Meet our WINNERS!

The Mountain Valley Arts Council has announced the winners of the Christmas Card Contest.  AES GATE 4th graders won EVERY award in the 4th grade category!  Congratulations to these students!  A reception was held Friday night in their honor.  All entries will be on display during the whole month of December. Please drop by to view the children's art.  I am so proud of each of these students.  Kids' art makes me happy!

Congratulations, Roxie, on winning 1st place!!!!

Andrew was the winner of 2nd place!  Great job!

Congratulations to Emma for the 3rd place prize!

Honorable Mention was awarded to Kiley!

Dr. Bice listens to students in Alabama

 I am fortunate every day to be around creative, smart, interesting young students in my class!  Yesterday, I was fortunate to be around creative, smart, interesting OLDER students from around the state of Alabama.  Dr. Tommy Bice is our State Superintendent of Education.  I have heard him speak on several occasions at our Alabama Association for Gifted Children Conference and I think he is an intelligent, creative, "think outside the box" educator.  He has instigated the very first Student Advisory Council for Alabama.  Sixteen students from all over our state were selected through an application process to be a part of this committee.

I was amazed as each student presented well thought-out ideas and research they had conducted in their areas of the state.  Students brought ideas and issues that affect Alabama students.  Dr. Bice listened - I mean, REALLY listened - and commented on the ideas presented by each of the delegates.  As a teacher I was intrigued by their ideas.  I am so thankful I had the opportunity to be a "fly on the wall" to watch and listen.  These young people have been given a voice and Dr. Bice is a willing listener so that decisions can be made about what is best for our students in Alabama.

Dr. Tommy Bice with Anna Clay Adams
(Of course, I am a proud mom, too!)

Members of the Inaugural Superintendent's Student Advisory Council

I see this council as an important part of our Alabama State Department of Education and I can foresee my 4th grade gifted students on this council in the future!

Principals on the Loose!

     Once upon a time there was a class of 4th grade GATE students who were diligently working on productive thinking and problem solving to figure out a great mystery happening in our school.  ACS Child Nutrition Program director, Mrs. Connie Kennamer, brought to our attention that so many milk cartons go unopened and are wasted each day.  She is worried about the students missing out on the nutrients found in milk and the waste problem.  She wondered why students are not drinking their milk.  As we were actively participating in a productive thinking activity listing all kinds of ideas (maybe kids don't like milk, they might not like drinking out of a carton, maybe they play and talk too long and might not have enough time to drink the milk) and were really "into" our discussion, a funny thing happened.

All of a sudden Principal #1 (Mrs. Sheets) came into the class and said the magic words, "I have a creative idea!  Will you all help me see if it works?"  (Of course!!)

So our deep thinking about this milk epidemic was pushed to the side to help our principal in need. 

Suddenly, Principal #2 (Mr. Walker) entered the scene.  He wanted to check out our cool gadgets.  My students were HAPPY to help!  We demonstrated our robot buddy, Ollie, first.

Mr. Walker even got in on the fun by driving Ollie around the classroom!  A few kids were ready to share Osmo and all the fun apps you can use with the Osmo:  building words, creating tangrams, navigating a pinball type app...so fun!  Mr. Walker decided to try this one, too.

We didn't leave out Mrs. Sheets and Mrs. Lee...they got to check out our cool tech stuff, as well.   These students had a great time teaching the adults how to use our technology!

Then....just as the kids were having fun....the principals left.  

The students were so engaged in  were experimenting with the technology...they were excited...they were creating new things...was this in my lesson plan? No.  Not really.  I just didn't have the heart to say, "Please put up the cool stuff and let's get back to the milk problem."  So, for today we got a little off track...but look what great things happened as a result:

 

These girls used our Little Bits engineering pieces to create a face that would light up and the tongue would wag!  (When they asked me for a paper plate...I wondered why...just check this video out!)

These kids found the Makey Makey in a box and hooked up a FORK to use as the joystick to play a game on the computer!

Learning to connect the alligator clips to the Makey Makey!

Can you see the fork?  They hooked up the Makey Makey
and tapped on the fork instead of the space bar!  Cool!

Kids were spelling and working on math (tangrams) and practicing
engineering (Newton on Osmo)  - all while having fun!

This class started out using higher level thinking to try and solve a real world problem, but ended up creating, experimenting, exploring, collaborating, cooperating, giggling, talking, sharing, encouraging, and teaching.  I think all those skills will help us as we get back to our milk problem next week. Beware...the principals are on the loose!  They might just pop in and take your class on a different path and great things may happen!  We love having principals who care, love, and enjoy being with our students who also want to learn new things FROM our students!

Mountain Valley Arts Council Christmas Card Contest

Once again GATE students have used their creativity to paint, draw, or glue holiday masterpieces.  These mini works of art have been entered into the Mountain Valley Christmas Card Contest.  All of the students created magical holiday pieces that are happy and look great!  We are crossing our fingers that AES might have some winners in the contest!  If we do, I'll be sure to post that next week!

In the meantime, please enjoy this slideshow that 4th graders helped me create about their artwork.  It's a little long (about 5 minutes), but we hope you enjoy seeing the kids and their art!

Ho! Ho!  Ho!

LED Throwies Light up our World!

What can you do with a watch battery, a magnet, a little duct tape, and a LED light?  That's just what we used to make LED Throwies!  We have had a blast making these bright lights.  Each student attached the LED light to the watch battery and magnet with tape.  The students each have taken one LED Throwie home and we have been spreading a little Christmas cheer around the school!

This group of kids snuck into the hall between Mrs. Sheets' office Coach Walker's officeand put LED Throwies around the office window!  Mrs. Sheets was surprised!  We love Mrs. Sheets and Coach Walker and wish them both a Merry Christmas!

This sneaky group of kids put a Christmas tree of LED lights on the door of the Network Operating Systems room to show our tech guys how much we appreciate all they do to keep our technology up and running!  Merry Christmas to the tech gurus!

Even our Central Office staff can have fun throwing the LEDs!  We took a metal Christmas present to the office with many LED Throwies attached!  We hope they have fun throwing the lights!

It's Christmastime!

Celebrating an International Dot Day Christmas!  

All the GATE students in Albertville created DOT ornaments in honor of International Dot Day back in September.  This fun day of celebration was centered around Peter Reynolds' book, The Dot.

On the Friday before Thanksgiving, all three GATE teachers gathered at the Albertville Board of Education to decorate the tree using our creative DOTS!  (You might be able to tell from the picture that it was the last day of school before the Alabama vs. Auburn football game!)  The ornaments are made from different mediums:  watercolors, markers, glitter, "good junk", Zentangle designs, paint, and more!  We think the tree turned out well...so colorful!  AES GATE students also donated ornaments to the Marshall Medical Center South's Christmas tree in the Women's Center.

 I am fortunate to be able to work with these two ladies!  Mrs. Thompson is the GATE teacher at Evans and Miss Rogers is the 3rd grade GATE teacher.  We have a great time brainstorming, planning, and giggling together!