Geek Olympics

We did the Geek Olympics! The activities were puzzles,cup stacking,tongue twisters, and Roman numeral addition relay.My city state was Cornith II. We came in second  with a silver medal on putting a puzzle together. The puzzle was completely painted red so it was harder to complete.

All city states had to march around the school. Everyones' togas were falling down. It was so funny! Each groups'  flags,oaths, and anthems were very creative. At the Olympics you are supposed to release doves. We did that all right! They were choclate doves and we realesed them into our mouths! They were so good!
                                                 
The Spartan group stayed in character and tried to cheat some. They didn't get very far with cheating though; everyone stayed on their tail. The Megara group stayed in character, too. They acted very proud and full of themselves. Someone from their group wore a feathered boa. The feathers were falling everywhere!

The Geek Olympic were a big success!

Chase B.

Funny Robbers,Cupcakes! And Geeky Preparations!

This week we did some acting.Sam and I teamed up to do a skit about a foolish robber and a clever one. We apparently robbed a haunted house and C.Jasper's ghost scared the heck out of the foolish robber, Marty. ( That was me. I thought of funny names; Marty for me and Steve for Samantha, so why not?)

 I also want to tell you  about some other things. First off today we had cupcakes. ( Thanks second graders!) The younger kids decorated them with dots for Dot Day and gave the leftovers to us. Even the wrapping was covered in dots!

The second thing is that  I want to add on to Chase B.'s article about the GeekOlympics.

I've done  many activites preparing for it! I have colored a vase showing a Olympic feat,made some funny goofy games, and I even used a laptop to look up info about the Olympiads to create trading cards.
Third,  the class did some research about the ancient Greeks and filled out a chart about it. Did you know  that ancient  Spartan babies were bathed in wine not water? Chase enjoyed that a lot, so I am sure she will give you a some more details.
Thanks for reading! Have a Great Geek Games!

Maya.A

Here Comes The Goofy Olympics:p

We are getting ready for the Geek Olympics. We had our choice of what we wanted to do out of ceartain activities based off of Ancient Greece Olympics and the modern day Olympics. For example I did something called Goofyolympics. Goofyolympics is where you think of your own events for your Olympics. Three of my favorites are stuffed animal lifting (instead of weights you lift stuffed animals), bubble popping, and trampoline jumping. I also made my own Olympic event. It's called Gymball Dive. You do a front walkover on a beam. As soon as you land you dive off the beam, hit a basketball into a hoop, and do a dive into the water.

Will you come to my National Park? We are currently working on a National Park project. We watched a video about Yellowstone National Park to understand the purpose of National Parks. Finally, we will put on skits for the Gifted Class next Thursday. You have to pick a random character, a random setting, and a random situation. I can't wait to see what happens. 
Chase B.

Thank You For Your Support

Thank you to those parents who sent in supplies for your student or our class.  Supplies can still be brought in next week.  Thank you also for helping with wish list items (No more soap, please – we are going to have the cleanest hands in Jacksonville :o)  M. Zeiler set up folders for students who brought in folders last Thursday and will set up folders as they come in. If you haven’t purchased a blue folder for your child, a plastic (green),  3-prong , 2-pocket folder will last the longest and allow us to attach important papers, but a cardboard 3-prong, 2-packet folder is acceptable as well. If your child has his/her folder from third grade gifted, that can be used this year as well (Ms. Zeiler will put in new papers).

Welcome To Thursday Gifted

It was great to see so many returning students and a few new faces as well.  Our fifth grade class is growing! In fact, our entire San Mateo gifted program is growing! 

The Olympics ended recently, so it seemed like the perfect "teachable moment" to have the students learn about Ancient Greece, the Ancient Olympics, and how they relate to the Olympics today.  We began with research about five ancient city-states.  We worked on a chart comparing all five:  Sparta, Athens, Corinth (these are the big three), Megara, and Argos.  During the next four weeks we will continue to do research and we will learn how to use a choice menu to select activities we'd like to do that also address our learning strengths.  All of this will prepare us for the Geek Olympics on week 6.  Our class will be divided into city-states. Since we are such a large class, Ms. Zeiler may create a couple new city-states to keep our city-state groups small so that everyone can participate in every event. We will have to create a flag, anthem, and oath for our city-state.  We will dress in togas, parade through the school waving our city-state flag and Ms. Zeiler will release at least one dove. Then the Geek Olympics will begin. Ms. Zeiler hasn't told us what the events are, but she promises they will be fun :o) The gold medal team will wear a laurel wreath, stand on the highest pedestal and listen to the whole class sing that country's anthem.  Silver and bronze winners will receive medals.

We learned how to do Deducibles today, a logic activity where we eliminated letters and used logic to determine words that could be spelled with the leftover letters.  We also did Stories With Holes. Ms. Zeiler or a student reads a short story that has missing information.  We ask 'yes' and 'no' questions to try and figure out the rest of the story. Here's one to think about: Mr. Fry is more excited about the down part of his life than he is about the up part. This is perfectly understandable.  Why?  Ms. Zeiler will ask this one next week.  You can get a head start by commenting on this post (yes and no questions only).  Here's a start:

Question:  Is Mr. Fry a cartoon?
Answer: No
Question:  Is Mr. Fry a pilot
Answer:    No
Question:  Does Mr. Fry work?
Answer:  Yes

We began work on a creative activity today.  Ms. Zeiler first did some "listing" with us.  In listing she gives us a topic and 75 seconds to write down everything related to that topic. The topics today were:  Things I Like To Do, Foods I  Like To Eat, and Things That Are Important To Me.  Then we used our answers to turn our names into letters that represent some of the things we listed.   Hopefully, we can post some of the completed pieces next week.