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1st Grade- Mar 31
1st Grade- Mar 31
This week the 1st graders learned all about natural resources management from Amy Goodrich, a GATE parent and natural resources specialist for the Bureau of Reclamation. She discussed invasive and endangered species, pros and cons or dams, and how scientists track and tag fish. The students got to explore different types of traps and tags first hand. Each student even got to have an orange scanned to see if it had a surprise PIT tag in it! After Amy left, the students learned the basics of fish anatomy, created their own diagram, and personalized it by coloring it to match a real Idaho trout species.
5th Grade - April 1
5th Grade - April 1
Today the 5th graders continued work on their Genius Hour projects. Most projects can see the finish line in sight! Students are expected to aim to finish their projects by the end of next class with the potential to make finishing touches the following week before presentations, peer feed back, and reflections/self-assessment.
We started today's class with an academic discourse section discussing progress on the projects and swapping strategies for project organization and finding the sweet spot of challenge and fun. Some students came to the realization that the best way to learn if you are overextending yourself on a project is to experience it and readjust. One conversation went something like this:
1: "I realized that I wanted to do way too much for the time we have allotted to this project. I wish someone had given me instructions that just told me what I was supposed to do."
2: "Yeah, but now YOU know how to do that better... If you were told exactly how to do it or told you couldn't do that much, you would never figure out what you can actually do."
Great stuff!
4th Grade - April 2
4th Grade - April 2
The 4th graders are nearing the end of their Hero's Journey projects! All students have workshopped their projects multiple times, and quick workers are finding ways to go above and beyond such as composing original music to accompany their stories!
Next week is the last week to work on them in class. That means, if your Lowell 4th grader is opting to attend Wagon's Ho! next Wednesday (which they totally should!), they may need to complete some Hero's Journey work outside of class.
3rd Grade - April 3
3rd Grade - April 3
This week the 3rd graders started by reviewing the key points of last week's work: light is made of photons, which move in a straight line while oscillating in a wave pattern; the frequency of the waves reflect the amount of energy that wave has; and only a small portion of light is visible.
Students then learned about a camera obscura (pinhole camera) and how it works by building a camera from a Pringles can and testing it. Students should be able to describe in words and/or a drawing why the image on the camera image plane is upside down. It is because light travels in a straight line and the light waves that travel through the pinhole hit the image plane at an angle opposite of its physical location. (demonstrated in the image to the right.)
Students then worked through light stations. Station one allowed students to experiment how different types of lights (laser, UV/black light flashlight, single-bulb halogen flashlight, and multi-bulb LED flashlight) interact with different types of items (colored plastic, mirrors, tin foil, sunglasses, magnifying lenses, water, etc). At the second station, students created shadowology art with classroom supplies. At the third station, students made window art that incorporated transparent, translucent, and opaque items to demonstrate their understanding of those vocabulary words.
IMG_0913.MOVIMG_0914.MOV2nd Grade - April 4
2nd Grade - April 4
Today almost all of the 2nd graders finished their agamographs and their end-of-unit reflection in their digital portfolios. The students who finished last week or completed their work today got a bonus latitude/longitude lesson and practice session. In the afternoon, the students learned the basics of making a Google Slideshow. Over the years, I found the best way to teach this is to first teach what NOT to do... So the students got a lesson about slideshow faux pas and get to try their hand at making the absolute worst slideshow possible... We're talking entire pages of text, busy backgrounds, eye-burning font and color choices... the works! This is a great way for them to "get it out of their system" and feel open to experiment with the capabilities of Slides. Now when we start using Slides to make academic slideshows next week, critiquing them for faux pas will make a lot more sense AND give us a chance to be silly as we critique and guffaw unsightly faux pas. Next week, students will start research for an Earth vs Mars slideshow to kick off our Mars habitation unit.
Donation Link & Amazon Wishlist
Donation Link & Amazon Wishlist
If you would like to help fund our tech needs, supplies for students, brain puzzles, etc, please click on the link below to donate to my Boise Foundation Account. You can also check out our Amazon Wishlist.
Secure quick link to the class Foundation Account donation page
Parent Lending Library
Parent Lending Library
The Boise School District has a Parent Lending Library to help educate, inform, and support parents as they raise gifted children. If you are looking for my information related to parenting gifted children, please reach out to Helga Frankenstein, GATE Supervisor, (helga.frankenstein@boiseschools.org) for more information.
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