March/April Newsletter for Madeira’s Gifted Program
Fifth Grade
Parents,
Hello! I hope all is well. Our annual research fair this
year is called Invention Convention. It will be held on
Monday, April 23rd from 9am-11am. All students and teachers
at MES visit in thirty-minute intervals. We encourage all
parents, relatives, and community members to attend the
event. Each child in the gifted program in grades 2-5 will
showcase research on their inventor and invention. Please
save the date!
Thank you,
Dr. Alley
We are finishing five major projects second semester. They
are as follows:
1. LEGO Mindstorms – Students are working in teams of
four to construct a robot from a LEGO robotics set and
program the robot using software. This project started
in first semester and has been carried over to second
semester due to time constraints.
2. Invention Convention – This is our research fair topic
for 2012. The date of the fair is Monday, April 23rd in
the MES gymnasium from 9am-11am. We encourage you to
attend and bring others! You can visit for five
minutes or stay longer and visit all of the student
booths. I have attached the requirements to my website
if you want to view what students have in their work
folders.
3. Math Fair – Fifth grade students in the gifted program
host an Annual Math Fair for all students at MES. It
is a way for the fifth graders to show elementary
students “math is fun” and “math is everywhere in our
lives”. Students will host the Math Fair in the MES
cafeteria on Tuesday, April 17th from 9am-11am. This
particular fair is focused on students only; however,
you are welcome to stop for a quick visit. It is
crowded in the cafeteria so we need to make as much
room as possible for our little visitors in grades 14. Students showcase an area of math on a mini trifold board and create a game.
4. We are studying bridges and building a mini toothpick
bridge as our culminating project. Students are
learning the terminology of bridges and studying some
of the most famous bridges in the world. We watched a
neat movie on bridges featuring author, David
Macaulay.
5. Mystery River Simulation – We are working on a science
and language arts simulation where students are given
weekly clue and formulating theories about the
disappearance of mussels in a fictitious community. We
had a great presentation on the importance of rivers
in our economy from RiverWorks Discovery. The speaker
used lots neat visual aids, and we learned a lot of
new information.
We start our day with a sixth or seventh grade logic puzzle
and end our day with lateral thinking puzzles.
Extra enrichment ideas…
The following children’s bookstores offer neat family
programs so checkout their websites: The Blue Manatee
Children’s Bookstore in Oakley, The Blue Marble Children’s
Bookstore in Fort Thomas, and Joseph-Beth Booksellers
Children’s Department at Rookwood Commons.
Mindware (online), United Art and Education in Sharonville
(lots of craft kits and science experiment kits), Ted’s
Toys in Madeira (lots of our classroom games can be found
here), and King Arthur’s Toys in Oakley (doors away from
The Blue Manatee Children’s Bookstore) are great places for
kid’s gifts. Each site has unique and challenging items.
The LEGO store at Kenwood Mall has a free monthly mini
model build on the first Tuesday of each month. Call 7914241 for details on hours. They have 250 available each
month. The line can be long so bring a book to read! Also,
kids can subscribe to the Lego magazine free of charge.