Week 7

We had a fantastic start to our week with Grace and Isaac sharing some fantastic creations during HEADSPACE.

On Tuesday Isaac shared some clay figures he had made which he is hoping to develop for his claymation. He is goingto develop one of these ideas further for his final claymation animation. We were all impressed with the detail and we all had our own opinions as to which character we thought he should develop.













Grace has been working on her aquaduct for several months and finally it is finished! She based her design on an aquaduct in France (she thinks it is Paris) As a class we had a great discussion on the use and history of aquaducts. Grace shared with us what she had learnt and how she made it. She let us in on a little secret....she made it look old by using coffee!! Well done Grace, and thanks for sharing your passion with us.












The Habits of Mind

The Habits of Mind are are a collection of 16 thinking dispositions identified by Professor Art Costa. Costa defined the Habits of Mind as the dispositions skillfully and mindfully displayed by characteristically intelligent people when confronted with problems the solution to which are not immediately apparent - The Art Costa Centra for Thinking

At GKP and ODC we use The Habits of Mind alot. Today we had a puzzle to solve. For some of us, who have been at ODC for a while, this was fairly easy (although we still had to think about it!) and for those who are new, we had to use our best deduction and inferring skills to work the answers out. We had a habit picture, name and definition that we had to match them up.....no easy task!










Lots of discussion took place. At the debriefing at the end, we discussed which habits we used while completing this activity....since that's what The Habits of Mind are all about!! We used some or all of these; Applying Past Knowledge, Persistance and Thinking Interdependently to solve the problem we were faced with. We then discussed with Habits we thought we were good at and which ones we didn't really understand or wanted to know more about. The habits of Mind will be taught explicitly each week.....as well as practised....sometimes without knowing it!

Our temperament research is all completed and the children have begun their visual presentations. Some have decided to combine their temperament work with their Day they Were Born work, and that is fine.

Poems were put on hold this week (we ran out of time basically!) so we will get back in to these next week.


TALENT TIME...our favourite time of day!


Niamh and her 'Ugly Creature' in the making










The girls putting the final pieces together on their 'Great Shakespeare Fact Find'






Taine working with his buddy Isaac on claymation.









DISCOVERY

Our activity this afternoon was to look at different discoveries and then catagorise them according to which field we thought they belonged to. (If you click on the pictures you will get a larger version one whcih you can read!)













Lots of thinking was done, and yes, we really did need to think about it. Some where more obvious than others,and some weren't. This made for interesting discussion at the end of the day.

Tuesday Wednesday Weeks 5 and 6

We have been looking at creative thinking over the past few weeks...it's always a fun one to start with!!......We used Tony Ryan's THINKERS KEYS to help us think creatively with a focus on flexibility and fluency.

Our task was to come up 3 different ways we could;
Brush our teeth with the use of a toothbrush and then eating dinner without the use of utensils.

Hmmm, lots of weird and wonderful ideas were suggested including using corn kernels to brush your teeth and a flying machine that deposited food directly into your mouth! I remember also the mention of mice fur???

I introduced 'Headspace' to the classes this week. Headspace is a time when the children (and I) can share things we have read, watched, listened to...basically anything we have discovered....over the week. Sometimes gifted kids don't feel comfortable sharing things they have discovered with their regular class and friends because it may be beyond their peers' understanding. 'Headspace' is a time where they can share with a group of like minds. Last week I shared with them a new theory on the Bubonic Plague 'Black Death' from the 14th century. This week Isaac shared a stop animation he found on the internet as part of his research on claymation. Check it out. It is very clever!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKWdSCt4jGE

We are all busy writing our Like A poems and most of us have now discovered our temperaments. There seems to be a huge amount of Artisians!! The childrfen are now reading up on other people aroiund the world who have the sme temperament as them. The next stage is to work out which Hogwarts house they would be in and which character out of The Wizard of Oz they are.

Here are a couple of photos with their language tutors Betty (Tuesday - Mandarin) and Jcaqui (Wednesday - Spanish)

Both classes are learning songs.







****Tried to upload Wednesday's video, but it is toooo big!!****

TALENT CLUBS

Taine and Isaac have figured that 2 brains are better than one when trying to solve some of the complicted maths problems in level 5 Mathmate







Edward and Tom working on POLYHEDRA as part of their maths talent






Jean and Melissa working on their massive Shakespeare fact find. Only one more of week of hunting before they have to start putting together visual presentation showing us what they have discovered.





EXPLORING TALENTS - A chance to try something new


Taine working on some characters for his calymation animation








Anahere using the music programme ACID to compose music








Sara and Lily working on their story board for their claymation animation







A group of children working through some electrical circuit tasks








Oli working on a science activity








After lunch we have begun to look at philosophy and what it means. last week I introduced the children to P4C (Philosophy 4 Children) and this week our P4C was based on a book by John Steptoe called Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters.

'Both Mufaro's daughters are beautiful but one is bad tempered and one is kind. When the king of the land asks the daughters to apper before him so he can choose a queen, the prideful, bad tempered daughter decides to set out in the night so she can get there first. Along the path are many opportunities to show one's true character. The kind daughter who follows the same path the next day makes different decisions - with different results and a surprising ending!'

The moral of the story, which seems to be that kind, selfless people are deserving of reward while selfish, power-hungry people are not, raises the philosophical question which is: "What is the best sort of life to live?"

We discussed what makes someone 'worthy' and if it is ok, in general, to deceive people? and if so, why? If not, why not? It was interesting to hear most of them said it was ok to deceive their siblings!!! Philosophy is a great way to get these guys talking and believe me...they all have plenty to say!!

You can find out mre about P4C on these websites:

www.p4c.org.nz or www.mtholyoke.edu/omc/kidsphil/

Enjoy!!