Dr. Ben Carson and the Brain! Grades 1-3

This month grades 1-3 also studied Dr. Ben Carson, a gifted neurosurgeon.  We watched a short clip about Dr. Carson's life called, Gifted Hands: The Story of Ben Carson.  Learning that the young Ben Carson started out in school getting Ds and Fs on his report card, was an eye opener for us!  He overcame his obstacles in life with the help of his mother, who pushed him to do his best.  He went on to graduate top in his high school class and received a college scholarship to Yale, later becoming a cutting-edge brain surgeon.

We learned many parts of the brain and what each part is responsible for and put it all together to construct a brain hat.  Here are some of us wearing our smarts now!

3rd Grade: Wonder for Wilma!

We all wondered how Wilma Rudolph overcame the hardships in her life!  As a child, Wilma seemed to catch every disease and got the measles, mumps, and chicken pox.  (Not many of us even knew what those diseases were!  We had a great discussion on vaccinations.)  When Wilma found out she had scarlet fever and polio at the same time, she had to fight for her life with the only tools she had: doing her exercises.  Our class talked about how powerful people have a strong, positive will that takes over everything they do.  Wilma, recovered from being crippled to win 3 gold medals in the 1960 Olympics.  We decided that all of us have that same strength in us that Wilma had; we can choose to use it or not.  Following, are some gold medals we awarded ourselves or others and why:

My cousin, who made it through pneumonia--Blake

5th Grade Robots on the Run!

Fifth grade has been super busy learning about basic robotics programming.  Students are learning to send their robot forward and back, the best way to make a sharp 90 degree turn, do donuts (making fast circles), talk to us, and many other moves!  Now we've begun turning on our sensors and figuring out how to tell our robot what to do when a sensor is triggered. For example, when the touch sensor hits a wall should our robot back up, turn away, or say "Ouch"!  I'm very proud of our 5th graders; there is a lot of troubleshooting that must be done as well.  When their robots don't do what they are supposed to, our kids figure out why.  Great problem solving skills to be gained-and fun!!  See some more pictures following:

Dr. Debakey and Heart Dissection! Grades 1-3!

Grades 1-3 studied Dr. Michael Debakey's life as a heart surgeon.  During this past Valentine's week, our GT students were able to get a close look at a pig's heart, which can be more similar to an adult human's heart.  We located some important parts on our heart:  aorta, vena cava, atrium, ventricle, valves, and tendons.  Your students were super excited to find these actual parts of the heart!  See the pix following!

Mrs. Pina's GT Class

Special thanks to Jamie, our camera person and teacher's assistant!

Click for the rest of our pictures