Two weeks ago, we (7B) ended our KMT Court Case with the closing statements. The KMT Court Case was basically a court case arguing whether the KMT (Kinetic Molecular Theory) was true or not. I was on the defense side, and my team and I did some experiments and research to help provide evidence to defend the KMT. Here are some questions my Science teacher, Mr Kirchner, asked everyone to answer:

1)    Pictures/videos from the class website

Click here to go to a Picassa web album containing pictures from the court case.

2)    Do you agree with the jury’s verdict? Why or why not? Include at least 5 facts from evidence that was presented during the trial.

I don’t agree with the jury’s verdict (which decided that there was a tie between the defense and prosecution) because most of the prosecution’s arguments were invalid.

3)    What was your job? Explain how you fulfilled your responsibilities.

My job in the court case was being the Court Stenographer. I had to record notes during the case and I fulfilled my responsibilities by doing what I was supposed to do.

4)    If you could do a different job during the court case, which would you have volunteered for and why?

I could have been a lawyer because during the court case, I made some questions for the lawyers to ask, and if I could have been a lawyer, I would be able to ask the questions myself.

5)    Explain one or more things you learned about KMT during the investigations.

One of the main things I learned about during the KMT investigations are the eight points of KMT and how each one could be proved (as a defense member, I had to prove as many points of KMT as possible).

Click here to see the eight points of KMT if you don’t know what they are:

6)    Explain how you improved as a scientist during the KMT investigations and the trial.

The main skills I improved are my experimenting skills (the skills that I use in experiments) and my data collection skills. For example, I learned how to use a magnetic stirrer and other new equipment that were introduced in the investigations, and this helped improve my experimenting skills. As for my data collection skills, I had to collect a lot of data, sort them out, make averages, and make graphs, and although I already knew how to do those tasks, I gained a bit more experience from the experience itself.

During the Grade 7 Experience Week trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand from May 6 – May 12, I learned a lot of new skills, went through a lot of new experiences, and did a lot of new activities.

Here are two IB learner profile attributes that I demonstrated during the trip:

Risk Taker

I tried out a lot of new and unfamiliar activities, such as helping out in two community and service activities and eating Thai dishes (some of the Thai dishes were spicy but I still tried them). Also, I had to do an activity called the “confidence course”. Basically, it was a course of balancing beams, monkey bars, rings and ropes that was designed to be hard to go through. Underneath it was a pool of water, so that whenever someone fell off the confidence course, they wouldn’t be injured much. Prior to the event, I felt nervous about the course, but during the activity, I took a try (but I fell). After that, I didn’t feel nervous anymore, and in my second trial, I actually succeeded completing the entire course.

Balanced

I was balanced, because normally on a school day I would be sitting down in a classroom doing word, but in this trip, I got a chance to try out a range of activities and sports.

During our stay in Chiang Mai, we had to do two community and service activities – we had to play games with the younger children in a local school and we had to help build a new school facility by making bricks and painting walls.

This trip also helped me appreciate nature more simply because I was in a natural environment. Although I was living in a resort, I was often out doing activities such as kayaking and jungle survival.

In conclusion, everything that happened can’t be all explained in this one post, but the most important points about this trip was that I learned a lot of new skills through the various activities during the trip, helped out in two community and service activities, and had fun.

My Humanities-Design Hong Kong Heritage short documentary is finally finished!

Below is the embedded Vimeo video:

7B 1881 Heritage Former Fire Station 2013 from Horace Lee on Vimeo.

My Math fractions and decimals unit is over. Mr Kirchner (my Math teacher) asked my class and I to answer the following questions to reflect on our learning:

This is a graph that shows how stress affects learning:

Where would you fall on the stress and learning graph? Why?

I think I would fall in about 3.9 on the graph because I am becoming stressed from homework (I don’t get much homework in math, but I do get a lot of homework in other subjects).

What was challenging about this unit? What was easy?

The challenging part about this unit was learning how to multiply decimals because it was a bit confusing. The easiest thing that I did in this unit was converting fractions to percents; I just had to divide the numerator by the denominator.

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

I didn’t put much effort at home apart from homework, and at school, I put in a bit more effort by challenging myself to do some practice calculations, but my assessment results were still good.

What activities did you like in this unit?

I liked doing the pi (π) investigation in this unit because I got to go outside and measure the circumference of the center circle of the school’s artificial-grass soccer field.

At school, we Grade 7 students have TAP class every Wednesday. TAP stands for Teacher Advisor Program, and it is a class made up of about 20 students from mixed homerooms. (I’m from the 7B homeroom, and there are other students from other homerooms as well.) In TAP, we discuss about a variety of subjects, such as Community and Service.

Here are some ideas to improve TAP next year:

• Have smaller TAP groups.
• Have more fun activities to make TAP more enjoyable.
• Use TAP time to give advice on how to succeed in school. Examples of this are to teach tips on studying and discuss issues in school as well as how to fix them.

Here is a thing that is already good about TAP and shouldn’t be changed:

• TAP schedule – having TAP once a week on Wednesdays is good enough

Watch this space for my Hong Kong Heritage documentary about the 1881 Heritage Former Fire Station (the Old Kowloon Fire Station).

You can watch the movie in progress at my Google Site.

Click here to see another post embedded with the finished documentary.

The last unit I learned in math was the patterns unit. During the patterns unit, I learned about finding out the output of an input based on an equation. I also learned to find an equation based on the input-output pattern of a function.

What I liked most about this unit was finding out equations from input-output tables. What I liked least was answering long questions in the worksheets.

I think I learned well in finding and writing equations. I don’t really have any questions to ask.

I think this unit was important because in life, I can find out patterns and make equations to predict the next numbers. I can use these patterns to identify relationships between different numbers.

Here is one of my worksheets, the handshake problem, which I was supposed to do:

Handshake Problem

For the Science Biology unit summative assessment, I had to build or draw a “new bird species that I discovered”. I chose to draw my bird, and named it “Thunderbird”. Here is a picture of my drawing, along with information about its structural and behavioral adaptations (click on it for a full-sized image):

Here are some “good” and “could be improved” points about my drawing:

I think my work outside of the class was sufficient because I managed to finish the drawing in time. I think I was OK in being time efficient, because I did work, but I sometimes chatted a bit. For overall time management, I also did OK.

If I were to start this assignment all over again, I would improve it according to the points I listed above, and type (instead of write) the text for the information.

In this unit for Humanities class, I learned about Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China. I found out not only about Shi Huangdi’s positive actions and achievements, but also his negative ones.

After learning a bit about Shi Huangdi, we (my class and I) did some activities. For example, we were separated into groups of 3-4 to work on a poster project, where we had to make a poster about a particular achievement that Shi Huangdi “achieved”. My group researched on the Terracotta army that Shi Huangdi ordered to be built. After we did some research, we started working on our poster. Then, we presented the poster to the class after we finished it.

Some skills I learned/increased in this unit were:

-Essay writing skills (we had to write an essay about him)

-Poster making skills

-Using the Notecards feature in NoodleTools

This is a picture that we used in our poster:

In Math class, we are studying about patterns in algebra. I am looking at Human Ingenuity as the Area of Interaction because Human Ingenuity is about thinking; people need to think when doing math. For example, people in the past thought of math equations to solve problems.

I watched the original Lorax animation in Science class and I had to write notes about what was connected with the AOIs (Areas of Interaction) Human Ingenuity and Environment.

In The Lorax, someone called the Once-ler arrives in a land and cuts down “Truffula” trees to create a product called a Thneed, which could be used as a shirt, sock, glove, hat, carpet, pillow, sheet, or a curtain. The Lorax, a creature in the story, warns him not to cut down the trees, but the Once-ler ignores his advice. As he sells more Thneeds, he invites his relatives to join his business. Soon later, his business grows and his machines cut down every single tree of the forest. This affects the animals living there, which have to leave. The entire place ends up as a wasteland, full of pollution, and his business closes.

The Human Ingenuity in the story is the Once-ler’s Thneed business and the Environment are the natural features of the place (plants, trees, ponds, animals, etc.). In the story, the two AOIs affect each other.

We also read an article about a plan for a Man-made beach in Hong Kong. According to some environmental activists, the beach could wipe out more than 200 marine and bird species, but the government supports the building of this beach. If this beach is built (for Human Ingenuity), it could affect the Environment in many ways.

If you didn’t know, this is my first post in Grade 7. Anyway, today I learned about the different AOIs (Area of Interactions), which are “Approaches to Learning”, “Community and Service”, “Environments”, “Health and Social Education”, and “Human Ingenuity”. We were split into 5 groups of 5-6 students, and my group had to think about how to use “Community and Service” to help the victims of the recent earthquake in Yunnan, China. After we brainstormed some ideas, we chose our top 3 and presented it to the class. Click on the links below to see the different ideas we presented:

Approaches to Learning

Community and Service

Environments

Human Ingenuity

Human Ingenuity:

-Earthquake proof houses

-Solar-powered earthquake detector

Environments:

-Replanting Trees

-Rebuilding Houses

-Food Supplies

Community and Service:

-Fundraising

-Healthy food and supplies

-Temporary tents/shelter (10-20 persons per tent)

Approaches to Learning:

-Donations

-Raising Awareness

-Volunteer work

Dear reader, sorry that I forgot to ‘post this post’ on this blog. It’s now the summer holiday if you didn’t know. Anyway, this post is about the exhibition if you want to read it.

As I said in the last few posts, we had 32 areas of focuses to choose from to investigate for the exhibition. We had to write down our top 3 choices to investigate, 1st choice, 2nd choice, and 3rd choice. The teachers would put us into groups of 3 or 4 according to our choices. If we didn’t get our 1st choice, then we would get our 2nd choice, and if we didn’t get our 2nd choice, we would get our 3rd choice. I got my 1st choice, the Industrial Revolution. We made a purpose statement, to investigate how the Industrial Revolution affects the way we live today. So we did some tuning-in activities and talked a bit about what we knew already, and then we started finding out about our focus area. After we did some research, we sorted out our information and we chose areas that we wanted to investigate more to go further. We used research questions to guide our investigation, and we answered our research questions as we found out more information. After we went further, we drew conclusions and we shared our ideas and research to other group members.

When we finished investigating, we used the information and the main ideas of what we learned to produce our booth. On our booth, we had a long banner on top that I made, and we had some pictures below. We also had some facts up on the sides of the booth. We had 2 desks in front with a model factory that Julia (a member of our group) built. We also had a miniature steam engine that Charlie bought.

When the exhibition was over, we brought down our booth and cleaned the area. So that was the ‘end’ of our grade 6 exhibition.

This week the Grade 6 Exhibition starts. I am in a group of 4 people (including me). We have agreed on an essential agreement and a purpose statement. Me and my group are investigating the Industrial Revolution and how it connects to the Central Idea (the past has shaped what our world is like today) of the Exhibition unit, Where We Are in Place & Time.

This week we also finished the unit, Sharing The Planet.

This week, we did our SLLRs (Student-Led Learning Reviews). I showed my mom what I learned in class and my learning journey at school.

Over the last weeks, we read another book for literacy, called Tuck Everlasting. This week we were split into groups of about 6 people (my group had 3) and each group did a different activity. My group did a movie about what happened a long time ago before the book.

This week, we are starting the new unit, Sharing The Planet. This unit is about power and relationships of people. Below is some information about this unit:

The central idea of this unit is: “The use of power has consequences that affect relationships and access to opportunities”.

The lines of inquiry are: “The effects of power on the behaviour of people”, “The consequences of the actions of those with power”, and “How peace and conflict are managed globally”.

The teacher questions of this unit are: “Where is the power?”, and “What is the cost of power?”.

The PYP concepts of this unit are: “Function”, and “Connection”.

The PYP attitudes of this unit are: “Tolerance” and “Empathy”.

We also watched a movie called Rabbit-Proof Fence. It is about three aboriginal girls who are forcefully taken from their families to a “re-educational camp”. They later manage to escape back to their families, but on the way, one of the girls, Gracie, gets re-captured. Click here to see more information.

It is now the end of our current unit, How The World Works (explained in the last few posts). The next unit will be Sharing The Planet. During this unit, I learned a lot of information about the earth’s natural features that I never knew before. The things that I learned about which I didn’t know before are fumaroles, peninsulas, and the supercontinents that existed a long time ago.

This week, my group that I worked with for making the animation (which I talked about in the last post) continued making the animation. We used a mini whiteboard and drew a picture, then took a photo, changed the photo a bit, then took another photo, and so on. We then imported the photos to an application on our MacBook Pros called iStopMotion, which we could use to make stop-motion animations. After we imported the pictures to iStopMotion, we did a bit of editing (very little) and then exported the photos in to an .mov file. After that, we imported the movie that we just exported into a video editing application called iMovie. Then, we added some transitions, text, and voiceovers and we were done. After each group of my class finished making their animations, we watched them all as a class (except for those who were sick or absent).

We also went to a field trip to High Island, Sai Kung, Hong Kong to see some hexagonal rock columns which were formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago in Hong Kong. Here are is a picture of the rocks:

http://hkss.cedd.gov.hk/hkss/eng/education/GS/hkg/chapter9/figure14.jpg

The central idea says that the continual evolution of the Earth’s natural features affects life on the planet. This trip has proved it because when the rocks were formed, it affected life by giving nutrients for plants (the rocks had lots of nutrients) that lived on the mountain beside the rocks.

This week, we showed our portfolios to our parents, we did a poster on for literacy circles (we were split into groups for an activity called literacy circles, which each group read a different book). My group read a book called Nation (by Terry Pratchet) so we did a poster on the book.

We researched more on the natural features with my group (which I talked about in the last post). Then, we made an animation with a subduction zone causing a volcano and geyser/fumarole.

This week, we learned more about the earth’s natural features. Our class had some books about the earth’s natural features. There were different books, like a book about volcanoes, and another about earthquakes. I choose a few books and researched. If we could find some natural features of the earth, we would write it down on a big piece of paper that’s on the board. Everyone wrote what natural features they found and, at the end, there was a lot of natural features written down of the paper, about 40, I think. The next day, we chose a natural feature that was written on the paper to research more about. I chose subduction plates so I researched more into subduction plates. We were organized into groups, and I was in a group with another person researching on volcanoes, another with geysers, and another with fumeroles.

This week, while we are on the Transdisciplinary Theme “Where We Are In Place And Time” (the unit for the exhibition), we are also on another Transdisciplinary Theme, “How The World Works”. The unit if about plate tectonics, volcanoes, and the earth’s natural features.

We watched a documentary about continental drift  and how it has caused changes in the earth’s national features, and how changes in the Earth’s natural features have affected life.

The central idea of this unit is: “The continual evolution of Earth’s natural features affects life on the planet”.

The inquiry is into: “The natural world and it’s laws, the interaction between the natural world (physical and biological) and human societies”; “how humans use their understanding of scientific principles”; and “the impact of scientific and technological advances on society and on the environment”.

The teacher question of this unit are: “Is change inevitable?”.

The PYP concepts of this unit are: “Form”, “Causation”, and “Change”.

The PYP attitudes of this unit are: “Curiosity”, and “Appreciation”.

The lines of inquiry are: “How the Earth has changed over time”, “How Earth’s natural features have evolved”, and “How changes in Earth’s natural features have affected life”.

This week, we changed the transdisciplinary theme to “Where We Are in Place And Time”. This unit is the unit for the grade 6 exhibition, which is an exhibition that grade 6 is making. The exhibition is like an assessment and teachers are marking us on how good we are doing. We have to make our own unit (including central ideas, lines of inquiry, concepts, and questions) for the exhibition.

Where we are in place and time is an inquiry into orientation in place and time; personal histories; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations, and migrations of humankind; the relationships between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.

This week, I finished my summative assessment task of the unit How We Organize Ourselves and I made a movie. Information about the assessment is in the last post (Reflection For The Week Of 28 November). Anyway, I was being a thinker, reflective, and open-minded this week. I was being a thinker and open-minded this week because I was thinking and being open-minded when doing my summative assessment. I was reflective this week because I was reflecting on the information I got from camp (Reflection For The Week Of 21 November).

This week, we started working on our summative assessment task of the unit “How We Express Ourselves”. The task was to show two different markets in two different communities (our central idea was:”The organization and operation of marketplaces is determined by the communities in which they are located” and the task was based on the central idea). We had to describe the two communities, describe how each marketplace is organized and operates, and we had to compare and contrast the two communities and how the characteristics of each community determines how the markets are organized and how they operate. Throughout this unit, we did activities like camp and the field trip to the aberdeen market to collect information so that we could do the task using the information we collected. The summative assessment task will be due on Friday the 9th of November.

This week, I went to Grade 6 Camp with other Grade 6 students (some students didn’t come because either they or their parents didn’t want to), teachers, staff, and Dragonfly (an organization that co-hosted our camp) staff. We got to pick 3 choices (if we don’t get our first suggestion we probably got our second or third) of room mates (people who slept with you in the hotel rooms) and Grade 6 students that went were split into 3 groups, A, B, C, which was then split into groups 1 and 2. I was in the A1 group (And my room mate too). We went to Zhaoqing, China and we stayed in 2 different hotels, the Dynasty Hotel and Nine Dragons Resort. Here is a picture of the area from Google Maps:

There are 3 circles in this picture, 1 in the top left corner showing Zhaoqing. The circle in the bottom right corner is Hong Kong, and the circle on top is Shenzhen. We rode the bus, which took about an hour, from CDNIS, Hong Kong, to the Shenzhen border, where there were inspection, passport check, etc. After the border, we ate lunch (which was bread from Subway) and we rode on the bus again (but this time, it took about 4 hours), headed to Zhaoqing. When we got there, we arrived at a hotel which was called the Dynasty Hotel (as I mentioned earlier). Here are some pictures of the hotel:

This is a picture on the outside of it…

…and this is a picture on the inside of it (in the rooms).

And this is a picture of the reception desk of the hotel.

Anyway, we had about 15 minutes go up to our hotel rooms to put our luggage down. My room mate and I went back down to the lobby after 15 minutes. The different groups, A1, A2, B1, etc. were separated and we did different activities. My group went to a garden where everyone in the group introduced themselves. After that, we took a bus to the Zhaoqing Park (AKA Zhaoqing Wetland Park), where we did an amazing race where we had to team up in groups of 4. The Dragonfly staff gave each group a piece of paper with 9 pictures and another piece of paper with a map. We had to find the places corresponding to the pictures and take a picture of our team in front of it. For example, if there is a picture of a statue on the paper, we had to find the statue and take a picture of us in front of it. It was very tiring since we had to go everywhere and find the places. At the end, we found all of the places but we were not the winners. Here is a google maps link to the Zhaoqing Park:
View Larger Map

After the amazing race, we took the bus back to the hotel and we ate dinner. After dinner, when it was about 7:15 Zhaoqing time, which was the same with HK time, we met with our teacher leaders to talk the next activity. We went to a shopping area and we interviewed shopkeepers and customers. We collected a lot of information from the interviews. Then, went back to the hotel and we showered, wrote reflections, pack our backpacks, and slept.

The next day, we were woken up by wake-up call, which was a telephone call from the front desk to wake us up, and we ate breakfast. After breakfast, we met with our teacher leaders and after that, we took a bus to an ink pot activity. At first, I didn’t know what an ink pot was, but after they told us what it was, I finally understood. An ink pot is a pot used to hold ink but the Chinese ink pot is carved from ink stone, a type of stone used to make ink pots. Everyone got an ink stone that had been carved in a shape to hold ink, but we carved designs on it. Anyway, after the activity, we ate lunch (which was sandwiches) in that area. Then, we did a Chinese painting activity, which was quite fun. We followed the teacher’s instructions and we painted a scenery with a wooden house, a boat, some trees and some mountains. Next, we went back to the hotel and we took a bus to a pier with a boat that took us to the Nine Dragons Resort, the second hotel we went to. Anyway, that was just the first and second day of camp. On the other days, we did some activities including a canyon hike, a camp fire, and catapult building (in which we we split into groups and each group got to build a catapult out of bamboo sticks and we used them to fire water balloons at the teachers).

This is a long story so if you would like to learn more about the grade 6 camp, please comment on this post.

This week, we had a field trip. We went to the Aberdeen market so that we could interview the customers of the market and the shopkeepers in order to learn more about this unit, which is about markets. We were split into groups of 3. Here is a picture of a building in the market from google maps:

This was the first area in we that we went to. We interviewed 3 shopkeepers in this area.Inside, there were meat, vegetables, candy, other food, and clothes. It was a wet market.

After we interviewed some people, we moved on to another area. Here is a picture of it from google maps:

In this area, we interviewed 3 customers. There were shops like Toys “R” Us, Watsons, etc. In this area, it was a dry market.

After we interviewed people, it was time to go back to school. We took the school bus back with our class.

On Friday (Nov. 18), we had our assembly (which was hosted by my class [6A] and 5B) held and our class made a movie about the day of the life of a 6th grader, we made a Keynote presentation that showed our artwork of the summative assessment of How We Express Ourselves, and we made a literal song using literal and figurative words for the lyrics. After the grade 6 and 5 assembly, grade 5 left and grade 6 stayed for a talk about grade 6 camp, in which we are going to Zhao Qing on Tuesday, 22 Nov. to Friday, 25 Nov.

This week, we leaned about markets (we started the “How We Organize Ourselves” PYP Unit, which is about markets, a few weeks ago). As a project for this unit, we were split into groups of about 4 and each group had to make a market. My group was called “The BURN” because we sold both old and new DVDs, VCDs, and CDs (some were old and some were new). We also sold iPhone and iPod Touch cases along with a portable DVD player. Each DVD was 40 HKD, VCDs and CDs were 30 HKD, iPhone/iPod Touch case were 30 HKD, and the portable DVD player was 300 HKD. We earned 1 251 HKD by selling these items.

The central idea of this unit is: “The organization and operation of marketplaces is determined by the communities in which they are located”.

The inquiry is into: “How marketplaces around the world operate”, “Why the operation and organization of marketplaces differ”, and “How marketplaces meet the needs of communities”.

The teacher questions of this unit are: “What came first the market or the community?”, and “What makes a good market?”.

I think that the community came first, then they decided to make a market. I think that a good market depends on the organization of it.

The PYP concepts of this unit are: “Function”, “Connection”, and “Causation”.

The PYP attitudes of this unit is: “Tolerance”

This week, we started working on our summative assessment task. The summative assessment task was to make a piece of artwork that had a meaning in it. For example, we could make a movie clip about technology, or a play about saving the environment. I made a poster that was about stopping global warming. I used the Kid Pix Deluxe for Mac application and the Preview application to make the poster.

This week we learned more about art (we are now at the second PYP unit, which is How We Express Ourselves and is about art [The first unit was Who We Are and is about beliefs and values].).

The central idea of this unit is: “The application of elements and principles determines the success of an artistic composition”.

The inquiry is into: “The application of the elements and principles”, “The relationship between the creation of, and response to, artistic composition”, and “What makes a successful artistic composition”.

The teacher questions of this unit are: “When is art ‘good’ artistic composition?”, and “Can everyone be an artist?”.

The PYP concepts of this unit are: “Function”, “Reflection”, and “Connection”.

The PYP attitudes of this unit are: “Enthusiasm” and “Confidence”.

This week, we did 3 main projects. The first one was a hat project, in which we had to design a hat for crazy hat day. The second one was portfolios (if you want to read more about portfolios, click here to view an old post about portfolios). We are bringing portfolios back home today to show our parents, so we had to put work that we done at school and/or at home in it. The third project was that we had to do research on a particular type of art and make presentations about it, such as posters, computer presentations, etc.

This week, I showed confidence because I was confident in my work and I put effort in it. I also showed enthusiasm because I was happy to do work and I put effort in it willingly.

Last week, we learned more about beliefs, values, conflicts, and how different beliefs and values can cause conflict. We did an activity in which we were split into groups to do skits about conflicts. Each group got a piece of paper that had a conflict printed on it. The group had to find a way to solve the conflict and act out the conflict as a skit in front of the class. My group did two skits. The first skit was about a boy who wanted to go to a soccer tournament but his mom wanted him to go to the church at the same time. We solved the conflict by changing the time of the soccer tournament.  The second skit was about a boy who wanted to buy a new shoe but couldn’t because the parents said it was too expensive. We solved the conflict by making the boy give in to his parent’s ideas.

Our first unit in Grade 6 is about beliefs, values, and conflicts.

The central idea of this unit is: “Differences in values can cause conflict that we choose to deal with in different ways”.

The inquiry is into: “How personal conflicts arise”, “How values are formed”, and “How we react in times of conflict”.

The teacher questions of this unit are: “What precipitates conflict?”, “How do personal values impact relationships?”, and “How do you minimize conflict”.

The PYP concepts of this unit are: “Function”, “Causation”, and “Connection”.

The PYP attitudes of this unit are: “Respect” and “Independence”.

This week, I showed respect because I respected the work that others did and I showed independence because I did some projects by myself and I didn’t need help.

I read a book called “Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle & Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me” (by Nan Marino) and here is a book report about it:

Summary

Muscle Man McGinty always lies and it seems that nobody in Ramble Street, the street that he lives in, notices or knows it, except Tamara Simpson. Tamara knows every lie Muscle Man McGinty told: the Neil Armstrong lie, where he lied that Neil Armstrong was his uncle, the Training for the Olympics lie, where he said that he was the fastest swimmer and that he was training for the Olympics, the James Bond eyesight lie, where he told that he could see very, very far, and the kickball lie, where he claimed that he could defeat everyone on Ramble Street in the game kickball. And Tamara wants everyone to know that Muscle Man McGinty is a wormy liar. So she finds different ways to try to convince everyone in Ramble Street.

Main characters

Tamara Simpson – A person who wants everyone to know about Muscle Man McGinty’s lies.

Muscle Man McGinty – The person who lies a lot (Muscle Man is his nickname, Douglas McGinty is his real rame).

Big Danny – A friend of Muscle Man.

Shirley Simpson – Tamara’s mom.

Marshall Simpson – Tamara’s dad.

Tim Simpson – Tamara’s older brother.

Vincent Pizzeria – Tim’s friend.

Greg McGinty – Muscle Man’s brother.

Kebsie – Tamara’s best friend.

Marybeth – A friend of Tamara.

Janie – Marybeth’s sister.

John Macros – a friend of Muscle Man.

Connections in my life with this book

I have an interest in space exploration as the people in this book do.

If I were the main character I would…

If I were the main character, Tamara, I would do exactly what she did in the book because there was a good ending.

Like all sequences, the Fibonacci sequence is a list of numbers arranged in a particular order. Here’s the sequence:

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946, and so on.

How do you get all these numbers? It goes like this:

You add the first two numbers, 0 and 1, to make 1

Then you add the previous two numbers, 1 + 1, to make 2

1 + 2 = 3

2 + 3 = 5

3 + 5 = 8

8 + 5 = 13, and so on.

Who is the Fibonacci sequence named after? It’s named after a mathematician called Leonardo da Pisa. Leonardo da Pisa was better known as Fibonacci, which in Latin translates to “son of Bonaccio”.

The Fibonacci sequence is also found in nature. Spirals like a shell of this animal has the same spiral as the Fibonacci spiral. A Fibonacci spiral is a spiral created using numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. First you make a box the size of 1 unit (you can use cm or inches). Then you make another box next to the first box the size of the next Fibonacci number, 1.  Then you make another box next to the box before using the size of 2 (that is the next Fibonacci number). Continue making boxes and then draw a spiral using the boxes as guidelines.

Bibliography

Pictures:

http://dooleymath.com/Algebra/Videos/Fibonacci%20Spiral/nautilushell.jpg

http://bobsleanlearning.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/fibonacci-spiral.gif?w=381&h=240

Information:

http://www.brainpop.com/math/numbersandoperations/fibonaccisequence/

Because the summer holiday is coming soon, we get to bring our MacBook computers home and so we went to the LLAC to talk about safety on the internet, taking care of our computers, and all sort of important information. There were lots of accidents in computers because a lot of students were not taking care of them. There were broken screens from dropped computers, smashed keys and all sorts of accidents because students were not careful. So during the MacBook talk, the teachers told us to be careful. They showed us videos about internet safety. Here is a video that they showed us:

Yesterday (May 25 at Hong Kong), we attended a civics simulation created by the grade 9 boys. Civics is about civilization and people. We were separated randomly into groups of 6 or 7 people. Each group got to do 3 simulations. One of the simulations was about physically disabled people and we had to do actions that we do everyday like writing, putting on a shirt, or tying your shoe but we had to do it without a limb. Because the grade 9 girls needed another class to participate today (May 26 at Hong Kong), we participated and we did the simulations again except there were different simulations.

I learned that there are many different ways to learn about the past, such as . . .

1. Reading books

2. Using the internet

3. Asking People

4. Watching Skits

5. Watching Videos and Clips

6. Looking at images

7. Digging up artifacts

8. Going to museums

9. Exploring

10. Reading documentaries

11. Watching lectures

12. And much more!

Since we are learning about how people interpret sources to understand more about the history of a place or city, we are learning about artifacts. When we interpret a thing, it is not guessing what it is. It is looking carefully, observing it, and using the information you know to make an educated guess. We have recently been playing an artifact game in class. The teacher would show us a picture of an artifact on our projector screen and we had to interpret four things about the artifact: where (where it was from), what (what is it), when (when was it made), and who (who made it). I want you to try this artifact game. Below is a picture of an artifact. Can you guess…

Where it came from?

When it was made?

Who made it?

What is it?

Write a comment to this blog post that shows what you think about the artifact below. Write using this format:

Who: Text here

What: Text here

When: Text here

Where: Text here

Remember, your guess can never be wrong!

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.legionxiiii.com/images/Artifacts-.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.legionxiiii.com/links.html&usg=__m366d6zudc0p5Vybzx77pzRpT6w=&h=350&w=352&sz=52&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=c4vnV9rrGytUHM:&tbnh=164&tbnw=176&ei=oLN-TdbbCcHzcfzGufcG&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dartifacts%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1236%26bih%3D684%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=144&vpy=117&dur=3083&hovh=224&hovw=225&tx=76&ty=138&oei=oLN-TdbbCcHzcfzGufcG&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

Over the last few weeks, my class read a book altogether. We didn’t finish it yet, but we read most of it. The book is called Iqbal. It is about child labor and it takes place in a carpet factory. There are 14 child-slaves in the carpet factory until, one day, a boy called Iqbal Masih comes and tries to free the children. We read this book because  we are learning about our new unit, sharing the planet. This new unit focuses on the fact that actions can support or deny access to children’s rights and equal opportunities. It also focuses on child labor. I have made a PSA about child labor. Check it out by clicking here!

In class, we watched a video about the old Hong Kong in 1938. Below is the video. From my point of view, I think that it is very interesting. You should watch it!

Click here to view the embedded video.

A P.S.A is a Public Service Announcement. It is a short clip that is about 30-40 seconds (sometimes it is more than 40 seconds and sometimes it is less than 30 seconds.). It is like and advertisement but it doesn’t tell you to buy a company’s products. Instead, it persuades you to do something good, like do not smoke, or stop child labor. I made a P.S.A about child labor. You can watch it below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Today (March 2) almost all of the grade 5 students of CDNIS went to the field trip to the Happy Valley cemetery. Some students couldn’t go to the cemetery because either they were scared or their parents didn’t let them go. Anyway, we were split into groups and each group had a letter. My group was group letter H. We made a name for our group and it was called The Hammerhead Group, since Hammerhead starts with a H. Our group took lots of photos and videos from the camera that the school gave us. We went to the cemetery because we are learning our new unit, Where We Are in Place and Time. We learn about the history of Hong Kong, about the sources people use to inquire into the past, and the ways to interpret sources to further our understandings. According to the graves, a lot of people died in the second world war and a lot of people died somewhere in the 1800′s.

Today we had two authors that visited our school to teach us about poetry. We met them at the library pit and for an hour, they talked about their poetry books, how to write poetry, and much more. The two authors were called Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger. I learned a lot of stuff during the talk.

In school we have reading buddies. A reading buddy is a person who reads to you or a person who you read to. I read books to my reading buddy. He is in Prep E, in Ms Ryder’s class. My reading buddy’s name is Kelvin. He likes storybooks. We have reading buddies every Tuesday. Here is a photo of his class:

Last Tuesday, my teacher started a book challenge. This challenge was to borrow a book from the school library that was at least 100 pages long. Then we had to read the book and finish at least 100 pages of it in ten days. I finished 137 pages within the 10 days, but I didn’t finish it.

This book is called Alex Rider: Ark Angel. You need to read the first books of the Alex Rider series in order to know what this book is about. In the story, the teenage superspy Alex Rider is in a hospital and is determined to put his spying days behind him. But he is, again, forced to action when a group of terrorists breaks in. Alex finds himself in the middle of a war that is somehow connected to Ark Angel, a space hotel. This time he has to push himself beyond his limits and find out what is happening.

I think that this book is very interesting and I like the others in the series. I must return the book in the school library before the winter holiday comes. Speaking of the winter holiday, the winter holiday is about to come in just one day.

Today we saw 12 photos as a class and I chose one. This photo is about a warship in Korea. I think a war is going to start in Korea and the war will get bigger and more more countries will join and it will be a massive war. I hope this will not happen or else it will become world war three. So  we better act now or else the war will come soon.

We made a wordle today (as a class) that had words on my blog. Here is my wordle: