Best wishes as my former 4th graders "fly away!"

Last year was filled with so many happy moments...lots of art, technology competitions, art contests, tech gadgets like Ollie and Sphero, creativity, great thinking minds, and memories galore!  Our essential concept was DIFFERENCES with our theme being "Celebrating our Differences."  We did just that!  Our good friends from Japan visited our class to make sushi - so much fun - and we learned to make origami Christmas ornaments.  We learned about similarities and differences between our culture and others.  Our sweet friend and Ken's mom, Makiko Jones, made a mobile of origami cranes - one for each of the 4th grade students who will "fly away to Evans Elementary" this year. This piece of art is beautiful, colorful, and a true gift of friendship.  Thank you, Makiko, for all that  you have done to enrich the lives of my students!   I wish these special students well on their adventure in 5th grade at Evans.

Makiko holding the mobile of colorful paper cranes.  Beautiful!

Origami Class

Monday, December 8th was another great day in GATE!  Our special friends came back to class to share more about their country of Japan.  Makiko, Nami, Sanae, and Akemi shared with students the secrets to folding paper into beautiful shapes.

Our 3rd grade GATE students folded Santa Stars, Wreaths, and Candy Canes just in time for the holidays.  Students were engaged with this hands on listening and learning lesson to create such beautiful ornaments.  They were so excited to take them home the same day to share with their families.  I hope each of these ornaments will find a special place on each Christmas tree and will be a wonderful reminder of these ladies and our GATE class.

The picture at the top of the post is showcasing our Santa Stars!  The photo below shows our colorful wreaths.

Akemi Suzuki is an official Kimono Master. She studied for 18 months to become a Kimono Master.  She brought a beautiful Japanese Kimono for me to wear in class on Monday.  There is a specific process to putting on a Kimono.  She even brought the special socks to wear with sandals and brought beautiful gold sandals and a purse, too!  Thank you, Akemi, for bringing your kimono to class. I loved it!

Please enjoy this slideshow of our 3rd grade GATE students making origami ornaments.  Click below to play the video.

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!

A Little Y.A.M. Help ...

Albertville Primary School celebrated Y.A.M. (Youth Art Month) with a study of BIRDS!  Students learned about art and different types of birds through Mrs. Hall's art class.  Second grade teacher, Mrs. Cochran, asked for a little help from two of our 3rd grade G.A.T.E. students.  She invited her former 2nd grade students, Brady and Harper, to come to her class to help with the celebration.  

Harper and his parents brought three of their hens to share with the 2nd graders, then Harper's parents brought them to our class (3rd grade group 1).  It was so interesting to see the different types and hear about how they take care of them!  

Harper's parents even brought eggs for me!  They were all different sizes and colors!  Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. McCreless, for sharing with our class!

Brady shared his origami talent with Mrs. Cochran's class.  Brady is the KING of Origami!  He taught the 2nd graders how to fold paper to make a bird!  In this picture, Brady is using a document camera to show the class the different folds.

Brady helped the class create origami birds to celebrate Y.A.M.!  I am proud of these boys for being great role models for younger students at our school!