Category: 5th Grade

Refugee Short Response

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While reading the book Refugee by Alan Gratz, my class and I came up with some amazing questions. Today I will be responding to some of the questions asked.

The first question I would like to respond to is. “Why don’t those dictators realize what they are doing? Why can’t they resolve this with some talking and compromising?” I think there are a few answers to this question but the main answer is that these evil dictators want more power and they will do anything to get it. I know this from real life right now. Currently the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin is invading Ukraine solely for power. This is not anything new, for thousands of years leaders have been going out of their way for more power. This is shown in Refugee when (in Mahmoud’s story) it is explained that the Syrian president is dropping bombs on his own towns and cities to prevent rebels from taking power from him.

The second question I would like to answer is, “I wonder how all of these kids get the confidence to do things, and how they get so brave?” I think the answer is that they find perseverance in hope and staying with their family. In all 3 kids’ stories, they are traveling with their families and they are persevering to keep their families together and to get a better life for all of them. This is proven in Isabel’s story when she persuades Leto to leave because she really wants her family to stay together. This is proven in Josef’s story when Josef slaps his father to keep his family together. This is proven in Mahmoud’s story in how Mahmoud is bearing terrible conditions and walking long miles to stay with his family.

Overall, throughout the story Refugee, there are many great questions to be asked.

Constitution Project Blog Post

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For the past few weeks in class, we have been working on a new project to do with the constitution. All of us had to choose a question about one of the amendments of the constitution. I think that this project really related and connected to the past project we had done on The Bill of Rights because they were both about amendments of The Bill of Rights. To do this project chose a question about I the 19th amendment because even before we started the constitution project I already knew a lot about the 19th amendment from researching for fun. I also chose this amendment because it is my favorite amendment, for it gave women the right to vote.

To do this project, what we first had to do was find a question and research it. What I mean by that is we had to think of a question about the amendment we chose and then try to find the answer to that question. My question was, Who were some women who made significant change for women’s suffrage. I spent about a week researching on ducksters, history.com, and even books from the library.

After we finished researching we went to creating the script. I think that this was one of the hardest parts because we had to write a lot and find a way for our writing to be timed perfectly. That meant that we had to either be able to expand or cut down our writing, which can be very hard sometimes, and in this project it was hard for me.

When we were done with our scripts what we did next was make our slideshows. I think that this was the easiest part because all we really had to do was find images. Some of the images were hard to find because most of the amendments people were doing their questions on were old amendments. We had to have an open flexible mind to look for other images that were somewhat similar to the ones we wanted.

The final part of the project (other than doing the blog post) was making the Sceencastify. I think that this was the hardest part of the whole process because in the wing there was so much noise and it was almost impossible to get a clean recording with just your voice. I could not record at home because every time I tried there were background noises so this step became very frustrating.

What I enjoyed the most about this project was making my slideshow. I really enjoyed this part because it was almost like a break from all the hard writing we had to do for all the other steps. This part was also really enjoyable because it was fun finding images and making them fit into the area needed.

I learned some very interesting facts while researching. 1 of these facts was that there were organizations for women’s suffrage that were completely against colored women’s suffrage. I found this very surprising because from the outside the women’s suffrage movement seems very united but the truth is, that it was not. I also found this fact preposterous because colored men already had the right to vote and why would the colored women be the only ones left behind with no right to vote. Another fact that I found interesting was that there were complete organizations just against women’s suffrage. I think this is incredibly rude and so naive that people would just come together to hate or try to stop something.

In conclusion, I think that this was a very hard project but it was also a very fun project. Like all projects, it had its ups and downs but now, I’m glad I did it and I can’t wait for more projects like this.

This is the link to my screencastify.

Feature Article Reflection

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I recently finished writing my feature article. My article was about the cold war. This was a very fun and interesting topic to research. I got to research things like the arms race, KGB spies, important astronauts, and much more. Even before I started researching the Cold War for my feature article, I was already very interested in the topic. That was part of the reason because I chose the Cold War for my topic for my feature article. The other part of why I chose the Cold War is because I wanted a detailed, long article and the Cold War is a topic with many other topics to be researched inside of it.

For me, writing this article had its challenges but it also had its fun moments. The most fun part of writing this article was the research. I thought it was really enjoyable to hop from website to website just learning about all the different topics. The hardest thing for me to do was to find the images because the cold war began about 70 years ago so all the images are either in black and white, low quality or not able to be downloaded.

In this piece of writing, I think the most effective technique of writing I used is elaboration and detail. I think I did this very well because my article ended up taking up lots of pages because of all the writing I did on each subcategory. I also think this because I took lots of time going through articles and reading books making sure that I included almost every part of every subcategory. I did this very well in the paragraph Arms Race because I elaborated on all sorts of things like infantry weapons to missile weapons.

Writing this feature article compared to writing my personal narrative a lot because writing the feature article was harder than writing the personal narrative. I think it was harder because I had to do research and the feature article now has a lot more text to it than the personal narrative would have ever had.

In conclusion, writing the feature article was super fun, yet really challenging project and I think it helped me learn so much more about researching and the Cold War.

Comparison Between Fly Away Home and Smoky Night

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Smoky Night and Fly Away Home are both books by Eve Bunting and recently, in class we have been reading a lot of eve buntings books and have been discussing them and applying them to a parts and purposes board. Today, I will be comparing and contrasting two stories by Eve Bunting called Smoky Night and Fly Away Home.

One thing I want to compare between these two stories is the symbolism in them. The main symbolism in these two books is the animals. In Fly Away Home it is the dove that symbolizes or mirrors the life of Andrew and his dad living at the airport. They want to leave and be in their own home but they can’t. The bird kept trying to get out just as Andrew and his dad are trying. The bird tried for days but it finally managed to escape from the airport. Just as Andrew and his dad will one day.

In Smoky night Daniels cat was the animal. This also sort of mirrored daniels experience in the day of the Los Angles Riots. I think this because Daniel and his mom were not friends with Mrs.Kim because of their differences but when they at least tried to be friends they learned that they could and would be friends. The same thing happened for the cats of the 2 families. The two cats became friends while they were in the fire hiding under the stairs together.

Another thing I want to compare is the characters. In Fly Away Home the main character and the person telling the story is a boy named Andrew. He lives with his dad at an airport so we know that at a young age he is already facing so many problems. Andrew really wishes to please his dad. We can see that because he is saving up to help with getting an apartment and when he tells his dad that it seems like he is beaming with pride. At the beginning of Fly Away Home, Andrew really is not that hopeful he wants to help, yes, but every day he sees people say “Hi” “It’s so good that you’re home”. He feels jealous and upset that they have a home and he doesn’t. I feel like after he sees the bird and how it got out of the airport he felt new hope for his future and his dad’s future.

In Smoky Night, the main character, Daniel is also the one who is telling the story.  At first glance, Daniel looks like he has a pretty normal life except that he is living in a community that seems like people are separated by race. I know this because Daniel explains that his mom says that they should shop at places owned by their own. Daniel explains this after both he and his mom see people in the LA riot looting and destroying Mrs. Kim’s shop. Throughout the story, people can obviously see that Daniel cares very much about his pet cat because on many occasions he is frantically asking people if they have seen his cat anywhere. One example of this is when he is talking to a firefighter and he asks “Did you see a cat, she’s yellow, maybe she’s still in there?” The firefighter answers, “Probably not, son, cats are plenty smart, she’ll be long gone.”

We The People Bill Of Rights by Adam Lambert

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Today in class we watched a video on the Bill Of Rights and we had to answer some questions about it. These are the answers to the questions.

In a free country, to me, the most important right for a citizen to have is the right to have a voice and the right to speak freely. I think this because when you have a voice you can influence the government and try to make the country a better place using your voice. Nobody should be able to silence your voice or take your right to speech away. I think that the most important right for a student to have is the right to know as much knowledge as any one of a different religion, country, culture. This is very important because then all the students have the same amount of potential for their future and they face no discrimination based on those things. In general, nobody should face any discrimination especially if it affects how much knowledge they have.

I strongly think that all citizens should have the same rights because having different rights for different people is what started the Revolutionary War at first. King George was not taxing the people of Britain while he was taxing the American Citizens very much. Throughout history, this continued but it also continued to be fixed. For example in 1920 when women FINALLY got the right to vote. Before that, women did not have the right to vote due to old fashioned beliefs.  Legally, today all citizens have the same rights and the only way for them not to is due to age, crime, etc.

Sometimes our rights can be limited and these rights can be limited for better or worse. For example, the right that says that only people over 18 can vote. This is a good reason for the law to be limited because (most) people under 18 are not mature enough to comprehend the complicated politics of voting. (I still wish I could vote)

I think there are a lot of laws that people believe that there should be. I also think that the USA has a government that could easily adapt to new laws and has been for almost two centuries. One law repeal debate that has been going on for a while is the debate to repeal the second amendment about the right to bear arms.

We The People Stronger- Janelle Monáe

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To me, this song means that every time the people get knocked down, they come back stronger and more unified. They get stronger together and they get stronger in times of darkness. This song really relates to our study of government because it’s talking about liberty, flaws in the government, and the people being united

In conclusion, this song makes me feel inspired to help the community and it makes me realize how just one voice can have so much power and make so much good change. The artist might be saying that community helps each other so much that when they get knocked down with challenges they come back up, together, and stronger. This song leaves me with questions about the housing movements in the video and if they are happening in real life.

Personal Narrative and Reflection

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I think that some writing techniques I used in well this narrative were dialogue and expanding on detail. I added a lot of conversational dialogue like when my aunt and the instructor were discussing whether we were going or not. I used a lot of internal dialogue when I counted down for my death at the end.

In this story, I really expanded on details, especially when I described the day and where we were at the beginning of the story. I also really expanded on detail when I explained my body language when my uncle was talking.

Some areas in my writing I think I want to improve more is describing people. In this story, I noticed that I barely provided a description for people like my cousins, my uncle, my aunt, and the instructor. Looking forward to the next story I’m writing I will keep in mind to take some time describing the characters.

Something that I am really proud of that I did in this writing piece is use new writing elements that I’ve learned such as sensory language and matching action with dialogue. In Sky High when I was on the zipline I used lots of sensory language as shown in this line when I wrote: “I could hear the choppy wind echoing within my ears”. One example of when I made my actions match my word is when I wrote “Open the door already”, I whined impatiently while tugging on the door handle.”

In conclusion, I am very proud of what I wrote and happy that I am learning from my mistakes and have room to improve.

Resistance by Jenifer A. Neilson- Character Ideas

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In the book Resistance by Jenifer A. Neilson, I think that there is a lot of information to be known about the main character Chaya. Chaya is a Polish-Jewish girl living during the Nazi occupation in Poland. She refused to accept to live in one of the ghettos and eventually be brought to an extermination camp so before she was about to leave her family to go to a ghetto,  so she escaped. She joined a resistance group and stayed in it for years. This situation made Chaya a very tough person and she expects things highly from others. This is important because throughout the story these are the main traits she applies to her partner, somebody who isn’t tough and makes lots of mistakes.

I think this could be applied as a theme in many books when the book’s main characters are friends or partners who are different. Some things that are different are worse than others. This leads me to think that from beginning to end the characters even each other out and learn the good things from each other. This brings them closer together. This is shown from beginning to end when Chaya and Lesther; two complete

The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch

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In the book, The Name of This Book is Secret an idea I had about the main character Cassandra, is because she is a survivalist that trait can lead to other traits as well. This is important because I think that this idea, expanded to be “Throughout stories characters discover new things about themselves” can be applied to many stories as a theme. For example, in Home of the Brave, we discovered that Ganwar was not hopeful and we connected that trait to Ganwar going through a lot and being the opposite of Keks innocent youthful personality.

Welcome to 5th Grade!

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The last 18 months have been kind of crazy but even then 4th grade was so far my favorite year because the whole grade got to build a smaller size of a wooden boat based in the Boston Tea Party.

My hopes for 5th grade are very high because of that reason. Something in 5th grade I am really looking forward to is all the special events that 5th graders get to participate in. For example, today was backward day and everybody is wearing their clothes backward. Other events that I am excited about are Feild day, the 5th grade Halloween party, and the End of the Year Pizza Party.

Overall I think fifth grade will be a very fun year!