Grade 5 Migration Living Wax Muesuem

Yesterday, the whole grade 5 went to the center of the arts to present our Migration Living Wax Museum to our parents. Basically what this is is that we had to choose a migrant and tell their migration story or you could even make up a character and make a realistic fiction story (which means the story could have happened and is can still happen). 

My class and 5D went first, and 5B and 5C recorded us on the iPads. I told my own migration story about my family moving from Italy to New York to Indonesia and finally to Hanoi. I think I did pretty well, honestly. The people who listened to me listened closely and carefully. 

Then after recess, it was 5B and 5C's turn to present. My class (5A) and 5C recorded on the iPads. I loved listening to everyone's stories! They were all very interesting, though most of the people I listened to, I couldn't hear them because it was too loud and they spoke too quietly. 

Here's my migrant story:

3 Ways of understanding Erosion

Date: Tuesday June 7 2016

Name of Activity: 3 Ways of understanding Erosion

Unit: What makes you Rock

Learner Profile: Knowledgeable

Attitude: Curiosity

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In the past few days, we have been learning a lot about erosion. Erosion is when the earth's surface changes. Here are the 3 ways we got to understand erosion:

1. Bill Nye the Science guy:

We learnt that there are several different types of erosion in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BLAkJeyNn8

Here are two of them: 1. Wind erosion 2. Sandblasting 
Watch the video to find out more info about erosion.
2. Skype interview w/ scientist
We just came back from a Skype interview with a geologist named Phil. He told us about his job and how it affects the earth's surface. He told us that when he and his workers finish mining, they fix up the "damage" they made to the surface by making the big hole in the earth a lake. It may take a few years to do that though. Then he told us that he mines for gold and silver. He showed us some of it. Phil also explained that gold is soft, which I certainly didn''t know!
3. The egg
Just before writing this blog post, my teacher showed the class how an egg is very similar to the earth and it's layers and most of all, erosion. So first she began to crack the egg. Then the started sort of squishing the cracks of the shell together to create erosion on the egg. It was a great example of how earthquakes are made. You see, there are plates inside of the crust of the earth (the part you and I live on) called plate tectonics, and when the mantle (the layer of earth below the crust) moves the plate tectonics, that's when an earthquake happens. 

How these activities showed being Knowledgeable is because if you can't use what you already know to write at least one report on erosion and earth and it's layers, then you won't be able to understand the unit itself!

How these activities showed Curiosity is when you have to write notes on what you understand in a video explaining erosion, then you won't be able to remember what erosion is or what causes it.

I think that I could improve on writing notes when watching the Bill Nye video because I'm not the best note-taker.

Haikus

Date: Wednesday May 25 2016

Name of Activity: Haikus

Unit: Poetry

Learner Profile: Reflective

Attitude: Creativity

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So it's been quite a while since my class has made their Haikus. A Haiku is a type of poem where in the first and last sentence, there are 5 syllables, and in the middle sentence, there are 7 syllables. All Haikus are about the 4 seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. My Haiku was about Fall. Unlike the other students in my class, I gave my Haiku a name. The other students all called their Haikus Summer or Fall or Spring or Winter. Instead I named my Haiku, and I called it On the Leaf Pile. And obviously, it's about Fall. This is my poem:

Orange leaves, golden

Leaf piles and happy kids too

No more green leaves now.

Try to count the syllables. Anyway, I think we made these Haikus for the kids at UNIS New York. We were inspired by the kids at that school to make our own Haikus. Their poems were sent in for us to read. 

We drew pictures along with our Haiku in order to make it look nice. I think that my drawing for my Haiku is really cute. I'll try to add in a picture of my Haiku along with this blog post so that you guys can see it.

How this activity showed being Reflective is because when you're writing your Haiku, you have to actually KNOW enough about the season you're writing about. Eg: If you're writing a poem about Spring and one of your sentences is about snow, it wouldn't make any sence.

How this activity showed Creativity is because when you're drawing your picture for your poem, or even while you're writing your poem, you can't make it boring or else nobody's gonna like it.

I think that my Haiku is good. I had fun making it. I also think that my drawing is OK. I mean there's one part of it that is kind of strange and I think I have improved at drawing since then. But anyways, I think this was really fun, and I hope that we can do something like this again real soon.

My 500 Character Self Reflection

Elena is reflective and thinks a lot about what she has done and how she can change what she does. She is Open-Minded when it comes to group work. She listens to other’s ideas and accepts them or suggests something else for them. She isn’t as confident as other students and doesn’t like being the odd one out. She also finds being Curious a struggle. It is a bit difficult for her to communicate with others. Although she has been very creative during the year. She’s having a lot of fun when making her story for her buddy in K2. Elena is half nervous and half confident for next year and she hopes it will be fun!

This is my 500 character personal report comment. It took me a long time to count up all the characters (including the spaces) and fixing up the mistakes so that I could make it 500 characters. And just so you know: ALL of these things are true. So this is kind of like a 2nd post of my first post on this blog About Me.

The Grade 4 and 5 Swim Meet

Date: Monday May 24 2016

Name of Activity: Grade 4 and 5 Swim Meet

Unit: Swimming

Learner Profile: Knowledgeable

Attitude: Confidence

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Yesterday, we had the Grade 4 and 5 swim meet. And BOY was I NERVOUS!! I knew how it was going to be settled because last year, there was a Grade 2 and 3 swim meet and I (of course) participated. But it wasn't the fact that I was going to mess up that made me nervous... it was the fact that if I DID mess up, the entire 2 grades of 4 and 5 (including the parents that came to watch) were going to see me fail. Which is EXACTLY what happened with the 25 meter backstroke. Backstroke is my WORST stroke! And I had nothing else to choose from, so I chose to do that. But there were only 2 ones I liked. 1. The tube relay and 2. The 25 meter breaststroke. The rest, I didn't really enjoy. It was all so tiring.

How this shows being Knowledgeable is because when I have to swim, I have to remember how to do the stroke or else I'll mess it up.

How this activity showed being Confident is because when you swim, if you're unconfident (which I was before now) you won't be able to swim at all and you'll just stand there while the students of grade 4 and 5, and the parents, and the teachers are watching.

I think I should've put more effort into most of those strokes. It wasn't really MY fault I was nervous for it. But I'm glad I at least made it to the end of the Swim Meet. My team, the Buffaloes, made it in 3rd place. Which I am kind of sad about but we tried our best.

Drama/Dance: Radioactive

Date: Wednesday 18 May 2016

Name of Activity: Dance

Unit: Drama/Dance

Learner Profile: Thinker

Attitude: Confidence

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So Dance classes started a few weeks ago and we are dancing to a song called Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. We were put into groups of 4 or 5 kids to make up dance moves for their parts. My group got verse 2. We needed help to find out good moves for the part. I can listen to a song and find out what moves are good for it if I just think about it for a while. But the verses are what challenge me. The chorus is easy for me to make up dance moves for though. Luckily, our Drama/Dance teacher helped us find out some moves. Just yesterday, each group taught the other groups how to dance their parts. I was a bit nervous to show our part to the class, but we managed to get the class to know it. I like to do the last chorus dance moves, since they're different than the normal choruses.

How this activity showed being a Thinker is because you had to think of some good moves for your part. Although I did have some trouble with that.

How this activity showed Confidence is because when teaching your part to the class, not only do YOU have to be confident, but your ENTIRE GROUP has to be confident.

I think we(my group)have to work on being more confident about standing up and showing our class the dance. Last time we were pretty shy.

New UOI: What Makes You Rock? (Includes the first 2 activities of the unit)

Date: Thursday 12 May 2016

Name of Activity: New UOI: What Makes You Rock?

Unit: What Makes You Rock?

Learner Profile: Thinker

Attitude: Curiosity

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We have a new UOI: What Makes You Rock? This UOI is all about the earth's surface and how and why it changes over time. We have been introduced to this UOI by having a bunch of pictures of the earth's surface on each table in the classroom. Then we got some orange sticky notes and started to write down some observations about the pictures. When time was up, our teacher told us to get green sticky notes and go back to the pictures and write on them what we wonder about the picture. The next day, we all got into pairs in our tables. Each pair had a rock that they had to observe. We also had to write notes about what we noticed. Me and my partner got a smooth, black rock. It was very thin and had some cracks in it. We thought that it may have come from a beach or a lake because it was very smooth and shiny. Also because we thought we couldn't find a rock that was dark greenish-black near hills or mountains and other places like that. So we assumed that it came from somewhere with a lot of water. Here are the notes me and my partner wrote:

• May be from somewhere close to the ocean/beach since it's kind of the color of seaweed
• It might have also come from a lake or something, due to the fact that it's flat and shiny. It's not really the kind of rock that is good for skipping across the water because it's very fragile and can break easily
• Sparkles different colors when you shine light on it
• Some small cracks in the rock
• It's very smooth
• It's very shiny. It looks like someone covered it with plastic or tape so that it is more protected and won't break too easily.

How these activities showed being a Thinker is because when you had to write what you wondered about the images, you had to think about what is a good question that is not completely obvious, and a bad question.

How this activity showed Curiosity is because if you look at a picture and then immediately say that nothing about the picture interests you, you won't be successful. Instead if you ask yourself: OK, what about this picture interests me? And if you can't find anything, just go to another picture. 

This was a very good way to introduce us to the new (and possibly last) Unit Of Inquiry. I am very curious to see what our final project for the unit is going to be!

Book Week day 3: Book Sale (w/ K2 Buddies)

Date: Monday May 9 2016

Name of Activity: The Book Sale

Unit: PSEL/Buddy time

Learner Profile: Open-Minded

Attitude: Commitment

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Day 3 and the last day of book week was on Friday. After recess, our K2 buddies came into our classroom to have snack with us. Then we went downstairs to the book sale. The book sale is when kids bring books to school that they don't want anymore to sell. The plan was that first, I'll help my K2 buddy find her books, then I'd go look for mine. I only bought 1 book because if I buy more than one, then I won't focus on the other one because I'm too busy reading one of them. After finding some books for my buddy, me and my friends went around looking for books. We're interested in books by R.L. Stine, the author of Goosebumps. We went around looking for Goosebumps books but couldn't find any. They were already sold out. I saw another 4th grader with Night Of the Living Dummy #1 which is the first Goosebumps book on my wish list. But luckily, one of my friends found a Goosebumps book called Bad Hare Day. Instead I bought another book by R.L. Stine from a series he writes called Fear Street. I never read any of those books but it looked interesting. The book was called Bad Dreams.

How this activity showed being Open-Minded was because if you see your buddy pick a really babyish book (in your opinion it's babyish), you can't say "Really? Come on how about you pick something else. That book is for kids YOUNGER than you." You can't say it. You can't even THINK it because you know your buddy is younger than you so you know that younger kids have different interests.

How this activity showed Commitment is because if you're stuck with your buddy and they can't find a book for themselves, you can't say to them "You know what? We're not gonna buy a book for you because if you stay here for over 30 minutes trying to find a book then we are not going to buy you one!" Instead, you could say "If you can't find something here then how about we go look over there?" So you can't just give up right away if your buddy can't find anything!

I think that next time I should maybe communicate more with my buddy because we were both very quiet and the last time I was with her, she was more communicative then now.

Book Week Day 2: Character Dress Up Day!!

Date: Thursday May 5 2016

Name of Activity: Book Week Day 2: Character Dress Up Day

Unit: PSEL

Learner Profile: Open-Minded

Attitude: Empathy

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Yesterday, May 4 (AKA Star Wars Day), Book Week started! Since we had no school on Monday or Tuesday, Book Week had to start on Wednesday. And day 2 of Book Week was Character Dress Up Day! I was so excited for this! Why? Because me and my friend get to dress up as our favorite characters from our favorite books! We dressed up as Frisk and Chara from and Undertale book series we're writing called Fallen Souls. I'm dressing up as Frisk and my friend is dressing up as Chara. I absolutely LOVE our costumes. Another one of my friends wanted to dress up as Temmie but she didn't have a good shirt for the costume so she didn't dress up as anything. I feel sorry for her. :'(

ME AND MY FRIEND FOR CHARACTER DRESS UP DAY :)

Yeah you can tell who is who :P

  

How this activity showed being Open-Minded was because if you see someones costume, you can't think Oh my gosh I hate that book so that person's stupid because they like it. You have to respect other people's interests.

How this activity showed Empathy is kind of like how it shows being Open-Minded. Respect people's ideas. Instead now put yourself in other people's shoes.

This was an amazing day to show people what you love. And me and my friend really showed how much we love our new series Fallen Souls (BTW we are not gonna publish the series. We're just writing it for fun).

Grade 4 Market Day

Date: Wednesday April 27 2016

Name of Activity: Grade 4 Market Day

Unit: How We Organize Ourselves

Learner Profile: Communicator

Attitude: Cooperation

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Last Thursday, Grade 4 had something called Market Day, That's a day where all the 4th graders sell/make things and sell them to kids in grades 1,2,3 and 5. But the 4th graders can also buy things from other groups but that'll just help other groups get more money. Because... wait did I mention this was a competition between groups and which ever group gets more money wins? Well it is! And my group, The Candy Lab, was selling candies and we sold out before the end of recess! Anyways, after we sold out of candy bags, we still had some leftover gummies. So we sold a handful of them for 10 tickets. Once we sold out of gummies, there was still about an hour left of Market Day until lunch. But many other groups sold out too but I'm happy for them. In the end, my group made 1,910,000 VND and a profit of about 1,558,000 VND. We were proud of ourselves in the end. And I am NOT bragging. Even though it sounds like I am, I assure you I am NOT. 

How this activity showed being a Communicator was because when we were selling things, we had to say clearly to the kids how much it costed. Also because when we were preparing for Market Day, we had to share some possible ideas for our stand. 

How this activity showed Cooperation is because we had to work together in order to get it done. My group did a lot of work and we were proud of ourselves at the end.

I think it went amazing because many groups sold out of their product and that means that many groups were successful and did a lot of work to get where they were that time. So I enjoyed market day a lot!

Student Led Conferences

Date: Tuesday April 26 2016

Name of Activity: Student Led Conferences

Unit: PSEL

Learner Profile: Communicator

Attitude: Integrity

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The Student Led Conferences (SLC) are when you and your parent go to school and you explain to them the things that you did at school. When I did it, at first I was real nervous and when I started to show my parents my work, I was a little less nervous. Mostly I was nervous because my grandma was forcing me to smile and be confident etc. And I was stressing it. But when I had some time to just wash my face and relax, I was ready to show my parents my work. The first class I went to was my homeroom class (obviously) and I first did a classroom tour. I showed them our work and where I (used to) sit etc. Then I showed them this blog (Elena's Passions) and what I was really surprised at and also dissapointed in was my dad. He already saw my posts and read them when they were SUPPOSED TO BE A SURPRISE FOR SLC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so mad but I managed not to show it. Anyway, we went through my blog and then I took my parents to my French class. We played some games and I read to them my goals for French. Then we did an activity and I then took my dad (because my mom had to check up on my brother) to P.E. (Physical Education) and we practiced some volleyball passes like the overhead pass and bumping.

How this activity showed being a Communicator is because when doing the classroom door, you had to communicate a lot with your parent(s) in order for them to understand very well about what is what.

How this activity showed Integrity is because when showing your parent(s) projects in the classes you went to, you had to be honest about what you did well with the project and what went kind of bad.

I didn't really enjoy the SLCs until I started to talk more about things with my parents but besides that, it went OK.

Moon Festival Puppets (very very very late post)

Date: Monday March 28 2016

Name of Activity: Moon Festival: Making Puppets

Unit: PSEL

Learner Profile: Open Minded

Attitude: Commitment

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At the beginning of the year, it was the Vietnamese Moon Festival. We got to make these traditional puppets that kids in Vietnam used to play with. It was very hard to make because I kept on messing up with the shoes of the puppet.

I look so dull XD

How this activity showed being Open-Minded is because you may hear a strange step and think, while making the puppets, Well that'll never work, that's just silly. Because you may not know if you didn't try.

How this activity showed Commitment is because if you make a mistake, and can't fix it, you would have to deal with it. Like I did with the shoes of my puppet.

This was a hard task. I couldn't give up though but in the end, I liked my puppet.

How We Express Ourselves: Silloets (very, very, very late post)

 Date: Friday March 25 2016

Name of Activity: Silloets

Unit: How We Express Ourselves

Learner Profile: Thinker

Attitude: Commitment

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First of all, sorry for this really late post! I should've posted this way back in 2015 but I didn't have the picture for it. Anyways, the class made something called a Silloet. The whole grade actually did it. We had to dig through some magazines to find what you like and stick it on your picture. This is mine:

I dug through several magazines to find all of these. After we finished the picture part, we went onto our computers to a website that I think was called Wordle or something, and we typed up all what we love and things about ourselves. Then after we printed them out we stuck them onto the bottom of our Silloets as you ca see.

How this activity showed being

How the activity showed the attitude

Concluding statement (could you improve?)

How We Organize Ourselves: Wants and Needs

Date: Friday March 25 2016

Name of Activity: Wants and Needs

Unit: How We Organize Ourselves

Learner Profile: Reflective

Attitude: Integrity

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So a few days ago, our teacher told us to get into our table groups and gave us a piece of big paper and several magazines. Then she told us to get some scissors and some glue sticks. Then she told us to write Wants on one side of the paper and Needs on the opposite side. After that we searched through the magazines to find some Needs and Wants, agree which one it is with the group, and glue it onto either the Need section or the Want section. In my group, we found that there were more Wants than Needs. Most wants were fancy hotels and resorts. Others were fast foods like hamburgers and french fries. There were also electronics and I don't know why we put this one down: Santa Claus. I had no idea. Even though I was the one choosing it as one.

How this activity shows being Reflective is because you had to think about what a Need is and what a Want is in order to know which is which.

How this activity showed Integrity is because you had to be honest and not say "This is a fancy resort we need it to be with the needs". You had to be honest and say "You want a fancy resort".

I really enjoyed digging through magazines with my group. I liked finding the needs and wants of people.

My English Goal #2

Date: Wednesday March 23 2016

My English goal is/was to write stories with hidden messages in them. I think I need to continue working on the goal because I have thought way to much about my plot and story line to think about the hidden messages in it. 

I will achieve this old goal by trying to remember the hidden messages in the story line because in my opinion, I think the hidden messages have a HUGE impact on the story line! Because after the readers find out the secret in the book/story, it changes the whole thing.

My New Math Goal #2

Date: Wednesday March 23 2016

My old math goal was to memorize my 9 times tables. I think I have achieved this goal because I have remembered a strategy from Grade 3 and my teacher told the class that the easiest way to remember the 9 times tables was to add to the tens and minus the ones. Ex: 9, 18, 27 etc. 

My new math goal is to memorize my 6 times tables. I do know some of the numbers but I cannot say it fluently. I will achieve this by letting my grandma repeat the 6 times tables several times each night before going to bed. That was what she used to do to me with the 3 times tables when I was in Grade 2. I also think I can remember this easily because I remember the rhymes. Ex: 6 x 3 = 36. It rhymes. Also this one:  6 x 8 = 48. If you say those two equations out loud you can see that they rhyme.  

To memorize the 6 times tables

Slice of ICE Performance

Date: Monday March 21 2016

Name of Activity: ICE Block performance

Unit: ICE

Learner Profile: Knowledgeable

Attitude: Appreciation

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On Thursday last week, we performed our Slice of ICE performance!! I was so excited and it was SOOOOO much FUN!!! If you do not remember what the Slice of ICE performance is, here is a link to the blog post I made that was about preparing for it: http://unishanoi-24-ebargellini.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/slice-of-ice-preperations.html
Anyways, the whole grade dressed in black and brought their Ao Dai's (A-oo Za-iz) which P.S. are the Vietnamese traditional outfits. And when we were singning the Rattli'n Bog (an Irish song cause it was St. Patrick's day) we would put our Ao Dai's on over our black and sing. 

How this activity showed being Knowledgeable is because when we danced, we needed to remember the moves and that we couldn't mess up. Because if you remember in the link above, I mentioned that Ms. Sam said not to just stand there doing nothing or else you'll stand out.

How this activity showed being Appreciative is because we had to appreciate the learning we had with the ICE teachers and the work it took to prepare the show.

This was super fun! I loved showing my grandma and brother everything! Especially the dancing and playing the anklung (an Indonesian instrument we learnt to play in music). I had so much fun that night! I hope we have something like that another time!

New UOI: How We Organize Ourselves

Date: Thursday March 17

Name of Activity: New UOI

Unit: How We Organize Ourselves

Learner Profile: Inquirer

Attitude: Curiosity

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Not so long ago, our teacher told us about our brand new UOI which is How We Organize Ourselves. The topic about the new unit is Marketing or running a buisness. One of my friends is going CRAZY about the new unit! I have had some units about the same thing in earlier years and I don't know what our big project is going to be for this unit. But I'll find out in a while...

How this activity shows being an Inquirer is because you have to try new things in order to be a good listener in the unit and find out new things.

How this activity showed Curiosity is because you have to put effort in the research you do on this unit. And if you don't then you won't understand what the teacher is talking about when she/he says about the unit. Even worse if she/he asks you a question and you don't know how to answer it, then they may ask yo if you did the reasearch you were supposed to do or not.

I am very excited for this new unit! I have wanted to know more about this unit!

Slice of ICE Preperations

Date: Wednesady March 16 2016

Name of Activity: Slice of ICE Preperations

Unit: Music + Drama

Learner Profile: Reflective

Attitude: Enthusiasm

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Tomorrow is our Grade 4 Slice of ICE show at school. My grandma and brother will be coming! So this week, every morning, we would head to the theater to practice the dance. My class and another grade 4 class will be doing a song. It's an Irish song. And we know it very well by now so every morning we practice the dance. The whole 4th Grade will be dancing. At the end of the dance we'd all go onstage to dance with the other 2 classes. The song we'll be dancing to is Verge from Owl City. I can't wait for tomorrow!!

How this activity shows being Reflective is because when we are dancing and singing, we need to remember the lyrics of the song and the dance.

How this activity shows Enthusiasm is because when we dance (and our drama teacher told this to us yesterday morning) even though you might hate the song and hate the dance, fake it. Fake it that you LOVE the song and LOVE the dance. Because if you don't put the energy into it, you'll stand out to the crowd. Instead if you join everyone else into the dance, you'll blend in.

I cannot wait for tomorrow! From my grandma and brother coming, to the amazing finale of the show!