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!

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!

Reindeer Art

These cute little reindeer are visiting our class right now!  Thanks to the generosity and artistic talent of Mr. Terry Morrow, 4th grade group 1 had the opportunity to have a painting class where he taught us how to paint a reindeer. I love how the personalities of the kids really came out even though they all had the same directions!  

We are fortunate that Courtney will share her grandfather with our class!

Please enjoy this slideshow of this class painting their version of a Christmas reindeer!  

Click below to view.

Trash to Treasure Ornaments

What could YOU make out of an old DVD?  Our GATE students are so creative!  I love their unique ideas!  I have been saving old DVDs that didn't work for years.  I KNEW there would be a good use for them!  We have recycled these old trash DVDs into works of art!

Each GATE student had two weeks to work with their families to create something unique.  Some are Christmas-y...some are funny....some decorative...I love each one of them!  Personalities of the students shine when they are able to create something with basically no rules!   The only rule for this project was to use the old DVD they were given.  They could add to it, cut it, paint it, glue on it...they did all of that and more!  Look at our colorful bulletin board outside our classroom!

If you look closely you will see a minion, fish, reindeer, and animals!

Check out the peppermint, dinosaur, decorative ornaments...and even a Christmas turkey!

4th grade slideshow

3rd grade slideshow

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!

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!

Video Christmas Card - We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

GATE students have been busily creating a creative video Christmas card for friends and families!  Each GATE student had a part in producing our video.  GATE students were seen last week with our Flip video camera all over the school...on the stage, in the library, in the lunchroom, on a school bus, running track, with our MacBooks, in the hall, in the office, at our AES Community Credit Union....even in the stairwell!  We used iMovie, GarageBand, iPhoto, our Flip video camera, a digital camera, and an electric keyboard to create this movie.  We hope that you will enjoy this video Christmas card and SHARE it with all your friends!  Merry Christmas!

Click here to enjoy our Christmas wish to you - We Wish You a Merry Christmas from AES GATE!