5th Grade Robotics

Since building their robots 5th grade has been busy programming them to perform challenges using specific sensors.  We've spent the last few weeks working with both touch sensors, sound, ultrasonic and light sensors.  Our robots have had to detect distance, objects, and black lines in order to continue to the next move in the program.  Our culminating activity with all these sensors was to put our robots through the paces by performing 20 challenges of varying degrees of difficulty.  Next up, we will be working with a new partner on a special project.

4th Grade and Genius Hour

Fourth grade has launched into a new unit called Genius Hour.  In this unit, we explore a topic of our choice to plan, pitch, and present.  We are spending some time learning about what really makes us think-what we are passionate about!  In order to find a topic that has meaning for us, we are learning more about what we are interested in so that we can focus on a realistic choice.  We are using a program called Thrively to help us narrow down our search.  Thrively also gives us opportunities to learn which careers we may be the most interested in and activities that we can do online that may spark our interest in something.  Once we've browsed Thrively, we will use a March-madness type bracket activity to narrow down topics even more.  Mrs. Imrie will conference with students, asking focusing questions as well.  We look forward to finding our topics and making a difference through Genius Hour!

The Talented Jim Henson

First through third grade studied the very innovative and creative Jim Henson.  Jim Henson was born before TV was invented and common in households, so he and his family were entertained by playing outside, going to plays, listening to the radio and many others.  Even though Henson built a crystal radio with his brother, he was fascinated when TV finally did come out and he couldn't wait to be on it!  His first chance was working with puppets and marionettes, and eventually muppets.  He created his muppets to be more human-like and emotional so that people would actually like watching them on TV.  We learned all the many ways we could make a puppet at home and finally created our own puppet show on an app called Puppet Pals.  First grade acted out a joke and second and third drew a scenario out of a basket and created a play, then performed the play on the app Puppet Pals.  After we completed our plays, we were able to watch each others on the big screen in our classroom!

First Grade Puppet Pal Example

Kinder 2016

Kindergarten has gotten off to a great start this year.  So glad these younger scholars have joined our GT pullout class!  We started class off by reading the book and discussing the title:  I'm Gonna Like Me .  Each one of us made a page for the book showing us liking ourselves even when we made a mistake or had to try a new food like broccoli!  Then we learned more about each other by creating our own Star glyph.  We tested our thinking as we answered questions about our friends based on the way they "coded" their star!

This past week we worked with a different kind of thinking called logical thinking and how you use clues to help you find the answers.  We started out together solving a problem about students and their favorite dinosaurs, but were only given 3 clues to help us match the person to the dino.  We learned that if we took notes on a table it would keep us organized and we could find the solutions. We participated in two logic stations after that in which we had to "level up":  fuzzy logic on the iPad and Zoologic, an activity we worked on together with Mrs. Imrie.