K/1 Goes Green!

Wordle - k/1 goes green (click on the link to see our "word cloud")

Our new Book of the Month When Santa Turned Green by Victoria Perla inspired us to brainstorm ways that we could help save the planet. The author wrote this book to teach her own children about global warming in a non-scary way. She wanted to show them that they could make a big impact just by making lots of little changes. Each of us made our own list of ways that we could help and then we used Wordle to create a word cloud. As you can tell the biggest thing we can do is to recycle! Check out this list off more ways you can "go green."

It Looked Like Spilt Milk...

The 7 Habits of Happy Kids

Today we read a book called The 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey. The 7 Habits are based on principles such as responsibilty, vision, respect, teamwork, and balance. Today we met the kids of 7 Oaks- Goob Bear, Lilly Skunk, Sophie Squirrel, Sammy Squirrel, Pokey Porcupine,Jumper Rabbit, and Tagalong Allie. We also heard a story about Sammy the Squirrel who was "Bored, Bored, Bored." We learned the 1st habit-Be Proactive, in other words you're in charge. We taked about being responsible for our own lives, for our own fun and boredom, our own learning, and for our own happiness or unhappiness. We can't wait to read more and learn the other 6 Habits!

Of course, we could not let this important Election Day go by without talking about the elections, past presidents and how important it is to vote. We did an activity called President for a Day and found out what a typical day might be like for the president.

See you next week!

T is for Think

Every Tuesday morning when we come to gifted we start our day with writing our agenda and then we put our "thinking hats" on to complete a Tin Man Press Activity from "T is for Think." "T is for Think" presents students with a variety of visual information, combined with words, and asks that they think analytically and flexibly about what they are seeing and reading. The students must look at the letter and how it had been changed or what it is doing and think about an answer that begins with that same letter. Visual information and word relationships are important in finding the answers. This kind of activity falls under the "Critical Appreciation" domain of our gifted curriculum. Critical Appreciation includes creative problem solving as well as critical thinking skills. In gifted...L is for Learning and F is for FUN!!!

Bonjour Ami!

Bonjour from Paris, France! Today we visited the Eiffel Tower, the most famous landmark in France. The Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889 by an architect named Gustave Eiffel. It was originally built for an exhibition as part of a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The Eiffel Tower stands over 900 ft tall! Did you know that you can eat and shop in the Eiffel Tower? We became architects today and built mini Eiffel Towers out of toothpicks. We also looked at more of Claude Monet's artwork and painted a scene of our favorite season. We had a blast in France. Next week we are staying in the classroom to learn about bats. WHo knows maybe our next trip will be to a bat cave? See you next week!
Ton ami(your friend),
Mrs. Skipper

Bienvenue a la France

Welcome to France! Today we packed our passports and headed for France. We started by talking about what we know and what we want to learn about France. We spilt into partner groups and started researching facts to add to our France Journals. Here are a few things we learned: Paris is the capital city of France. There is a railroad that goes under the sea that connects to Great Brittian. France is the largest country in Western Europe. There is lots of traffic in the city of Paris. There is a game that is like hopscotch called Escargot(named after the famous french food!) It is 3,833 miles from Washington,DC to Paris it would take 7 hours and 25 minutes to get there on an airplane!

We started learning our numbers in French.

Later we "Met Monet" and looked at some of his beatiful paintings. We imitated his Impressionist sytle and painted our own scenes.

It was a great day in gifted!

Check out this cool website that we found last week: http://www.storylineonline.net/ One of our favorites is How Pigasso Met Mootisse!

Mrs. Skipper's Gifted

Dear pairints,
today we practist for the musical. We made tangrams which are aincent Chinese puzzles. We painted picassos with all one color. We felt different things in a bag using one of our senses. We went to China. We wrote on C is for...
Julianna and Julia A

You can visit http://pbskids.org/sagwa/games/tangrams/ and try to complete these tangram puzzles.

Picassos

Today in gifted we learned a little bit about Pablo Picasso. We

looked at many of his works of art and discovered that he changed his style several times over the course of his life.

We discussed the elements of line, color, and shape and how he used them in one famous piece. After looking at Petite Fleurs we recreted it in our own unique way. We are budding artists!

Our Special Day at Gifted

We had fun. We learned about music and we learned about a new artist.
Ryan

About GIfted

it was very very fun you to rigth about the whole class room

ishaan

Our First Day at Gifted with Mrs. Skipper

Today in gifted we had so much fun! We made an all about me poster. We learned about an artist named Jackson Pollock(Action Jackson.) We painted, splatered, dripped, and dropped just like him. You can create a painting like Jackson Pollock at www.JacksonPollock.org (click on the link to check it out!) In Science lab we did an experiment called Color Splash, it was awesome! We played a game called Dictionary Discovery and Whiz kids. Make sure you check out our blog every week to see what we did in gifted!
Thanks!
Mrs. Skipper's 1st graders

Some of our favorite things:
-The artist's corner
-Are you thinking?
-Color Splash!
-Crazy painting
-Dictionary Discovery
-Getting our hands dirty in art
-All about me posters
-I don't know....

Welcome Back!

Dear Students,
I am so excited that our school year is about to begin! Our journey this year will take us around the world in 180 days. Together, in gifted, we will virtually explore our world and have lots of fun along the way. In preparing for our journey I would love to know where you want to go. If you could learn more about our world or travel anywhere, where would that be?? Please click on "comment" below and tell me your answer!

Your travel guide,
Mrs. Skipper