Thursday, September 30, 2021

 5th Grade - These students started class by drawing self portraits using only straight lines. Some of these students will have a future in art. The social/emotional lessons or affective lessons this year will center around leadership skills. Today we laid the foundation for proper discussion and brainstormed words people think of when they hear "leadership" or "leaders." After building our trees last week, we  discussed what we learned from our building and the Engineering Design Process. Students then compared and contrasted two books about trees: The Giving Tree and A Tree Named Steve. They then developed similies and metaphors comparing themselves to a tree.

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

 4th Grade - These students started class by drawing self portraits using only straight lines. Some of these students will have a future in art. The social/emotional lessons or affective lessons this year will center around the common complaints of gifted students. Today we laid the foundation for proper discussion. Students also completed a Gifted Student Questionnaire which will help guide our discussions. Finally, students built their "trees." Next week we will discuss what we learned from our building and the Engineering Design Process.

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

 3rd Grade - These students started their learning with a Loosen Up drawing. The drawing was to be a self portrait using only straight lines to draw. Students were introduced to the Take 5 program which focuses on the five traits of competent/successful kids. We will spend a week learning each trait. We then took our weekly trip to Crystal Pond Woods where students learned to solve a variety of Convergent Thinking puzzles. The final activity was to build their "tree" from the design they had developed last week.

Monday, September 27, 2021

 2nd Grade - Students drew "Straight Faces" or self portraits using only straight lines for the warm up activity. The affective thinking lesson focused on the understanding that everyone is gifted in GATE, but we are gifted in different things. We started traveling to Crystal Pond Woods this week. Today we learned how to use a logic elimination grid to solve problems. For the Rooten In Wisdom activity, students completed building their trees. We checked to see if they met the criteria, evaluated our building, and drew designs for improving our tree.

The second week of GATE 2021-22 school year

 I do apologize for the delay in getting this information to you. The past two weeks have pretty much seen all grade levels doing the same thing as we get reacquainted or introduced to each other. Over the next couple of weeks I will begin branching out and each grade level will have their own activities.

For this week:

Students played the game of SET together online for the warm up activity. Students can find more SET puzzles to do in Canvas. Last week each student completed a True Colors (personality) Inventory. This week I explained what those colors meant. A similar activity was completed this week as students completed a Multiple Intelligence inventory.  The multiple intelligence inventory shares with me a student's preference of learning style. Many students want to know how they got to come to GATE or why they come to GATE. I presented a slide show to them sharing answers to those questions. Our theme this year is Rooted in Wisdom. Students are working through the Engineering Design Process to build a "tree" that can hold 4 "birds" (marbles) as part of our theme focus.

Have a great weekend.