End of 1st 9 weeks

It's the end of our first grading period of PGP.  In the next 9 weeks, with both 1st and 2nd grades, we will get a little more research and math-focused to work on specific areas of giftedness.  I'm looking forward to it!

PGP 2nd grade - Magazine Covers

For the past couple of weeks in 2nd grade PGP, we've been learning to make Magazine Covers and using ourselves as the topics!  We used the same website from 1st grade, Big Huge Labs, only we focused on a different location that was a bit more advanced!

Technology is sometimes our best friend, and sometimes our worst enemy.  We have no idea why, but all of our pictures in our magazine covers came up rotated 90 degrees the wrong way!  This is the first time I've tried working with Big Huge Labs on the MacBooks as opposed to the PC's, so I feel like it has something to do with the way the Mac imports photos.

Frustrating?  Yes.
Tried a 2nd time and the picture worked?  No.
Still a good learning experience?  Absolutely.

See our covers for an indicator of our hard work - sideways, but still good.

1st Grade PGP - Trading Cards

Today in 1st grade PGP, we made trading cards about ourselves! We've been working toward this for the past couple of weeks, and we finally finished them today! See the pics below of our awesome hard work! We used the website called Big Huge Labs, which is a free website that does photo manipulation. The 1st Grade PGPers did a GREAT job! I'm so proud of them and their awesome thinking and technology skills!

I love them and I am so proud of our group!

1st Grade PGP

Here's a little taste of the awesome 1st graders we have in PGP this year... We had a good time learning about each other this week by sharing our "Me" Bags!

PGP 2nd Grade, 2010-2011

New Year, New PGP Postings!  Here's a quick Animoto of our first day of PGP for 2nd grade!  Stay tuned for 1st grade next week!

Last unit, last year!

I realized that I never put pictures up of our final crowning glory from last year's PGP program... our faaaaabulous mosaic stones outside the library!  We worked a bit with geometry and the kids spent a couple of weeks working on and making their very own mosaic!  I love them and they hold a place of honor in the library garden!  Yay, PGP 2009-2010!

A-mazed!

It's been FOREVER since we've had a PGP blog update! I was waiting until we finished our next unit, and as always, what I think will take 4 weeks usually ends up taking 8. That's the beauty of PGP, though... the curriculum is a scaffolding, and wherever we meander within depends on the talents and desires of the students. I love PGP because of that!







We've spent the past 8 weeks or so studying mazes. We learned about the history of mazes, the different types of mazes (unicursal and multicursal), how they relate to labyrinths, and also studied the fantastic and fabulous author, Roxie Munroe. Her "maze" books are incredible, and so is her website! She even illustrates the process of her maze creation online, which we spent a great deal of time studying. We used Roxie Munroe as inspiration and to "piggyback" our very own maze creation. Students chose to work alone or with a partner, and created a maze from scratch, gave it a theme, colored it (as time allowed), and made sure it was "solvable"! (This proved to be our biggest challenge!)
















This week, we scheduled an appointment with Mr. Henry and challenged him to solve our mazes. We spent a long time in his office and presented our study and our mazes. He was able to solve every single one! See below the results of all our hard work! It was great fun and one of my favorite PGP units ever.

WE WON!!!

I am thrilled to report that due to our fabulous mini-unit on Health and our awesome Animoto project below, we WON the iMac for the Library from Playnormous!!!

Special thanks to the great people at Playnormous.com for doing the giveaway!

Here are a couple of pictures below of our new computer (the kids got to pick the cool skin on it) and our proud group of PGPers who worked hard to learn about health and wellness and come up with quick and easy things to say for the very limited Animoto text!

We've got some great units planned for the 2nd half of the year. Stay tuned to the blog for more information as we learn and expand our thinking together! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Playnormous Entry - November

Contest Entry

For the past few weeks, we've been trying to win a new iMac for the school library. We did a short unit on being healthy, and using the health games from Playnormous.com, we learned more about making good eating choices and adding exercise to each day. Above, you'll see the animoto of our learning experience.

We are really hoping to be the November winner of the Playnormous.com iMac!