Capstone – Blog Post #3

In the past month or two 5th graders have been working on Capstone daily. Capstone is the biggest project we have ever had to do. We each picked our own topics that we were interested in. I chose interior design because I want to be an interior designer when I grow up. We also had to have a main inquiry question. My main inquiry question was “How have design styles for bedrooms changed over the last 100 years”

The process of researching was challenging. At first, I couldn’t find any resources and was having trouble taking notes. But towards the end, it was exciting. I started to see some really good information that helped me a lot with my project. I ended up having more than enough information. Something that I learned during my research was that there are so many different ways for a bedroom to be eco-friendly. I also learned that the styles change very often. They change almost every decade.

For my project, I chose to do a video. I chose to do a movie because in order to do a ted talk or ignite you have to memorize. I am really bad at memorizing so doing a movie was the best option for me. A challenge during the movie was recording. I have a really noisy house because of my brother and sisters, and when I get them to be quieter my dog starts barking. Also, I didn’t want to record in school because I do not like the way it sounds when you use a box to record. So it was really hard for me to find a quiet space to record.

In conclusion, I learned how to be patient while I was recording. I also learned how to problem solve because a lot of times the pictures I wanted to use didn’t work out. Capstone is a really fun project. We had to pick a topic we wanted to do the project on, we had to do a lot of research, we had to do an interview, finally, we had to make the video. Even though this project was a big one it was my favorite project that I have ever done.

Category: 5th Grade, Science, Tehnology | LEAVE A COMMENT

May 18

Capstone-Blog Post #2

The purpose of the interview is to gather more information about your topic through an interview. I feel that the interview is helpful because it gave me lots of notes that I really needed.

The process of figuring out who to interview was easy and challenging. I knew I had to interview an interior designer or somebody who knew a lot about interior design. I just didn’t know who to interview. But I ended up finding someone who knew about my topic really well. The process of thinking of the interview questions was interesting. In the beginning, it was easy but when I had to do my last couple of questions it was really hard. It was like this because it was really easy to think of a few questions but hard to think of ten.

The experience of conducting the interview was good. It took around 30 minutes and I got a lot of notes. It went better than expected. I expected it to take an hour and I did not expect to get as many notes off of the interview as I have. These are the questions that I asked:

How have the design trends changed over time?
What features of bedrooms changed the most? Why?
Are there features that have not changed?
How do bedroom styles, affect the rest of the house?
How has interior design improved to be more eco-friendly?
What has interior design looked like in the past decade?
What did bedrooms look like 50 years ago?
What were some changes that were recently made?
What do bedrooms look like at this moment?
How has the lighting changed?

One of my new learnings that is that there are eco-friendly materials such as quark which is used in flooring and furniture. Another eco-friendly material is bamboo which is also used in flooring. Another thing I learned was that some changes that were recently made are more interest in eco-friendly options, lots of technology but it was hidden, and minimalism.

Overall the interview was exciting and a fun experience. It taught me patience and corporation. I am enjoying this project and I hope that the interview will help me in the future.

Category: 5th Grade, Capstone, Social Studies | LEAVE A COMMENT

May 10

Capstone-Blog Post #1

Capstone is a project that only 5th graders get to do. I have been waiting to do this for a long time and now I finally get to do it. Capstone is when you pick a topic to research. It could be any topic you want, as long as you are interested in it. You then present all of your research in a movie, ted talk, or ignite. For my topic, I chose to do interior design.

The process of thinking about the topic was easy. I started to think of things that I was interested in, and I could not think of That much. But then I remembered I loved helping my mom pick out the wallpaper, the rugs, the cabinets, and more when we redid our basement and kitchen. I found it really interesting that there are so many things to think about when it comes to interior design. This is how I ended up doing interior design as my topic.

I decided to make my main inquiry question “How have interior design styles for bedrooms changed over the last 100 years?” I decided to make it this because when I decided I wanted to do my capstone on interior design I searched for interior design on google. The first article I saw was about history. After reading it I decided to make my main inquiry question about the history of interior design. When I spoke with Ms. Robert wanted me to pick a certain area of the house. So I decided to do the bedroom. This is why my main inquiry question is “How have interior design styles for bedrooms changed over the last 100 years?”

The process of coming up with sub questions was really hard for me. We needed to have 5 which is a lot. After a day I had only thought of 2, and they were not the best. What made it easier to think of them is help from my friends. They helped by just showing me what their sub questions were. After a long time of thinking, I finally thought of 5 sub questions. My questions are “How have the color schemes changed over time?”, “What features of bedrooms changed the most?”, “Are there features that have not changed?”, “How do bedroom styles affect the rest of the house?”, “How has interior design improved to be more eco-friendly?

So far this project has been interesting. It was fun and easy but challenging at the same time. Hopefully, my project will come together soon. I also hope this project becomes easier as I keep going.

Category: 5th Grade, Capstone, Social Studies | LEAVE A COMMENT

March 31

Immigrant Interview – Blog Post 1

In the past couple of weeks, we have been working on an immigration project. We had to interview an immigrant and make a video about it. I chose to interview my grandma, Susan Learner. Before she moved here her name was Shoshana. She originally lived in Israel with her parents and older brother.

The process of the interview was easy. We just had to think of 10-15 green light questions. (A green light question is a question when the answer is more than one word). It was easy to think of so many questions and I could have thought of a lot more but the most amount of questions we were allowed to have was 15, and I ended up having a total of 15 questions. Some resources/things that were helpful were other people’s videos. Watching former fifth graders’ videos helped me think of questions and the format that I am going to try to do for my video.

The experience of conducting an interview was challenging. It was not what I expected it to be. It took over an hour and because my grandma emigrated here so long ago so she forgot some things, and some of the things she forgot were important. It was also hard to get her to tell me more, I had to tell her things like “Describe…, Give details about…, …Why or why not?” These helped me get a lot more information out of her. I did the interview in person and wrote things down in a notebook. I learned a lot of interesting things but the most interesting thing I learned about her was that she didn’t just speak Hebrew in Israel or English in America, but she also spoke Hungarian and still remembers little things in Hungarian. She spoke Hungarian because that is the language her parents and older brother spoke before they moved to Israel where she was born.

Overall the immigration project so far has been exciting and fun. I learned to be patient and encouraging. I really hope that the rest of the project is as fun as it is right now.

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

March 11

Rube Goldberg- Post 2

Overall, the Rube Goldberg project was really exciting. I had a lot of fun doing this project, I had to be very creative and confident in what I was doing. The hardest part of the Rube Goldberg project was finding materials to make the machine. The sizes were never correct so I kept having to change things. Another hard thing was that my machine worked a bunch of times and I didn’t get it on video. The easiest part was putting the WeVideo together.

I learned that sometimes you will face challenges but you have to use or face them to move forward. I learned this because I had lots of fails. So many things had gone wrong. I ended up having over 80 fails! I had so many fails I lost count at one point. The number got way too high.

My experience making the video was interesting. It was a lot easier than I had expected. I thought it was going to be super hard. It only took me two or three days to make and after that, I kept on editing it. At one point it got deleted and I had to restart it. But it is better now than it was before. My video ended up being a total of three minutes and 28 seconds.

This is my sketch:

Here is my video:

Category: 5th Grade, Science | LEAVE A COMMENT

February 17

Rube Goldberg-Blog Post 1

The process of my Rube Goldberg machine was very hard. The hardest part was actually building the machine. It took at least 10 tries just to get one step right.

I had lots of challenges and troubles. One problem was that I could not find the right sizes of materials I needed. It was very hard to find things that are the right size and shape. Another problem was that my machine started with dominoes so if one fell over then the entire machine would start and I wouldn’t be able to get it on video.

Some of the materials I used were marbles, cars, blocks, dominoes, and car tracks.

After I tried out my sketch it did not work. My final machine looked very different than I had planned. Something that was originally in my sketch but I did not use in my machine was a water balloon. Something in my sketch that I did use in my machine was dominoes.

Overall the hardest part was building the machine. My final machine took 81 tries. So far I had lots of fun with my Rube Goldberg project.

This is my sketch:

Category: 5th Grade, Science | LEAVE A COMMENT

January 21

Constitution Project Reflection

I chose to research the question “Why were women so passionate about passing the 19th amendment” because when I found that at one point women weren’t allowed to vote, I was really interested. I thought women were always allowed to vote. I never realized men were allowed to vote way before women. This was life-changing. This is why it became my research question.

Something that I found challenging was the research. It took a while to find resources. I had to read a lot and watch a ton of videos until I finally found the answer to my research question. Another thing I thought was challenging was finding pictures for my slideshow. It was hard to find a specific picture of what I was looking for. My favorite part of the project was the script. I thought it was easy and was quick to make.

Overall I think the project was fun, exciting, and interesting! It was long and the process was hard. This was my favorite project so far this year.

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