1st Grade Update: Stop Motion Movies

Our research on Thomas Edison led us into the fascinating world of early animation and some of the tools early animators used to create the illusion of movement and hence, "motion pictures." One of these early tools that Edison himself was inspired by was the thaumatrope. In a previous post, you can see that we made our own thaumatropes. 

A more advanced early animation and motion picture tool was the kinetescope. It passed a series of still pictures through a view finder and gave the illusion of a movie to those who watched. We learned that the more still pictures (frames) you pass per second, the more smooth and realistic the movie is.

We applied this same concept but with help from a little modern technology. The LEGO Movie app allows you to create stop motion animation in much the same way these early machines did. It was tough to learn from all of our mistakes in just one hour, but I was very impressed with what the students created in such a limited time! Their videos are below:

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3rd Grade Update: Hot Off the Presses!

Though it took some patience and some skilled hands, everyone has finished their kites! The back of each kite includes an executive summary of the famous event, including the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW of it all. Many have keys attached, and one student even brought in a mock Leyden jar just like the one Ben used to "trap" his electricity.

After the "enlightening" experience of the kite projects, we did go back into Ben's childhood and do a more traditional biography study.

We've studied his life so far right up to about his 40s, when he really made his mark as a printer of two major publications: 1) The Philadelphia Gazette newspaper and 2) Poor Richard's Almanac. Both had a major impact on the thinking and development of society in Ben's times and the sayings and wisdom of "Poor Richard" are still well-known today. We spent some time unpacking and decoding several of Poor Richard's gems, such as:

• Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.
• He that can have Patience, can have what he will.
• Diligence is the Mother of Good-Luck.
• Hear no ill of a Friend, nor speak any of an Enemy.
• A true Friend is the best Possession.

For the last few weeks we've been trying our own hand at publishing, working on a newspaper project in the computer lab. Each student is putting together a newspaper edition inspired by Ben Franklin with the following requirements:

• One funny article about life at your school written with a pseudonym (Like Silence Dogood!)
• One article with advice for other students
• A newspaper cartoon (you can copy from the internet but make sure you say where you got it)
• Three jokes and/or riddles throughout the paper
• An Almanac Page with:

1. Weather predictions
2. Wise sayings

We've also taken some time the last couple weeks to introduce/review some specialized deductive reasoning skills with logic grids. Some kids love them, some kids dread them. Either way, logical reasoning is an important piece of their thinking tool kit!

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1st Grade Update: From Light Bulbs to Motion Pictures

Since our opening unit on learning styles and multiple intelligences, we've covered LOTS of ground researching Edison and related inventions. 

We started with some traditional research using the text Thomas Edison and the Light Bulb and gathered our data into a class "big book."

One of our major research questions was to discover what material made the best filament inside the light bulb for it to last the longest. Originally, light bulbs used cotton thread for the filament. You can imagine the problem with that. After experimenting with THOUSANDS of different options, the best material Edison found for a long-lasting bulb was bamboo! Today, tungsten is the most favored material for a filament in a traditional light bulb.

We balanced out the analytical thinking required for our research with a creative challenge: design a light bulb of the future using LEGO pieces!

Next, we applied our growing knowledge of light bulbs by using the classic picture book The Important Book as a model to create our own "important pages" about the light bulb. We also illustrated and diagrammed the major parts of the light bulb to go along with it.

Then it was time to move beyond the light bulb and look at another project that Edison played a role in: the motion picture (AKA the movies!). We discussed the concept of persistence of vision that early animators used to explain how a series of still images could seem to move. Edison was fascinated during his life with one particular, very simple animation device called a thaumatrope. Here's a video with the instructions we used to make our own. The students learned by trial and error which methods worked best and created some very fun, animated scenes! 

Our next step is to take a technological leap but use the same basic methods to create a more complex movie. We'll be using a stop-motion movie maker app on the ipads. Our next update should be some movies for you to watch!

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3rd Grade Update: A Shocking Discovery!

In third grade we have the fortune of studying one of the most fascinating people in American history--Benjamin Franklin. Rather than a traditional biography study, though, we jumped right in with a survey of many of his incredible inventions and how they led to modern manifestations. For example, did you know that Benjamin Franklin invented the first odometer to track the mileage he put on his horse buggy when he was the post man of Philadelphia?

Then we honed in his most iconic discovery and the famous kite experiment. After studying the historical context and relevance of the experiment, we decided to build our own kites! A couple students have already finished. The rest will be finished up next week.

Parents, we will NOT be flying these in a lightning storm!

It was important for students to clarify that Franklin did not "discover" electricity. He proved that lightning was a form of electricity. That allowed him to then think about controlling it in order to protect tall buildings, and that is how the lightning rod was born.

As part of our literature connection, we are also reading the rather revealing alternative history of Benjamin Franklin's life as told by his mouse Amos in the book, Ben and Me by Robert Lawson. Turns out there's more to the story than anyone knew!

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1st Grade Update: 8 Kinds of Smart

What does it mean to be "gifted" at something? Does being gifted mean being smart at everything? These are some basic but very important questions we've been answering with some bibliotherapy (using literature as a self-learning tool) the first few weeks of 1st grade GT.

We used a series of wonderful books by the actor John Lithgow. Each book is centered on a character with a special, but specific, type of giftedness. For Farkle McBride it's musical talent. For Macawber it's artistic talent. And for Marsupial Sue it ends up being intrapersonal intelligence.

After reading and enjoying the journeys of these characters, we took our own inventory called "8 Kinds of Smart" based on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. After, we completed some reflection questions and graphed the results to get a visual of how our 8 types of smart compared.

Since this was a self-reflection, results may not have been completely accurate. However, the important thing was the process of reflection and the understanding that giftedness comes in many shapes and sizes.

We've now begun our study of inventors by researching the life of Thomas Edison. The challenge level will be high and we'll be looking to push our limits as first grade learners.

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Welcome to GT in 2013!

Dear Parents and Students,
I'm so excited about kicking this year off. As you can see from the title of our blog this year, the theme is "Inventors, Creators, Dreamers and Architects." At each grade level we will be focusing on something to do with that theme. For information on specific grade-levels, click the "Themes" button above and select the grade level you're curious about.

Another side theme that we will focus on in every grade level is "Word Play." These will be fun, quirky challenges and projects that will build our verbal intelligence, our vocabulary and most definitely our sense of humor.

We will start classes the week of September 9. Are you excited? Until then, please click around the blog and get familiar with how it's laid out. It will be a busy place for us this year.

Parents, consider subscribing to the blog by email (on right) to get a little update whenever a new post is up.

In the meantime, to get you inspired with a spirit of invention and dreaming, take (another) look at the amazing video: "A Day Made of Glass."

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