INSPIRE 2012

Marshall Medical Center South sponsors an art contest celebrating Youth Art Month - YAM!  All GATE students created beautiful pieces of artwork using pastels, acrylic paint, watercolors, or colored pencils.  Each piece of art is unique and beautiful!  AES is allowed to send 15 pieces of art.  Congratulations to the 15 students whose art work was entered in the contest.  We should find out in April who the winners are. MMCS hosts a reception in honor of the kids' art work in April.  The MMCS contest is for students in the area served by MMCS.  Winning artwork will hang in the hospital for one year.  Enjoy this short slideshow of students and their artwork!

EGG-citing Lessons in GATE!

Pictures were 'larger than life' as the illustrations in The Talking Eggs  were projected using our Elmo document camera and Promethean board.  In class last week, the students listened to this story by Robert San Souci.  This folktale is from the South and depicts a mother and two sisters...one is evil and the other good.  It is along the lines of Cinderella in that one has to clean and cook while the other is a lady of leisure with the mother.  The illustrations are detailed and colorful, the language is fun and interesting, while the story teaches a lesson.

Students created several types of "beautiful eggs" from the story:  torn paper eggs, shaving cream swirled eggs, and blown out marbleized eggs.  The marbleized eggs are gorgeous!  Thank you all for blowing out the eggs at home and sending them to class.  I hope you will enjoy having these at home and I hope the students will always remember our story, creating the eggs, and our GATE class.

Students were asked to write "the moral of the story."  I was most impressed with their ideas and answers! These "morals" written by the students are hung on a bulletin board in the hall outside our classroom with our beautiful eggs.  I wanted to share a few of the quotes with you.  Below the quotes will be pictures from our GATE egg-citing lessons. Enjoy!

• "If you are nice and kind to people, you'll get something in return."  by Jonce
• "Do not be selfish, greedy, and mean, but be nice."  by Giovanny
• "Point of this story was that never want what other people have."  by Jose'
• "Treat others like you would want to be treated."  by Grace Anne
• "You only get out of life what you put into it."  by Isabella
• "The lesson of this story is to do what you're told." by Jordan
• "The lesson was be nice and obey and keep your promises." by Melodie
• "I think this story's lesson is that you always need to be thankful for what you get."  by Layken
• "The moral of this story is to always listen. Mostly to adults."  by Ebony

I think they get it!  Read the book and enjoy!

AES Tech Team = Success!

     I am so very proud of our AES Tech Team!  At the regional technology competition at Jacksonville State University on March 2nd, the manners of the AES students were THE BEST!  They all looked so professional as they presented their projects and were so polite and respectful of each other and to the judges.  Each of the projects we took was of high quality.  My goals for these projects were 

1.  To learn to do research, organize facts, put facts into their own words   

2.  Learn to use a computer application to create a project   

3.  Present the final product to a judge.  

     If I gave grades, each of my students  would get a 100 A+!  I could not be more pleased of their hard work, dedication, presentations, and manners!  All 1st and 2nd place winners will have the opportunity to compete at the state technology competition at Auburn University in Montgomery on May 5th.  

Please see our winners below!

Information Technology Test

    Honorable Mention – Amelia Palmer

General Applications Individual

      SILVER (2^nd place) – Josye Bowen (Albertville Museum Brochure)

Multimedia Individual

      BRONZE (3^rd) – Mahala Lowery (Greek Mythology Keynote)

Website Design Individual

      BRONZE (3^rd) – Anna Kate Wilkerson (Anna Kate’s Zoo Fun Website)

Video Production Individual

      GOLD (1^st) – Caitlyn Darnell (Foster Care Video)

      SILVER (2^nd) – Will Aycock (Muppets, Puppets, and Jim Henson video)

      BRONZE (3^rd) – Colten Lang (Chihuly:  Glass Artist video)

General Applications Group

      GOLD (1^st) – Emilie Adams, Ty Murphy, Sam Sheets (Winter the Dolphin Service Learning Project Ad Campaign)

Multimedia Group

    GOLD (1^st) – Amelia Palmer, Allora Barnes-Perkins (African Animals and Insects Enhanced Podcast)

Website Design Group

    GOLD (1^st) – TD Tharp, Drake Bearden, Todd Tinsley, Layken Peppers (9/11:  American Tragedy Website)

      SILVER (2^nd) – Layla Bell, Sarah Williams (Ancient Egypt website)

      BRONZE (3^rd) – Dawson Amos, Gavin Terrell, Caleb Logue (Snakes website)

Video Production Group

    GOLD (1^st) – Allora Barnes-Perkins, Caitlyn Darnell, Anna Kate Wilkerson, Emilie Adams (Cinderella Movie Trailer)

    SILVER (2^nd) – Kaiya Gregg, Melodie Hall (Firefighters Video)

      BRONZE (3^rd) – Emily Traylor, Ansley Free, Sydney Watts (Bullying:  It’s not right!)

Congratulations on a job well done!

AES Service Learning Project for Winter the Dolphin - a HUGE Success!

AES Family Movie Night was a huge success!  This service learning project began on New Year’s Eve as one 3rd grade student, Emilie Adams, watched the movie ¨Dolphin Tale¨.  She was so inspired by the true story of Winter the Dolphin, she quickly began to jot down ideas for a way that she knew AES could make a difference.

Emilie presented her idea to all the GATE (Gifted and Talented Enrichment) classes at AES.  The students loved the idea and wanted to help!  Ty Murphy and Sam Sheets wanted to join Emilie in her mission.  Together these three students presented their idea for a movie night to raise money for Winter the dolphin to Mrs. Mona Sheets, principal of AES.   The students wanted to ask superintendent, Dr. Ric Ayer for his approval.  After presenting their idea through a keynote presentation in the board room at the board of education, Dr. Ayer, Mrs. Joyce Bishop, and Mr. Tim Tidmore loved the idea and asked the students if they would present their proposal to the school board.   Ty, Emilie, and Sam presented their idea to the school board and about 40 guests at the board meeting.  The school board members voted unanimously in favor of their endeavor.   

The students designed the beginning idea for the t-shirt, chose dolphin necklaces to sell, planned how to pre-sell tickets, made a shopping list, bought the candy, ordered the pizza, asked for student, parent, and teacher volunteers, and worked at the movie night.  A movie license was purchased so that showing the movie would be “legal” without infringing on any copyright violations.  The movie was shown on a huge inflatable screen on the stage. It was great!  All AES students and families were invited to attend with GATE students and families sponsoring the event.  Thank you, GATE families, for selling concessions, cleaning up, setting up the lunchroom tables, and selling dolphin necklaces and tickets!  I treasure my GATE kids and families and I THANK YOU for your support and time to help with this event!!! 

Almost 300 tickets were pre-sold for our movie night!  Concessions were a big hit, too.  The lunchroom was “pleasantly crowded” with families and friends enjoying the inspiring story of Winter in the featured movie.  Students who purchased t-shirts wore them proudly!  With students, teachers, and parents pulling together for this worthy cause, our school is proud to announce that Albertville Elementary will be able to donate $1,300.00 to Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida!  

Never underestimate the power of a child.  Who knew that on New Year’s Eve a seed would be planted that would impact the hearts of so many children and one very special dolphin named Winter?!

Edgar Degas Study

Third grade GATE students recently read a book about Edgar Degas' Little Dancer.  Degas was an impressionist artist who loved painting dancers and horses.  He loved to show movement in his paintings.  This summer while in Boston, I visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.  I saw Degas' Little Dancer.  The sculpture I had read about so many times was amazing!  I shared photos of this sculpture with the students. We viewed many pictures of Degas' paintings.  The students and I discussed how you can see MOVEMENT in his paintings.

We talked about what other activities involve movement:  skiing, skating, dancing, soccer, fishing, etc.  Students used their creativity and problem solving skills to create a sculpture showing movement out of ALUMINUM FOIL!  It was challenging at times to decide how the foil pieces could be molded together...but the kids did it and the outcome is STUNNING!

Enjoy pictures of our latest art endeavor!

AES Service Learning Project - Winter the Dolphin

GATE students and families are hosting a school-wide AES service learning project!  Who knew that on New Year's Eve a service learning idea would come to be?  That is exactly what happened!  One of our 3rd grade GATE students saw the movie, Dolphin Tale, and was so inspired by the story of Winter the Dolphin that she knew AES students could make a difference.  True service learning is when the students have the idea and are passionate about making a difference.

When the idea of a service learning project was presented to each of the GATE classes, students actually CHEERED!  They were so excited!  Two students asked if they could join the planning committee.  These three students, Ty, Emilie, and Sam, took their idea to Mrs. Sheets who quickly approved the idea!  These students also met with Dr. Ayer, Mrs. Bishop, and Mr. Tidmore to seek their approval.  At the end of that meeting, they asked the students to present their idea to the school board members.  The vote was a unanimous, "YES!"

On Friday, February 24th, AES will host a Family Movie Night.  Tickets are being sold now through THIS FRIDAY for $2 each.  There will be a huge, inflatable screen on the stage in the lunchroom.  We encourage families to bring chairs, blankets, etc. to come watch Dolphin Tale with other AES families and friends.  The doors will open at 5:30 and the movie starts at 6:00.  There will be pizza, candy, popcorn, drinks, and dolphin necklaces for sale.  

All the money raised at AES Family Movie Night will go directly to Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida to "Adopt a Dolphin!"  Please make plans to bring your family for a night of fun and to make a difference!  If you are interested in volunteering for an hour that night, please contact Mrs. Adams. 

Meeting with Mrs. Bishop

Students with Dr. Ayer.

Students with Mr. Tidmore.

Be looking in the Sand Mountain Reporter this week (February 13-17) for an article about our movie night this week as well as look on www.sandmountainreporter.com for video clips!

Presenting the proposal in Mrs. Sheets office!

Kaden reads a book to his class about whales!  He wanted to share another non-fiction book about an ocean animal!  Thanks, Kaden!

Higher order thinking skills - Communication #1 and #3.

Jonathan Stinson from the Sand Mountain Reporter visited our GATE class to find out details about movie night!