Seabury School challenges gifted children in a community that cherishes each individual and fosters a love of learning, discovery and creativity.




Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Our Holiday Poems

We have been using the Writing Process heavily as we published our first poem.  Please read their final drafts below!


I Hear Santa
Awake all night waiting for
Dear old Santa Claus.
He quickly fills my stocking and tree.
Whoosh!
He’s gone.
I swoosh down the stairs.
PRESENTS!!
By:  CW
 

Christmas Morning
I am coming downstairs in my warm pajamas
To open my brightly wrapped presents
I smell fresh baked cookies
It tickles my nose
I look in my stocking
I see something red and white,
It’s a candy cane!
I open my presents and it is a nerf gun
The pistols glow in the dark!
By: AS

Christmas
Blue ornaments hanging on the tree
Jingle bells jingling
Glittering lights hanging on the tree
And on my house
Santa is here!
By: AM
 

It’s Christmas in My House
I’m sleeping in my bed when I hear a sound
What can it be?
Is it a reindeer?  Yes! It is a reindeer.
A whole pack of them.
Then I hear a whoosh, it’s Santa!
He gives me a lot of presents.
They are cool.
I love Santa.
By: CH
 

When I Saw Santa Eating Something
Red and white minty smell tickles my nose
as I hear a cracking down below.
I run down the stairs to see who it is.
He has a red hat, a white long beard
and is carrying a bag of something.
Wrappers are spread out under the tree.
Hey!
It is Santa Claus eating a candy cane!
By: GH

Santa
I am Waiting for Santa
Can he be here?
I have to go see.
Santa eats my cookies and sipping milk.  His Jingle bells Sounds like Christmas.
He fills my Stocking and WHOOSH!
When I Wake up I Am Opening my Presents.
By: JT


Before the Night of Christmas
Sparkly colors on the tree
Very soft bell songs ring in the air
Tasty cookies fresh from the   oven
Hooray!
By  JL
 

The Night of Hanukkah
When I wake up in the morning
I see some presents colorfully wrapped.
And on that night
I smell yummy foods that make me excited.
So yummy I can’t resist!
I eat five or more.
I love Hanukkah!
By: LR
 

I See Santa
Sweet red and white candy hanging in my stocking
Candy crunching in my brother’s mouth
Red ribbons tied to my presents under the tree
And Santa munching cookies
Hooray!  Santa’s here!
By: TV


Best Day Ever!
Bright candles glow in the dark
A Boom! A Bam!
Colors fill the sky
The candles warm my chilly hands
Fresh Indian food makes me happy
Like awesome fireworks!
By VK




Relating Math to Science

Like scientists, mathematicians have questions that they want to find the answer to.  They propose a question, come up with a list of possible responses, then survey their audience by collecting data with tally marks.  We then make up a graph to communicate our results, using mode, median and mean to analyze what we found out.  This week, the students collected data about a packet of M&M's.  They sorted and classified, tallied and recorded, then showed their results in either a pie graph or bar graph.  We identified the mode in their graph (the number that occurs the most) and will be working on finding the median (middle number in the results), mean (average) and range (difference between least and most).



Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Budding Philanthropists!!

WE DID IT!!

The Sharks set a goal of collecting 500 food items.  In the end, we collected 713+ food items, weighing in at 703 pounds.  According to the IRS with food donations, 1 pound of food = $1.50.  Can your Shark figure out how much was donated in monetary value??  Thank you for supporting your Shark with the food drive, and special thank you's for Ellie, who supplied us with bins, and Jim, who helped deliver the food on Friday.



Thursday, November 17, 2011

Comparing the Past and the Present

Going to Pioneer Farms on Wednesday gave the Sharks an opportunity to experience life from over 100 years ago while interacting with tools, toys, food and animals of the era.  We were cold and wet, and worked in many dark buildings, since there was no electricity and running water back then.  Back in the classroom, I had the class work in small groups as they reflected on their experiences of our field trip, and compared them to their daily experiences of today.  I was very impressed with their responses.  Below is one group's chart and how they worked together.  I used a T-Chart to write down the different characteristics of each era.  The students then found similarities and differences from those characteristics.











Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Using Math in Real-Life Situations

When possible, I want the students to learn mathematical concepts in a real world setting.  This allows them to make connections between the classroom, and what they will be doing in life.  When the work is relevant, it engages them to want to learn more!  The student-led food drive has been such a huge success with the Sharks.  Everyday, they are anxious to collect, sort and graph daily totals.  The kids are keeping a variety of graphs.  One student today calculated her totals on my computer to keep track.  Below is a video of the students adding several large numbers together to find the total number of donations to date.

Here are some ways the Sharks are collecting and keeping data.  We noticed that there have been other graphs around the school that show a variety of different data.  The students have been keeping track of there food drive goal.


I continue to use math games as a way to motivate students to practice math skills.  I introduced a popular game, "Mrs. Van's Snack Shack."  This allows the students to act out eating in a restaurant, and begin learning how to make change.

Lastly, I encourage the Sharks everyday to look for patterns in math as they write mathematical equations.  Below, here is one example how CH has found a pattern in subtraction to reach the same difference.  These are fun to watch as they have been increasing significantly in difficulty as the year has progressed. 

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Student Led Learning at its Best!

There has been a lot of research to support that students learn best when the work is relevant and interesting to them.  This holds especially true to gifted students!  This whole trimester, the students have guided their own learning and it has led to some really cool experiences, like visiting a food bank and meeting a city mayor.  They have spearheaded their own community service project, with some students collecting donations from neighbors and friends!  Today, the Sharks were so excited to recieve new food donations (mind you the food drive has not officially started) that we spent close to an hour sorting, counting, graphing and goal setting!  My role is to facilitate their ideas and provide them with materials, and guide them through new skills, such as deciding how to show their data on the graph.  I can work more closely with individual students during this time and cater to their strengths and weaknesses.

Watch the video below and look for how the students are interacting with each other.  You'll see that everyone is doing a graph, talking about total quantity, sorting and classifying, one student offering help to another student, and one student explaining what has been collected.  Enjoy!



TV is calculating the seperate categories to find the total number of donated food.

Students graphing the sorted results of total food donated so far.

Whoa! Check out all this food!


Friday, November 4, 2011

Meeting the Mayor!

Through student-driven interests, I scheduled a meeting with the Mayor of Tacoma.  The Sharks had some great questions to ask, and the Mayor was excited to hear all of them.  Here are a few of their questions:
What is your favorite thing to do?
How do you make a law?
What is your favorite thing about your job?
How did you get to be Mayor?
Who do you work for?



After sharing their questions, we got to visit her office and see Tacoma from her rooftop garden.  Afterwards we had lunch at the middle school. 

Here are some of things your Sharks learned about being a Mayor:

GH: It was interesting.  She told us everything we asked.
AS: You have to ask a lot of people to make a law.
JL: Even Mayors have to obey rules.
LR: She has lots of lawyers to help her decide what we should do for the community.
VK: She had to ask for votes to become Mayor.
CH: Her favorite type of math was division.  She uses it in her job to pass out money.
CW: We learned that her favorite thing about her job was to meet other students.
JT: She has 9 city council members.  There job is to make new laws.
AM: She works for the people of Tacoma and has to live in Tacoma too.  There’s 200, 000 people in Tacoma.
TV: She forgets names of people because she meets a lot of people in her job.




Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Food Bank vs. Grocery Store

After many participated in the Hunger Walk last month, I was able to coordinate a trip to visit a local food bank to see how their donations were being used. I think that their impressions of a food bank prior to going have changed significantly. Back in the classroom today, the students worked in teams as they compared a food bank to a local grocery store using a Venn diagram. On Friday, the Sharks will share what they have learned at the all-school Gathering, and watch your email for an upcoming food drive led by your Sharks.
The "clean" version of our Venn Diagrams.  Each group created their own.

One group sharing their comparisons to the rest of the class.

Learning many interesting facts about this Food Bank

CW is helping shelf some "fun" food items.  Each family only gets ONE item from these shelves a week.

We noticed that many of the shelves look bare.  This food bank serves about 3000 people a month, and is able to spend $4900 to purchase food necessary to serve others. 

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Happy Halloween!!

Sending all of you a belated Happy Halloween from the Sharks.  Thank you to all the parents who were able to come and/or contribute in some way.  A special Thank You for Ellie who coordinated and led many of the activities in the room.  I love and appreciate everyone's support and participation!!











The Bean Bag competition is ON!

Who's the Mummy?

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

We are Tiny Alien Scientists...

...exploring foreign liquids and solids from Planet Earth.  We are investigating whether we can physically change each object while still keeping their properties.  Using a States of Matter curriculum tailored for gifted students, the Sharks had to use their senses to describe each object and record their data.  Afterwards, they "changed" each solid and liquid to make is smaller to determine if the properties of their object changed.  Using the scientific process, the students started with a question, gave their hypothesis, collected data and shared their results.



The next day, while cleaning our "alien" ship, Mrs. Van noticed that one of the mysterious substances (cornstarch) had water spilled on it and turned into "goop."  The Sharks really worked hard at deciding whether or not the mysterious goop was a solid or liquid.  Bottom line: The cornstarch does not mix well with the water, therefore, it begins to mix with the water giving it a "liquid" look, but as soon as it is touched, the cornstarch molecule clump up and turn the goop into a solid.  Watch to see how some students described it below:


Friday, October 21, 2011

We Know All About Eggs!

We continue to explore different types of communities, and how they impact our lives.  On Thursday, we went to Wilcox Farms in Roy, WA.  The students visited buildings that were over 100 years old and compared how life back then differed from today. Also, we walked through several buildings were eggs were cleaned, packed and ready to be shipped to our local grocery stores.  The strongest memory is the smell; chickens are not the sweetest smelling animals!!  I have some follow up lessons that we will do over the next week to see what other businesses provide us with goods and services, and the types of communities these businesses exist in (ie: rural, urban, suburban).

Unfortunately, I was unable to take any pictures inside the factories, but the students enjoyed exploring the old equipment and vehicles on the farm.
Making a delivery in the milk truck from the 1940's

The schoolhouse from 1905.  Many noticed spaces for ink and quills, and that the desks were all different sizes...

Does your Shark have any idea what this is??

Quote of the day: "I bet your jaw will drop when we get this thing moving!"