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!

GPS Scavenger Hunts

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

GPS Scavenger Hunts

The GPS unit the students used.

The Summerland AIM and ASPIRE classes as well as the Penticton 5s learned how to use the new GPS hand held units.  In pairs or small groups students hid tokens around the playground and marked their locations on the GPS units.  Each group then swapped their GPS unit with another group and searched for the other group's hidden tokens.  We learned that the devices are sometimes off by about 3 or 4 meters, so you have to still be very observant to find the tokens.  We'll be doing more with the GPS units in the weeks to come!

Project Presentations

There were some more great presentations this week.  Maia presented her comic strip on Blackbeard and Ricki presented her and Gebrielle's magazine about ancient Egypt.  The presentations were top notch as were the questions and appreciations from their peers!  The Penticton grade 4s and 5s continued to work on projects with many students creating animations or games using the visual computer programming language Scratch.

Field Trip!

Every year the older students in the Gifted Program are invited to go on a field trip related to our theme.  This year's theme is 'X Marks the Spot!  The Search for Treasure.'  One of the things that we have explored this year is that many of the games we play involve the search for treasure of some sort.  Some examples are digital games such as MineCraft or Geometry Dash and board games such as Labyrinth or Settlers of Catan.

For our field trip we will be going to Scandia Golf and Games in Kelowna.  Students will get to be treasure hunters; winning tickets when they play games, that they can then retrieve for prizes!  This trip is for grade 3, 4 and 5 students in the Gifted Program.  Detailed information about the trip was e-mailed to families on Friday and paper copies will go home next week.

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!