Projects, Projects, Projects!

We are definitely back in the swing of things!  This week in gifted students were busy on a number of projects.

Inventor Projects (Tuesday & Thursday morning)

This week some of the students in the Tuesday morning class presented their finished projects.  Their classmates listened to the presentations, observed the projects, asked questions, and left feedback.  Each student was asked to leave a written comment on one thing the presenters did well with their project and one thing that could be improved.  We talked about providing helpful and meaningful comments.  The presenters did a very good job.

Chase, Zack and Charlie presented their diorama on the inventor of the parking meter, Carleton Cole Magee.  It was clear from their presentation that they learned quite a bit about Carleton Magee's life and what lead him to invent the parking meter!

Lyndsy did her project on James Dyson, the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.  Lyndsy chose to do her project as a radio interview.  You can listen to her radio interview below.




I look forward to future inventor project presentations, and I hope to post more of them here!

Pivot Stick Figure Animations

I mentioned last week that some of the classes have started creating animations using Pivot Stickfigure.  As of this week, all of the classes have spent time using this software and the students are picking it up very quickly!  The goal is to create animations of Rube Goldberg machines.  In the previous term we watched videos of quite a number of these intricate contraptions so the students have a lot of good ideas on which to base their animations.

Inventors' Workshop 

During part of each class a small group of students have worked on the Inventors' Workshop which is slowly taking shape.  Right now the focus is on a tunnel leading into the workshop.

MaKey MaKey Inventor Kits

We have 5 MaKey MaKey inventor kits and each week portion of each class will get to try them out.  The idea is that you can make anything into a computer key or mouse just with aligator clipping.  So far students have tried connecting playdough, moist sponges, a wire whisk, and people to the MaKey MaKey.

The Wrap Up

It's been a busy week!  We will continue to work on the projects mentioned above over the next few weeks.  Check back for more updates!