Welcome Back! Thinking outside of the duck pond! Gr 1-3

Our GT pullout classes started off this year with a two-week social emotional unit in which we looked at our differences and others'.  After reading Eggbert in grades 1-3, we decided it was ok to be different like Eggbert the main character, and we documented a time when we felt "cracked" as he did.  One of the Big Ideas of this book is that we should be "true to ourselves" even if we fall into a Pattern of trying to do what others do.  In the end, we need to find our own solutions, and many of us explained how we fixed the time when we felt "cracked".

Rachel Carson and Grades 1-3

We've been looking at Rachel Carson's contribution to our world, researching about her life and work.  Student's chose to either complete a power point or prezi presentation to learn about her and offer us some ideas about everyday things we can do to save the Earth!  See our presentations now:

Kellen and Skylar's Power Point presentation

Grades 1-3 Walt Disney!

Walt Disney

Grades 1-3 continue their study on the successful characteristics of powerful people. We knew Walt Disney must have been a fun guy since he created Disneyland and all, but there were many other aspects of his personality and life we didn't know.  Some vocabulary words we studied in this unit were:  sychronized, optimist, urban legend (the legend that Disney froze his body--not true!), and convergence.  We looked at

Grade 1-3: Frederic Remington

Grades 1-3 are studying Frederic Remington, cowboy artist.  Remington grew up in New York City but idolized the wild west and actually went to live as a cowboy.  That life was not for him, but Remington produced true-to-the-west paintings and bronze sculptures   Our classes studied Remington's artistic style and tried it out first hand creating our own bronzed sculptures.

Click below to see more student sculptures

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: