Each marking period, our school holds a PBIS Olympic Trials. These "trials" take place the last day of the marking period. Classes who have earned enough points by the end of the marking period are allowed to compete. Each trial also has it's own theme. Some of the past themes included Star Wars, Frozen, Weird Science, and this marking period's theme Super Mario! As part of the PBIS team, I have helped coordinate the games, as well as create short videos for the morning news to get the kids excited about the upcoming trials and rewarding their good behavior! Below are some of the past events, and this marking periods pep video! All Videos are uploaded as unlisted/private so that only those with links may view and to protect children's privacy. These are created with the intent to share with parents and other teachers only.
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Over the past several years I have had my students compete in the Stock Market Game. The game gives groups of students a pretend $100,000 to spend on stocks. The group who can increase their total equity by the end of 10 weeks wins the game. In the spring of 2012, and again in the spring of 2013, I have had groups when the Chatham county district. Currently this year I have a group in the top 10 in the district, and in the fall one group was in the top 5!
Over the past several days, our classroom had a visitor from the North Pole. One of Santa's elves visited our classroom, and provided some very useful writing practice for the students. Each night, our elf, Buster, had some exciting adventures. When the students arrived, they were asked to write about what they think Buster did while he was alone at the school. They were asked to choose from one of three point of views, the POV of themselves, of Buster, or of Santa. Students then blogged their writing on our Buster Blog to share their writing with others! Be sure to check out some of their writing here: http://bustersadventure.edublogs.org
I've always wanted to use Minecraft in the classroom. It's so popular with students, I wanted to tap into some of that excitement, and see if it would move into aspects of the curriculum. I decided to test it out with my 3rd graders Greek Mythology unit, and boy was I surprised by the results! Each student had to take a greek god, research their characteristics, symbols, and domains, and then create an area for them in our Minecraft world. Check out the results!
Google's CS First curriculum teaches students how to use computer science in various career fields such as animation, music, game design, and even athletics. I have used this program with my 5th grade gifted cluster, as well as 5th & 6th grade students at SCCPSS's Junior University. The CS First curriculum uses Scratch to manipulate and create computer code. Here are some of the projects my students have created.
This year I helped create Gould's first STEM team. The team worked each afternoon on various problems focused primarily around Science and Math. They competed in three events, Science Olympiad, Math 24, and Math 360. Many individuals placed in events at Science Olympiad, and one of our students won the Math 24 challenge! At Math 360, we had two teams compete, one team placed 3rd and the other team won the event!
Over the past two years, I have held school wide Hour of Code events at my school. The current 5th grade students have had these event twice now, and are getting better at working with computer code. Since I did not want to continue with the same activities, we decided to something a little different. This year the 5th grade student taught teachers, parents, and local VIPs how to code! Some of the guests included Magic Marc and the school superintendent Dr. Lockamy! WTOC even came out and featured the students on the news! This fall I had a blast coaching some awesome girls in the Girls on the Run Program. The program teaches girls how to cope with situations they encounter every day, how to believe in themselves, and how to stay healthy. It was definitely an experience I will treasure, and I am glad they allowed me to be a part of it, even if I am not a girl!
During the past two weeks, I have been hosting a modified version of March Madness. Students have been voting for their favorite fictional book characters, including completing their own brackets, and explaining why they feel it would end in this manner. Students have also been creating posters for their favorite book characters, and displaying them in the school to promote their favorite, and persuade others to vote. Students have created posters using the same template from Black History Month, as well as drawing, and creating posters at home on poster board.
It has been very exciting to see the students invest so much in voting for their favorites and cheering them on. It has been a very successful campaign to encourage reading. Voting is still going on (as we are now in the Elite Eight) for at least two more weeks! Be sure to check out the March Madness page on iGould to follow the results! Over the past two weeks, I have been working with a second grade teacher to recreate a song with her students. Her students had been working on a unit in her class called "What does the shape say?" It was based off the song The Fox by Ylvis where students learned about shapes in books and crafts based on foxes. Her students began trying to change the words to the song, and she had asked me to help rewrite and record the song. During one pullout session, I worked with her students to rewrite the words. Over the following week, the class practiced the song during math time. Today, I recorded the audio of the song with the students, and placed it over a karaoke version of the song. It turned out excellent! I am now working to possibly record a video with her students. They are making props in class, and hopefully we will get to record in the next two weeks!
Be sure to listen to the audio below! |
Jason SmithJason Smith is the 3rd & 4th Grade Gifted Facilitator at Gould Elementary. Archives
March 2017
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