Water Olympics

Here is what we've been up to... This Week (and last!) in Gifted.

H₂O Olympics

This week students participated in the H₂O Olympics!  Seven events which allowed them to explore different aspects of water.  Check out the events in the slideshow below (link).



After each of the events we discussed the properties of water that contributed to the students' observations.

5 Card Photo Story

Last week the Wednesday morning class exercised their creativity with a 5 Card Photo Story.  The students were presented with 5 photos (shown below).  With only 5 minutes to brainstorm, they needed to come up with an engaging story that included each of the photographs.  The resulting stories were funny with unexpected twists and turns!  When students were participating as audience members, they were asked to give appreciations -- what did each storyteller do well?

Underwater Scene

Students continued to work on the creatures for our underwater scene.  Some students have started to create short slideshows with information on the sea creatures they made for our scene.  Benjamin and Skyler have also created a website to share what they have learned!  We'll be sharing that in a future post.  Check out the progress below (link).

Classes wrapped up for December

We've had our last class for 2019.  Classes will start up again in January when school resumes.

Someone asked me the other day what I see myself doing in the new year.  I said: "How would I know?  I don't have 2020 vision!"  (Bud doom boomp!)  Happy Holidays everyone :-)

Creating an Underwater Scene

For the past couple of weeks students have been working on creating models of aquatic creatures.  The models will be incorporated into a number of different underwater scenes.  Students are working on; tube coral, a colossal squid,  a brittle star, angler fish, salmon, deep sea dragon fish, puffer fish, star fish, a manta ray and more.  Check out the progress that is being made in the slides below (link).

Cholera Mystery

The Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon groups worked on solving a mystery!  They looked at evidence similar to what Dr. John Snow had access to when he solved the mystery of the cause of the 1854 London cholera outbreak.  Students used maps and information about the victims movements (where they worked, where they lived, places they frequented) to hone in on the source of the cholera outbreak.  Great detective work was demonstrated, and yes, they solved the mystery!

Update on Art in the Style of Roy Henry Vickers

In a previous post I described the work that students were doing to create images with the visual themes seen in the art of Roy Henry Vickers.  All of the students have now completed their pieces and so I've updated the slideshow (link).  Each student incorporated three key elements into their work; bands of colour to represent sunrise/sunset, silhouettes of landscape in the background and silhouettes of people or animals in the foreground, and a single block of blue water.  Although the pieces share these three elements, there is also a a great deal of diversity in the images. 





Thank you for checking in to see what we've been up to... This Week In Gifted!

Art in the Style of Roy Henry Vickers

For the past couple of classes, students have been learning about the work of visual artist Roy Henry Vickers.  Roy Henry Vickers is a BC artist who currently spends his time between Hazelton and Tofino.  Much of his artistic work focuses on scenes involving water.  We did a concept attainment lesson to explore the visual themes in a selection of Vickers's work.  Students then created pieces with the same visual themes.  Some students are still finishing their pieces, but you can see the process and some of the completed works in the slideshow below (link).

Water Fun Facts

This week the Wednesday classes did a fun activity to learn some more facts about water.  We started off with a quick multiple choice quiz (link) where students were asked to give their best guesses.  Then they did some research to find out what the correct answers to the questions were.  Then it was showdown time!  Kids pitted their wits against each other in a game of 'Kahoot!', an online quiz where students race to be the first to enter their answer.  Points are awarded not just for being correct, but for answering quickly.  It was tense at times, but lots of fun!  Now we know:

• how much of the world's freshwater is found in Canada
• the name of the longest river entirely located in Canada
• which province's name means "river that flows swiftly" in Cree
• how much of the earth is covered in water
• where Canada ranks in terms of our per person water use (hint: it's not great)
• and much, much more!

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

October Round Up!

Here's what we've been up to in the first few weeks of classes!

Back Into the Swing of Things

Students were keen to get back into things and the classes are really gelling.  Great conversations are happening during social time and during our class discussions.  See the photos taken during social time (slides below) to get a sense of this.

This Year's Theme 

As most students guessed, this year's theme deals with Water!  In our first class we talked about what we know about water and all the different ways that it impacts our lives.  Over the coming months we will be:

• creating an underwater scene
• looking at water in the art of Roy Henry Vickers
• researching underwater life

Sticky Water

Our first exploration of water was to look at water from the molecular level.  We learned that each water molecule is made of 1 oxygen atom and 2 hydrogen atoms.  We also learned that water is 'sticky'.  The hydrogen atoms have slight positive charges and the oxygen atom has a slight negative charge.  This means that water molecules are attracted to each other by these weak hydrogen bonds.

We explored the sticky nature of water by doing a little experiment with water and nickles.  You can see the results in the slides below.
 

October In Pictures 

Below are photos from October (link).  Enjoy and thanks for checking in to see what we've been up to!

Breaking News!

Breaking News About This Year's Theme!

Step 1.  Listen to the audio clip below for breaking news about this year's theme.




Step 2.  Go here.


Step 3.  Do you think you know what the theme is?  Put your guess below.



Classes start up soon!  Penticton / Kaleden grade 3s begin on Wednesday, October 16th.  Summerland / Trout Creek students begin on Thursday, October 17th and Penticton / Kaleden grade 4s and 5s begin on Wednesday, October 23rd. 

It's A Wrap!

Gifted Program classes wrapped up last week.  Here are some of the activities we did in the final classes.

Design Challenge

In our second to last class, the Tuesday afternoon group and the Wednesday morning groups were given rubber bands, sheets of paper and tin foil and asked to use them to design something to solve the problem "I need to create a safe light source for a home with no electricity."  The solutions students came up with were creative and varied.  Many involved using the reflective properties of the tin foil to reflect sunlight into the home.  Check out the construction process in the slides below (link).

Name That Noise

Students from the Tuesday class, as well as a small group from the Wednesday morning class, took the field recorders and recorded some sounds from around the school.  The sounds were played back to the class to see if they could... name that noise!

Mustache Ceremony

Wait, what?  Mustaches?  All I can tell you is that on the final class for the grade 5s, we do the Mustache Ceremony.  It involves mustaches.  It also involves highlighting the accomplishments of each grade 5 student for the years they have been in the Gifted Program.  It may also include some funny dancing and waving of objects by Ms. Thompson.  Pictures of mustachioed grade 5s are in the slide show.

Party

On the last class you definitely have to have a party!  Depending on which class we're talking about there was; cake, muffins, cookies, watermelon, chips, pretzels, cheezies, pickles, doughnuts, juice...  Thank you to everyone who brought something to share.  We had an abundance of food!  See the slides for some party pics. 

Reports and Parent Meetings

At the beginning of June year end progress reports will be sent out.  I will also be scheduling parent meetings  to review how the year went and to plan for next year.  Information will be sent out in a week or so. 

Field Trip

On April 30th the grade 3s, 4s and 5s, along with four wonderful chaperones toured Global Okanagan and CBC Radio in Kelowna.  Our hosts were wonderful, we learned a lot, and the students were keen and asked great questions!  Please check out the slides below to see what we got up to.
Link to slides.  To see full screen click on the full screen icon (next to the gear) in the embedded slides below, or click on this link.