series of three cipher texts supposedly leading to a vault of silver and gold.  The Fenn Treasure is a bronze chest containing gold, silver and jewels.

As mentioned last week, some of the students are creating their own ciphers or using ciphers they are familiar with to encipher their directions.  Others are writing rhymes or riddles and still others are using the tools on The Crypto Club website to encipher their messages.  Some are even trying the challenging Affine Cipher!

Around the World

Almost all of the classes played Around the World as a warm-up game this week.  Students sit in a circle and one person starts off by giving the name of a geographic location on Earth.  The next person has to come up with the name of a new geographic location that begins with the last letter of the word just given.  For example if the first name given is Penticton, the next name has to begin with an 'N'.  Each group quickly found out that a lot of places end in the letter 'A' and that you soon run out of 'A' names!

More Project Presentations

The Penticton Grade 4s and 5s heard presentations from:

• Jamie on 'The Eye of Horus' (info page and plasticine model)
• Isaac with a poster on the California Gold Rush
• Tessa who made a newspaper with a number of treasure related articles
• Joycey with a mini movie on types of gold and diamond objects in Minecraft

Some students who have presented their projects already, explored using the visual programming software Scratch to create maze games.

These are just a few of the things that we did this week.  Thanks for checking in!  I hope that the students and their families have an enjoyable Spring Break.  Gifted Program classes resume again the first week back after the break (the week of March 30th).

Another Two For One

Hockey playoffs kept me from posting last week (ah the life of a hockey parent), so this week we have another two for one blog post.  Without further ado, here are some of the things we did This Week (and last) In Gifted!

Name Grid

If you've ever played Boggle, then you have a bit of an idea of what the game Name Grid is like.

Penticton 4s playing Name Grid

Players try to make as many words as they can from the letters in the grid.  Some of the rules are:

• words have to be at least 3 letters long
• they cannot be proper nouns
• letters have to be adjoining one another on the grid (vertically, horizontally or diagonally)
• a letter cannot be used more than once in a word
• one point for every word
• an extra point for every 5 letter word, two extra points for every word with 6 letters or more

The grade 4s, 5s and the Summerland AIM group tried this activity and it turns out there are some real word smiths out there!  I was especially impressed with the Summerland AIM group--though they were the youngest group I tried this with, they came up with some wonderful words (long ones too!)  *Note: for instructions on Name Grid along with other games, check out '40 Icebreakers for Small Groups' by Grahame Knox (link).

Maps

All of the classes except the Penticton 5s have been working on Maps.  Students have made old, weathered looking maps with an X marking the treasure (or the starting point on the quest for the treasure!)  Below (link) are some of the maps from the Summerland ASPIRE group (gr 4 & 5).




Students who have completed their maps are starting to work on directions for the treasure seekers.  Some students are choosing to write riddles, others are going to use the skills they learned last year to encipher or encode their messages.  One AIM student decided to come up with his own code.

Rhett's Code

Students are also deciding on; what the treasure is that is hidden, who hid it, how it is hidden and how it is protected.

Treasure Projects

Over the past few weeks the Penticton grade 4 and 5s have heard the following presentations:

• Katie's powerpoint and comic on the California Gold Rush
• Kieran's powerpoint on Ores
• Max, Jimmy and Graham's radio show about Pirates
• Marcus' powerpoint about the precious ores in the game Minecraft
• Jonas' radio interview with Smaug, the dragon from The Hobbit
• Jaras' poster on Easter Island
• Ashley's Comic Life booklet on how to get secret coins in the computer game Geometry Dash 
• Liam and Sean's powerpoint and accompanying radio show on The Top 5 Video Games That Involve Treasure

There will be more presentations in upcoming classes.

The Summerland ASPIRE class has also been busy.  They are working on their 3D models of booby trapped treasure.  As mentioned earlier, they've also created maps to go along with these models.  As you can see from the photos below, the models are really coming together nicely.

Thanks for dropping by, I hoped you enjoyed reading about a few of the things that we did over the last couple of weeks.

 

February 16th - 19th

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

More On Maps

The Summerland and Penticton AIM groups (grades 1 - 3) started creating their own, aged looking treasure maps.  Students had fun creating and naming mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans and other geographic features.  They then ripped and crumpled their maps and painted them with tea to give them an aged look.  We will be working with these maps in future classes.

Project Time

The Penticton grade 4s and 5s continued to work on their treasure projects.  Some of the grade 4s presented their finished projects.  Max, Jimmy, and Graham presented their radio interview on pirates and Marcus presented his slideshow on rare gems and ores in Minecraft.  We look forward to more presentations in the weeks to come!

The Summerland ASPIRE group (grade 4s and 5s) continued to work on their 'Protect the Treasure' 3D models.  We have models with rolling boulders, hand scanners, snake pits and more!

Improv Bingo

The Penticton grade 5s continued to explore the process of working in choice versus no choice groups in Improv Bingo.  This week they did not get to choose who was in their group; I made did the groupings (ensuring that the usual pairings were not together).  They did a marvellous job with their skits!  Through this process I hope that the students are getting an opportunity to experience the pros (instead of focussing on the cons) of different sorts of groupings.  I think they are beginning to see the strengths of all of the members of our class and to trust that they can collaborate with anyone in the class to create good work.

Two for the Price of One

I didn't get a post out last week, so here's what we did This Week (and last) In Gifted.

World of Treasure Slide Shows

Below are the last two slide shows from the Penticton grade 1 - 3 classes.  You can see previous slideshows here and here.

Sophie, Ryan M, and Ellen (link).



Anya, Ryan A, Katie, and Gerry (link).

Improv Bingo

The Penticton 5s and 4s did Improv Bingo, the drama game where a person, place, goal, obstacle and object are all chosen at random and then incorporated into skits by groups of 3-4 with hilarious results.  Students brainstorm, collaborate, create and then perform their skits.  At the end of each skit audience members are asked to comment on what each group did well (appreciations).  This helps the whole group to critically think about what makes a good story or play so that we can all improve.

This week was the first time this year that the 4s had done Improv Bingo and they did wonderfully!  The 5s were pushed out of their comfort zone a little as they weren't allowed to go into their 'usual' groups; they were partnered up with people may not normally work with.  We talked about the benefits of 'choice' groups vs. groups that someone else chooses.  All went well.

Protect the Treasure

The Summerland ASPIRE (gr 4 & 5) group continued to work on their 3D models.  Students are creating models showing how they would hide and protect a valuable treasure.  They were busy with glue guns, modelling clay, pipe-cleaners and more and their plans are gradually taking shape.  

Maps

The Summerland and Penticton grade 1 - 3 groups worked with maps.  Together we created maps of our classroom.  Then students were given tokens to hide and mark in the corresponding spot on their maps.  Students then swapped maps and hunted down the each others tokens.

Zip Line Design Challenge

The Summerland AIM class (gr 1 - 3) were tasked with designing something to transport a ping pong ball from the top of a zip line to the bottom in 4 seconds or less.  The students tried different ways to balance their carriers and to reduce friction.  Everyone was successful and some even took on the challenge to transpire more than one ping pong ball at a time.

Treasure Projects

The Penticton 4s and 5s continued to work on their treasure projects, with many students finished or nearing completion.  Students have tackled lots of different treasure related topics and are presenting them using a variety of formats.  I hope to highlight individual projects here in the coming weeks.

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

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!

Maps!

After a long break, we're finally back at it.  Here are some of the things that we did... This Week In Gifted!

This Week's World of Treasure Slide Show

Prior to the winter break the AIM classes were working on finding images and information on different things that they considered to be treasure.  In small groups they created slideshows sharing what they learned.  This week we are featuring Summerland AIM students Rhett, Oscar and Iain's show.  (link)

Protect the Treasure!

The Summerland ASPIRE group (grades 4 & 5) were introduced to the project they will be working on for the next little while; Protect the Treasure!  They have been given the task of hiding and protecting an incredibly valuable treasure.  Their job: to create a 3D model showing where they have hidden the treasure (the cache) and how they are protecting it! We talked about famous treasures from real life and popular culture and how they have been protected and we watched a few video clips for inspiration (the heist scene from Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers, trailer for the TV show The Curse of Oak Island, an edited version of the opening scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc). Students are in the planning stages and have some amazing ideas.

Research Projects

The Penticton grade 4s and 5s continued to work on the research projects they started before the break. Despite the big hiatus, the students keenly and enthusiastically got back to work. They are each researching a different treasure related topic and finding a creative way to share what they've learned. Some students are building on the work we did last year, and creating short radio shows. Some are producing newspaper articles or magazines. Others are creating Jeopardy style games using the interactive whiteboard.

Maps!

The Summerland and Penticton AIM classes (grades 1-3) explored maps.  We talked about when and why we use maps and then we did a little exploring on Google Maps.  Students looked up where they lived and then found out how to get from their homes to our class either at Wiltse or Trout Creek Elementary.  After that we started to go further afield, checking out other places in BC and then on to the rest of the world!  Students used Street View to look at photos of familiar places (homes of friends and family, school etc) and also more exotic places.  The Thursday group strolled around in Moscow's Red Square! 

What is Social Time?

Katie and Gerry look at microscope slides during Social Time

We start every class with Social Time.  This time is an opportunity for students to connect with each other while playing games or building and creating together.  Popular things to do during Social Time include:
- building circuits using the Snap Circuits kit
- building large structures with the Magnetics kit
- playing strategy games such as Labyrinth, Gobblet, Mancala, or Uno
- solving matchstick puzzles or the Rubik's cube
Social Time is also an excellent opportunity for me to touch base with each of the students and see how their week has been.

Thanks for checking out what 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!