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!

Year End Wrap Up Part 2

This is Part 2 in the series of Year End Wrap up Posts.

The Wednesday morning class tried out the Marshmallow Challenge on the second to last class of the year.  The goal: support a marshmallow using only 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1 meter of masking tape and 1 meter of string--Go!



If the slides and not showing up for you, check out this link.

Year End Wrap Up Part 1

I'm in the process of adding photos and the students' projects to this site.  Here is part one in the series.

Straw Bridge Challenge -- Tuesday Class

Below are some shots from the last class of the Tuesday group.  They did the Straw Bridge Challenge.  The Challenge: build a bridge that spans 30cm and can hold a coffee can filled with golf balls.  You only have 15 straws and 25cm of tape.  Go!



If the slides aren't showing up, click this link.

Field Trip 2018

This past week it was time for the annual Gifted Program field trip for students in grades 3, 4 and 5.  We hopped on the yellow school bus with our friendly bus driver Larry and made our way to Kelowna Airport for a tour of Southern Interior Flight Centre.



Link to photos from our trip (link).

We were welcomed by  Marc Vanderaegen, the flight school director.  Neal, one of the pilots at the flight centre was our host and tour guide, along with George Cann, operations manager at Okanagan Mountain Helicopter.  George had brought a training helicopter over to the flight centre so that the students could get an up close and personal look at the machine.  George explained the basics of how a helicopter works and then the students got to take turns sitting in the chopper and checking out the instrument panel and main controls.

After checking out the helicopter Neal showed the students one of the flight centre's single engine fixed wing aircraft.  The students got to sit in the cockpit and get a sense of what it is like to pilot a small airplane.

Neal and George shared their expertise with the group and answered our questions.  They each worked very hard to convince the students that (a) flying is a great profession and (b) that helicopters were better than airplanes (George) or (c) that fixed with aircraft were better (Neal)! 

The students were excellent guests; they were polite, well behaved and asked great questions!

Thank you to our chaperones; Rebecca Aubie, Heather Glynes, Kristin Maier, Terry McCartan (his 5th trip!), Julie Read, and Adam Schroeder.  It was great having them along! 




 

Project Work

Here are a few things we have been doing this week in gifted.

Flight Lesson

Students were presented with the following slide show (link).   As we progressed through the slides the students were asked to come up with a hypothesis to explain why the things grouped under the 'Yes' column were grouped together.  As they were presented with more images they revised their hypotheses.  Eventually all of the groups figured out why the 'Yes' items were grouped together -- can you?  Go through the slides slowly and one at a time.



The above activity lead to a discussion about the different types of flight we see in birds.  I asked students to try and notice the different ways that birds fly as they are out and about this week.

Project Work

For the past month students have been busy on their projects.  The slideshow below shows some of the projects students are working on; there are a lot of students using the computer coding program Scratch to create games or animations, but there is also a lot of variety!  If the slideshow isn't showing up for you, or if you'd like it full screen, then click on this link.



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

Spring Update

It's been awhile since I've posted here, so we are long overdue for an update!

This year the theme is flight and the students have been busy learning about different aspects of flight; from flight in nature to human made flying machines.

Last month the grade 3s, 4s and 5s started working on The Big Project!  Students have a lot of choice as long as their project tackles our theme.  Here are some of the projects on the go:

• Comparing the characteristics of different paper airplane designs
• Creating computer games with Scratch in which participants will learn about; blimps, or hot air balloons, or jets, or the history of flight.
• Presenting research on butterflies in the form of a magazine
• Recreating a newspaper from the late 1700s with stories on major advances in hot air balloons and parachutes
• Creating a Scratch animation on space travel
• Designing a luxury rocket
• Sharing research on drones, other remote control airplanes, travel to Mars and more...
• Producing a child's picture book about bees
• Making a model of the Wright Brother's first successful powered airplane    

More on these projects in the upcoming weeks.

The younger students (Thursday afternoon class) have started a timeline on the history of flight as well as learning how to program with Scratch.  The timeline is below--click on the arrows to go through the timeline.  (If you received this post via e-mail, you may have to go here for the timeline to be visible.)




In the last couple of weeks, the students did some activities exploring Bernoulli's Principle.  This principle helps to explain how airplane wings and bird wing provide lift.  For photos of some of these explorations please check out the slideshow below or click on this link.



Thanks for checking out what we've been up to the last little while in Gifted!

Classes Starting Up Next Week!

Gifted Program Classes begin next week and Mrs. Evans is looking forward to starting off the year with the students.  Ms. Thompson is on medical leave, but will return after the winter break.

Mrs. Evans and Ms. Thompson have done some planning together and are pretty excited about this year's theme.  Check out the animation below (if it doesn't show up, go here).  Pengy the Penguin is trying to figure out what the theme for the Gifted Program is this year.  He will get lots of clues; see if you can figure out the theme too!  Click on the green flag to start the animation.



To check out the computer programming behind the animation go here and click on the blue 'See inside' button.