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

Sportsmanship looks like….

Players playing in a positive way with other people.  Some examples are not arguing about the rules in a negative way, or encouraging your teammates when they make mistakes.  Also, saying good game to your opponent or shaking hands after a game helps you show respect to them.  Whether you or your team loses or wins, you can congratulate the other team by doing this.

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

It is important to follow the rules of games because…
That is how the game works and also, the less arguments on the rules, the smoother the games go.  When everyone follows the rules, they can play an enjoyable fair game.  If you don’t follow the rules, you won’t have as much fun and have the feeling of joy.

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?

Team strategies are important because….they help you by getting planned for a game and dominating the other team because of your play style.  One strategy in handball is creating a pattern of what each player has to do and when you pass to each other in a certain situation, and placing positions.

You create space by….moving around and not letting the other team block or mark you and your teammates.            You deny space by….trying to put pressure on the other team and placing yourself in a spot where it’s effective to block the other teams’ passes and shots.  In capture the flag, my friends and I used a strategy to be successful.  Our purpose was to at least put 1 person in the flag area, so we sacrificed 2 people, but when all the other teams’ defenders were chasing the 2 people, I was able to safely run into the zone.

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 are important because….you can get a balanced team when each player is being able to play with their own skills and combine it with others’ to create good plays.  If you have strong skill, you will have a higher chance of winning.

In baseball it is important to be good at the following skills…base running, fielding, throwing, pitching velocity, throwing breaking balls, consistency in pitching, hitting for average, power 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(s) because… their players’ bodies work at a high level.  For example in handball, the very physically fit team can throw harder, run faster, move around and create space easier than the team that is not physically fit.  Sports are not just about fitness, but being physically fit is a basic start for playing well.

Some classes in our grade participated in the MARSHMALLOW CHALLENGE!  The competition was amazing with all the fun we had making our marshmallow towers.  Each of our groups had to make a tower as tall as we could placing a marshmallow on top.  What we were aloud to use was masking tape, 1 marshmallow, a long 1 metre string, and some spaghetti.  For our tower, we had to make it stable so that it wouldn’t fall, and that was the hard part out of all the problems my group faced.  The good thing was, we used a long 1 meter string to wrap our spaghetti tower outlines!  Even though the thin spaghetti was hard to tape, we did a good job at making our structure tall, to compete with the other groups.  Most importantly, we all had fun trying to place the marshmallow to our tower.  Surprisingly, we finished 3rd out of all the groups!  Our tower was 21.5 cm high and we were all satisfied with our work.

I think this activity really helped us to learn to work well with others, because one purpose was preparing for the exhibition.  The building was tough, but I really enjoyed what we did today and hope we would do a similar kind of activity again!

Last week from Tuesday to Friday, Grade 6 went to a place called Zhaoqing in mainland China for our camp, and it was so fun with the action packed 4 days!

Our first day was a tiring one, even though we weren’t as much active as the following days.  We had a one hour ride from our school to the border, and that time was normal, but then I started getting nervous on the end of the ride because it was the first time I was crossing the border without my parents.  When I passed the immigration, I felt relieved because I knew that I had done it and I was in China.  We ate lunch on our next 4 hours bus to Zhaoqing from Shenzen.  After finishing my Subway sandwich and cookie, I played games with the people around me on our seats, but after we finished playing, we were so bored that all we could do was either sleep or look outside the window.  I was finally excited when I heard that after our gas stop break, it would only take about another hour to reach our destination.  After talking shortly with other people, I started to sea the bumpy roads wich meant we arrived.  We really were in Zhaoqing!  The grade separated in a couple of groups to take a short boat to our resort.  When we were there, we had a welcome by the Dragonfly staff, and we went into our color groups(mine was green) to do team building.  My group learned our numbers to headcount in Spanish!  Our group leader told each student their number from 1-24 and first, my number was hard to pronounce, and it was even too hard for me to memorize how to say it.  I thought that was pretty much the only thing of what we did for the day, but after eating dinner in a restaurant with my group came the Dragonfly challenge.  My group was called the Wasabis, and I thought it sounded a bit funny but we had success with the group name.  For one of the challenges where we have to act a famous movie scene in our groups, the Wasabis played a part of the movie, Forrest Gump.  We enjoyed moving around and acting out things in the challenge, and we also came 3rd place overall of our group out of all the teams that participated so that was a good thing to hear.  We had lights out at 9:30, and I slept well because the room was nicer and cleaner than I expected.

Our second day was so active, because we got to go to many activities.  In the morning, we had our first breakfast together in camp, and then we went to a room in the hotel to make paper.  What we did was divide into small groups from the 24 students, and then we ripped paper to put inside water.  After all the tearing, we went to a bamboo paper factory to see how the workers made the paper in many processes.  I was looking forward to it because I have never seen people making paper and it was the first time I was going to a paper factory. We saw a lot of nice pieces of paper and even though I usually don’t use them, it was great to see the culture of Chinese paper making in a factory.  After a snack break on our bus, we went back to the resort to then mix the paper we ripped with pulp.  Almost everyone in my group said we would have to clean our hands a lot, and I agreed but still, I had fun.  The Dragonfly staff ironed each of our own paper, and then once we were all done, we played a game called Splat and I enjoyed it.  We ate lunch at our resort and after that, we went to the cableway hike, but before we reached our destination to actually go on the cables, we had to walk uphill for a long time until another group came to an area which we were doing activities and playing games.  Our green group then walked for a little while until we reached the first cable, and I struggled putting on the hook to the cables and unhooking them at first, but then after going to the second, third and many more cables, I got the strategy and was able to go past the whole way.  When we got back to the Nine Dragon resort came the… BBQ!  My favorite type of food was meatballs and sausages.  We had a good time eating and talking behind the fire and  this was the best dinner of the three nights.  After a feast, we went into the hotel’s huge dining room to carve ink stones.  One of the Dragonfly staff taught us how to carve deeply and he showed us his own one which was amazing!  I decided to carve a bridge dividing nature and a man made object, which I carved mountains and an ocean below the bridge and a beats headphone above the bridge.  I was surprised when I actually felt the deepness and texture when I felt my ink stone with my hand, because I thought I wouldn’t be able to carve as deep as the Dragonfly staff’s one.  All the fun we had was great, and we even learned lots of new things this day!  Lights out was at 9:30, so for me it didn’t make a huge difference from the first night cosidering sleep.

The 3rd day was the most adventurous one out of all in camp!  We woke up and had breakfast normally and then we went up to a room in the resort and learned chinese painting!  The teacher that taught us 2 paintings is an artist that showed us first a painting of a crane for us to learn each part from her and paint it ourselves.  She had lots of detail on the bird and I first thought I wouldn’t be able to put such fine lines and perfect color, but I realised I could do it once I got the technique for each step.  I was excited for the whole time and each new part the teacher drew, it got funner and funner until we were actually complete and done.  I was proud of my work and I couldn’t believe my colors for the bird’s body parts were just good enough to make the whole painting work.  After a short break to let our first paintings get dry, we started painting our second one which we are supposed to show mountains on the far view with a small structure surrounded with small mountains and the sea in the closer view.  I found this more challenging than the first one, because this cosisted a lot of swirly and thin lines, and I was struggling to paint those.  When we were finished, I was not 100% satisfied with the details in the artwork, but it was a great oppurtunity to learn and paint from that teacher.  From finishing the lunch, it was my group’s turn to go out of the resort to do the great race!  We arrived by the bus at a park which many tourists were in, and it was a great place for a great race.  Our great race leader told us to get into groups of 6 and the rules for this year’s version.  I was so excited to plan and go to the places where we could find the answers to the questions and also take photos that boosted up our points for the competition.  When we were aloud to set off, we met many locals that helped us find our destinations, and also tourists that were kind enough to talk to us about the places in the park.  Since we had so much questions to answer and pictures to take from the same angle as the actual example photo, so my group was in a rush.  Even though we needed to hurry, I enjoyed being ourselves and felt adventurous.  For some pictures, we got stuck and spent a lot of time searching it, but the good thing for us was we got a lot of answers instead to replace the points of the picures we couldn’t find and take.  I thought our whole group were good risk takers because we went for some difficult photos which valued higher than the normal ones.  A part of the time, we focused to just keep on walking around bridges and looked around to see if there was anything around us that we could use to find out the answers or at least hints about the questions.  We used each person’s knowledge and gave the whole group ideas that may be hints to finding our destinations.  Once we reached the places where our target was, it was easy to see directly of perfect angles for the photos and also the exact answers.  One mission accomplished for us was that we could make it to our meeting place by the ending time, so that we didn’t get disqualified.  We were the first group to come back when all the other groups were not there.  When all the group’s adventurers came back, we had time to talk about how the race was, and about all the fun we had.  In the bus ride back to the hotel, almost everyone was talking about the great race, wondering how much points their groups got.  When we arrived back, it was time to eat dinner and after our last one at Grade 6 camp, we had a campfire as a whole grade!  In the campfire, there were just fabulous shows that some students performed, and the most funniest for me was the yellow group’s show.  They sang a song which had entertaining lyrics such as ‘Moose, Potato, Moose Moose, Potato!’.  These shows were so amazing I enjoyed just being part of the audience.  There were some activities the Dragonfly staff taught us, which we all werer part of it, and that was also active and joyful.  At the very last end of the great campfire was the announcement of the top 3 highest point teams for the great race.  Everyone was excited and wondering at the same time, and drum rolls beated when each team was presented.  The third place team was introduced, and everybody clapped for them, but then on the 2nd place team…my team was called out!!!  I was so happy that we had accomplished one of our goals to be in the top 3 of the grade and also that we were being called out in front of all the other students.  It was such an honor that we were celebrated with the clapping of the crowd and also recieved gifts from Dragonfly.  It was a good time being at the awesome campfire with all the shows and celebrations going on and it was my favorite night from all of Grade 4, Grade5, and Grade 6 camp.  All the happiness didn’t end when we got back to our rooms to sleep the last night of our amazing adventures.  We had to have lights out at 9 o’clock sharp because we would have to wake up at 6 in the morning next day.

When I woke up, I just realised we were leaving camp.  It felt like such a short time with all the fun activities, our great Dragonfly staff and all the other good things that happened during the 3 days.  The 3 days felt just like with the Young Americans, because we were enjoying.  I still miss camp now but I guess normal life at school and home will be fine too!

From Monday to Wednesday this week, the Young Americans came to our school with talent, and I had so much fun with them!  I think most of the other students in my grade enjoyed being with the Young Americans because they taught us exciting things!  It was also great to know where they came from because it’s a mixed culture doing one thing.

On our first day, we got to know each others and to recognize our own talent, we played a game which some people stand up to sing a part of a song they like.  This game involved risk taking, because singing in front of a whole group of people is hard.  The Young Americans also showed us an amazing dancing show which followed the music, Witch Doctor.  I thought it was too hard for us to do it, but we got to choose a Young American to teach us the moves.  When we ended up trying it on stage, I realized the whole dance was easy.  I felt very confident that I had achieved my first goal of the 3 days.

Our 2nd day was quite fun with what we learned and the games we played.  The good part of the games was that if we accomplished something, the Young Americans let us play, and that was the repetition. I practiced many of my parts with the different groups I was in, and also the part we did as a whole grade.  The most fun thing of what we did for me was also playing games after doing the dances as a treat.  We did some exercise warm ups and it wasn’t really tough even though we did some sit ups and stretches.  On the other activity, we did some drama and it was enjoyable because we got to do drama as groups. What we did was we pretended to make any machine with each person being a part of it and making a move while calling out a sound, and then the other groups would guess what was the machine.

The last day was as fun as the first two days because we got to do some fun activities.  First, one of the Young Americans played a song for us on the piano and we had to draw some things we imagined from it on a large piece of paper.  I felt that the song was really pieceful and imagined mountains and nature and drew it by putting colors that were cool, such as blue.  Our second activity was another music type one, because another two of the Young Americans played some songs for us on the guitar and we could choose to write a poem, any kind of list, or story that we imagined.  I wrote a poem but others also wrote interesting and fun things and some read it aloud in front of our group of half the grade.  Most of the writings were funny and also the songs were great!  After lunch came the dress rehearsal.  We practiced the final skits and then did the whole show in front of other students from another grade.  I felt that our grade was so talented and good that we learned the whole show in 2 full days!

The real show at the afternoon was the best concert I ever experienced in CDNIS!  We could do each of our roles successfully and I was so glad!  I enjoyed dancing ‘Witch Doctor’ and I think our audience also liked it.  The Lion King dance was done so well by us, and in addition, we only learned the whole dance from the Young Americans in 1 day!!  After the show was done, I almost couldn’t believe that we had done it.  I enjoyed being with the Young Americans but the 3 days felt so short because we had so much fun!  I miss them and I hope they will remember what we did together and that they had enjoyed the show too.

Hello everyone, we are back to school (actually 3 weeks ago already) but this is the first post I am going to write in Grade 6.  I would like to use this blog this year to post what is happening in school and also about my interests.

So far, school has been fun when we learn a lot of things about different values and resolving conflict.  We also talk about the PYP and how it could be connected to this unit and the learner profiles.  In math, we have been learning about integers where we use positive and negative numbers. I have found some things easy and some things challenging.

We have got our instruments in Performing Arts!  I am so excited to play my instrument, and I’m looking forward to even learn new songs to play.  P.E. has been tough because we have done the fitness tests.  Right now we started the basketball unit which is not hard like pushing yourself on the fitness tests.

I hope I can use this blog to communicate to everybody and also learn about IT skills.  Please comment on my posts and I will try my best to update baseball news.

In this blog post, there is a You Tube video where I explained about what every student needs to know about Grade 5.  If you are in Grade 5 or older (at CDNIS), you should take this as my reflection for this year.  If you are in Grade 4 or younger  (at CDNIS), please watch this as a guide to next year or the years to come.  If you want to watch more guides, go to other blogs to check out other peoples’ videos.  Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

This time, the version has changed to food!  I would like you to do different as my post about voting sports, so I will explain it to you now.  Vote on 3 of my list of food that I have given in this blog post.  Please comment and write the food.

1. Tuna Sushi

2. Prawn Tempura

3. Teriyaki Chicken

4. Kakuni Pork

5. Octopus Sashimi

6. Japanese Curry Udon

7. Japanese Karaage (Fried Chicken)

8. Kimchi

9. Korean BBQ

10. Siu Long Bao

11. Tandoori Chicken

12. Kebab

13. Fish Tikka

14. Chicken Biryani

15. Idlee

16. Roti

17. Nan

18. Samosa

19. Fish Head Curry

20. Singaporian Chicken Rice

21.  Singaporian Chilli Crab

22. Steak

23. Pepperoni Pizza

24. Margherita Pizza

25. Spaghetti Bolognase

26. Spaghetti Carbonara

27. Risotto

28. Tacos

29. Indonesian Satay

30. Nasi Goreng

In class, we were divided in to groups of 4 and made algebra raps!  In my group, there were Alpha-Adventurer 6, Alpha-Adventurer 8, and Alpha-Adventurer 21.  We tried our best to make it cool and awesome so please enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this blog post, you can see my summative assessment which is explaining about muscles. It changes over time, and for details, please read my document in the post. I investigated about this topic to get a lot of information, so please enjoy!

I will list athletes or sports teams that play who were to play against each others who would win.

Please comment and write about 1 or more matchups you are interested in and vote for who or what team you think will win.

Here is the list:

The New York Yankees VS The Boston Red Sox

The Los Angeles Angels VS The Texas Rangers

The Philladelphia Phillies VS The Miami Marlins

The Detroit Tigers VS The Cleveland Indians

The San Francisco Giants VS The Arizona Diamondbacks

The Yomiuri Giants VS The Hanshin Tigers

The Chunichi Drangons VS The Yakult Swallows

The Boston Celtics VS  The Miami Heat

Tiger Woods VS Phil Mickelson

Roger Federer VS Rafael Nadal

Rajasthan Royals VS Mumbai Indians

Bayern Munich VS Dortmund

Manchester United VS Chelsea

Arsenal VS Liverpool

Real Madrid VS FC Barcelona