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).