Board of Legislators Reflection

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Did you know that the population of Westchester county NY is around 1,000,000! That Number really surprised me. Recently I went on the board of legislators trip and I learned a ton and I had some really fun experiences. Today you will learn all about this trip.

One of my favorite parts of the board of legislators trip was when we went into the chamber and we did a mock meeting of what a real meeting would be like. The chamber was huge. The roof must’ve been 30 ft above our heads and 150 ft long. We talked about whether schools should (which some of them did) have vending machines or not. Only one person said they shouldn’t. In addition, I also enjoyed speaking into a microphone. I have never spoken in a microphone so it felt like a new experience and it also felt a little bit weird. It felt like I had all the power and I could say whatever I wanted. At first I could not think of anything to say. Then Ideas started popping up to me. I had around five things to say but I only said one. In addition, I also enjoyed talking to Benjamin Boykin, the legislature of district five Westchester which is where I live. I felt good to be talking to someone who was in charge and had a lot of power. I also have never talked to any legislature so it was a new experience for me. When he came I felt a little bit nervous. These are some of the things I enjoyed during the trip.   

 I learned a lot about the government during the board legislators so, I am going to tell you about it. During the trip I learned a lot about Scarsdale. One of them was that the population of Scarsdale is around 18,000. I also learned that Scarsdale is a bigger district called district 5 Westchester which makes up Scarsdale and some of rye and White plains. I learned there are 17 legislators in Westchester, and the legislator of district five is Benjamin Boykin. Finally I Learned a lot about population, one is the population of district five is around 60,000. There are also 16 other districts in Westchester! They all have around the same population as District 5. These are some of the interesting and fascinating facts I learned on the board of legislators trip. 

We can clearly see this trip gave me new experiences and I learned a lot too. Have you ever been to a government building or met a legislator? What was it like and what did you enjoy? 

 

 

 

My First Weeks at School

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I thought the first week of school would be a bit odd. It ended up a little bit better because we got to do some activities but I still felt a little strange because I was in a different environment: new teachers ,classmates, and classroom. I still wonder what activities and projects are coming next. Today I will be talking about what I am looking forward to and what I have done this past week and, Some of the fun things we have already done. I hope you enjoy it.

This past week I have learned various assignments and activities. Today I will explain a few things I have learned. I have really enjoyed the fours fours challenge, where you have to make every number 1 – 50 while only using fours you can use any operation, brackets, exponents, and even factorials you can only use four digits. For example, to make 11  you can do (4!)÷(√4)+(4÷4) It took me around five minutes to make, but on purpose I tried to make a confusing one. So technically I wasted five minutes of my life making something complicated. Five whole minutes I don’t want to waste another 5 minutes talking, So let me explain the 20x 9 challenge. Another thing we have done in the past week is the 20 x 9 challenge. In this challenge you have to use only 1-9 and you have to make twenty. You can only use six digits or less. For example, for nine you can do 9+9 (9+9) + (9+9). The last thing I have enjoyed this week is the index card challenge where you get 100 index cards and see who can make the biggest tower in inches. There are a lot of strategies to make a big tower. Our tower was the 2 shortest. We tried to stack a bunch of folded index cards into triangles. The base was not strong enough so It collapsed and we continued building It ended up around 12 inches tall. I kept on screaming to my teammates” The base is not big enough, Make the base bigger!” I don’t want to talk anymore about me yelling so let’s move on to what I am looking forward to this year.

This year I am looking forward to many fun games and activities. One of those is the teachers vs students volleyball game. I hope that we can beat the teachers and in general this is going to be one of my highlights of the school year. I have watched other classes try to beat the teachers they all failed last year. I think it was 42-17 so I am a bit nervous. I sat there thinking next year I am going to beat the teachers right now I don’t think we will, so time’s changed. Another thing I am looking forward to is the Halloween party. I can’t wait to do all the fun activities and Halloween in general. This year Halloween is on Diwali so I am looking forward to that too, also I can’t wait to dress like a maniac too. Finally, I am looking forward to the board of legislators trip. I am excited for all the activities. I have never been to any government building so I wonder what we’re going to do. The trip is going to be our first field trip of the school year so I hope I enjoy It. 

Overall I hope you enjoyed it. I talked about what we’ve done in the first week of school and what I am looking forward to this school year. What was the first week of school like for you? What did you do? What did you enjoy?

Reading the Weather Reflection

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Researching

Researching was hard because we did not have much time to research. On our first day we looked for information that we would come back to later. I and everyone else already were pretty good at researching because earlier in the year we did an animal project. I did the project on elephants and we had to do it on the animal senses. We did tons of research on that project so research went well. I used a ton of websites to research my information. There were two half days during the research period. I researched a lot for homework. At first I searched very specifically, then I researched less specifically. I noticed that searching less specifically is a little bit easier so next time I will make it less specific than more specific. Researching was one of my favorite parts of the project.

Notes

Once I started taking notes I realized I liked making my notes into a paragraph more than anything else like making webs. I had three pages of research and at first research and at first thought that was pretty good but then I asked the person who was doing historical events. About how many pages he had He had eleven pages. That completely freaked me out, until I asked how much the person doing measurements had. He had 1 page. That made me feel much better. The reason I keep saying he is because everyone at my table was a boy. Overall note taking was my least favorite part.

Narrative

The narrative was very confusing because everyone could type on someone else’s slide. We only had one slide to put the information because we only had 30 seconds in total and 15 seconds per slide. We had to transfer our information from our notes to the narrative. We got to comment on other peoples slides. I made it a goal to comment on everyone’s slide. I was not able to help on someone’s slide so I just commented, good job. I liked the narrative but it was not my favorite part.

Script

The first thing we did in the script was transfer the narrative into the script but we had to do it one half at a time because we had two slides. We had to transfer on google slides and then put it into speaker notes. We also got to comment on slides. I luckily did not have to do the intro or the conclusion. I was so happy when I realized I didn’t have to do the intro or conclusion. Overall the script was definitely my second not first favorite part.

Rehearsal

The rehearsal was 100 percent my favorite part. This is the time where me and my table started to get really silly. I had to memorize two slides. Each slide had about 5 or 4 sentences. On the day before the presentation for a different class. I noticed they kept on looking behind them which our class was not allowed to do. On that day we also had a substitute. One the first day we got to see the tsunami. They did horrible things which was great for everyone because if they did good everyone else would be in a complete rush the rehearsal was probably the longest period in the project. 

Presentation

The Presentation made me so nervous. I completely forgot to look at the tripod. My parents waved at me which made me even more nervous. The part where I was the most nervous was right before the person finished. It felt like I was doing an hour long speech. It felt so good when I stopped talking. What made me even more nervous was that my parents were watching and everyone else did good.

Collaboration

I was very silly with my table especially during the rehearsal. My table was only boys there were 5 people at my table. I really liked the volcano category. We were most likely the table that talked the most.

 

 

 

 

We should all respect doctors and nurses

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When I first heard we were writing persuasively I knew what I was going to write about. My claim was “We should all respect doctors and nurses more”. I chose to write about this because we should respect doctors for their hard work. I had to make three reasons that support my claim and three details that support my reasons. We first had to write our essay on a piece of paper. Once we were done we had to type our essay on a google doc. Then we had to make a hook and start adding transition words to make our essay stronger. Next we added our conclusion. After that we started copying and pasting on my script then we started adding photos and captions on adobe express. Finally we recorded our essay and put it on our blog. All of this took about five weeks. I learned that making a persuasive essay is very hard and time consuming. My favorite part was revising and editing. I hope you enjoy my persuasive video.   

 

Literary Essay on Ruby the Copycat

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We started the literary essays by finding our claims. I chose to make the claim about how Ruby is copying Angela. I did a character change claim. I also added 3 pieces of evidence. It’s important to add evidence because it proves your claim. I chose to write about Ruby the Copycat because I had the most evidence. I liked writing my essay because I improved my typing skills in the process. I organized my writing from my thesis statement, to the beginning, the middle, and the end.The most difficult part was revising and editing. My favorite part was typing my essay and evidence. I learned that making an essay is very hard and time-consuming. Something I learned about myself is that I can make an essay. I feel pretty good about my published piece. It took me about three weeks to learn to write my essay.I am proud of my result.  

 

 

Ruby the Copycat

“Change”

 

In the text Ruby the Copycat, by Peggy Rathmann Ruby changes from copying Angela to being herself.

In the beginning, Ruby copies Angela. Here is some text evidence in paragraph 4, Angela says, “I was the flower girl at my sister’s wedding.” In paragraph 6 Ruby says, “I was the flower girl at my sister’s wedding too.” This shows that Ruby is copying Angela. Another piece of evidence in the beginning is in paragraph 12, Angela was wearing a sweater with daisies. In the same paragraph. “Ruby hopped home sideways at lunchtime, and came back to school with a sweater with daisies on it.” All of this evidence proves that Ruby is copying Angela in the beginning of Ruby the Copycat.

In the middle of the story Ruby continues to copy others. Here is some text evidence from the text, in paragraph 23, Angela recites a poem saying, “I had a cat I could not see because it stayed in the back of me. It was a very loyal pet. It’s sad we really never met.” In paragraph 26 Ruby recites a poem saying,“l had a nice pet who I never met because it always stayed behind me. And I’m sure it was a cat too.” Another piece of evidence is in paragraph 33, Miss Hart  says, “I went to the opera.” In paragraph 34 Ruby says, “I went to the opera too!” All of this evidence shows that Ruby is copying Angela and her teacher.

At the end, Ruby changes from copying Angela and Miss Hart to being herself. The lesson learned is do your own thing and don’t copy people.  

My Expert Book: Presidents

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When I found out I was writing an expert book I knew right away that I wanted to write about presidents. I picked this topic because I know a lot about presidents. First I thought about writing a book about math but I decided that would be too hard to write about. I organized my book into chapters that were about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. I ended up publishing the chapters on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I found it a little difficult to elaborate at times because I thought I would know more. Once I thought about it I remembered more and was able to elaborate. It was difficult to make the pictures the correct size and that took some practice. Mr. Casal’s lessons helped me with that part. My favorite part was adding the glossary and linking the words. I learned that making an expert book was really hard and that it took a long time to do. I am pretty happy with my book, but I think that I could have done a better job with my timeline.

This is my expert book.


Thank you for reading!

the attic

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It was a hot summer day, we just moved to Scarsdale and my brother who was 10 and my sister and I who are 8 year old twins were bored. Hmm I thought to myself, what is there to do? 

Then I got an idea! 

I whispered to my brother Shrey and sister Aisha, “Do you want to sneak into the attic?” I wondered, would they agree?

They both agreed and off we went. 

We went around the dining table and my brother knocked a piece of glass. “CRASHHHH!”

“What have you done?” I said.

“It’s not my fault,” he replied. “They won’t notice.”

We went slowly up the stairs in the hallway into my brother’s bedroom closet. We slowly opened the door and then we saw the attic!

There was no door, just a thin black tarp. “You go first,” my brother said.

 

 “No,” I replied. “How about we settle on a game of rock paper scissors?” I asked. 

 

“Ok,” they both said at the same time “You have to win 3/3,” they said.

 “Fine.” 

My sister won, I was second and my brother was third. 

“You go first,” I said as my brother slowly creeped up the stairs. 

As we followed him up the stairs my sister said, “It sure does look scary!”

“No it does not! You’re just a scaredy cat,” my brother said. 

I wondered, what was up there?

My sister and I  followed him. As we walked up the attic stairs we entered the attic and it was pitch black. My brother ran downstairs and fetched the flashlight from the closet.

He turned the flashlight on. As we turned the corner we saw two very tiny brownish-gray mice! It looked like they were nibbling on something.They sounded like mmheha 

“AHHHHHH!” We all screamed in shock! 

I noticed how fast mice can run when they started chasing us out of the attic. We ran down the attic stairs, out of my brother’s bedroom and down the stairs out of the house.  We kept running around our street in circles. Back to our house, up the stairs and back to the attic. Then we heard a loud creak.. we broke one of the stairs!! 

“What have you done?” My brother asked. 

“It’s not my fault,”  my sister replied.

“AHH !” I said, “Stop arguing.”

 “Fine!” said my brother. “Where are the mice?”

 “There in that hatch,” I said.

“Over there,” my sister pointed.  The mice  scrambled in circles. They were moving so fast that  they slapped my brother in the face and then jumped  back into the attic.

 “Well now that’s all over. What do we do now?” I replied to my sister huffing and puffing.

“I have no idea,” said my sister. 

 My mom questioned, “What’s all that noise?”

We all looked at each other and said nothing.