A Cup is just a Cup until you add...

Our Ultimate Smarties created some fantastic creations today using a cup and other 'bits n pieces'. We had penguins, fish tanks, a vase of flowers, hot air balloons, volcanoes, elephants and many more.

Take a look at some of their ideas...

A Circle is just a circle until you add....

Today the 'Clever Creators' were given a circle plate. With that plate they had to turn it into to 'something' using a variety of media - pipe cleaners, paper, paper clips, tinfoil, pasta, straws...

Have a look at some of our creations from Ava, Mia S, Mia Y, Maya, Lucia, Jade, Tayla, Hannah!!!

What's HOT and what's NOT?

For our warm up today we had to create a page of 'things' that are HOT or NOT! 

Some of our ideas for HOT were:
- LAVA
- WASABI on your tongue
- An OVEN set on 260
- The SUN

Some of our ideas for NOT HOT were:
- An ICE BURG
- A lemonade ICEBLOCK
- A SNOW cloud in the middle of winter

Can you think of some more???

School Holiday challenge...

These holidays ask your parents to purchase a packet of skewers and some marshmellows.

Your challenge is to build a tower using only 30 skewers and marshmellows. The tower needs to be able to 'stand alone' and the focus is on height. Email me a photo once you have completed this challenge!!! 

bexandshep@gmail.com

Who's original? Who's different? Who's random? Who's unusual?

Our next focus in GATE is Originality.

Originality in thinking is coming up with ideas that are unusual , random , different , crazy..... It's about thinking of ideas that NO-ONE else will think of.

An activity "The Clever Creators" and "The Ultimate Smarties" started with today was ... Come up with five original ideas for the use of a cereal box!

What ideas do you have?

By Liam Peters

Maya's ideas...

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's a .....

Today the Clever Creators were given a very 'hands on' activity. They were each given an envelope.
Inside the envelope were:
- three pieces of card
- two paper clips
- one tooth pick
- bluetack
- string
- one balloon
- one straw

Using the provided 'bits'n'pieces' (as well as glue sticks, celotape and colouring in equiptment) the Clever Creators then had to turn what they had into an animal! This is a great activity to stretch our fluency and flexibility skills that we have been learning about.

Have a look at how they are doing...we will finish them next week!

Ka pai to mahi!!!

No food!!!!

Try this warm up that "The ultimate smarties" did today... Their focus was on "flexibility" so each idea had to be different.

"Think of FIVE different reasons why Mum and Dad couldn't buy the groceries this week."

I will start you off then YOU can write down some more ideas in the comments section below!

Reasons:
- The supermarket had a serious fire and the entire building burnt down.
- Unfortunately mum and dad both had a tummy bug so they couldn't leave the house.

YOUR TURN!!!

FLEXIBILITY - By Jade Hughes

Today we were learning about flexibility. That is coming up different ideas. It is different to fluency because all the ideas need to be different. 

Mrs Shepard gave us an activity...

"Your grandma has brought you a pink shirt for Christmas that you absolute hate. You don'tThink of FIVE different reasons why you cant wear the t.shirt for the day"

These were some of our ideas...

- I might get it muddy at the neighbours so I wont wear it today - Chali
- A moth ate it! - Joel
- It is going to be cold today so I am going to wear long sleeves - Maya
- Sorry, but it's too beautiful for me to wear - Ava
- I'm sorry but the cat and dog might spew on it - Mia
- Sorry, but the turtle filter may explode on it and then it will be
covered in poo - Hannah
- The cats love it so much they want to lye on it - Lucia
- I am size six and it's a size eight - Jade

Chali and Joel

Can you think of another idea?

GAME TIME!

Today in GATE is our last day working on fluency. Mrs Shepard has given us a challenge. We are having to make up our own fluency themed game in pairs or on our own.  Some of us are making board games and some card games. Everything that we are making up has to make the players come up with lots and lots of ideas. 

Our board game has a 'horror' theme. One of the challenges is to 'do ten press ups while naming five horror movies'. If you cant do it you have to move back ten spaces.

By Jonny Noble and William Rodwell

This is us hard at work...

WWW.WORDLE.NET

At GATE today we had our last day on 'fluency'. 

We went into groups and had to write a subject down and put a bubbble around it. Then we had to get lots of ideas on it. We had to do 30 ideas on our piece of paper!!! Then Mrs Shepard showed us a computer activity called WORDLE. We wrote all our words down and pressed GO. It turned all of our words into an awesome picture. You should try WORDLE at home. It's lots of fun. 

By Hannah Tregidga and Mia Yee

Jade, Mia and Joel chose 'games'.

Lucia, Ava and Chali chose 'movies'.

Mia, Maya and Hannah chose 'school'

This is WORDLE!!!

"You are always right in FLUENCY"!

This week at GATE we are learning about Fluency. We had to come up with lots of ideas. We had to choose four colours and then draw circles with the colours in the middle. Then we had to come up with as MANY ideas of things that are those colours.

I chose pink, purple, blue and red.

These are some things that are blue...

- Elsa
- A whale
- The sky
- Mia's headband
- Blue ribbon
- A blueberry

By Chali Routhan

This is Mia and Maia 

Why Fluency?

The next two weeks our focus in GATE is on FLUENCY!

Fluency is the ability to generate LOTS of ideas that are not necessarily different.

Fluent thinkers can also “hitchhike” on one idea to come up with many more ideas. E.g. when brainstorming ways to mop up an oil spill, one idea might be to use hair clippings. "Hitchhiking" on that idea would include using dog hair, cat hair, sheep's wool, etc. There are no 'yeah but' or 'wrong' ideas!

Why does fluency matter? 

The first step to problem solving or generating anything creative is having as many ideas as possible to choose from. Fluency loosens up the creative wheels. 

Try some of these activities and leave some comments below with your ideas!

- Name as many things you can think of that are blue.

- Make a list of things that are sharp.

- Write down all the things you can think of that are associated with October.

Let's go to Fiji!!!

For our warm up we had to use every letter of the alphabet to try and think of some words that are items that go in a suitcase. We had to think of different ideas for each letter. 

Here are some examples.

A - Air bed
B - Bottle
C - Costume
D - Doll
E - Earings
F - Fork
G - Goggles
H - Hat

Can you leave a comment and finish our alphabet?

By Jamie Hampson and Maia Hughes

Everyone say "FLUENCY"...

In GATE we have to come up with LOTS of ideas. We write them down and draw them. Another word 'lots of ideas' is fluency. Can YOU think of a 'use' for a spoon that does not involve eating?

Some of our ideas are...
- To make shapes with playdough - Hannah
- For finding worms - Chali
- For snowman arms - Mia Y
- A flagpole - Jade
- To hold a baby hedgehog - Lucia
- A doll - Tayla
- As poles for a baby swing set - Mia S
- A wooden spoon superhero - Joel
- Put bark on it and pretend it is chocolate - Maya

By Lucia Sasso

'Clever Creators', 'The Ultimate Smarties' and 'The Talented Ten'...

Mrs Shepard spent a lot of time doing lots of tests on heaps of children at Birchwood. She then was able to choose some groups for GATE. 

On our first day she said 'Lets come up with a name for our GATE group'! We were put into two teams and had to brainstorm lots of different names. Our group finally chose 
"THE CLEVER CREATORS". Everyone liked that name because we think we are all clever and we LOVE creating stuff. It was fun because we got to choose it ourselves. 

By Maya Ricciardi

 The Ultimate Smarties

 The Clever Creators

 The Talented Ten