INSPIRE ART 2012

Congratulations to 5 AES GATE students who were honored at a reception at Marshall Medical Center South last Thursday night, April 26th.  These 5 students were winners in the MMCS Inspire Art Contest.  Their artwork has been professionally matted and framed and will hang under gallery lighting in the Women's Center at MMCS for the next year.  If you visit the Women's Center, be sure to stop by to see this fabulous artwork.  Winning students brought home brightly colored ribbons for their awards.

Congratulations to Layla Bell for 2nd place, Cade Boman - 3rd place, Sydney Hollis - 5th place, Will Johnson - 6th place, and Jackson Mitchell for the Foundation Award and the Physicians' Award!  Great job!

Thank you, Sand Mountain Reporter!

Jonathan Stinson, the education reporter for The Sand Mountain Reporter, visited our class right before spring break.  He took pictures, talked to the students, and learned all about our regional technology competition that was held on March 2nd at Jacksonville State University.  (Please see an earlier entry to this blog to see all of our awards!)  If you missed Saturday's edition of the Sand Mountain Reporter, you will want to find a copy!  Our AES Technology Team was featured in an article that spanned 4 pages with 3 large photos!  I am so proud that these kids have gotten such great coverage for their technology efforts!  Our article was in the special "Community" insert in the Saturday, March 31st issue.  There is a copy of the article on my classroom door if you are at AES and would like to see it!  Congratulations, AES Tech Team!

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?!