May 24

the interview (Capstone)

During our Capstone unit we had to interview a person who studies our topic. My topic is mutation and I interviewed an expert on bio engineering. It was a long process to find my interviewee . the person i interviewed was Amy Schwartz.

It was very hard to find someone to interview because I did not know of any place that I could interview. My mom asked all of her friend is if they  knew anyone luckily one of my moms friends knew someone. Her friend’s name was Amy Schwartz. Amy is a bioengneer.

This interview was pretty easy. Setting up the zoom was not because I kept missing her emails.  But eventually we found a date. The interview did not go as expected because she gave me a lot more info than I was expecting.  For example, I asked her about how artificial mutations compare to natural ones. It took her 5 minutes of strate talking to explain. 

Overall this interview was very hard to schedule but it gave me a lot of information

Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment on the interview (Capstone)
April 8

Immigration Video

This is my second blog post of the immigration interview project. For this project you had to interview an immigrant that you know and ask them 10 to 15 questions about immigrating. I interviewed my housekeeper Juanita she came from Guatemala. Making the video was very challenging for many reasons. One of the reasons was i could not use any pictures of her. Also I was using a new platform for making a video. I normally use WeVideo but this time i used adobe. I also waited till the last minute.This project taught me a lot about immigrants. For example, it is pretty expensiveness to immigrate here. Also it is hard to leave your family. I also had to learn what an open ended question is. In conclusion this project was a big learning experience for me and my interviewee.

 

Category: 5th Grade, Social Studies, Technology | LEAVE A COMMENT
April 1

Immigration Interview Project

The Immigrant Interview project is where you interview someone who immigrated from a different country that you know. I interviewed my cleaning lady who I see every day. She is from Guatemala 

Prepping for this interview was pretty easy. The hardest part was definitely staying serious during the interview. To prepare for the interview I had to learn what an open ended question is. 

The interview was pretty easy. Because the person I interviewed did not speak fluent English I had to explain most of the questions to her. I did the interview in person. I got to learn a lot about her like that her first job was at McDonald’s. It did not go as expected because we kept laughing. It was very fun.

In conclusion, this project was very fun so far. I learned a lot about my interviewee. I can not wait to make the video about her story.

 

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March 10

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #2

 

About 2 months ago, my teacher assigned our class the Rube Goldberg assignment. For this project, you have to build a Rube Goldberg machine, record videos and then  piece together those photos and videos to make a WeVideo. This project was very challenging for many reasons. Keep reading to find out.

My first two designs were not working so I went to my grandpa’s house and we built stuff for the machine. We built a pulley to release a ball. Also we built a wheel and we built something to pop the balloon. For testing I tested the steps one at a time. The dominoes were the most annoying to set up because we kept knocking them over by accident. But to get a successful run it took about 35 attempts. It was very frustrating when parts of the machine did not work.

I had a completely different machine from my first 2 machines. They are different because the first 2 were made out of household items like cups, chairs and Jenga blocks. While my final build was drilled together and made with wood and plastic and metal. Making it out of those materials made it a lot more sturdy. That one adjustment made the project a lot easier.

Making the video was fun. While making the video I added text edited the original videos and added transitions. It was kind of annoying to get the videos into WeVideo because I forgot how to download videos (eventually I figured it out).

Overall this project was super fun but it had some challenges. My biggest challenge was stacking the dominoes for the project they kept falling over. In the end I popped the balloon.

Category: 5th Grade, Science, Technology | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 8

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #1

One month ago my teacher assigned us the rube Goldberg assignment. A rube Goldberg is a complex contraption to complete a simple task. My simple task was to pop a balloon. I thought this was going to be easy but boy was I wrong. For this project I researched what materials I would need. Some of those things would be PVC pipes and wood planks. I was thinking about having a ball on a string raveled up on a pipe swing into dominions into a ball into a leaver. and that took a while but I just ended up using the materials I had in my house.

The design has been the hardest part so far because there is this one part that I cannot get to work. The one part that I could not get to work was a ball. At first I wanted to pop a balloon by dropping a marble down a pipe and It would pop a balloon in my basement. But I ended up just keeping it in my basement.

Overall, this project has been fun but definitely hard. My favorite part so far was swinging the ball into the tower of cups and when the cups go everywhere.

Category: 5th Grade, Science | LEAVE A COMMENT
December 7

Feature Article Reflection

 

Five weeks ago my teacher assigned us to write a feature article. When she told us to choose our t0pic, I had no idea what I was going to write about. After a while I narrowed it down to 3 options : Minecraft, Tom Brady, and the Titanic. Then I realized that I could not do the Titanic because someone else  was doing it. Then my friend told me that he was doing his on the NFL so I had to do Minecraft.  Which I was kind of happy about.

It took me forever to figure out what my message was going to be at first. My message was going to be that there is so much story behind Minecraft. After I wrote my article I could not find a way to incorporate this meaning so I ended up changing it to Minecraft, which is a really unique game.

My favorite part of this entire thing was designing the layout of my article. I liked this part so much because I got to play around with the layout and what photos I wanted. It took a little while  but in the end I found the layout I liked the most. The most challenging part of this project was editing. It was so challenging because I had looked at the article several times so I did not notice all the errors with my article. 

My most effective strategy was writing about what I know about then elaborating on it. For example I used a comparison to show the chances of finding it.”The chances of finding one of these are the chances of you winning $1000 in the lottery.“ This definitely worked because I ended up with a five page 1200 word article. This article only took five weeks to write and put together. 

 I am most proud of all the writing I did to make this article. I am so proud of it because I usually do the bare minimum for writing but for this project I pushed myself to make a long article.  Another thing that I am really proud of is the layout of my article. I really like it and I am really proud of it too.

Writing this feature article was very hard but also very fun. This unit was much harder than narrative writing but overall it was much more fun thanks for reading.

Category: 5th Grade, Writing | LEAVE A COMMENT
November 17

Reading Timeline Reflection

Over the past 2 weeks everyone in my class has been making reading timelines. The first part of my process was choosing the books, then I decided what size and what color I wanted. My favorite part of the project was making the book covers. My least favorite part was typing why I chose that book. What I learned about my reading life is that I like to read fiction books. It’s only stanley stands out a lot to me because it is my favorite book and it always has been. Thank you for reading my blog post.

Category: 5th Grade, Reading | 1 Comment on Reading Timeline Reflection
October 26

Personal Narrative Reflection

Up, up, and away is the personal narrative I wrote this year. It is about my seventh birthday and how I got a drone and lost it on that day.

Originally I wanted to write about how I got lost on a beach because I followed a feather half a mile down the beach but I decided to not write about it because I was 1 year old. I ended up deciding on this story because I remember the entire thing.

 I planned it out by putting on a timeline on a piece of paper. This was probably the easiest part but I knew it was only going to get harder. After I planned it I did my first draft. This was pretty easy because I just wrote a quick summary and then for every other draft I took this one draft and revised it until I got to my final document. Editing was the hardest part because I did not know what to fix because of the revising. Soon we got writing partners. Mine was Max Jin. I showed it to him and he found a ton of errors. I looked at his and I found a ton of errors too. After about a day I finally finished the story.

I feel like my strengths in writing are dialog. I think this because I used it a lot and I got only good comments on it, not how I can fix it. But I think I was especially strong in my intro. I think this my biggest strength because everyone who read my story always commented on my intro including mrs. Cooper.

During this unit I think I grew as a writer a lot. I think this because I no longer complain when writing. I think I grew a lot during this unit and became a better writer. Max Jin helped me a lot during this unit he helped me a lot with the editing

Overall this writing unit was was super fun but definitely very hard.

Category: 5th Grade, Writing | 1 Comment on Personal Narrative Reflection
September 30

Mr.lemoncello’s library

Mr.lemoncello’s library by chris grabenstein Is one of my all-time favorite books. This book is about a kid named kyle keeley who wins an essay contest with nine other kids to stay overnight at the new library in their town. Designed by the famous game creator mr. lemoncello. But there’s a twist mr. lemoncello’s library is a big escape room And the first person to escape will star in his commercials. I would recommend this book to everyone ages 4 +. once again This book is my favorite of all time. 

 

Category: 5th Grade, Reading | 1 Comment on Mr.lemoncello’s library