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The News Flash is a class newsletter that will be sent by e-mail in the following months: August 2011, October 2011, December 2011, February 2012, and April 2012, with updates in between.
News Flash: 4-16-12
Dear Parents and Teachers of Gifted Program Students in Grades 2-5,
Hi! This is the April News Flash for the Carl Junction Gifted Program, Grades 2-5, which now serves 72 students! Please read on for news about our classes...
Mid-Term Grade Reports Will Be Sent Home Wednesday, April 18
I will send home mid-term grade reports on Wednesday, April 18, and will indicate any missing and/or incomplete assignments on the mid-term grade report. Please sign and return your child's mid-term grade report as soon as possible. Students returning their signed mid-term grade reports by Wednesday, April 25 will receive a pencil or eraser incentive.
Student portfolios will be completely up-to-date and sent home for the school year on May 14.
Animation Project: DVD
This is a project that we've been working on since February. Each student has created a short animated film (they created a character using paper and clay, a storyboard, background(s), and took a sequence of 24 digital pictures based upon their storyboard plan. I uploaded the pictures to the computer, and sat with each student at the computer for an individual conference during which we used "Frames" animation software to add effects and music to the animations). The 72nd and final student completed his conference with me on Monday, April 16. Now that all the animations are complete, they will be burned onto a DVD, which will include all of the short animated films and will run just over 35 minutes in length. Please let me know by Friday, April 20 if you do not want your child's work to be included on the DVD. I will burn only one DVD for each of the 72 students. They will be sent home sometime in May. Your patience is appreciated.
Class Activities
After learning about research databases through www.more.net (Searchasaurus and Kid's Search), students in grades 2-5 are beginning a PowerPoint research project that focuses on Mexico. Each student has been assigned a topic to research on the Internet, and will create a PowerPoint slideshow on their topic during class periods over the next three weeks. Project Deadline: May 4. I plan to upload the students' projects to Teacher Web, and provide links to them on a "Mexico PowerPoints" page. This will be completed during the month of May following the May 4 project deadline. Please let me know if you do not want your child's work to be featured on the Internet. The topics are divided as follows:
--4th Grade 8:30 Class: Customs and Celebrations
--5th Grade 9:20 Class: Geography and Mexico Today
--4th Grade 10:20 Class: Aztec Civilization
--2nd and 3rd Grade Classes: States of Mexico; Federal District;
Mexican Flag
--5th Grade 1:40 Class: Mayan Civilization
Summer Learning Opportunities
Here are two links for summer enrichment programs that may interest gifted students (one in Springfield, another in Rolla):
Summer Quest (Drury University, Springfield)
http://www.drury.edu/giftededucation
Summer Enrichment Programs (Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla)--Thanks for Mrs. Avery-Smith for this link!
http://summer.mst.edu
I will send out a final brief News Flash in May 2012. As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Kristin Riley, Gifted Program Teacher (Grades 2-5)