Review Of Grade 5 2010-2011

This year felt a lot different than last year, so much have changed! Before we don’t get our laptops, we can wear our PE shirt to school all day, we need to use cubbies and we only can go to the 11^th floor. But now things are different, we get our own laptop and we get to bring it back home, we need to change into PE shirts, we get lockers with combinations and we get to go to the forum, 6^th floor cafeteria and the 6^th floor playground. There is a big difference between these two grades. I loved a lot of things at Grade 5, field trips, camp etc…

The field trips this year were exciting! They weren’t boring, the meaning of boring means I am not interested. We went to Art Jam, which was in Tsim Sha Tsui. I enjoyed that field trip a lot, I loved the paint part, and it was so fun! We went there around October-November. We also went to the Tseung Kwan O landfill; we learned that the landfill doesn’t smell, even though we thought of that before. We went into the landfill and what an amazing sights I saw. I saw far places and saw the sea.

I enjoyed the field trip to the Hong Kong Cemetery too! We were doing a unit of how we can find history with different sources; we are using the Cemetery source. We look at how people died and when they died. For that unit, we also went to South Bay Beach and did an activity called the Dig Day. The Dig Day was exciting! I felt like I was an archeologist. We dig up Clay made artifacts (We made them) and the teachers bury them, we make a group of 5 and dig the artifacts around our area. There is a string surrounding the area. I enjoyed it so much, the field trips were so fun, and I wish I could do them again.

There is something that was similar to field trips, and that’s camp. We go to camp every school year and this camp occurred at Cheung Chau, w did raft building, night hike, rock climbing etc… I didn’t really like hiking because we need to walk up and down the hill to and from camp to other places.

This year we get to bring our own laptop home; we have our own one. We can play with it and work with it. But last year we need to borrow and book the macbook cart, and 5 students use a macbook. We also get to go to 3 places before class starts, they are listed on top, but grade 4 you are only allowed to go to the 11^th floor, which is a playground and you need to be careful to watch out for a soccer ball when you are reading.

I love assemblies; I enjoy listening to performances, talks, handing out awards and singing the national anthem of Canada and China. We talk about the school rules and expectations, and I always get nervous when it’s time to hand out awards. We got visitors from Beijing in October, I enjoy their stay and I had fun with them. I felt curious when they were in the classroom for the first day, but I got used to it!

The other thing I enjoy is sports day, we get to run, play games etc… But this year my class gets to help the Grade 3 and 4 sports day and went to the Grade 5 and 6 sports day. I was one of the group leaders of grade 3 groups. I brought them around to stations to play and I helped and watch them. In the grade and 5 and 6 games, we went to activities with the class, and we get to run races. The best part was the relay, which I was part of the team that represents our class. But sadly our boy representatives lost. But the girl’s won, I was so happy that we won one of the races.

I also enjoy the languages we’ve learned; we learned English, Chinese and amazingly, French. I will talk about English later with other things, so let’s go to Chinese. I loved Chinese, and when Chinese comes, the lesson is for the whole grade, and we switch classes. The people who are better in Chinese go to a classroom and the ones who need to learn more will go to another class. We have books to learn about a story or a subject and we will talk about it. We will have tests often on 2-3 stories/subjects.

We just started French this year; I think our teacher is very smart; she didn’t let us to speak English or other languages at French class. We are only allowed to speak French. We need to use French for writing, except for reflections after tests. We need to ask, speak and communicate in French. I find this very challenging at first, but fun once I got used to it.

We have PE and Music too! PE was so fun, we run around in the gym and playgrounds playing sports like soccer and volleyball. I loved music; we get to compose music on an application call Finale.

I love performing and watching concerts, we did one this year. It was called Let’s make it happen. This was about the unit How We Organize Ourselves (Waste Management). I sang with a group led by gr5ccdnis 5, and I sang with gr5ccdnis11 and gr5ccdnis26, gr5ccdnis03 and gr5ccdnis08. I enjoyed the performances and I wished it could happen again! (Let’s make it happen!)

In this school we have six Transdiscplinary Themes, they are the main themes that about the topic, the teachers find a topic that suits the theme. The 6 are How We Express Ourselves (HWEO), How the world works (HTWW), How We Organize Ourselves (HWOO), Sharing The Planet (STP), Where We Are In Place And Time (WWAIPAT), and Who We Are (WWA). Those are only the themes; when a unit of inquiry comes the teachers need to choose the Transdiscplinary Theme and a topic that’s about it. Example: How We Express Ourselves (Art). This year’s Unit Of Inquiry Topics is Communication Technology (HWEO), Materials (HTWW) Waste Management (HWOO) Child Rights (STP) History [Sources] (WWAIPAT) and the human body (WWA).

I enjoyed every topic, but I enjoyed the human body most because I learned a lot there, I learned about Puberty, which is the growth time from childhood to adult hood and the systems, like the Respiratory System and the Digestive System… We did a test about it too! The Concepts of that unit is Function and Change. Function is about how the systems work, change is how a human grows or what is changing in the body.

The concepts are questions that guide you for research; they have titles and tell you the questions and how to use the concept. The concepts are Function (How does this work?), Change (How is it changing?), Connection (), Form (), Perspective (), Causation (), Responsibility () and Reflection (). Each has it’s own purpose and every unit has 2-3 concepts in them.

The learner profile helps you to be a learner; the learning profiles are Caring, Thinker, Risk Taker, Knowledgeable, Balanced, Open Minded, Principled, Reflective, Inquirer, and Communicator. You can try to use all of them; you will be a very good student if you use them all!

You like art, I don’t really like art, but I still enjoy it. We made Artifacts, Artifacts are buried things underground, we didn’t make real ones. We just used them for dig day. We did a Kandinsky art drawing, we used his style to draw something. We made mosaics too! I made on out of strips of paper. I enjoyed the art I did!

In Numeracy, we did maths, like fraction, addition and we did problem solving, like Sudoku and riddles. I enjoyed maths a lot, I was good at fraction and decimals and I always pop up when we do maths. I enjoy problem solving, I love Sudoku and I learned that my normal way I use is a guess and check. The way my teacher taught me was a solving way!

How do I, my teacher and my parents track my improvement? Easy! Having Portfolios, Reports, 3 way (teacher, parents and I) conference and Student Led Learning Review (SLLR). The Portfolios are binders that keep you work over progress. Reports come ever term (there are 3 terms) and show how were you doing in that term The 3 way conference is a talk in November with the teacher, parents and the student and they talk about how the student is starting of in the year. The SLLR or Student Led Learning Review is talking about the student leading the parents through stations, showing their progress or work and their improvement.

Everyone knows everything has expectations, and even I have expectation in every grade. The grade 5 expectations are trying to be independent and be responsible of yourself and your belongings. I am trying to be independent, even though I like to work with my friends and they like to work with me. But I have been independent in some projects and I think I have reached the expectation. You must be responsible of everything you own, even yourself. If you did a mistake, you must own it.

I made friends this year. My current friends in this class are 5c03; 5c05, 5c11, 5c26 and other friends in other class are DJ14, DJ18 and DJ22. But there is a special person in my grade, currently in the DJ class and he is DJ15, my twin brother. WE do a lot of thins together like playing, and doing projects we want to do.

I really enjoyed this year, and I could improve on everything, I will make more friends next year and this is the review of Grade 5! See you for posts next year and wait for the Review of Grade 6, which is a year away!