Category Archives: 5th Grade

Feature Article Reflection

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Did you know that 4.76 million people 6 years or older do gymnastics in the U.S? Well, I happen to be one of those people, and for my feature article I decided to write about gymnastics. In this blog post, I am going to tell you something I enjoyed about writing my feature article, what I didn’t enjoy about writing my feature article, what I liked about formatting my feature article, and what I didn’t like about formatting my feature article.

Over the past few weeks of writing my feature article I have noticed that there were things that I did and didn’t like about it. One thing that I enjoyed about writing my feature article was that I knew a lot about my topic so it was exciting to write. One thing I didn’t like about writing my feature article was that I write so much sometimes that it gets too long and boring. First, let’s talk about what I enjoyed! I enjoyed writing about a topic I knew a lot about because it felt really good to get all of my thoughts and facts out on paper. All of the years I had written expert books and narratives about gymnastics lead up to this. I did use a little bit of research, but for the most part it all came from me. Once I got all of my thoughts down it felt like I took a big sigh of relief. As a competitive gymnast, learning even more while I was writing was very interesting to me because it helped me understand some things about scoring, deductions, and requirements for my level. Going into the competition season I am glad that I now know these things. Moving onto what I didn’t like about writing my feature article was that sometimes I get too carried away. I love to write. I could write for days and days and still have more to write. That was the problem. Usually expanding on writing is really good but when you write too much it feels like it’s never ending. I always felt like I was never done writing and it took me a while to write it. Then I fell behind and it was hard to catch up rather than if I had just written less. Also when a reader reads my feature article they will get bored within the first 2 sections.

While we were formatting there were things that I enjoyed and things that I didn’t enjoy so much. One thing that I enjoyed about formatting my feature article was getting to choose the different ways I can arrange the boxes. One thing that I didn’t enjoy so much was having to make sure everything aligned with everything. Starting with what I enjoyed, I really enjoyed being able to make my own set up arrangements. I enjoyed this because it felt like I had more freedom. There were so many different ways to format my article and I felt like I had more control because I got to choose how it looked. I also got to make up new ways to format it so that mine has my own twist to it. One thing that I didn’t enjoy so much about formatting my feature article was having to make sure that all of my words were aligned and all of the boxes were perfect. I wish I could have just pasted it in and not had to worry about the words overlapping and having it go to the next page. It’s just a pain to start from page 1 and move everything down a page, then, to notice that there’s another tiny problem and have to move everything down again.

Now you know what I enjoyed about writing my feature article, what I didn’t enjoy about writing my feature article, what I liked about formatting my feature article, and what I didn’t like about formatting my feature article. Now, would you write a feature article? 

First Week of 5th Grade

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“PHEWWWW!” You only have 3 more minutes left of the challenge and your entire tower just collapsed, you have to keep going. “We got this, just keep building!” One of your groupmates yells. Time passes and your tower looks like the tallest in the room until, “WOOSH!” The entire tower collapses, again! “30…29-” Your teacher chants. “It doesn’t matter if we win or not, just at least put in the effort.” You say confidently. We keep folding cards and building it higher, and higher, and higher. You place index cards on top of intex cards until the time runs out. “10…9…8…7…-” The class chants as you rush to complete your tower. “BEEP!” The time is up. Your teacher begins to walk around with a measuring stick and the intensity in the room builds. “13 inches!” Our teacher says starting with the tower to the right of us. Our team glances at each other with looks that say, “There is no way we could have beaten that,” so I respond with a look that says, “It’s okay,” When your teacher finally comes around, it’s your turn. My whole group tenses up waiting patiently for the big news. If you are interested in how tall our tower was, keep reading my blog post for more information on The Index Card Challenge and much more. This blog post features what I enjoyed during the first week of fifth grade and what I look forward to this school year. 

The two things that I enjoyed during the first week of school was the Index Card Challenge and watching the TEDTalk video, “Danger of a Single Story.” First off, The Index Card Challenge is a game where you work in a group and use 100 index cards to build the tallest structure possible in 15 minutes. I really enjoyed this challenge because it helped me envision how working in groups and partnerships will look for the rest of the year. It helped me reacquaint myself with my peers after summer break and not only did I socialize with my table but I got back into the feel of school and working together. For example, my group was struggling at the end, but we still kept going even though we knew we wouldn’t win. Our tower turned out to be 9 inches tall, we lost but we still had fun during the process. Something else I enjoyed was watching the TEDTalk video, “Danger of a Single Story.”. This story written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was an 18 minute life changing story. It was about Ms. Adichie and how when she moved to the states for college how everybody assumed she didn’t speak English and that she didn’t have basic life skills, like using a stove, just because she was from Africa. This is called the danger of a single story, like when someone points out only the poor parts of Africa and then everybody assumes Africa is a poor continent even though there are cities and places there, like where we live. This really inspired me and I never even realized that there were people that just assumed that. Some people even think of Africa as a country even though it is a diverse continent with many different countries inside of it. It wasn’t just Africa, people also made assumptions about Mexicans and countless other countries and continents. This helped me realize that you can’t just assume or summarize something about a place or a group of people.

This year I am looking forward to Capstone and Hot dog Field Day. To start off I am looking forward to Capstone for multiple reasons. One of them being the fact that I get to study my favorite topic and present a slideshow about it. I have been waiting for 6 years to do capstone after my oldest brother had it when he was in 5th grade (2019). Both of my brothers set the bar pretty high, so I hope I can reach their standards. After thinking about Capstone since my oldest brother did it I have come to the conclusion to make it about the Evolution of Women’s Fashion and How the Rest of The World has had an Impact on it. I can’t wait to do research on one of the things I am most passionate about. I am excited to share my information with my parents and the rest of the grade. I hope my slideshow really makes an impact on my viewers and also teaches me new things. Moving onto Hot dog Field Day, Field day is one of the only days of the year that all of the kids get to go outside and play field games the entire day. In this event there are various games such as tug of war, capture the flag, and gaga. All of the kids in each class dress in a specific school colors and compete to figure out the winning class. It’s specifically called Hot dog field day because for lunch, some class parents volunteer to make hot dogs for lunch. I am excited forHot dog field day specifically because it’s on one of the last days of school and it’s a tradition for only the fifth grade. I know just because I will be competing against my friends all day doesn’t mean that I still won’t have a fun day and get to have fun with them. It’s just a friendly competition so even if I lose I will still be happy that I got to experience it. Overall it seems like a fun day and I look forward to doing it.

In conclusion, I have enjoyed everything we have done for the past first week of school and there are many things I look forward to this year. I know fifth grade is going to be a blast and I anticipate this to be my favorite year out of all my years at Heathcote. How about you? What is your favorite memory from fifth grade? 

Field Trip on the County Board of Legislators

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“Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!” The Gavel silenced the chamber as it hit against the sound block. “I now call this meeting to order!” The head chairman turns on his microphone and everybody’s eyes are on him.“Today’s problem is, ‘Banning junk food and vending machines from schools in Westchester County,’” He reads off a piece of paper. You have thoughts bubbling in your brain and you can’t wait to share them with everybody else in the room. “Any ideas?” The Head chairman says again. Everybody’s hands shoot up, including yours. The Head Chairman calls on a couple of people around you and then, he calls on you. You begin to turn on your microphone. “Hello?” You say and your voice echoes in the large room. If you want to hear my opinion on the case of banning junk and unhealthy foods or not, keep reading this blog post. In this article you will learn about two things that I have learned from the field trip and my two favorite parts about it!

At the county board of legislators two things I learned was that in a committee discussion, as the chair woman you don’t state your opinion until all of the other legislators say theirs, and I learned about the order in which a chamber discussion takes place. To begin at the beginning of the field trip we went to the committee room. This was an office where the bill that was introduced is at its first step. I was a chairperson and I had to learn that I don’t vote on the topic we were introduced with until everybody else has made their point. This is necessary because as a chairperson you have a lot of power, and most people would be influenced by you, so if you did it wouldn’t be a fair vote. Moving on, another thing we learned was how you discuss and vote in the chamber. Starting from the beginning the clerks do a roll call to make sure that they have everyone so it’s a fair vote. Then the head chairman calls the discussion to order. You go around and everybody needs to get a turn to speak and share their opinion. We learned that you always have to discuss before you vote so that you can try to convince other people to vote on your opinion, or so maybe somebody else will change your opinion. After everybody has had a chance to share their ideas (not their vote) the clerks go around and everybody votes to either move the law to the next step or to get rid of it. For example I realized during the mock case that in the beginning of the trial and at the end the clerks (Kristen and Graydon) actually did the roll call and tallied the votes. In the end we did not move the law forward to the next step but even though it wasn’t a real case it made the whole thing feel very realistic. Once everybody has voted the head chairman closes the case and the meeting ends and everybody leaves.

The two things that I most enjoyed about taking the role of a legislator and a chairperson was learning the process of my job, and when in the chamber being able to share my ideas with the other legislators in the room. To start being the chairperson was super exciting and fun. The process of it was even more thrilling. First off I would call the discussion to order. I would introduce the case (the other legislators would also have it on their paper) and I would call on people to share their ideas and another part that made it real was we would call each other, “Legislator …” or, “Chair…”. Next I got to tally up the votes and everybody voted that the law did not go to the next step. If it didn’t the law would be gone but if it did it would go to the chambers, and that is where we went next. When you walk in the room there are two walls that are rows of chairs. If you keep going forward right after to the two platforms of chairs there are two stages with desks on them, that’s where the legislators sat. In the center there is a desk where the clerks sat that is elevated, and even above that was where the head chairman sat. The desks where the legislators sat all had microphones, it was so we could all hear each other and so we weren’t all shouting over each other.There are 4 jobs. The 4 jobs are, two clerks, a head chairperson, a public speaker, and a legislator. The Clerks tally up the votes at the end and they do the roll call, and the public speaker is somebody from the public, and they come in to share their opinion about the subject. In the beginning the head chairman spoke into his microphone, in a loud, clear voice. “Head chairman, Dean?” One of the clerks spoke into their microphone. “Present,” He responded. “Legislator Olek?” When the roll call is over the head chairman turns back on his microphone and everybody’s eyes are on him. Personally, I thought that they should not ban junk foods and vending machines at schools. I thought this because while other people’s arguments were very convincing I think that the school shouldn’t be worrying about or be able to control how much sugar the students consume. I think that should be up to their legal guardian, and the child, not the school. This is the part that I enjoyed the most, when we all shared our ideas my mind was going back and forth. I liked that I hopefully was able to convince other people about my ideas, and for a little while other people convinced me.

To conclude, I really enjoyed taking a field trip to the county board of legislators. Now you know two things I learned about there, and two of my favorite things we did. I love going on field trips and the fact that it was about our county government made it even cooler. What do you know about your county government?