Grade 5 Review 2010/2011

This year is one of my best school year in CDNIS so far. We had lots of big changes and amazing things that happened this year.

 

First, at the first day of school, we had a big change in the school routine. We got a pad lock and a locker for our school bags! We were so exited because when we are in lower school, we had cubbyholes instead of lockers and I always worried that someone would steal my things in my school bag. This year I was less worried than the past few years. During the second month of the school year we got our new Apple computers. I was happy when I got it because when we were in grade 4 we had to share computers, we weren’t in the need to use it everyday.  We also had to change our school uniforms because we are now in upper primary school students. I thought the new uniform was better than the old ones because when we were in Reception to grade 4, we need to wear striped uniforms. But now we have white uniforms. It feels like a more comfortable colour to me than stripes. And the P.E uniforms were fast dry materials and so if we sweat, it will dry up easily. But before, we had cotton P.E uniforms so when we go back to the next period, our uniforms were all soaked in sweat. We also got to change to a different cafeteria because our old cafeteria is at the 12^th floor. But now in grade 5, we are at the 8^th floor, so we go to nearest cafeteria.

 

We had some field trips that felt very special to me. We went to one of the landfills in Hong Kong when we were learning an IB unit called How We Organize Ourselves. We were investigating about waste management in Hong Kong. There was one field trip that spooked me out a bit. We went to the Happy Valley Cemetery near the Hong Kong Jockey Club for our field trip when we where learning another IB unit called Where We Are In Place In Time. We were studying about Hong Kong’s history.

 

The grade 5 teachers also organized lots of different activities for us. We had a sports day event of the grade 5 and 6. That day I was sick so I couldn’t go. But I went to the grade 3 and 4’s sports day because my class was being the group leaders and helping out with the activities.  We also had a week called Festival Of The Arts. In that whole week we had a lot of art activities. That involves drawing, painting and dancing. One of the activities was learning a dance from a dance company called Red Shoe. The founder of the dance company was our instructor. We also had an art gallery of paintings from students, teachers, parents and professionals. One of the paintings I walked pass was drawn by Andy Warhol, before he passed away. It was a just dollar sign and it was on sale of 7 million HKD! The activity I most enjoyed during Festival Of The Arts was Chinese Calligraphy. We got to paint Chinese characters with 3 colours. We used a pointy paintbrush and we dipped the 3 colours on the flat surface and the 2 edges. Then we wrote the Chinese character we want. Mine was a bit messy because some of the paint I made was a bit messy and I couldn’t continue the character and the strokes in the character broke up. But the instructor could continue the strokes without braking up.

We had a grade concert called Let’s Make It Happen. We were talking about the planet’s environment and at the same time we were learning a unit called How We Organize Ourselves. At the beginning of the concert, there was a quick video, then, the classes one by one go on the stage and performed a song and sung a song each class chose their own song. We chose a song that everybody liked. Then each class was divided into small groups to do something to do with arts like rap, music and more. My group chose to do music and singing and it was about recycling. I was one of the bass xylophonists. My 2 friends were singing one of my and our group leader was playing the piano.

I thought over the 6 units, How We Express Ourselves, How The World Works, How We Organize Ourselves, Sharing The Planet, Where We Are In Place And Time, and Who We Are, I think that Where We Are In Place And Time was the one I most enjoyed. It the start, we studied about Hong Kong’s history by going to the Hong Kong history museum and the Happy Valley Cemetery. I found out that in the cemetery a lot of people where British solders that were fighting in World War two and defending Hong Kong during the Japanese invasion. There were many people who also died of sickness such as fevers, small pox and many others. In the History Museum we saw the history from the Stone Age to 1999A.D I saw the Chinese culture or festivals, what they wore, what their house looked like and many others. The part I enjoyed the most was when it was talking about the Opium war in the 1839- 1842. I saw a five-minute video, thousand of models during the British invasion to China. For some activities we made mosaics and built clay models, painted the model. Then the teachers took our artefacts and sent them to the beach and smashed them and buried them under the sand. So we had a field trip to the beach and we dug up the beach. We worked in groups. Each border of the group had 5 buried artefacts. My group fond all 5 of them under a teacher time limit. Some groups couldn’t find some of the buried ones and left them at the beach and some people couldn’t find theirs. Some even found some that were last years so they got 6 and more artefacts! And on our assessment of the unit, we made a slide show or a poster of something that relates to history. The topic I chose was the deadly virus H1N1 we had a grade exhibition. I thought it was very successful project.

We had a 3-way conference during the first term. The students, teacher and the parent have a 30-minute meeting together and we will talk about the year’s goals I want to achieve. We also had to do something called a portfolio. We had to put some of the things we did in each term. We needed to put math, I.B units I did, Chinese, French, reading, writing, P.E, arts and more.

I also enjoy math. We learnt a lot of math topics like adding subtraction, multiplication, division and a lot more. At first I understood what the teacher was saying, until we were learning division, I started to not understand what the teacher was saying. So I would try to do more worksheets my parents bought in bookstores, but I still don’t really understand what the teacher is saying. But I still enjoy math.

In music I started to learn how to use finale. It is a program that lets you create music. I enjoyed using it because every time I use it, I would know new things and I would know what it is, like how to put a music sign in the song.

In P.E, I learnt different kinds of sports. I most enjoyed playing soccer and basketball. I like our P.E teacher was very nice and energetic at the same time. It is also my favourite lesson.

In Chinese, we have started using computers for projects. We would do it in Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint. I thought it was much better than using posters because we have to carry a large poster. But of a computer it can be shown on a projector and you can carry it around.

Sometimes we have art in the classroom. One time we drew a kind of art that is an artist called Kandinsky drew I drew a simular painting. It is called circles in circles. I thought was very fun to draw a kind of art that an artist like and draw. One time we had to do mosaics in the class. A mosaic was a kind of art that is during the 1100s. In the olden days they would put them on walls for decoration.

I’ve been using the learner profiles for quit a long time now. Learner profiles are Caring, Thinker, Risk Taker, Knowledgeable, Balanced, Open Minded, Principled, Reflective, Inquirer and Communicator. The learner profiles are sort of like a goal that you want to achieve in.

I think I am a reflective person. But I need to work on more of the others because I don’t do very well on those profiles.

In this school we always have to be a principled and responsible person. You need to know that we need to follow being a principled and responsible person. I think that having students to be a principled and responsible person is right because if we don’t have them, the school could end up with lots of fighting and in most schools, they should be teaching you how to be a principled and responsible person .