Mustaches. Peace Signs ☮. Music ♫. YOLO! ©

These past few weeks, we prepared for the Grade 6 PYP Exhibition. We got to choose our process journals, either a sketch book, one of the orange school books, a binder, or buy our own. I chose the sketch book. We started with a lot of tuning in. We tuned in to what the exhibition is like, and why we have to do it. I realized it was a transition to MYP, which is upper school. From the tuning in, I learnt a lot about making our own central ideas, and learning to cooperate as a group. We listed the top 3 areas we’re interested in, then from that, the teachers put you into groups of 3 or 4. I was put into a group with 3 boys, with the area entertainment, but I think that this will be a new experience for me.

After we had our groups and area, we started tuning in again. We had to think of what we can research in, and what is our prior knowledge on entertainment. We talked about what we could further investigate in entertainment, and how can we prove the central idea (discoveries can lead to change) true. From this tuning in, I learnt how to be more on an inquirer because I thought more about my learning, and how I can improve next time.

For the finding out process, which is researching, we had to research individually. I looked into theater. We had lines of inquiry we had to focus on, so I researched information that would help me answer that. I searched on the internet, looked at books, and had interviews. I learnt how to be more responsible because I had to do my share of the work, and if I didn’t do it, then I would have let my group down. I also learnt how to be more committed because I was committed in the work I was doing, and getting it done on time.

When we got the information, we had to start our sorting out. We put our information together on a google doc, and answered our lines of inquiry. Part of the sorting out stage was we We also went further. This process is basically researching further, if someone in your group has more information about something than you, then you can research a little more in that.

We drew conclusions and came up with answers to our questions. We also learnt how to prove the central idea true, using the information we found out. Together as a group, we realized that the discovery of reflection has changed the entertainment industry the most because without it, the camera wouldn’t have been made, and we couldn’t have digital cameras, and the equipment to film movies. I was really stressed on Friday (April 19) because our group was a little behind on our booth, so we had to rush everything last minute. But at 2:00, when everything had to be done, our group was finally finished!

On Monday (April 22), we put everything up. I was really afraid that our things will fall down. On Tuesday (April 23), I had to rush upstairs to the library to fix up our booth. When I got there, our big poster fell down, and most of the words fell down too. I helped our group fix everything. We presented from 8:30 to 10:30, then from 12:00 to 1:30. For these times, we presented to the students in our school. When I presented to little kids in Prep, I made our information more simple, so they could understand, but for older kids, such as Grade 4′s and 5′s, I presented our information quite detailed. I enjoyed presenting to others because it made me more confident and prepared to present in front of parents. On Wednesday (April 24), we had a specific time slot to when we have to be at our booth. That day we only had to present for 1 and a half hour. My group and I presented from 9:30 to 11:00 am. After presenting again, I felt even more confident! On the night of the 24th, we got ready to present to the parents. After I presented to two to three people, I was still quite nervous, but after I talked to many parents, I felt more confident, and believed in myself more. I came out of our booth, and tried to attract parents to come, and I did! That night was amazing, and it was also a great experience!

The next day, I was quite sad… We had to take everything down, but I will always remember how our booth looked like.

I will NEVER forget the exhibition!

Pictures of the process:

Our tuning in..

Our group, with mentor: Mr Brown.

Our booth

Exhibition Night!

Taking things down…

We did it!

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Purple: My Answer.   Blue and underlined: Question.

What does sportsmanship mean to you/look like to you? Give some examples.

Sportsmanship is basically working with others and helping the people on your team. You can see sportsmanship in a lot of games, mostly when teams work together. You can see them passing the ball to their teammates and letting other people on their team shoot goals.

Why is it important to follow the rules of a game?

It is important to follow the rules of a game because if you don’t follow it, then it would be really unfair to your teammates and the other team. It’s like you’re cheating in a way. If you follow the rules of a game, your team might get a better chance of winning.

Why are good team strategies important to success in team games? Give examples of strategies for team handball?  How would you create and/or deny space in team handball? What is a strategy you/your team used in “Capture the Flag” to be more successful

Good team strategies are important to success in team games because if you use good strategies, the other team might not know them, so you have a chance of winning. Strategies for team handball are passing to your open teammates and trying to trick the goalie by fake shooting to the right, then actually shooting it to the left. You can create space by going to a place where no one is guarding, and that gives the other team a harder target. You can deny space by putting your hands up in front of the other team, and try to block the ball.

My team created space, denied space and passed to the teammates that were open.

Describe why having strong skills helps your team be more successful? Give some examples of skills with a specific team sport in mind.

Having strong skills helps your team be more successful because if your team is stronger, the more you will be active, and that leads to scoring goals, defending etc.

Why does a team that is very physically fit have an advantage over a team that is not fit?

The team that is physically fit has an advantage over a team that is not fit because they can run up and down the court more, so they can defend, shoot goals and create space.

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This week was quite special…

On Monday, we started off with breaking down our new central idea for our new unit. We got the important words, and brainstormed synonyms for that word. We also had to brainstorm one opposite word, we created this really crazy opposite central idea, but it helped me understand the central idea more.

On Tuesday, we made videos of how we use fractions, decimals and percents in our daily lives. I liked this activity because it made me understand and realize that we use fractions, decimals and percents almost everyday and we don’t even realize it.

On Wednesday, we had tons of fun! In performing arts, we had our school’s artist in residence, Steve Stiller to do percussion things with us. He showed us how we can use only 3 sticks and make melodies with them. I really thought this was a great activity because we could get a chance to have a change, experience different tools we can use to make music. We also got back to Moodle. Moodle is a website we use for our weekly math challenges. Some visitors came to our classroom to look at what we do with technology. They walked around the classroom and asked some of us questions about what we are doing, or if we can show them our blogs. 

On Thursday, Mr Hung came to our classroom to teach us the basics of Adobe Illustrator so we know how to make a logo for the exhibition logo competition. 

On Friday, its DDD!!! We had to wear blue, green and white. We worked on our portfolios, and before lunch, I handed out brownies to everyone in my class because my 12th birthday is on Sunday (27 Jan). Everyone enjoyed the brownies, so I had enough to give them seconds. In groups, we also had to make a collage about the different spaces. Public spaces, private spaces, semi-private spaces, semi-public spaces. I think making a collage about spaces really helps me understand the central idea and spaces more.

More next week!

Rachel

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This week had been a busy week. We started with tuning in to our exhibition, which is happening in April. We learnt about the whole meaning of the exhibition (why we need to do it), and we started to look into the theme. We looked for newspaper articles that relate to the theme, and have to write a summary and why it connects to our unit. 

On Tuesday, we took part in a “Crossroads” activity, lead by some Grade 9′s. It basically teaches us about how some people around the world get tortured even if they are innocent, how some people have to work a lot, and not get payed very much, and how some people are blind in places where there’s war, and it is really dangerous. I learnt that we have to treasure what we have now. We also had Mr. Beaton come to our classroom to tell us about his personal histories, because personal histories is one of the sections in the theme. He told us what he has experienced, some big changes that really affected him in life etc. 

On Wednesday, we started off by working on some math. We worked in small groups with classmates who are also not so good at the section. We had to answer some questions in a math book. I thought this was really helpful, because we can work with other people with similar difficulties to answer the questions. 

On Thursday, we had a visitor come to our school. Steve Stiller was the visitor, he is a percussionist. He is the artist in residence for our school. He played 3 instruments. I really liked it because he showed a new level of music. We had another visitor. Ms Lai is a visiting teacher from Toronto, and came to our classroom to read us a story. She read “The Tale of Sybil Snake” by Sarah Brennan. I really enjoyed it because it was a treat in a way, we usually don’t have visitors come to our class to read us a story. 

On Friday, we had our CAMS pre-test. The test was about math (fractions, decimals, percentage, unit rates etc). I was really nervous because math is one of my weaknesses in school, and I have a feeling I didn’t do so well. 

Next week, we will be looking more into the Exhibition and getting the main idea, and understanding the purpose of process journals.

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Hey! Did anyone tell you that Christmas is coming??? Well, this year its on Tuesday, December 25th, 2012!

Christmas is all about giving and caring about others. Some people believe that Santa Claus comes every Christmas Eve to deliver gifts for children if they are good. Some people believe that there is no Santa at all, and its just their parents who give them gifts. Everyone has a different opinion.

Hope you all have a AWESOME Christmas!

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I’m sorry I was quiet and not posting anything for a few weeks, I was so busy with camp.

I’ll start with camp, camp was so fun! We went to Zhaoqing, China for this awesome camp led by the group Dragonfly for 4 days and 3 nights. In camp, the Grade was split into 5 groups (Red, Yellow, Orange, Green and Blue). I was put in the green group with my friend Jocelyn, she is also my room mate. Everyday was filled with activities that are challenging, fun and new to some of us. There was paper making, ink stone carving, the Great race, Chinese painting, the Dragonfly challenge, a campfire,  and my personal favourite, the cableway hike. The green group hiked to the top of the mountain and waited for the blue group to come because they took the cableway up. When the blue group came, they gave us their harnesses and helmets to let us go down the cableway. We got to cross bridges that were very wobbly, thin wires, and got to see the water and a waterfall on the way, even though it was tough, we still had tons of fun! The food there was really delicious, we had dinner at Dynasty, lunchIt was raining for all the days, but everyone still had a big smile on their face     Overall, camp was amazing and such a great experience for all of us!

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If you wonder what a perimeter is, the perimeter is the outside of a shape. As you can see, the square’s outside is 3 cm. The area is where the purple fills the square.  To calculate the perimeter, you need to measure the outsides and add them together. 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 12. The perimeter of this square is 12. To find out the area, you have to multiply the length of the square by its width. 3 x 3 = 9. The area of the square is 9 cm². You always have to add the ² because it represents squared. Hope this was useful if you don’t know how to do this.

Rachel

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These past 3 days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) there was this group called the Young Americans and they came to our school to teach us singing , dancing and drama! On Wednesday night, the grade 6′s will be performing in front of our parents with the Young Americans!!!

On Monday, we learnt a few songs and dances. The first dance we learnt was going to be our opening number when we show the performance to our parents on Wednesday night. We will be dancing to the song “Witch Doctor”. I’m really excited for that dance because Janice, Charlotte and I are going to have a solo dance together. Other dances will be “The Rock and Roll Medley”, “Shake it Up Baby”, “Dancing Queen (Girls Only)”, “The Circle of Life (Lion King)”. Some of the songs we learnt were Don’t Stop Believe’n, Let it Be, Hey Jude, Shake it Up Baby, The Circle of Life and Dancing Queen.

On Tuesday, we practiced the dances and songs we learnt and also learnt some new ones. We learnt a song called “Happiness” (I get a solo part…nervous…) and we learnt the dance moves to it. We did a run through everything we learnt.

On Wednesday, we reviewed everything and we also learnt our encore song. Our encore song is called “When We Hold On Together”. With this song, we will be singing and also doing sign language at the same time. We got Young American shirts to wear at our performance. Some grade 5 classes came and watched our dress rehearsal, along with some parents and teachers. I think that we are all ready to perform, we wont be so nervous, and we will just be ourselves. I’m really looking forward to our performance, hope it goes well!

Rachel

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This week went by fast, it still feels like a Monday. 

On Monday, there was nothing much going on.

On Tuesday, we started our first swimming lesson. Swimming lessons will continue for the rest of November and will stop for December, January, February. It will start again in March.

On Wednesday, our class painted tiles for a big art piece. I didn’t get to paint because I had to go with 5 other classmates to a math booster to improve our math skills. 

On Thursday, we did a little activity using 3D shapes. We started with 10 shapes and we had to cut them out and assemble them. We had  the same 10 shapes if we needed to use any extra. We had to think of a creative object to make using those 10 shapes. My group and I thought of making totem poles, the Pentagon (America) and a person. We finally thought we should make two buildings with a bridge (something like the Petrona Towers). We used all 10 shapes but we used one extra shape. We used 2 cubes for the base. Ms Sandul and Ms Tan saw all the groups (5 groups) creations and decided who should win. They finally decided that group 2 and 5 should win because what they did was very creative using only 10 3D shapes. Group 2 made a castle, a camel and a rocket all in one! Group 5 made a military base using 10 3D shapes. Ms Sandul said she was proud of all of us and gave us all popping candy!!!

Today (Friday), we had a Remembrance Day assembly. The official day is on November 11th but since that is a Sunday, we do the assembly on Friday. The junior choir (I’m in it) performed during the assembly. We sang the Canadian National Anthem, the Chinese National Anthem, and one song called Ordinary Miracle. Ordinary Miracle is about how to appreciate what we have now and what the people did to help us. I think that Remembrance Day is about how to appreciate what the soliders did for us and how we have the rights that some people don’t have. We also have to wear a poppy. The poppy is a flower that was all around the fields when the soliders fought. There is a poem called In Flanders Fields. This poem talks about World War 1 and the poppies.

So that wraps up this week. I’m really excited for next week because the Young Americans group is coming to our school to teach the grade 6′s drama, dancing, singing and much more! We will be doing this workshop for 3 days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). On Wednesday, we will be performing in front of our parents. AWESOME!!!

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