Mountain Valley Arts Council Christmas Card Contest

The Mountain Valley Arts Council has announced the winners of their annual Christmas Card Contest. Albertville Elementary GATE had FOUR winners!!!  All of the AES GATE students' artwork was happy, cute, and colorful!  I loved the festive cards our students created!

Winners were announced at a reception at the Mountain Valley Arts Council office in Guntersville on Friday, December 13th at 4:30 p.m.  Daniel Pall won 1st place in 4th grade, Julissa Benitez won 2nd place, and Canaan Jones was the 3rd place winner in 4th grade.

Congratulations to Kayle Sloan who won 2nd place in 3rd grade!

Two former AES GATE students won from Evans Elementary.  Sage McCann won 1st place and Emilie Adams won 2nd place.

Mrs. Santa and a few elves were on hand for pictures and fun!  Merry Christmas to all!

Paper People - I Have a Gift!

Each year gifted education teachers from around the state have a conference called the Gifted Teacher Share Fair.  At this year's Share Fair, a teacher shared a lesson about helping students understand what being gifted means.  Through this lesson, students explored what their gifts are, how they can use them to achieve great things, and how they use their gifts to help others.  Also in the lesson, students are reminded that nobody is perfect as well as recognizing that EVERYONE has a gift and is special.

Students learned to create paper doll chains which was great fun!  There are youtube videos that are great tutorials for learning to cut a paper doll chain.  Each student cut their own paper doll chain and decorated the front to look like themselves.  Inside each chain, there was a doll with five sentences:  I have a gift, Everyone is special, Nobody is perfect, I can use my gifts to achieve great things, and I can use my gifts to help others.  The last doll has the student's autograph and date while the remaining dolls held ideas of how the students can help others or use their gifts to achieve great things.

This lesson was a great way for students to look at themselves and decide to make a difference while analyzing what their own gifts might be.  Students will take home these paper people to decorate their Christmas trees.  For the trees at the board of education office and Marshall Medical Center South, we made tiny paper doll chains where each student wrote their name on one doll and decorated the next to look like themselves then asked a friend to do the same.  The ending product was a chain of all GATE friends holding hands!  I love it!

Merry Origami Christmas!

Merry Christmas from GATE!  GATE students at Albertville Elementary School and Evans Elementary School joined together to create a unique Christmas tree at the Albertville City Board of Education Office.  Students at Evans have been participating in the Great Mail Race by writing to students in different states.  Each of the Evans' 5th grade GATE students, created ornaments with state flags and birds.  Albertville Elementary GATE students made different types of origami ornaments to hang on the tree.  In GATE class, stations were set up so that "student experts" could teach other students how to create origami figures.  One of our ornaments were candy canes, fish, stockings, Santas, boxes, trees, elf shoes, wreaths, and stars.  Not only did students make ornaments to share with our board of education, they also shared ornaments with Marshall Medical Center South Women's Hospital.  If you are at MMCS, be sure to stop by the lobby of the Women's Center to see this beautiful tree!  Thank you to Harper McCreless and his mom for decorating this tree for us!

Third grade group 1 students had a treat last week!  Mrs. Makiko Jones came back to GATE and brought several friends with her.  We loved seeing Nami and Akemi again and enjoyed meeting Haruki, Kayo, Yuka, and Yukina!  Stations were set up around our GATE classroom and students rotated between the centers to create beautiful ornaments:  Santa, star, wreath, candy cane, and even a poinsettia.  Having these sweet friends in our classroom was so fun and each time they come we learn more about Japan.

Please enjoy this slideshow of 3rd grade GATE students created origami with our special guests.

Merry Christmas from GATE!

Alabama vs. Auburn...a Good Rivalry!

Students at AES participated in the Alabama vs. Auburn fun at school by bringing cans of food for people in our area who are in need.  As students brought their food, they chose to put it in the bins marked for ALABAMA or AUBURN.  We had a great amount of food donated by our 3rd and 4th graders at AES.  GATE 3rd graders counted, sorted, and stacked the food collected.  The winning team was announced at our Alabama vs. Auburn pep rally just before Thanksgiving.

The winner was......... ALABAMA!  Roll Tide!