Off to a great start!

Fourth grade GATE has begun!  It has been great to see all these "former 3rd grade students" who have grown up over the summer into my mature 4th grade GATE kiddos!  Our first class felt like a family reunion, catching up with what all happened this summer!  We have three groups of 4th grade GATE.

Do you have Instagram?  AES GATE does! We started posting on day 1 of class this year!  We will post one picture per class per day so that all our "Friends of GATE" can keep up with what's going on in class.  Look for aesgate on Instagram to find us!  Also, Miss Rogers' 3rd grade GATE class has an Instagram, too:  aesgate3.

GATE is going GLOBAL this year!  With Instagram being our first new step, we still will continue to update this blog AND we will be participating in TWO GLOBAL events!  Our first event is coming right up - September 15th is International Dot Day!  Please see the blog post that will be all about International Dot Day.  Our 2nd major event will be the Global Cardboard Challenge around October 9th.  I can't share any secrets about that day yet....but....if you want to watch the video on www.cainesarcade.com,  you might find a "HINT" about what we will be tackling in September/October.  

Later in the semester we will begin our research for our independent technology projects.  Students, be thinking of what topic you would like to research, if you would like to work alone or in a group, and what type of technology project you want to create (brochure, video, podcast, website, etc.)

We are busy at work already and have lots in store for GATE kids this year!  Welcome back to GATE!  It's going to be a great year!

It's a new year in GATE...welcome to 2015-2016!

Meet the GATE teachers of AES! This year we proudly announce that Albertville City School System has added a 3rd GATE teacher! YEA!  Left to right in the photo above you see Mrs. Lauren Thompson, GATE teacher at Evans for 5th and 6th grade gifted students, Mrs. Dianna Adams, GATE teacher for 4th grade gifted students at AES, and Miss Tracy Rogers, GATE teacher for 3rd grade students at AES.

The three of us are so excited to be working as a team to bring creative, challenging lessons and ideas to share with our gifted students!  Albertville gifted students may be creating inventions, participating in global events through the internet, learning to conduct research, creating high quality technology projects, entering art contests, learning about their own learning styles, researching about Africa, designing their own culture, viewing the world through Leonardo Da Vinci's eyes, participating in STEAM activities...you just never know where the creative minds of our students will take us.  We are a TEAM working together to challenge and inspire our gifted students...and we have a great time together planning our GATE adventures!

As I enter my 25th year in the classroom, I am so thankful to have co-workers like Mrs. Thompson and Miss Rogers to share in our gifted adventures!  Happy first day of school, everyone!

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!

Time Capsule Reunion - AHS graduates 2015

Congratulations to these GATE students who graduated last May!  On the morning of graduation, these seniors exited the AHS McCord Field at Aggie Stadium after their graduation practice to meet me on the corner to open the time capsules they created in 3rd grade!  Lots of laughter and comments like, "I remember this!" or "Look at us!  We were so little!" could be heard.  We had a great time looking at projects, old football programs, menus and sale papers with prices from "back in the day," pictures of the students, their handwriting, and art.  

I am super proud of each of these students and know that as they enter different colleges around our state, they will be a success at whatever they do!  They are bright, motivated, and have great personalities!  Best wishes to a fantastic group of grown up 3rd grade GATE students!

Recycled Bottle Cap Art

Friends and family of GATE have saved bottle caps for an art mural project for a year!  You may have wondered what the bottle caps were for or what the final product would look like.  We finished this week and it is beautiful!  There were many steps to this art project and the students were diligent to complete each step.  First of all they saved and saved and brought caps to school.  Then we had to sort and sort and sort to have them separated by color.

All GATE students drew out an idea for our mural.  Most of the ideas were of flowers, butterflies, and nature or an ocean scene.  We decided to combine many of the flowers in the kids' art to create our final mural.  It took lots of patience and hot glue to place the bottle caps in exactly the right spot....and I am proudly ready to present our bottle cap art mural for 2015!

This piece of art measures 45 inches tall and 93 inches wide!  It is hung outside Mrs. Sheets' office for all to see and enjoy.  Each GATE student had a part in sorting and gluing bottle caps to create our mural.  We have many bottle caps left, so in 2015-2016 school year, we will create the ocean mural that the students designed.  I can't wait!

Please enjoy this short slideshow of "the making of our mural."

AES State Tech Team comes home with trophies!

These students are WINNERS!!!  They are winners to me every day...but on April 25th, they proved themselves to be winners at the state level!  Nine AES tech team members traveled with their families to compete in the state technology competition.  They each represented our school with such class!  They were polite and professional in their conversations with the judges.  I was proud even before the awards program began!

I told the students before we left for competition that it was highly unlikely and probably impossible for all of us to win, but that if someone from our team won something, we would all be excited that our school had a winner.  They proved me wrong that day.  THEY ALL WON A PRIZE AT STATE!  That has never happened to an AES tech team!  Wow.  I knew their projects were great.  They knew their projects were great.  We are so thankful that they judges also recognized the exceptional quality of the hard work and effort these students used in created their tech projects.  What a great day!

Lily won 2nd place for her Keynote about Walt Disney.

Cameron won Honorable Mention for his Keynote about Barry Sanders.

Will  was also a team member, but was unable to attend competition...so Cameron won it for both of them!

Ainsley and Victor won 2nd place for their Video Production of "The Mad Scientists!"

Evan and Courtney won 2nd place for their website about the Titanic.

Ken won 2nd place for his website about Japan.

Ethan won 3rd place for his website about Dinosaurs.  

His friend, Brandon, helped create the website but was unable attend state, so Brandon won this for both of them!

Emilee's video about Franklin Delano Roosevelt won Honorable Mention!

And...my daughter, Emilie, won 1st place for her magazine called, Truly Emilie.  She is on the Evans Elementary Tech Team.

Congratulations to ALL of these kiddos!

Inspire Art Contest Reception

Several of our GATE artists were honored at the Marshall Medical Center Foundation Artist Reception in Boaz at MMC South on Thursday, April 30th.  Winning art work has been framed and will hang in the hospital for one year in the lobby of the Women's Center.  Artists were awarded ribbons and were treated to a reception with all kinds of yummy goodies.  Albertville City School System was well represented with students from Big Spring Lake, Albertville Primary, and Albertville Elementary!  Congratulations to all students!