INSPIRE Art Contest 2014

Each year Marshall Medical Centers celebrate Youth Art Month by sponsoring a student art contest.  The theme each year is INSPIRE.  G.A.T.E. students use higher order thinking skills to help guide them through this process.  They use PRODUCTIVE THINKING to think of all the many, varied, and unusual things they could paint or draw for this contest.  Our students are great productive thinkers and have many ideas to choose from.  Next, they use DECISION MAKING skills to decide which idea they will use and also which medium with which to create their art.  These thinking skills will help them in life -- now and as adults!

Students could choose watercolors, acrylic paints, pastels, colored pencils, markers, crayons, or torn paper collage.   AES G.A.T.E. students participated in this contest.  Our school is allowed to enter 15 pieces of art.  Judges had a hard time deciding which works of art would represent AES!  Congratulations to the following students:

4th grade

Jaylee O'Dell

Kinsley Little

Tristan Golden

Jensyn Seay

Kayla Romero

Olivia Wood

Adyson Brandon

Emma Currier

Marianna Aguilar

Daniel Pall

3rd grade

Evan Patterson 

Alex Watts

Lily Laverty

Ainsley Stephens

Courtney Morrow

Marshall Medical Center South will host a reception for winners of the overall contest in April.  We hope some of these students will be winners for this competition!  Winning artwork will be hung in a special gallery in the Women's Center of MMCS.  Check back soon to see a list of MMCS Foundation winners!

Please enjoy this slideshow of students creating their art!

WWII German Soldier (reenactor) Visits G.A.T.E.

Randy Brandon, a German WWII Reenactor (and also Adyson's dad), visited 4th grade G.A.T.E. a few weeks ago.  He has quite a collection of WWII German war uniforms, weapons, and other items a soldier might have used.  Mr. Brandon shared a little about WWI and WWII.  He spoke about the 4 branches of service and about political parties.

As part of his hobby, Mr. Brandon has learned to speak German and even has a soldier's wallet for his reenactment adventures.  He is known as Randolph Brandt in his reenactments and holds the rank of Unteroffizier.  He brought different uniforms made from different types of fabrics that were indicative of the material used at different times and also the temperature of the places they were worn.  We learned that there were different types of camouflage with different patterns.

Probably one of the students' favorite things he brought was a machine gun (non-firing, of course!).  Other accessories he brought were binoculars, a canteen, a bread bag, map carrier, compass, and dark goggles.

To see more of the items Mr. Brandon brought, please watch this slideshow.  Thank you, Mr. Brandon, for sharing your Friday afternoon with 4th grade G.A.T.E. students. We ALL learned more about history and WWII that day!