Governor's Wife Visits AES GATE!

Many students at AES had quite a treat today!  Mrs. Dianne Bentley, the First Lady of Alabama, visited Albertville Elementary School.  We are so glad Mrs. Bentley had a few minutes to visit with GATE students!  Mrs. Bentley is no stranger to Albertville.  Governor Bentley's sister, Marjorie Nolan, lived in Albertville.  In fact, she was my neighbor when I was a little girl.  I even took art lessons from Mrs. Nolan!  Last spring GATE students created watercolor dogwood pictures inspired by Mrs. Nolan's watercolors.

While at AES, Mrs. Bentley read to 4th grade Pod 4 students in the media center.  Mrs. Bentley was accompanied by her assistant, Heather Hannah, and two security guards.  Miss Hannah was a gifted student in Albertville many years ago.  (My mother was her gifted teacher!)  The staff was very cooperative in letting us have a photo of the team!

Gifted Education usually does not receive state funding.  Last year was the first time in a long time that gifted has had a line in the budget.  School systems and gifted education teachers are so thankful for this  funding the past two years!  We have been able to add new technology to continue to offer the latest and best to our students, we have been fortunate to purchase art supplies and other curriculum needs for the classroom, and attend quality professional development in order to bring best practices into our classroom.  I was able to give Mrs. Bentley a note of thanks to take home to the Governor and also express my thanks to her of his support of gifted education.  What a way to celebrate!  January is Gifted Education Month!

Thank you to Mrs. Bentley, Miss Hannah, and her team for stopping by AES and especially for her time spent in our GATE class!

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!

Celebrating our Japanese Friends!

Today was a special day for the 3rd grade GATE students!  Makiko Jones (3rd grader, Ken's mom) and her two friends, Akemi Suzuki and Nami Hamai visited our class this morning.  These ladies were so interesting!  Last week our 3rd graders wrote a list of questions that they wanted to know about Japan.  I sent these to Mrs. Jones in an email.  Today, she addressed each of the questions for the students.

Our students wanted to know about the popular sports in Japan (Sumo wrestling and baseball).  They also wanted to know about Japanese food and if they use chopsticks (the answer is yes!).  She also shared with the students that traditional houses in Japan are wooden, but there are also apartments made of concrete and steel.  She brought yen, Japanese money, for the students to see.  The students asked questions about the language, schools, government, time zones, travel, and holidays.  Mrs. Jones and her son, Ken, answered all of our questions...and more!

Akemi Suzuki is a certified Kimono master.  She studied a year and a half to become a Kimono Master!  She and Nami let EVERY student (and me!) try on a Kimono if they wanted.  It was an exciting morning with lots of great pictures!

Our essential concept this year is Celebrating our Differences...meaning that we all are different in some aspect and together we can learn to appreciate our similarities and our differences while learning more about other places in the world making us more accepting of others.  I am so appreciative of these three sweet ladies who gave their morning to my students.  I know that we will always remember all the things we learned about Japan today.  Thank you, sweet Japanese friends!

Mrs. Lakur Yu, our AES Chinese Enrichment teacher, will be speaking to 4th graders soon.  Our 3rd graders will be creating "Paper Blogs" about Japan to share with 4th graders and the 4th graders will create "Paper Blogs" about China to share with 3rd graders.  Students will learn the basic of "blogging" safely, learn to be responsible "digital citizens" learning to post comments, and the best part...learn about China and Japan!

Please enjoy this slideshow of our 3rd graders!

Christmas Card Contest 2013

The Mountain Valley Arts Council is sponsoring a Christmas Card Contest for elementary students in Marshall County.  Students are to create a Christmas card on 8.5 x 11 inch paper.  Fourth grade GATE students created these cards today in class and 3rd graders will design these tomorrow.  Students had a choice of designing their card using torn paper, collage (cut and paste), markers/crayons for drawing, or pastels.  They each are unique and beautiful!  We enjoyed a little Christmas music while we decorated!

Enjoy this slideshow of 4th graders and their cards!  All of the 4th graders with their cards are included in this short slideshow.  Ho! Ho! Ho!

(I am having technical difficulties with the slideshow...please check back soon.  Thank you!)

Please enjoy this slideshow of 3rd graders and their cards.  Merry Christmas!