Our 4th grade GT students at ES completed a Lego challenge using the four Carnival themed sets provided by grants through the Jacksonville Education Foundation. In all, 24 students worked over a period of 8 GT pull-out periods to complete this highly engaging and exciting hands-on experience (over 3,000 pieces to assemble). All levels of critical thinking were reached as students collaborated to accomplish this task. Mrs. Farmer was on campus recently and met with some of the students to view the completed sets and hear from them about their experiences.
We so appreciate J.E.F. and all of the contributions made to benefit our students! We are blessed!
After learning the world-wide history of scarecrows, students participated in several activities culminating with Jacksonville's Scarecrow Trail event. First graders reenacted the sequence of events in a scarecrow story. Second graders used various shapes of pasta to engineer the frame of a scarecrow. After deciding on a Sesquicentennial theme, third graders constructed two scarecrow frames out of PVC pipes/connectors and dressed it for display.
Jacksonville's SQ Celebration was a wonderful experience for our GT students and their families! We have studied and discussed the history of our great town and students realize they play an important role in the future of our community!
In preparation for the Storybook Character Parade, students used critical thinking skills to compare and contrast various Cinderella stories from cultures around the world. They went on to imagine and create new characters for a modern day story line.
Students experienced sitting around a "campfire" and sharing stories (fact and fiction) as a part of discovering how information has been passed down through the centuries and across the globe. How stories are recorded and retold are other important factors. One creative way that students practiced this was through the use of tangrams like in the book, Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert.
Students of all ages enjoyed meeting Christmas challenges: How to Catch and Elf and Escaping Santa's Workshop. Solving math problems, sequencing numbers, breaking alphabetic codes, and planning and designing elf traps were apart of the fun challenges!
