Our 5th grade GT students conducted hands-on experiments to learn about the forces of flight. They conducted hands-on experiments to learn about drag, thrust, lift, weight/gravity, and Bernoulli's Principle of air pressure.

Our 5th grade GT students tasked with designing a paper airplane, which could travel the farthest. Each student made two paper airplanes, one dart and one of their choice. They explored foldnfly.com awesome designs to select a plane to make. They then competed to see which airplane flew the farthest!

Our 5th graders learned about the Engineering Process: Problem, Research, Plan, Construct, Test, & Communicate. They learned what it meant to design and re-design. The process is not one of failure. It is one of discovery! The students created a glider out of trash bags, straws and a few other materials utilizing the four principles of flight and information about gliders and airplanes from pervious weeks. They were able to test their gliders and redesign and build as needed. They then competed to see which glider flew the farthest and stayed aloft the longest!

Our 6th graders immersed themselves in learning about Ancient Egypt. They began by making papyrus like the Ancient Egyptians did! The papyrus plant is harder to come by these days, but they were able to get an idea of the process they used with paper from a brown paper bag and some glue. They then decorated their papyrus by painting hieroglyphics on them.

The Ancient Egyptian pyramids are one of the most magnificent man-made structures created throughout history. Using the toothpicks and mini marshmallows, students must design either a freestanding square or rectangular pyramid. The goal of the challenge is to design the tallest pyramid in the shortest amount of time.

Next, our 6th grade GT classes learned about Egyptian mummification and the sarcophagus. They worked in teams to create a 3-D sarcophagus. They did an awesome job creating their sarcophagus'!

Students concluded our study on Ancient Egypt by completing a project of their choice. Many students created an Egyptian amulet which provided protection for safe traveling, some chose to create a soul house, a house for their soul to be in the land of Forever. A few students selected to create a death mask similar to King Tut's. While other students elected to create their own Egyptian god and create a short story about their god/goddess. Several of their projects are on display in the Nichols library.

You will find more pictures, a class blog for each grade level, unit resources, links with activities each of the core subjects and interesting topics, plus much, much more!

Nichols GT Specialist

4th Grade GT Specialist at Fred Douglas, Joe Wright, & West Side

Nichols UIL Coordinator

Email: april.cagle@jisd.org
Website: mrscaglesgtclass.com
Location: 818 Texas 456 Loop, Jacksonville, TX, USA
Phone: 903-541-0213