From May sixth to May 11th, 3/4 of my grade went to Thailand for experience week. We stayed at the Maek0k River Village Resort. We did most of our activities.

May 6th

We arrived at the resort sometime at late afternoon. We were first toured around the campus. After, at the archery sala, we were debriefed on meal times, free times, swimming pool times and sleeping times. The resort had a place called the Bamboo Club which we can play, buy snacks and stuff. It only opened on our free times. After, we unpacked our stuff in our dorms and at night, we had activities. My group did Sala Games. We were kinda lucky to be doing sala games because there was a typhoon. We first played this game using huge bamboo sticks. The aim of the game was to not drop your stick while following directions a person gives. After, we played a similar game to “rock,paper,scissors”. Finally, our last game was like a mix of 2 games. It was basically charades and telephone. After, I headed up to the Bamboo club to hang with my friends and then went to my dorm.

Sala = a Thai word for roofed building

Our schedule for the whole week. (I’m in group 6)

May 7th

After we ate breakfast, we headed back to the archery sala. Our first activity was archery/confidence course. We played archery, we practiced shooting first. Then, we played a fun game. Each of us had a balloon and drew a face on it which represented ourselves. We pinned them on the archery targets and tried aiming at each other. If someone shoots another person’s balloon, then they had to have  a dramatic fake death. We kept shooting until it was down to the last 2 people, Me and my friend. We both tried aiming at each other’s balloons. We were both to our last arrows, I aimed carefully and BAM! I shot her balloon! Then she shot mine. I thought I won fairly but my friend said it should be a draw. Since we had to make a death scene, we chose to pretend we were jealous sisters and we strangled each other to death. After we had a 15 minute break to change into clothes we could get wet in because we were going to do the confidence course. After the instructor showed us a demonstration, we tried following. Since I was first, it was nerve racking because everyone’s eyes would be watching you. Luckily, I made it first without getting wet. Everyone attempted to stay dry but they fell into the murky water. Then, we had free time. After dinner, my group played night games. First, we were lead into the forest blind -folded. When we took our blind – folds off, we were in a small sala. Our instructor told us that there was another sala which half of the group was in. We had to make our way to the other sala before the other group makes it to our sala without being caught by the instructors/teachers. The only way to hide from them was to hide behind the trees. We played for half an hour but the other team made it to our sala first.

May 8th

We had jungle survival first. We learnt how to built tents with rope, banana leafs and bamboo. After we learnt how to start and make a fire. It was quite hard but we got some help. Then, we learnt how to create bowls and chopsticks because we were going to cook noodles. Then it was lunch. After, we had the most fun activity in the whole week, KAYAKING! We had to first learn the ways of kayaking, then we were tested. We had to do all the things the instructors told us before kayaking on the Maekok river. We saw other Thai kids swimming and one of them went onto my kayaking boat. But eventually left. Then we took breaks and played fun games like jumping into the water and stuff. We went for 2 hours (or more) and was picked up by yellow trucks . When we reached the resort, we had to change our clothes (we’re wet) at head back to the archery sala for a briefing on the activity tomorrow which was playing with Thai kids at their school. Then, we ate dinner and did team technology. We had to get into teams and build a water tower out of newspaper, clips, rubberbands, chopsticks and a cup and create the tallest structure where the cup has to hold water and the tower is able to still stand. After, we finished building the structure, we tested them. my teams tower fell down so..

May 9th

Our first activity was to go to the school and played with the children. When we arrived we first slit up into groups, then we were assigned and group of kids to play with. First, they were shy then they were happy prancing around. After we were done playing with the kids, we went onto a hill-tribe hike, we hiked through a small village and had to compair the village to our home, Hong Kong. After, we hiked up to a temple were we entered and took photos. After, we went back and played field games. We didn’t really play field games because there was another typhoon and instead we went into a room and played a trivia.

May 10th

It was our last day and we first did rock climbing. Before going onto the big rock-climbing wall, we practiced on the small wall so we knew what we were doing. After, we divided into groups of 5 then we were ready climbing the big wall. We supported each other when we were stuck. It was fun rock climbing and I was surprised! There was this one wall that was straight (the easy walls were slanted upwards so it would be easy to climb) and I’m scared of rock-climbing walls that seem hard and always got stuck. But I took the risk and climbed the wall. It was awkward because I started climbing on the edge of the wall and eventually I got to the top.After lunch, we went back to the school to do community service. We had to build bricks and paint walls. The last group the made bricks made 17 bricks. As a group, we made goal to create 18 bricks and beat them. We first split into 2 groups so 1 group painted and the other group made bricks. After an hour our group made bricks, we switched with the group that painted. After 2 hours of hard work, we achieved our goal of building 18 bricks. After we went back to the campus and had free time. After we did another team technology activity. We had to build protection over an egg that will be dropped 10 meters above ground.When an instructor dropped every group’s egg, only one group survived. After, I went to my dorm to start packing my luggage.

May 11th

They only activity every group did was the mini olympics. We had relay race and stuff. The best race was the chicken walking contest. We had to  make the instructors laugh and the funniest chicken walk would earn a lot of points. My chicken walk was weird cause I was dancing while walking. After, our group resulted in 3rd place. After we ate lunch then left to the airport to go back home.

2 Learner Attributes.

1. Risk- Taker

Where used this was in rock climbing. Before, I had diffuculties rock climbing because I was scared I would fall and slip. But in the Maekok River Village Resort, when I went rock climbing. I took a risk climbing a wall that wall straight and had few rocks. I was brave to do this because I realized if I was going to fall, my friends will catch me. That’s where I was a risk – taker.

2. Communicator

In jungle survival, when we had to create the little bamboo tent, I communicated with my group on what to do and guided them when they needed help. We were successful build the tent cause we communicated and co-operated with each other. When we created the fire I encouraged my group collect different types of sticks and congrats them when we were successful.

In class, we started a unit about the United Nation. We talked about the 8 goals. The 8 goals were goals that the UN were aiming  to achieve. As homework, we have to find an article similar to them so I chose an article similar to equality towards gender. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/21673951

This article is about a marathon being cancelled after women chose to participate in it. The marathon was to raise money for Palestine children. The Hamas, a group which held power in Gaza, cancelled the marathon because they heard women were also participating. Since the Hamas had power over Gaza, they were able to control women. They had rules on what events they we aloud to participate in.

Questions:

• since the Hamas only allowed certain events, why isn’t marathons one of them?

Case Closed! After a lot of investigations on the KMT cycle, we had a court session during science. As a member of the prosecution team, my duty was to recite the closing statement. But during the trial, I was a witness. What evidence we used was the food coloring case. Our result that the cold water disolved the food coloring faster than the warm water. After the case, the juries’ verdict was that KMT is not guilty because the lack of evidence of proof that KMT isn’t real and gravity. If I got to volunteer for my job, I would have chosen to be the photographer I wasn’t on either side and had an opinion out of both sides’ evidence.  Throughout these KMT investigations, I learnt the KMT cycle stages.

A picture of the prosecution team against the defenders.

In English, we’ve read a book named “The Other Side of Truth“. Sade is introduced to England after her mother get shot because of what her father did. His father worked for a newspaper company. He wrote the truth of the government. What I liked about the novel was that it showed a point of perspective of a refugee. Moving into a new country after something terrible happens. How I applied what I learnt from the novel to my project was by showing how did the refugees get help from the country their going to make their asylum. I learnt a new vocabulary from this project. I now use instead “asylum” instead of “shelter”.

What I disliked about this unit was that if we had to be in partners, we can only chose 1 unit out the both of you. My partner and I had to compromise which topic we were doing. But, after we finally chose the topic, it was easier to do the work. How I contributed to the project was that I wrote the script. While I did the script, my partner did the keynote layout. We also both contributed by narrating together.

Our project was on Syrian refugees. Our research question was “What help did Syrian refugees get from other countries?”. We did main research on only 3 countries, Germany, Turkey and Jordan. With the vocabulary I learned, I used that in the project.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Where would you fall on the stress and learning graph?Why? (Out of 5)

I would fall on 4 because I clearly understand how to convert them each to into each other. But when there’s a wordy type of question, I get confused and takes me time to think how to convert.

What was challenging about this unit? What was easy?

What was challenging was learning how to make  a fraction that isn’t a multiple of 100 into a 100.

How was your effort in class and at home reflected in your assessment results?

I think I kind of tried my best because my score was “ok”, but I was aiming for a higher score. But when doing exercise, I enjoy doing it.

What activities did you like in this unit?

I liked the M&M activity because it motivated me to work harder and faster.

Watch this space for my Hong Kong Heritage documentary about Kat Hing Wai Walled Village. You can watch the movie in progress at my website Here.

Well, in class we made short stories and made presentations on one specific part of it. I presented on how I use imagery and feedback to improve my story. What skills I learnt in presenting my story is that you need to show evidence to claim something and show how it was affected. If I got to represent my presentation, I would try to explain my presentation more clearer and explain more so the audience wouldn’t get confused. I think I needed to explain more of more imagery because some of my audience got confused.

In science, our assessment was to create a new type of bird species. I called my creation the “Jesus Peacrane” as it’s common name but the scientific name is the “Lésous Pavogruidae”. The Features of my bird is that it has peacock feathers with the body of a crane. The body feathers are black to attract heat and the peacock feathers are yellow,red,dark blue,light blue and pink. I feasts on assorted fruits such as bananas,passion fruit and mangoes to color up there peacock feathers. The peacrane uses its legs to jump up and grab the fruit with it’s swiss army knife beak. The size of it legs are around 3/4 of crane legs. The main reason it has  the word “Jesus” in it is the way it departs to fly. The bird stands around 5 meters fromt a body of water (ocean,lake,river etc.) and runs at top speed 70mph towards the water and runs as far as a meter on the water and flies. The feet is the key of the effects of running on the water. The feet is a combination of swimming feet and running feet. This is because the web feet places the water on instead of just sinking down into the water and the feet are for running ability. The strength of the bird is standing up. I hot glued the feet and legs together so it would be able to stand. But the clay is its weakness. It keeps on falling off because it’s soft clay on hard clay. If I got to redo criteria C, I would try to be more informational.

What I liked about this unit is I got to challenge myself on how to find the rules of growing or decreasing patterns because it might have helped me in the future for business rates. What I liked least about this unit was that some of the question in the previous tests/quizzes were to challenging for me and pushed me to my limits to try solving them. One question in my mind is that ” What tips can help me solve patterns rules?” This unti can hel me in the future for business.

This Shi Huang Di unit has taught me a lot. I learnt that Shi Huang Di was a successful emperor with his achievements  but had bad characteristics about him. Since in class we had to make posters about Shi Huang Di, my group and I created a poster about him changing the political system of China. He mostly changed the consequences of the laws and showed no mercy. The consequences were cruel even for a small crime had a huge punishment. This unit has taught me how create a poster using C.R.A.P and how to write a “extent” type of essay. This unit also taught me how to do proper research on him with noodletools.

This is noodletools. Noodletools helped me do propper research and cite my sources that I used info in.