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HAL

High Ability Learners

Hello - Welcome to my Challenge Page.
I am going to be the Challenge (HAL) teacher for this year. Challenge will start the week of September 8th. I 'm very excited and thinking of all kinds of activities for us. Check here often for pictures and information on what the Challenge students are doing.


Photos

Take a look at pictures of our activities. Enjoy :O)

It seems like the school year is flying by. The weather is getting cooler and the days are shorter. It must be time for the holidays. I have been talking to the classes about the holiday season. How it is a time to spend time with family and friends while celebrating joy and love. We talked about how we spend the holidays with our families. I pointed out that the people who are protecting our right to celebrate may not make it home for the holidays. Some are busy in Iraq and in other countries protecting these rights. Some are in hospitals and can’t get home to family and friends. Challenge students used the internet and went to http://www.letssaythanks.com and sent a Thanksgiving card. They chose a picture and a message to send to somebody. They don’t know who will receive it. For safety reasons, students didn’t put in their whole name and address in the document.

The students created special Christmas cards to send to these brave men and women. The second grade class made cards for Mrs. Avery’s daughter, Anna and her husband Mark. Third grade challenge students along with the fourth and fifth grade classes made cards to send to the veteran’s hospital in Washington D.C. You and your family can still brighten a soldier’s holidays by sending a card to the address below. Here are some of the wonderful cards the students made.

A Recovering Soldier C/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center 6900 Georgia Ave. NW Washington, D.C. 20307-5001

The First Grade class is divided into 2 groups for Challenge Class. Each group participates in the dame activity. It takes then 2 weeks before the activity changes. All the Second Grader students participate in 1 large group. Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Grade students are part of the pull-out program. The First and Second Grade classes have been working on following directions. Student practiced following oral directions while playing “Simon Says” and “Follow the Leader”. There were several times that Mrs. Withers had trouble following the directions given by Simon. Students discovered that things can get confusing when somebody in the group doesn’t follow directions. Students also created a poster by listening and following oral directions given by Mrs. Withers. Everybody’s poster looked a little different, but all contained the same basic shapes and number of items. The group learned that everybody does the same thing with a different looking outcome. Student earned the privilege of using the computers to expand the use of directions. I’ll tell you more about this next time.

Third Grade students have been studying and working with magnets. Students have learned about how to magnetize metal objects, which objects are attracted to magnets, and how magnets lose their power. Students learned how to magnetize metal objects by rubbing them against a magnet. They investigated to find out what the difference would be if the metal was rubbed one direction or both directions. They discovered that the metal object (scissors) was a stronger magnet when rubbed in one direction. Students then used magnetized scissors to pick up stapes. Fishing with magnets was one of our favorite investigations. We tried to race our toy cars using the magnets. We wanted to know if a magnet would make a toy car move. We found out that the magnet wouldn't move the car. We decided that the toy cars were made from aluminum instead of a magnetic metal. We had fun anyway.

The Fourth Grade class has been working on patterns (designs), (2) The end of each toothpick must touch the end of at least one other toothpick, (3) Lines must be straight, (4) Any corners must have right angles. Students were challenged to create at least sixteen different patterns. The first thing that was needed was for the students to create a blueprint using dot paper of their patterns. Next the students used 4 toothpicks for each design and glued those patterns onto colored paper. Using these pattern decks students solved PUT-IN-ORDER pattern problems. Students can continue to use the cards for other variations to play other a card games. Here is a Challenge for parents; play the game with your child and have a great family fun night.

The Fifth Grade class has been working on the great Apple Investigations. Students created a notebook to record observations. Then students participated in 5 apple activities.  Here are the rules that students had to follow: (1) Use sense of seeing to observe the appearance of the inside including the seeds and outside of the apple (2) Continues with the sense of seeing to weigh apple parts, whole, half, quarter, peelings, and all the parts (3) Dried an apple for a week (4) Students used their sense of taste through out the actives for Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Macintosh apple varieties. The final activity involved students poling 8 people to find out which color of apples people enjoyed the most. The graph indicated that people preferred red apples the best. Students then published their findings into an Apple Booklet.

The Sixth Grade class has been preparing for the “Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl” by using old quiz files as practice. The Quiz Bowl activity was created by a couple who lived in Iowa. Both enjoyed ‘Trivia Pursuit” games. The man, Harvey, was a high school teacher who took his students to high school quiz bowl competitions.  Since there wasn’t a contest for 5th and 6th grade students, they created one. Now elementary students across the United States can compete or play for fun. Each state has its own contest. The tests some on CD-s that are installed on the computers. The quiz contains 100 multiple-choice questions. Subject areas covered include math, geography, government, sports, spelling, science, literature, English, history, general information and other trivia. Students participate in teams around 1 computer. The students have two chances to answer the question correctly. Points are awarded based on how fast and how accurate the answers given. Nebraska holds the Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl on November 6th. This means that after we receive the computer program, we have until Nov 6th to turn in the results for the Nebraska contest. We had our “Quiz Day” on Nov 4th. Our 6th Graders competed in three different teams. Mrs. Withers will call in the results on Nov. 6th and the Nebraska group will rank all the contestants by high score and grade level. The results will be posted on the Thinking Cap website (http://www.thinkingcapquizbowl.com/results.shtml). Our team could be awarded a trophy and individual ribbons.

Do you have a special talent that you would be willing to share with the Challenge Classes? From time to time, Mrs. Withers will be contacting community people who are willing to share their special talents. If you are willing to be one of these volunteers, please contact Mrs. Withers either by phone (862-2151) or email (gwithers@esu6.org).