Category: 5th Grade

Capstone – Maldives Blog Post #3

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I’ve already explained what Capstone is, so I don’t need to say it again, but it has been crazy! There has been a significant change and improvement compared to where I was in this project when writing my second blog post.

Back when I was still researching and mainly focused on getting an interview was my down point. Slowly things got better and I finished research, and found out when I was finally doing my interview! I did my interview at the beginning of starting my script and got some information, but I knew basically everything because I am now an expert! (As I did do my interview when everyone including me was finished researching so I knew everything, and most people did their interview during mid-research.) I was relieved that I finally finished that setback, so I wasn’t worried anymore. Writing my script was a long process, longer than what it takes for me to usually write a script, but that was probably because Capstone is longer than any of our ignites at 3-6 minutes for a video (which I did,) and only 1-2 minutes and 30 seconds for our past ignites related to Capstone. I thought writing my script would be easy so I took it pretty slow at first. I only had around 4-5 slides script slides, in WeVideo form which is longer than Adobe gradually. (I started with WeVideo, and halfway I changed to Adobe.) After that, I realized I had little time, and finished my script by the next week. I changed my script format to Adobe which took effort because I needed to cut down the script slides shorter, separating them by color-coding. After some editing and revising I started my Adobe video, a good strategy of finding photos for each slide and then adding narration and music at the end to everything.

I think my favorite part of this process was finding photos and researching. I love the Maldives, especially for its beauty, so it was really easy to find incredible beautiful photos and a lot. The research wasn’t a problem because I was focused and interested in the topic, ending up with tons of pages of notes.

Some facts that I didn’t add in my presentation:

The national symbols of the Maldives are coconut palm and yellowfin tuna.

Dogs are not allowed in the Maldives!

There are no rivers and hills in the Maldives, as it is the flattest country in the world! There are only two freshwater lakes in the Maldives.

On the handful of public beaches in the Maldives wearing revealing clothing is illegal!

Climate change means warmer summers in the Maldives and lots of coral is damaged. This is called coral bleaching when the water temperatures become a few degrees hotter than normal for two weeks or more. The coral should be bright and colorful, looking healthy and a place for fish to live in, but the coral is now becoming white and snapping apart. Since the Maldives is made of atolls if the coral reefs die, the Maldives will too.

There are so many more facts and information, but I can’t add all of it. On the other hand, my interview with Christine Drinan, founder, and CEO of Galavante Travel Company.  was very helpful and went well! I got some information from them, but since I had it so late I basically knew everything she told me. Christine loved to travel and during college, she worked in finance and built a travel business. She loved the Maldives a lot and talked mostly about how unspoiled and unpolluted the waters are in the Maldives because of how isolated it is, and how independently functioning it is during the interview.

At first, I used to regret that I chose the Maldives as my topic thinking that I would have a hard time finding an interviewee and information, but I was wrong! I just searched and tried extra hard, and ended up with a really good final movie that I am very proud of. I didn’t do all of this independently though, I had a few friends that helped me! These people were: Camilla, Nea, Raiya, Isabella, Jane, and a big thanks to Ms. Boyer who led me through the whole process in many ways! In conclusion, I so am proud of my final video, and we are so close to the presenting day! The Maldives is a beautiful and remarkable place, and I’m so glad I chose it as my topic, and I am really happy with my final Adobe.

Capstone- The Maldives Blog Post #2

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I am working on a very important project called Capstone this year. I have wrote a blog stating it was also a very important project, but this is the most important. Before leaving 5th grade, every year the 5th graders do a Capstone project. It is the most important project done all year, and it is based on a passionate topic, putting the most effort into it. Capstone is researching on basically anything, I chose the Maldives. From notes and interviews I’ll make a presentaion on it, TED talk, or a video. Working on my Capstone has improved, and so far so well other than some small things. Maybe, one thing though is a problem. Anyway, research is done, I’m pretty confident, and I have many notes, but I am really worried about something.

My interview is what I’m a little worried about. It’s been weeks, and all my friends have done theirs. They did theirs many days ago and talks about how they loved their interviewee, how they got so much info, and how it was so fun, while even though I’m in a pretty good place other than that, and still haven’t done an interview which makes me worried. This is giving me a small setback, but I can’t help to do anything anyway. I can’t force the people I tried to get an interview with to respond. So, this is my only and probably biggest problem.

After I asked for help from my mom to find an interview, luckily in a day, my mom found a travel expert who actually was one of her best friends! This is really good because I can go from 0 interviews to 2 if I get a responce from a person Ms. Boyer emailed, or another person my mom found. This is great, and I am much more confident. After not having an interview for a while, I actually thought chosing the Maldives was maybe a bad idea, but I guess it worked out now that I kept trying. Atleast I am passionate about my topic because I had no trouble with researching on a new, but interesting topic.

I chose this topic because I am recenlty really interested in tropical places, especially the Maldives, and I think It is a good idea to do my topic on. I would actually love to be a travel expert now that I think about it when I’m older!

It was really easy thinking of interview questions, after I wrote a few, more came in my mind, and I had 17! I did have to change some though because I wrote them in the beginning and I changed my expert as my interviewee.

Hopefully, I’ll have an interview soon, and I’ll be back on track. I do love my topic, but maybe it isn’t the best topic for finding an expert about it. My main priorities are to schedule an interview, do an interview, start writing my script, and figure out what format I want to do for my presentation.

Capstone- The Maldives Blog Post #1

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Every year the 5th graders pick a subject to research, and by the end of the year have a presentation on your project. This is called Capstone, and I chose the Maldives. At first, I felt really scared because Capstone is a major presentation that has to be better than the years before that, as it is done by the 5th graders every year. After realizing that I could make a movie and chose basically any topic though, I felt a lot more confident as I could go with something I’m more comfortable with, and work better with. Now I feel much better about it.

At first, I was really stuck on a topic. I wanted to do the Maldives, but everyone else was suggesting big topics like global warming and starvation. Then after a while of not reaching out, Ms. Boyer said it doesn’t need to be a big topic as most people in the past did random things, so I felt confident to say I wanted to do the Maldives, and most of the class probably felt the same because most people changed to a random topic. I felt a lot better and started my curriculum wheel. On my first try, I did the Maldives but realized it would probably be better to do tropical islands instead, so I ended up creating my curriculum wheel on tropical islands, but still thinking mainly about the Maldives. Finally, I came to the decision when I was stuck between the Maldives or Tropical Islands as a topic. It took a while, but I ended up choosing the Maldives, and I think that was a good choice.

After coming up with the Maldives as a topic, I needed a topic question. On the back of my curriculum wheel, I wrote down a few starter questions and called it a night. Then the next day, I asked Ms. Boyer if they were good and she agreed, it’s just I wanted to expand more on them so that day I wrote a bunch of questions down, and finally decided to do: “What makes the Maldives so special and unique?” after a lot of trial and error of the wording of my question, I actually had a base of a question but didn’t know how to word it for a while. I also know that the Maldives is very different and special from most tropical islands, and I mean different in a very good way.

I just recently made my sub-questions, and at first, I was definitely stuck and confused. I didn’t know if the sub-questions were random, connected to the main questions, or how to come up with them. I then asked Ms. Boyer and all I understood was that it connected to the main question and the curriculum wheel. I looked back at it and found my really basic questions on tropical islands, (That time I was stuck on tropical islands or the Maldives so I did tropical islands first, and ended up doing the Maldives but never did a curriculum wheel for it) which wasn’t helpful. So then I stared at my main question for a minute, and came up with an Idea for a sub-question that had to do with my main question: “What are the best activities to do in the Maldives?” This gave me a spark, and I ended up coming up with two more sub-questions that all had to do with my main question: “What is the Maldives famous for?” And, “Why is the Maldives so generally expensive?”

In the end, I now have my topic, question, and sub-questions, and I am contacting and writing to someone for an Interview. So far my research is going well, and I am glad I chose the Maldives because I am very interested to learn about it.

Immigration Project Reflection

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I learned a lot about immigration and my own dad during this unit. I actually found out so much cool and surprising information about my dad that I would have probably never known before if we didn’t do this project. Even though there we so many surprising and fun things about this project, there were a lot of troubles I had that sadly some people didn’t.

Cons:

The biggest problem with my immigration project was the glitches. Somewhere towards the end of my adobe video, I began having a lot of technical difficulties with the photos which slowed me down since it was so confusing and I didn’t have it fixed for a while. Basically, all the different problems with the photos slowed me down and stressed me out a lot, so I was behind a bit.

I found it also confusing to do a lot of things on the adobe video like add photos from my dad and add music. All of that I had to figure out myself because the week before I had covid, and couldn’t work on my project or be here to learn things about it. It was also annoying because I had to do most of my Adobe video on the break because I mostly couldn’t work when I was sick. In the end, I found out how to work out most things except my photos which later had problems that slowed me down.

Another thing a little challenging was that I just started learning about adobe, and since I was absent in the middle of the project I didn’t know some things everyone else knew until I found it out the hard way. Some of these things are in my recordings the audio would glitch if I didn’t start after 0 seconds, and simple stuff that was probably taught in school like what to name the adobe, how many slides you need, etc.

Pros:

The biggest pro was while doing a project interviewing an immigrant, (my dad) I got to learn a lot about my dad that I wouldn’t have known probably without this project. It was surprising and fun to interview him because I got to know my dad’s real back story, and it is interesting!

Writing the questions was very wonderous and fun because I got to think about all the things I wanted to learn about my dad, and when it comes to writing and knowing ALL about something, I was going to put all my effort into the many questions I had. At first, I thought I would have very few questions but when I started thinking of all the ideas I could use I went overboard with questions!

A really helpful thing was the examples of questions to ask, and other students’ projects. This was extremely helpful because I got an idea of what to do and expect, and I had many questions that I could start with and expand on. Without these things, my project would have been much worse.

It was fun making the Adobe video. Adding photos from google especially, and found beautiful photos of cities (NYC and Tel Aviv), and a mountainscape and beach (Switzerland and Hawaii), with calming and mesmerizing music. (I needed to find those photos to include the cities Guy immigrated and came to/from, and where he’d traveled.) After adding all of that including audio, it was super satisfying to watch the end result so far.

In conclusion, this project had many ups and downs, but I ended up really liking how it turned out, and I’m proud of myself. Here is the final Adobe video:

 

Poetry 4/1/22

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I chose these two poems because “Cats In The Kitchen” reminds me of my cats, which do connect to the poem, and “The Beach” gives me summer vibes and reminds me of going to the Bahamas which I miss a lot.

The Beach

The warmth of the sun,

The soft white sand.

The salt in your hair,

Sun kissed and tanned.

The ripples of water,

As waves crash to the shore.

Then pull away again,

For another encore.

The rhythm of the ocean,

The musical notes.

Of sand and water,

Shells and sailboats.

Aqua blue colours,

The smell of sea air.

The calming of the beach

Helps the soul to repair.

Cats in the kitchen asleep in the sink.
Cats in the litterbox making a stink.
Cats in the living room clawing the couch.
Cats in the closet at play in a pouch.
Cats in the bedroom destroying the bedding.
Cats on the table tops rolling and shedding.
Cats in the bathroom inspecting the tub.
Out in the flowerbed under a shrub.
Up on the windowsill grooming their fur.
Stretching and yawning, preparing to purr.
Waiting for someone to open a door.
Climbing a curtain. Exploring a drawer.
Maybe I’m crazy. You may say I’m bats.
Still, you can never have too many cats.

Refugee By Alan Gratz

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In the book Refugee By Alan Gratz, I wonder how all of these kids get the confidence to do things, and how are they so brave?

This connects to the claim “In hard times you grow up faster.” In these hard times, Isabel, Josef, and Mahmoud need to be braver and have more confidence to survive. For example, when Isabel sold her trumpet for the gas for the boat trip fleeing Cuba. That trumpet was basically the only important thing Isabel owned and loved it a lot, but it was the only way to get to Florida and Isabel had to be strong and give it up. Another example was when Josef stood up to his dad when they were having the ‘medical inspection’ on the boat, for them to pass Josef had to bring up all the courage to SLAP his father and tell him that if he doesn’t behave he’ll be taken away like people were in the concentration camp, which would scare his father even more but it had to be done. Usually, Josef’s father would be the adult in the situation, but Josef had to step up and take that challenge in this part of the book. My last example is when Mahmoud stopped in front of a moving car and asked for help. Asking for help could be one of the bravest things to do in hard times, which actually saved Mahmoud’s family from not having anywhere to go, and his mother hugged and thanked Mahmoud for his bravery.

In the book Refugee By Alan Gratz, why is Waleed not scared? Why does he not get super frustrated? Does It seem like he doesn’t care?

Waleed isn’t showing any emotion because he is so used to the war, attacks, bombs, fighting, etc, that he doesn’t seem to care. Deep down probably Waleed cares, but he shows nothing, the war has made him different. He used to be very bold, outgoing, happy, and talkative but the war petrified him and he is now too afraid to show any emotion. This also connects to the claim “In hard times you grow up faster” because Waleed feels if he shows the emotion of being afraid, bad things will happen. He feels in the war he needs to be brave and grow up, but he shows that by just not caring. Waleed also probably isn’t getting frustrated because he is so used to the war that he has no hope left, and doesn’t need to feel frustrated anymore.

 

Rube Goldberg Machine #2

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For the past month, I’ve been getting ready to build a successful Rube Goldberg machine. Finally, today, on the 10th try I’ve succeeded after many many ups and downs, and changes. But, all that didn’t happen in my 10 tries. There was a whole rollercoaster ahead.

It first started out about two weeks ago. I had a sketch, and I had finally decided to work alone, but Jane didn’t like this idea. She hadn’t started yet because we were originally working together, which was a slight problem. The bigger problem though, was that we waited till a week later to start building. I thought we had time, but then I realized that so many people had already started, and I hadn’t thought about due dates because I lost my log that we got during the first week.

It was now Tuesday night and I had stepped up my game and tried to work independently. I thought it was a good idea, but Wednesday was the day my housekeeper came and so I sadly had to break what I had apart. After school on Wednesday, I began re-building and building on more again. This was the part when things got bad. Since Jane and I had split up, we started arguing on materials and places to build. I had started building in my room, but my plan totally backfired because my idea failed. Now we both wanted to work on a hard surface large area, which we didn’t have many choices in the first place because my cats would need to not be able to reach the build which would probably be up for at least 1 night. That night we both didn’t get any progress done and made a big decision. We decided to work together is actually going to be more productive, and we can use both of our sketches combined and build the machine in our dining room. I was feeling a lot better now, and more confident.

During Thursday and Friday, we began testing out ideas for the dining room, gathering materials, thinking of things that might work, planning, etc. We were really excited and confident because by Friday afternoon after school we had really good ideas and the right materials! My mom also helped us think of the goal idea “Feeding Our Cats Without Leaving Her Room” because my mom loves to sleep late on weekends and the cats get fed a lot later.

Saturday morning was when we were officially ready to build. All day long we worked hard and built the whole thing many times. Our idea was that there would be a rope that my mom would pull from her room, which would release the Rube Goldberg machine to start, going down the stairs, and into the dining room where the cats get fed. By the end of Saturday, the whole machine was built, and we planned that Sunday we would record and make our Blog Posts.

Then, Sunday morning we had our plan and started recording. I felt like the machine we built would work in 1 try, because we did test everything in different sections when building and they all seemed to work, but surprisingly on the 1st try the balls going down the tube, in the beginning, got stuck! We tried till the 3rd try and it still wasn’t working. We realized the balls were too big, but I was confused because every other time on Saturday it worked! By the 8th try, still, everything kept messing up, but we kept fixing it. On the 9th try the whole machine worked except on the last step when the bottles were supposed to pour food and water in the cat bowls, it didn’t pour. We realized that adding the food in the bottles made them heavier and so they weren’t being lifted by the pulley. The solution was to only put a small amount of food and water in the bottles, and add magnets on the weight so it would be heavier. Finally, on the 10th try, my mom was recording and said this was the last time before she took a break, luck granted us and the whole machine worked! We were all so so happy.

 

Rube Goldberg Sketches

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I have been working on a doing a project for a little while now, a completed and successful Rube Goldberg machine with at least 8 steps, and at least 3 simple machines. At first, I thought that this was going to be impossible, and the hardest project I’ll do, but now after I’ve made multiple sketches, I feel confident and ready. 

 Sketch #1: 

A few weeks ago, I sat down with a white piece of paper, and a pencil at my desk. I was stuck on what to do, clueless, and had been erasing and thinking for many minutes, still, ending up with a blank paper. I realized that I didn’t have any good ideas, which made me frustrated. I also realized that I had been thinking about so many things, not bringing my options down to the stuff I had. I turned the paper over and began writing some ideas down. I was becoming a little more confident, but then I remembered that the structure had to match our basement. I felt angry now and took a break. I came back, ready to start fresh and revise. 

Sketch #2: 

I had started a new sketch but lowered the options which made this idea too short, probably not enough steps. I started to feel bored and wasn’t concentrating. Halfway making the sketch which took longer than the first one (because I was bored), I had to go eat dinner. I came back and had to re-think my mind about my plan again. Then, I had this amazing idea and picked up my pencil, but one of my cats, Izzy, hopped up on my chair and grabbed my pencil, flinging it off my desk. I laughed and started playing with Izzy. Then I got distracted, and forgot my great idea when Izzy leaped down many minutes later! I was about to follow Izzy until I realized she was headed towards my mom’s bedroom, and she probably wanted some sleep. I also realized that I got distracted, and I wasted so much time that could have been productive. I walked back to my room and sat down again. This is what I thought: I wish I could bring Izzy back to my room, but she wasn’t the one stuck working on boring homework, she’s free to nap in mom’s comfy bed! But..I can’t trap her with me. *Sigh* Stuck again, I never remembered that Idea, but decided for the last time, to start fresh with some new ideas, which gave me more confident and determined feelings. 

Sketch #3: (Final)

This time I decided to watch Rube Goldberg videos for inspiration, and I gathered and thought about the supplies we had, the ones we could easily get, how they would fit in the basement, and the ending goal. This was helpful, and I finished a successful sketch. I wasn’t distracted at all because I closed my door, was fresh out of the shower, and I only allowed myself on my phone until I finished! At first, I was a little worried if I had too many sketches, but It was fine in the end. My sketch was very long, definitely more than 8 steps, and definitely had more than 3 simple machines. It was long enough that I needed to squish my work, but it is still easy to read. I didn’t have a ton of detail and labeling, but I had enough for me to gather and see the right materials at the time. In the end, I felt super proud, confident, and excited to make the machine! I even bragged to Jane a little, knowing she didn’t start her sketch yet. The only thing that made me worried was that my sketch wouldn’t work when testing, and I would have to start clean from the beginning, though making small changes is the real solution, without changing too much.   

Constitution Project Reflection

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The purpose of this project was to learn and research about the Amendments and the Constitution and then make a presentation all about the Amendment you chose, or a topic on the Constitution. We also learned how to make a presentation, make a script, stay within the time limit and have the number of resources our teacher wants. I chose the 19th Amendment and how women gained their equal rights because I think it is a very interesting topic, and I think it is a very important Amendment, especially since I am female. After we chose our topic we had to choose a question for the topic. We came up with three questions each and ended up with the best one. My first question idea actually ended up being my final question!

After we chose our topic and research question, we had to research. We were each given a guideline slideshow of the process, and we each had to choose three resources to research with. It was really easy to find resources for me. I had my three resources on the first day! After some days of taking notes, I had finished researching two out of the three resources. When I started reading the last one, I realized it was too long and had way too much-advanced information. At first, I thought it would be the most helpful, but in the end, I got the least amount of information from it out of everything, but that was mostly because I already knew most of the information I read because I already researched on the other two resources, which had the same information in it.

Next, after we took all of our notes and did our research we started our script. I also had a good time writing my script, and I just used my notes and wrote a script by looking back to it in timeline order. I had my script done after some time, but then I had to improve again. I hadn’t timed my script yet, and when I did, I realized I was over the time limit. That was the hard part, and I had to cut down the chatty parts with less information. This was also hard because I had to start over my timing every time I edited my script. Finally, I ended up with a good script which was only two seconds over the limit. I then decided not to change anything, and that my slideshow would be within the limit.

Once my script was done, I recently moved on to slideshow work, but this was easy, so it didn’t take long. I only needed to add text and pictures to each slide, which was fun and simple to me. I finished my slideshow, and now was ready to record!

When I started recording, I had a lot of trouble not stumbling, forgetting to change the slide, and getting the script papers mixed up. It was super complicated, and I needed to do it swiftly and quick. This was THE hardest part. I ended up with tons and tons of deleted mess-up recordings and ended with the final three. It was easy deciding, number one out of the final three was my first recording, and it was my first one so things around there and there were messy. Number two was fine except it had a few mess-ups, and was a little long. Number three was obviously the final pick, it was about the right time, barely any mess-ups, and the most recent and best I did. I felt so relieved and relaxed once I finished this part.

In conclusion, I chose the 19th Amendment because I think learning about Women’s Suffrage and how women gained their equal rights is very important, especially since I am a girl, and that it is interesting. The most challenging part about this project was defiantly the recording. I enjoyed taking notes and researching the most. It was satisfying to have two pages filled with useful information after watching or reading an interesting video or article on the 19th Amendment. I learned so much while doing this project, and about this project. It was amazing. The two most interesting things I learned though was that resident Harry Burn changed his vote because his mother made him, (It was funny), and how much deeper women’s suffrage is and that women getting their right to vote was a huge process, not a simple debate. In the end, this project was hard, but I finished with a presentation I’m proud of, which took a lot of work in research, writing, taking notes, and recording.

Here is the final recording of my presentation slideshow:

Snow Leopards Feature Article And Reflection

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I have been working on my feature article work for weeks and weeks now, and I have finally completed my script and my slideshow. It’s been a long time of writing, reflecting, and researching, and I am proud of all the things I learned and wrote. Feature articles have been one of my favorite units to do in school, and now it is finally completed. My feature article is about snow leopards, ghosts of the mountains. Today I am going to share with you my reflection. 

It all started back in early November when I had to decide on a topic to write and research about. I had a few choices, but I felt strongly that I should do snow leopards, for a few reasons. First of all, I didn’t know much about snow leopards when it came to my knowledge of big cats, which interested me because I wanted to do a topic I mostly didn’t know about. I knew some things about snow leopards, and that was that snow leopards were known to be rare, very quiet and antisocial, and very endangered from big causes I know about. That stood out a lot to me. Lastly, I think snow leopards are really cute and beautiful, and that they are a very interesting topic to write and research about. Of course, I wanted to write about something I thought was interesting? 

Later on, I decided to choose snow leopards. I began to write a lot, and some parts needed a lot of research or more research than other parts. I loved writing my feature article, but a few places were more challenging or enjoyable than others. I think the most enjoyable aspects of writing were Snow Leopard’s Habitat, Mating And Raising Cubs, And Hunting. I already knew the snow leopard’s habitat pretty well, and I loved describing where and what it looks like. For Mating And Raising Cubs, I really liked writing about the lifecycle and childhood of snow leopards. Lastly, for Hunting, it was very enjoyable writing on how snow leopards hunt and eat prey. On the other hand, the most challenging aspects were Adaptations, Tracking The Cat, And Helping Them From Extinction. Those aspects were all around the last part of the article, where I had to do the most research. Tracking The Cat And Adaptations were very long and had many parts to it. Helping Them From Extinction needed extra research and I had writer’s block when writing it at first, which made it the trickiest. 

Writing wouldn’t have been so fun and easy without a technique or strategy. My technique was that I thought about how I could write with the best expressing and interesting words that wouldn’t bore the reader, at the same time balancing facts and features. 

So, I wrote the feature article, and I finished the script. I was very satisfied after finishing because I wrote a lot, and It took a while. But I am most proud of getting this far, writing, researching, and putting my best into my feature article. The fact that I finished it and was happy and satisfied with it made me proud.  

Writing this feature article was a way different experience from writing my Personal Narrative. My Narrative didn’t need any research because it is about a true story in my life, on the other hand, my feature article needed lots of research. My feature article had many facts and was meant to represent a nonfiction article on a topic, but my narrative was just a true story in my life written on a document. The only similar things about the two are that both are true, story or article and that both are very long and took a lot of hard work writing!

In conclusion, it took time to make my feature article, and it is finally finished! I am very proud of myself and pretty satisfied with myself. It was very fun and interesting to learn so much about snow leopards, and I can’t wait to share my final piece with you!