Capstone Reflections

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You’re presenting the final project of elementary school in a presentation called CapCon! and your hands are sweating, your knees are weak at the thought of the audience. And then you wonder, how did I even get here? When I was presenting at CapCon! ‘24 I was like that, except a little less nervous. While this project took weeks of research, and weeks of writing essays, and weeks of memorizing a script was hard, the end result was even better. I ended up with a project on black holes that I will remember forever. By the end of Capstone I had an essay, pages of research, a full slideshow, a pamphlet, and most importantly a memory that will last forever.
Have you ever had to research a topic? Capstone started with coming up with an idea, after that you would start research. During research I was scared I would not have enough. The biggest challenge was probably the repetitiveness of facts from website to website. But in the end I had a lot of research. The best part of research was probably how much I learned. I love science and space and I know a lot about it. But, this research taught me so much more. For example, I learned that black holes spread materials like gold and platinum, or more importantly oxygen and carbon which are key for life. Isn’t that cool? The part that went well the most was probably how I wrote my research already in essay form. It set me up for my essay and my script, which is what I said in the actual presentation. All in all research was very enjoyable even though it was hard to do at times.
Black holes are wonders of the universe that are also quite dangerous. Even though these phenomenons may be dangerous they are also super important. They are laboratories for all of our theories and are also possible links to other worlds. All in all, I know black holes don’t deserve the killer description as they do more than just swallow things whole. I also learned that black holes are the key to understanding the universe because they can connect most things like GR all the way to quantum mechanics. That’s how black holes are the key to understanding our universe. (link to essay)
When I had to choose to do a TED Talk or a WeVideo movie I chose TED Talk because I wanted to feel the pressure of actually presenting in front of an audience. I also chose TED Talk because when my brother presented he chose TED Talk so I wanted to do TED Talk. The script was really fun because it was simple and you had the sort of feeling that you were almost done with all of it. The biggest challenge was probably cutting down my script even though it was still pretty easy. (link to my script)
Completing the final steps (slideshow and memorization) were fairly simple. For the slideshow I was able to complete a rough draft fairly quickly, but the one flaw in the slide show was that I did not have enough slides. After I added more slides my teachers said it looked fine. The final touches were some animation for the slides and a qr code that leads to my blog. Memorization was super simple. While you might think it took me a while to memorize, I was able to memorize all of my Capstone in just one run through. I think it was because of how many times I had read my script. I enjoyed making my slideshow the most because I thought it was fun to make what the audience will see. The hardest part was probably getting the slideshow to be perfect.
While it’s sad that the project is over, I’m happy our school and teachers gave us the chance to explore a topic we have barely learned about. Since I have been at this school K-5 I have always dreamed of Capstone, and now that I finished it I wish I would’ve thought even earlier about Capstone. If you would like to take the extra, extra step to learn more about black holes, I have made a printable brochure with more info. Here it is. If you would like to view it digitally here it is. I have also made a citations list, if you would like to see it here it is. If you would like to view my actual capstone here it is

Immigrant Interview Video

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As you’re working on an assignment completely by yourself you feel the pressure of the due date next week. You’re struggling as this assignment is huge. You feel the weight of impressing your interviewee along with handing in the assignment on time with a good grade. That is how I have felt the past few weeks. This assignment was hard because the timing had to be good. The hardest part about that was filling in your video in accordance with your script. While this project was annoying at times this project was so fun in the end as I’m proud of what I have written.
At the beginning of making the video, it was fun as it was all new and exciting. It was also cool how I was able to make my documentary more real as I was able to use videos. Making the script wasn’t hard but it was also not fun as it was just copying and pasting. The most annoying part of the script was making the timestamps. In the end I decided to not put them on as it would not help me. The ‘selection’ process for photos was very enjoyable. Wevideo, the tool for the video portion of the project, was super easy to work with as you would just search up what you needed and it would give you a selection of copyright free videos and photos. So WeVideo was definitely a huge help.
During this project I have learned a lot. I have learned that the hardest projects turn out the best. This project was a bunch of ups and downs. In the beginning, I had very long videos. These videos were almost double the actual length of the allotted time for videos. I did not know this until my tech teacher told me that they were too long. This was very annoying as now I had to go back and cut the videos to an even shorter length. That was very bad for me as my script was around 3:30 which was good but now my video was at 2:00 minutes! That was also bad because now I had to cut down my script while adding to my video. In the end, I was able to get my video to 3 minutes which isn’t bad as I started at 2 but still annoying as I had to cut around 30 seconds of script! I also learned that when you are going to interview anyone, you have to seem and be interested. Otherwise, the interviewee is not going to be in such a good mood as you are being rude while they tell you their story. I was super intrigued about my interview because my interviewee was my dad. It was very nice as I already had some background knowledge about his immigration process so I was able to put in some of the stuff I already knew about him. This included stuff about his home country (Venezuela) and some other things. This part of the video was really fun as it was just the finishing touches
Overall this project was super fun but I couldn’t imagine how hard this would have been if it weren’t for me being able to interview someone I lived with. This project was super fun and taught me how to do big projects on my own.

Immigrant Interview Reflection

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As you’re working on a project that allows you to actually interview someone, you get intrigued. You’re just thinking of all of those wonderful questions that you may ask. And then the time comes. You’re so focused on how your interviewee talks about his journey. And by the end, you learned so much about that person. That was how my experience of interviewing an immigrant went. It was so much fun with many things you had to prepare. But in the end, it was all worth it.
When I first started this interview process, I knew I would do my Dad, or my Mom. In the end, my sister did my mom, so I did my dad. I knew that my dad would have a lot to tell. I knew this because he has been in the U.S. for longer. I thought about the questions I wanted to ask. It was hard to come up with them though because I knew some parts of his story were Very violent. But in the end I was able to get 14 questions. Since I had learned about push and pull factors, I knew I would need questions that talked about push and pull factors.
When it came to the actual interview, I had the prosperity to do it in person. I really enjoyed listening to my dad talk about his experience coming to America. I really learned a lot just through this simple interview. I felt that it didn’t go as expected because I thought I already knew a lot about Venezuela and my dad’s journey here. But actually, I learned so much talking to my dad. I feel it was very interesting that my dad had to go through a whole process just to leave my moms house and enter his house. It just goes to show how dangerous Venezuela is. I also learned that in order to have a better interview, you should try to act more engaged then you really are.
And then the interview ends. You realize how much you learned just by talking to someone for 5-10 minutes or so. It just goes to show how much you can learn if only you just listen!

Ardsley Curling Club

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Curling, a strategic sport in which the simple things can affect the whole game. Curling is a sport that is played on a sheet of ice. Teams take turns sliding a stone down the ice, while their teammates sweep the ice to make the stone go quicker. There are three sweepers, two sweep the ice from the very start, and a third waits at the house commanding the two sweepers while waiting for the perfect moment to join the sweeping. While Curling is mostly the same wherever you play it, the playing conditions can vary depending on what surface you play on. I learned that as I was practicing my Curling skills while playing on a basketball court. When I was actually on the ice, I was able to sweep better, and slide a lot better and further. This is shown after my at school experience vs. Curling on the ice, or the same things at school and the rink vs. the different things from school and the rink, or simply my expectations vs. reality.
There were similarities between curling at school vs curling at Ardsley, but there were also differences. Firstly, the stones were a lot different. At school, it was harder to be accurate with the stones as they were so light. This changed the shot as if your release was not straight the stone would slide left or right. Differently, at Ardsley Curling Club, since the stones were so much heavier, even if you had a bad release the stone would not curl too much unless you had the handle at 10:00 or 2:00 o’clock. When I picked up a stone, I thought, Oh wow, imagine if this fell on my toes, and then my friend dropped the stone on the ice and cracked it. Something that stayed the same was sweeping. In school, sweeping would make the stone go much further, but since the gym was so small width wise, no team really used sweeping. On the ice though, Sweeping still made a huge difference and kept the stone on path. Another similarity is that sweeping was still a big exercise. Since you have to constantly sweep, you can constantly see the tiredness in everyone. When I was sweeping, I always thought Just a few more feet! But that few feet felt like a whole match!
There were a lot of expectations for the trip and they were met with hefty realities. Firstly, we thought that the rink would be huge. We thought this because our teacher kept telling us about the size of the rink. When we went though, not only was the rink small, but the houses were three, or two times bigger than the ones at school. Another big shock was the effectiveness of sweeping. At first, I did not think sweeping would change anything. Actually, not only did it help our stones go further, it helped keep it straight. That was amazing as some of our shots had bad release so it started Curling. Another surprising thing was the weight of the stones. When we were practicing, the stones might’ve scratched five pounds. But on the ice rink, the stones were much heavier. Obviously a difference of thirty seven pounds is big, but it was not too much weight. That was my expectation vs. differences
The Curling trip was different from many things I had learned and expected. This is shown when I was practicing versus the actual experiences, or my expectations versus the reality. While Curling does not rowse any amusement for most, this trip was so much fun. If you do have free time I would highly recommend going curling as it is a fun, welcoming sport for all.

FA Reflection

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Making a feature article was fun, but a lot harder than expected. We had to get topics, know what we would write about them, and a lot more. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Making a feature article included knowing enough about your topic to fill three slides. The only bonus you had was that text features took up a good amount of space. The feature article was very enjoyable though. Whether it was formatting, or finding pictures, I enjoyed everything about it. If you want to know how this process started and how it ended up, keep reading.
Coming up with a topic and message was as easy as expected. Off the bat, I knew I wanted to do two topics. Soccer, or UChicago. The hard part was finding my third as I did not know what to do. But after some thinking I knew that I wanted to do JWST. It was a fun process and the next part was to choose which topic I wanted to do. In the end I chose to do UChicago which was a fun topic to do.
The part I am most proud of is my formatting. In the end, it looked very good and without borders I think it looked more professional. For my first slide I thought I needed to make it look the best as it had to catch the attention of everyone who saw it. I decided to have one photo, a fun fact box, and a good amount of text. In the end I made the photo and the facts box very close to each other to make sure I could fit as much text as possible. In the end I think all the pages except for the second came out perfectly. I don’t prefer the second because it is a bit too text feature heavy. Also, the most enjoyable part of writing the feature article was by far formatting it. Formatting was deciding where you wanted everything to go and that’s important because if you had a bad format your slide would look to text feature heavy, or just off. I feel the slide I formatted best was my first slide as it was very text feature and text balanced. One part I found challenging was the writing part. It was not challenging, but the part that I feel might have discouraged people was the fact that it looked a lot smaller than your actual slide. For example, the requirement was to have an article with three pages or more. While I first started writing with no text features, my writing was around 2 slides. That got me very nervous as I did not know if I was going to have enough writing to meet the requirements. In the end it was not a problem and I was able to get five slides, two more than the requirement.
I would say that the main difference between a personal narrative and a feature article is that for a feature article you have to be a lot more broad. For example, let’s say that somebody wrote about their favorite sports team. They would have needed to remove that that was their favorite team. For me that came when I needed to remove a part of the Rockefeller Chapel section. In my first rough draft, I had a few sentences about how I felt about the chapel when I went to chicago. I had to remove that and a lot more as I talked about my time at the university. In the end it did not affect me and I do feel like my teacher was correct in telling me to change a few words but still roughly have the same sentences.
I used certain strategies to help me make my article sound better. One strategy that I used was to use deliberate word choices. For example, I had a sentence that used the word ex-student. While it does make sense, I thought alumni would work better as it is a quicker, and easier way to get my point across. Also, since I used a word readers did not know I could have put a vocabulary box that explained that word and many more. In the end, I did actually end up putting the vocabulary box in the second page, where I had a blank spot I needed to fill.
Making my feature article was a very fun experience. There are many things I learned from this process. Firstly, making a simple article can be a lot harder than you think. And second, articles like the NYT take a lot of effort to actually make. While there were some challenging parts, the article was still fun to make. I would like to do this again, as I am very proud about the article I ended up with.

If you will like to see the article here it is.

Halloween Reflection

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BOO! You’re trick or treating and you get jump scared by a decoration, you want to run off and scream, “I want my mommy!” But the familiar sound of a door opening grasps your attention and you start trotting back to collect your well deserved candy! That was my experience trick or treating. It was super fun and there was so much more I liked!

I liked the Heathcote Halloween Party because it was just for the fifth graders. That was nice because I was able to hang out with people only in my grade, and I also felt like there would have been too many kids there if everyone went. An interesting costume I saw was Noah Conway’s injured football player. I liked it because it was unique and done perfectly. Firstly, he used his brother’s actual cast so I thought it looked really good as it was authentic. Secondly, I really like how he combined the make-up with the costume. What he did was eye black and fake blood. I thought the eye black looked really good as it blended well with the purple and blue. Also the fake blood was on his cheek so it looked like he got cut. Overall that was some of the cool things from the Heathcote Halloween Party. There were many things about the Halloween parade. One of the things I liked were the costumes. Firstly, Kayla had a really funny costume which was a baby shark shark. I thought it was cool because I have never seen that costume. Also I thought it was nice that it was a simple costume and she did not overdo it. Another costume I enjoyed was Jason’s football player. Yes, it sounds simple, but he was wearing padding and everything.This was one of my favorites as he went above and beyond so that from a mile away you could still tell he was a football player. Also I love how courageous he was to bring all the padding as it is really heavy. My favorite part of the parade were the reactions of the younger kids to seeing a gigantic chicken holding a KFC bucket along with a chicken leg, but this time two feet big. I remember that as I crossed to get to the grass I saw a little child start pointing and waving at me and telling his friends. I thought it was very funny as soon as I heard a bunch of kids screaming “look, big chicken!”I also heard, “He is a cannibal, he has a chicken leg!” Personally, I thought that comment was the funniest. That was what was fun about the Heathcote parade.

I really liked Trick or Treating as I saw all of my friends. Firstly, I went with a huge group of people. Firstly, since it was such a big group I was able to talk to so many people. For example, I went from one street with Noah Conway, Oscar Grabe, Noah Sitman, and Nolan Papir. Then I couldn’t find them and ended up with Dowlat Kahn. That was the advantage of having such a big group. I liked where we went trick or treating because of so many reasons. Firstly, so many other kids were in the area we were Trick or Treating in. That was nice as it felt like a very kid friendly environment. Secondly, I really liked how my parents were able to come. Even though I am comfortable with other parents. It was really nice to experience it with my mom and dad. That was what I liked about Trick or Treating. I really enjoyed giving candy to trick or treaters. Firstly, as I was about to leave to go trick or treating myself my neighbors toddler came to get candy. Firstly, it was very cute as I think it was one of his first times trick or treating. Also when we said, “happy Halloween!” He replied, “Thank you!” I thought that was very nice of him since he could not really speak english and he told us that. Secondly, when I came back from trick or treating and I counted my candies I came out with two hundred and forty five pieces. I thought that was impressive since I did not trick or treat for too long. Also, after I traded with my sister I had all the candies I wanted. I was especially happy with the fact that I got mostly Twix and tootsie rolls. That was what I enjoyed trick or treating.

In all Halloween was great and I really enjoyed all the reactions I got to my costume. I know I enjoyed everything about Halloween but is there anything that went wrong for you? For me that might have been that my inflatable chicken suit broke down twice but at least it got fixed!

Wailing woods

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We need to get one person across to get to the checkpoint, I was thinking come on let me stretch as far as possible to do it. As I stretch I feel a pain in my quads. Oh no, I can’t go further! It is intense and I feel responsible for getting the person across. Then I slipped… I was rushing to get my balance back just hold on to the tree I thought I saw the girl who was trying to cross, her jaw dropped, and intern I was a lot more nervous… I finally caught my balance. I hear the girl say “you did the hard part, NOW GET ME ACROSS!” I was even more nervous. That was part of my experience at the Bedford Ropes Course. If you want to hear even more of the exhilarating things I did at the course continue reading.

One challenge I really enjoyed was the rope swing. It was a challenge in which you needed to cross this gap and get to the other side without touching the gap. Firstly, it  was super fun to just swing on the rope and hopefully make it. The only problem was that when we tried a different strategy then the one we already had I tried. Sadly it was not well thought out. and then I started dangling in the air, after that I shortly then hit my head. Our first idea was to get the rope by jumping on to it (I made that one) and by jumping we would get enough momentum to get the rope. Our second plan, which was the one I hit my head with, was to put our feet into this sort of knot that was on the rope and then to swing. That would’ve probably not work (as we found out shortly after) but I decided to be a team player and execute the plan. My moment had come, I put my foot in the knot, took my steps back and…I was off! I was going so fast, at least it felt fast that when I made it to the other side I did not have enough time to get my foot out. This is where this amazing story of mine of me being the helper in the team, and getting to the other side would come to a brief and quick end. As soon as I missed the platform I knew it was game over, I got back to the other side and… my foot came out! But when it came out my hands gave out and there I was, gracefully falling on a path to doom! As I was maybe half a second into my fall I knew I had no time to land on my hands at least and then well the fall ended and there I was on the ground. But the biggest surprise of all was that I was laughing? Yup that was a cool story, but after that idea we kept on getting people to the other side, including me and then we almost finished. We missed two people or so but we still got the record! Another thing I liked was the Lava Island. I liked it because we were able to work together. Our first Idea was to hold the board up with our hands but, since we needed to get across three platforms without touching the ground we were definitely not able to hold up people with just our hands. Our second Idea was to put the beam on the ground, make people stand on it and then getting one person across at a time. That worked very well and since one person is not heavier then three it was very easy to get across. Even though we did the challenge we thought it was pretty easy, so we decided to give ourselves a little bit more of a challenge. So I had to say “let’s do it without jumping!” This was met with a bunch of groans, but after a bit we were all up for the challenge! You might be thinking there is no other way to cross but since I thought it was not too big of a gap we all went for it. In the end we all got across except for two people, but it was a super fun little challenge that I will remember when I think about the Bedford ropes trip. I didn’t really enjoy the cable walk challenge but it was not too bad. Firstly, when we did the challenge a person in my group was saying how he needed to cross a tightrope in the first challenge and how he crawled on his belly to get to the end. While that worked there, long story short it went wrong, horribly wrong. Of course I still had to be the team person and I went to try the idea. Okay I thought to myself, I can do this. As soon as I was on the tightrope it went south, I was holding on upside down even my group thought my try was over. I even hear somebody say “Andrew get to the back of the line!” I was thinking that okay, this will go wrong, time to not hurt myself. As soon as I thought that the first pain I felt. It was a small pain on my belly from the entire tightrope scratching on it. It was bad, but if you know me you know that I never give up. At this moment though that did not happen. I was twisting and turning and then… I fell. It was not too bad since I was low on the ground but I hit my head once again.

One thing I learned about myself is that I like to say ideas and execute them. Sadly, I learned this the hard way. One thing that really proved that was the rope swing. Firstly, when we did the ropes I was thinking okay let me just speak up I have a good idea on how to do this, but when I said my idea out loud I thought that oh I should also do my idea. Well I wanted to but I was never able to. The reason I couldn’t is because one of my teammates thought he was “better than everyone” and thought he was the key to winning everything. That leads me to what I learned about my classmates. What I earned was that a lot of my classmates like to take charge, sort of like me. But the only difference is that for them they feel it is a necessity they did it. That is one thing I thought was nice of them but it got annoying. For example, when we were doing the Lava Island challenge my teammate was so fond of him being the person to execute the plane he even got annoying. He was saying stuff like, “oh I should go last because I am the best jumper in this group.” Even though there was a girl who was a lot better than him. That was the stuff I learned about me and my classmates.

The Bedford Ropes Course was a fun way to include teamwork, exercise, solutions quickly in any circumstance in one huge bundle! During my time there I thought if I was a teacher I would want to take my students here to work towards cooperation. But what I want to ask you is would you also take people here? Would you do anything different (safety, groups, activities)?       

Lava Island                                                                            Cable walk                                                         Indiana Jones Challenge

Identity Map Reflection

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Making my Identity map was fun. It was fun because I was able to share some important features about me. Another fun part was the fact that I was able to see other people’s maps, and I could see what we had in common or a difference that we had. I was able to share some important aspects like my religion or maybe my favorite sports team. If any of that sounds interesting to you then this blog post is for you!

 Making my identity map was fun because I was able to express important features about myself. Barca is important to me because of so many factors, but before I talk about Barca here’s is some information about the soccer team. They play in the spanish soccer league, they are known for their style of play called “Tiki Taka”, and they play a possession based game that was taught to them from academy level to professional level. Okay now we can start! Firstly, my brother also really likes them so he would put on games; From there I grew my love for their style of play. Another thing I like about Barca is since I love soccer it’s very fun to watch the pros play. Additionally, I am able to learn from that, so I am able to watch a good game while learning. For example, Barca is very good at passing, and when I watch one of their games I like to see how I can improve in passing. Also, they are very good so it is just fun to watch them play. That’s why I love Barca. Being Catholic is important to me because it is my religion. I love being Catholic because it is something I have practiced my entire life. In addition,

 It is very nice because mas is always something I love to go to with my father, so whenever I don’t have soccer games I love to go. Second, one of my favorite continents to visit is Europe, and a big part of the culture in Europe is Catholicism. I love that because I am able to go anywhere in Europe and feel comfortable that I am able to visit a church and pray. That is why I love being Catholic. Being Venezuelan is important to me because it’s who I am. I am originally from Venezuela, which is a country in northern South America. I am from the capital of Caracas, which is in the north of the country. We have a mountain behind the city, and we are near the beach which is nice. My dad used to go to an island named “Margarita” which is north west of Caracas. He went around 3 times when he lived in venezuela but here is what he told me about Margarita. He told me it is a beautiful island in the Caribbean which is poor, but he said it was cool to see the street vendors. It is sad to me that I have never been able to visit; The reason I can’t is because if I get the passport I become “un niño de la patria.” That means if I get the passport I become a member of the Venezuelan party, and we hate the party because they ruined Venezuela which was rich and had a lot of money. In short terms we had so much money that the government didn’t know what to do with it, and we had so much oil that gas was free (my dad must have really liked that)! That is when my dad came to the US, he also came for studies. My Dad left in 1999 and my Mom in 2000. I hope later in the future the party will be overturned so I can visit my family and the country itself. That is why being Venezuelan is important to me

I loved sharing identity maps because I was able to find similarities with my table mates. I learned a lot from Juan’s identity map. First, I learned that he is in a family of five like me. Furthermore, he  has a sister and a brother exactly like me. I also saw that he speaks Spanish like me, and I saw that he likes street hockey. While I don’t play for a team I like to play the sport, and he plays soccer which is my favorite sport. That is what I have in common with Juan. I learned a lot from Zoe’s map as well. First off she is a twin and has a brother. That is identical to me because I have a twin who is also a girl and I also have an older brother. Another thing we have in common is that she loves books, especially fantasy books. Her favorite fantasy book is Harry Potter, that is my favorite fantasy book too. The only difference is that she likes the books more, while I prefer the movies. I learned a lot from Nico’s identity map. First I learned that he loves family, which I do as well. He has four family members while I have five and he also has a brother, and I learned he plays soccer. I think it is cool because we are on the same team. He plays defender and midfielder while I play striker. While I do like playing striker, if I did have to choose another position it would most likely be defender . It would be defender because my dad, my brother, and my sister all play defender, so that’s a cool connection between us.

This classroom project was very fun to make and do. First off, I was able to see other people’s maps, and see if we shared something in common or if we had something that made us unique. I think learning about other people and seeing what we have in common, or a difference we have is key to making friendships and having a cooperating class. If you were a teacher would you do this project? If you would do this project, what would you do differently?

If you do want to see my full identity map here it is below.

Home of the Brave Reflection

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Often in literature authors work on trying to create the best character that connects to you which is called a mirror, and characters that are different which is called a window. A book that has a good mix of mostly windows, but some mirrors is Home of The Brave by Kathrine Applegate. Her character Kek does that well. Kek is a kid from Sudan but due to war in his village, he is a refugee seeking safety in America. But he is alone. His mom is missing, and the rest of this family is killed. One window for me is that he has lived in a refugee camp.

Living in a refugee camp is very difficult because of certain struggles. One of the many struggles is not being able to have family to at least somewhat comfort him during those rough, and hectic days. That is a window for me because I have never lived a single day without family, and I have also never even been close to a warzone. Also, that is important because just to get to the refugee camp he had to make a treacherous journey, where they were constantly being chased by soldiers. This must have been really hard for Kek as having no family, in a horrible place, while being chased by soldiers almost all the time is obviously awful.

Learning a new language is hard for people as it is not something they are used to. One thing Kek had to do was learn English with almost no teachers constantly teaching. That is a window because even though English is also my second language, I had teachers and constant help to learn the language, and I was a lot younger (three to four years old). Also, just learning a new language by itself is hard, but not being able to constantly learn is even worse. This must have been super hard for Kek because trying a new language without being able to communicate with anyone except two people is hard, but only having two people who are also not experts on the language, and only being able to talk to them is extra hard. 

The most important thing I learned from Kek’s story is that you should never judge a book by their cover. Literally. Just because this book has a little boy in a corner and a cow in the other doesn’t mean it is a bad book. If anything this was one of the best books I have ever read, and one of the best character wise. I also realized just how hard being a refugee, or relocating to a new country is super hard. I just want you to know that if you see a bad book cover, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad book. Take that for books and real life. If you do want to read the book I highly recommend it and I think you will enjoy it!

First Week of School

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My first week of school was amazing! We did so much fun stuff, and we found out some cool things for the year that we will do! Some of those things are the Bedford Rope Course, or maybe the Halloween Party. That is just some of the many plans that excite me for this year. If that sounds interesting to you then this blog post is for you!

Something I really enjoyed was the 20 x 9 challenge, because it was a struggle for me. I like that because I truly had to think about what the answer was. That was fun because sometimes in math I don’t feel like that way. Also I tried it with my family so I was able to see different views and different ways to do the problem. That’s something that my family and I don’t do often. Also I love math in general so anything related to math I like. That’s why the 20 x 9 challenge was very fun and hard for me.

I really enjoyed the index card challenge. This was fun to me because I was able to work with others to find a common goal. You might be wondering, what is that goal? The goal is to make the tallest tower with only index cards! This was fun because we could not use anything else, that made us really think differently. The most important part about the challenge was probably how you folded the index cards. We started off with a strategy of folding it then putting a layer on top sort of how you would do with playing cards. We realized we couldn’t get it that stable so we switched up our idea. We took inspiration from many, and I mean many tables! The biggest strategy we found that also worked best was to build a square base then layer then repeat. That strategy worked well for our table and many others. In the end I would estimate that our tower was around 2 feet. Keep in mind all the index cards layered on top of one another might have been 4 inches. That’s also why I felt really happy with how we did the challenge. That is why the Index Card challenge was fun.

I really enjoyed the Square challenge because I had a tremendous amount of trouble! I liked it because I like when things are difficult, especially when it’s math (except if it’s a test). The Square challenge is played by making a perfect square with the pisces you were given. Also the pisces could not overlap so that made it extra difficult. You started out with some irregular pisces and some normal shapes. With those pisces you had to make a perfect square. This was the easier part of the two, and easier is an understatement, It was a lot easier! I had struggled a bit with the first part but I was able to do it fairly easily. The second part to this challenge was the fact that they gave you another smaller square to do the square with now. This might sound easy but trust me it was not. First I tried some ways to do it, keep in mind I was never doing it in a different orientation. After a bit I did realize that maybe it would work if I did it in different orientations, spoiler alert I failed miserably… After around 1 week I am hard stuck. I have no clue how some of my classmates did it and I was thinking about just giving up. Then around 2 weeks after the first time I tried this I got it! It was super annoying but I got the left side of the square and then I just put the other pieces and put them in any order. That is why the square challenge was fun.

I’m looking forward to the Bedford Rope Course Trip. I am excited because we will only ever go once, Also, I remember my older brothers got canceled so I know nothing about the trip. Finally, I love rock climbing and doing obstacle courses, but I don’t go often so I love it when we go to obstacle courses. Also, I love doing any physical activities, and that makes the Bedford ropes trip even better. So that’s why I think the Bedford Ropes Trip will be very fun.

There are many things I am excited about for fifth grade, like the Bedford Ropes Trip. Also, there was some stuff I had a lot of fun doing like the 20 x 9 Challenge. But that is just some of it. I think it is going to be very fun to do and am excited for it. The only thing I’m thinking of though is am I still going to be excited for it when it comes. If you were going to do this would you be as excited as I am?