My Capstone Reflection

Posted on June 7, 2024 by sbenjwal31

Have you ever done a really big project? If you have, you probably know how many things you have to do for it. Sometimes you might have felt like giving up. I just did my Capstone project which had many phases to it.

First, we had to do research for our main inquiry question. My main inquiry question was How has figure skating evolved throughout history? I chose figure skating because I have been doing this since I was 4 years old and I was curious to learn more about it. My research went well and I got it done before the due date. In class, a lot of the class time was dedicated to working on capstone. That helped me finish in time and I was even done a little before the due date.

Next step, Capstone essay. My essay was basically just all my research put into body paragraphs with each sub question as a body paragraph. I also finished this early and did not feel rushed. Writing my essay was easy in my opinion because I had already done all the work in my research notebook. I basically was just copy pasting it into my essay adding a few words here and there. You can view my essay here.

The next step was to choose to do a ted talk or movie. Then you had to create a script. I chose to do a movie because then it would be easier to picture the old figure skating things that I was talking about. I also wanted to do something different. Last year we did an Ignite and we had done presentations for that. I felt a little rushed creating my script because everyone was finishing and moving on to their video while I was still working on my script. I had gotten my script done before the due date and had started my video.You can view my script here.

The last thing I had to do was make the video. Making the video was the hardest part for me. This was hard because I had to make sure all my images were the right time. I didn’t want them to move on too fast or too slow. What helped was doing a rough recording first so you know about how much time it takes to say everything. I went a little over the due date for this but it was only by a day and it was okay. My classmates and teacher watched my video and they gave me some feedback which helped.

In conclusion my capstone project was hard and easy at different parts. In the end it all worked out!

Immigrant Interview Reflection

Posted on March 27, 2024 by sbenjwal31

Today I will talk about this immigrant interview project that I started. This is where you write a narrative and a script and then gather some photos to create a video of you narrating your interviewee’s story.

First, we came up with some questions. When I was coming up with my questions my teacher gave us a list of possible questions so that helped me. Our class also had to put the questions in chronological order because you don’t want to ask your interviewee “ When did you come to America?” and then ask them “ Do you think you will ever go back to your home country?” It will just mess up your conversation. We also learned we should ask open-ended questions so we get more information. For example you could ask “ Do you like it in America?” and just get yes or no OR you could ask “ Do you like it in America? Why or Why not?” If you ask open ended questions it’s helping you so you can have more information for your script/ narrative.

That was the first part of my immigrant interview project. Stay tuned for the next part!

Curling Trip Reflection

Posted on February 9, 2024 by sbenjwal31

Have you ever gone curling? Curling is a sport where you roll a stone down the ice and aim for the middle of the house, the house is like the target. Our class went on a field trip to go curling recently and I think it was pretty fun going curling. In this post I will compare my school experience curling vs curling at the Ardsley Curling Club. I will also compare my expectations vs reality.

First, I’m going to compare my school experience curling to my experience at the curling club. One comparison is at school it was easier for me to get the stone to reach the house but at the curling club our team couldn’t get a single stone to reach the house. Another difference was at the curling club the stones were heavier than at school, making the stones harder to roll. When I first tried rolling the stone I thought how will I push this stone down the ice? but when I pushed the stone down the ice it was easier than I thought. It was still hard to get it all the way across the ice. At school we curled on the floor in the gym, but at the curling club we curled on ice. Curling on ice made the experience pretty different from curling on the floor. When we first entered the rink I remembered Mr. Borgia, my PE teacher said “ take off your gloves and try touching the ice” when I touched the ice it felt like there was some kind of goo on it but in reality it was just tiny bumps on the ice creating friction. I also noticed that at school the houses were way smaller than at the curling club which should make it easier to get the stone in the house but the stones were just too heavy and the houses were too far apart for our team. I remember one of the stones my friend, Nina rolled was like a centimeter away from reaching the house but it didn’t reach. I remember saying to my friend, Kayla who was sweeping with me “ we should have sweeped more and it would reach”.

Next, I’m going to compare my expectations to reality. I didn’t think that we would have to run while sweeping, but sometimes we ended up running . In my mind I thought the stone is going so fast we have to run? I also thought that we would get at least a couple stones into the house but we actually got none. Our team wasn’t that disappointed though, because we still had fun. I thought at the curling club the distance between the houses was going to be really big and I thought the rink would be bigger because when Mr. Borgia showed us how big the rink would be. He showed us a distance that made me think it was bigger than it actually was but it wasn’t as big as I expected. The stones were heavier than I expected and they were harder to push down to the house. I thought it was going to be cold but it wasn’t that cold and I was wearing thin leggings, a sweatshirt, and a normal jacket. I also remember Nina was wearing the same thing and she was fine. Lastly, I thought that the ice would be at least a little slippery but it honestly felt like walking on the normal floor. I thought could I run on this ice? and I really wanted to, but I didn’t let my intrusive thoughts win.

In conclusion, The curling trip was really fun and we made some great memories there. I also think it was interesting to compare my expectations vs reality and also comparing my school experience curling to my experience at the Ardsley Curling Club. Would you like to go curling one day?

Feature Article Reflection

Posted on December 12, 2023 by sbenjwal31

I worked really hard on my feature article and I want to share it with you. My feature article is about dogs since I know a lot about them. My feature article took a lot of effort and I struggled a lot but in the end I think it came out pretty well.

I came up with my topic and message like this. First I chose dogs as my topic, I chose dogs because they are something I know and care immensely about. I have always loved dogs since I was little and I currently own a dog too. I know that it can be hard work. I came up with my message because I want people to understand that dogs can be great work because I don’t want them to get a dog and then abandon them because they are not responsible enough. I know many people actually do abandon dogs and it’s sad to know over 3.9 million dogs are abandoned each year and don’t find a permanent home.

Writing the main text went pretty well and was easy for me since I was writing about a topic I know a lot about. When we started the formatting though is when it got hard. I realized that I had to think about how I wanted my text to be on my page, I had to think about how and where I wanted to put things like fun fact boxes, vocab boxes, and pictures, and I also had to think about my font and the font size. So that was definitely a struggle for me. Even though I struggled with formatting I think that it will be easier if I just keep on practicing and eventually I might be really good at it. When I was done I was most proud of my formatting and I say that because formatting took the most time and so when it was done and it turned out good, I was really proud of it.

When I was writing my article I used many techniques. One technique that I used was when I needed to elaborate I would just add examples instead of writing more because when you add examples it actually improves the writing. I also started with a fact in my intro to hook the reader in. For example I said “ did you know over 3.9 million dogs don’t find a permanent home each year, they are all abandoned or sent to shelters”. This fact worked well because it shows how many people aren’t responsible enough for a dog and that you need a lot of responsibility. Another thing I did was not put all my writing in the main text but I also put some writing in vocab boxes, fun fact boxes, and I even included some pictures.

Writing a feature article is different from a personal narrative in many ways. A personal narrative is more about a specific moment where a feature article is more about an open topic like dogs. In a feature article you include things like fun fact boxes, vocabulary boxes, and images. In a personal narrative you can make it more personal while in a feature article you can’t say words like “ you” or “ I hope”. Those are some of the differences between feature articles and personal narratives.

In conclusion my feature article took a lot of effort but in the end it turned out great!

Thanksgiving

Posted on November 27, 2023 by sbenjwal31

How was your Thanksgiving weekend? Mine was great, I went to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and a sleepover. When we reached my friend’s house we were 5 hours late! But they are really close with us and understood. First when I reached we went upstairs and played sardines. Sardines is like hide and seek but when you find the person that’s hiding you hide with them until the last person finds everyone. Eventually we got bored of sardines and stopped playing. We headed downstairs for a snack and not shortly after that we ate dinner. The dinner was supposed to be everyone at the table eating together but at the end it just worked out everyone eating at different times. Then we did karaoke and I sang Bad Blood by Taylor Swift. Soon everyone left except for a couple of people including me. It was late at night and so immediately everyone went to bed. The next morning my friend and I woke up before everyone else and it wasn’t really fun so we layed in bed waiting for everyone to get up. Then when everyone woke up and we were eating breakfast the boys told us that in the nighttime they wanted chocolate and so they went downstairs and got 6 kitkats, there were 3 boys so that means each boy ate 2 kitkats. That’s a lot of kitkats, especially at night. Then later in the day we went to a really fun mall. We went in 2 cars and in my car we did some more karaoke. When we reached the mall we did an escape room, then we played at an arcade a little, we went bowling, then the boys went go-karting and the girls went to a candy shop and 2 clothing stores. Once the day was done we decided to have another sleepover and so we went to their home, ate dinner, took a bath, and went to bed again. The next day we came downstairs for breakfast and watched some of a football game on tv. Later in the day the parents left for a mall and we just played at home. We ordered some pizza and one person told the delivery guy our parents were not home! I tried fixing that and said that they were home but they were just sleeping. Then we played sardines, hide and seek, tag, and uno, uno was such a long game we played it for about an hour! Then we watched tv and ordered chipotle. Soon our parents came home and everyone left. In conclusion, I had a great Thanksgiving weekend doing karaoke, going to fun places at the mall, and playing games with my friends.

Spooky Stroll

Posted on November 9, 2023 by sbenjwal31

It was Halloween night and I was out trick or treating with my zombie friend ( she had a zombie costume). We went to so many houses and got so much candy! Now I’m going to write some more about my Halloween and share my fun and spooky stories!

First I’m going to share some things I did at school. One thing I went to was the 5th grade Halloween party.It was so fun! We had some snacks and candy. We also had a dance challenge boys vs girls and the girls won most of the rounds. Then my friends and I then went to the other room and we played air hockey and basketball in the mini hoops. Next,we got tattoos and we guessed the number of candy in the jar. One of my favorite costumes there was Andrew’s. He was a giant inflatable chicken and he was holding a chicken wing and a KFC bucket. Another thing that we did at school was the Halloween parade. I saw so many more great costumes! And then we stood there in the freezing cold weather and took probably like over 100 pictures. Finally we got to go inside and change it was so much more warm. The last thing we did in school that I’m going to share with you is at the end of the day we did fun Halloween activities. I did my activities with a friend and we had so much fun! First we did a color by number and it revealed an owl in a witch’s hat. Next we watched Halloween shorts and they were so funny! My favorite one was the one with the ghosts. It was so funny!

Now I’m going to share some ways i celebrated Halloween at home one thing we did was carve pumpkins and it was really fun to draw out m face and then carve it onto my pumpkin but sadly my pumpkin didn’t make it to Halloween and it started rotting so we had to throw it out 🙁 Another way we celebrated Halloween at home was by throwing a Halloween party with some friends! We had so much fun! First we just stood there and ate food from the snack table but then we got bored so we started piggybacking on each other and running across the lawn. Next, we saw some little kids trick or treating because they probably have an earlier bedtime so we decided to trick treat for fun but that wasn’t our actual trick or treating. Then people started to leave and my friend stayed behind. The reason my friend stayed behind was because… Next we were going trick or treating!! First we were really cold and our tights were itchy but after a while we got used to the cold and the tights and we did some good trick or treating we went to so many houses and had so many experiences but here is the one that stood out to me the most.There was a house that was giving out vegetables and no one was taking them so I took one and everyone was like where’d you get a VEGETABLE? And I said that one house was giving them out and that I just took one and it was really amusing to me because I never ever saw a house giving out vegetables.

In conclusion I had a spooky Halloween and had lots of fun

Did you have a good time on Halloween?

Tough Trees

Posted on November 6, 2023 by sbenjwal31

“Talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence wins games” Micheal Jordan once said This quote relates to what i’ll write about today. I’m writing about a field trip we took to the Bedford ropes course ( the Bedford ropes course is at a middle school and takes place in the woods) The Bedford ropes course also includes a lot of teamwork.

Here are some things that we did at the ropes course.One thing we did at the ropes course was the rope swing challenge ( this is a challenge where you have to go on a rope swing to a platform and you have to get your whole group there) . I liked this challenge because we had to work together to find a strategy. I also liked this challenge because I was one of the people who got to swing before our time was up and it was fun! I remember before I went on the swing my friend Jordyn said “ You got this!” and that made me feel good and was really encouraging. Another thing we did at the ropes course was the rope bridge challenge ( This challenge was a challenge where there was a bridge and 2 groups coming from opposite directions had to cross the bridge without touching each other). I liked this challenge because when people were crossing you would just hold onto the bridge and lean back outside of the bridge for them to pass. I remember after a while of doing this my hands started to hurt so bad and I was holding on so tightly I felt like I was going to fall and badly hurt myself. I also liked challenges because while you were crossing you could see others trying different strategies like climbing up onto the sides, walking over people etc…

There are so many good ideas but people are just doing their own thing I thought.

The most hard challenge for me was the wire walk ( the wire walk was where there were wires from tree to tree and you had to get across with nothing to hold onto)

This was challenging because if you tried to walk there would be nothing to hold onto and you just relied on your balance. This looks challenging. What if I fall? I remember thinking to myself. Another reason the wire walk was challenging was because one strategy we tried was butt scooting to the end. Everyone was complaining, “ It hurts!” “The wire is so hard and thin!” I definitely agree with this! So those are my opinions about some of the challenges.

Some things I learned from this are that I’m patient, Jordyn can be really encouraging,

and working in big groups can be hard because there are many opinions on how we should do these challenges. I learned I’m patient because when everyone else was shouting and arguing I still stayed patient. I learned that Jordyn is encouraging because as I mentioned earlier it was really encouraging when she said “ You got this Suhana!”.

The last thing I learned was that working in big groups can be difficult because there are many opinions and everyone wants their way so what happens is in the end everyone is just talking over each other. So those were some important things I learned.

In conclusion, the two challenges I liked the most were the rope swing and the rope bridge. I learned about someone in my grade, I learned about teamwork and big groups, And lastly I learned about myself and how I do in bigger groups. Also, the thing that I noticed the most is working in big groups can be hard.

Do you agree?

Home Of The Brave Reflection

Posted on October 24, 2023 by sbenjwal31

Today I’m going to tell you about some things that are windows for me from the book home of the brave by Katherine Applegate, (A window is something that we can’t relate to but can see and learn through the character.) The character I’m talking about is Kek. Kek is a character who had to run away from his home to a refugee because of a war

and his mom is missing.There are many windows for me in this book.

One thing that is a window for me is having to get used to the way things work and new technology in America. For example in the story Kek calls the plane a flying boat. Another example is when his cousin tells Kek how the washing machine cleans things Kek doesn’t understand it’s for clothes and he tries to put the dirty dishes in it and they all break. The reason that this is a window for me is because I never had to move to a different country and get used to the new technology and the way things work.

Another thing that is a window for me is feeling lonely and missing your family because you came to the U.S all by yourself. For example in the book Kek is unsure if his mom is alive because she is currently not with him and is missing. Another example is when Kek reunited with his extended family he realized how much he missed his true family and got sad. This is another window for me because I never lost my family and I always know where they are.

This was probably really hard for Kek he didn’t understand how so many things work! and I can’t imagine being in a situation like his. This makes me wonder how many people go through a life like Kek?

Identity Map Reflection

Posted on October 11, 2023 by sbenjwal31

Do you know what an identity map is? Well I think Identity maps are cool because you can write down and show who you are on paper. Identity maps are also really fun to make. Here are some parts about me that I wrote and drew onto my identity map.

I love ice skating. Some of the reasons I like ice skating are:I’ve been ice skating since I was around six years old and I have always enjoyed it. Another reason I like ice skating is because Ice skating is one of the sports I feel most confident in. And lastly when I go to my lessons I’m always looking forward to them. I am also a dog lover because I have a dog and he’s one year old. I’ve loved dogs ever since I was little. Also,I always make sure to make time for my dog and I enjoy playing with him. And lastly I am a drawer because I’ve always loved drawing and coloring,I enjoy things like arts and crafts. And It’s fun to draw different things and see how they turn out.

Next I’m going to tell you about some things my classmates shared. Their names are Nina, Ebrar and Noah. First is Nina. She is a dog lover. She says that she likes dogs because they are friendly, playful and cute. Next is Ebrar. Ebrar said she likes to cook but she said she mostly likes to bake things like muffins and cupcakes.And the last person I will talk about is Noah. Noah is a tennis player and he likes to watch tennis and play tennis and he is very good at it.

In conclusion, I had a great time making my identity map and reading other classmate’s identity maps. Did you ever make an identity map?

First Week Of School

Posted on October 2, 2023 by sbenjwal31

I really liked the first week of school and here are some of the things I enjoyed and am looking forward to such as the Index Card Challenge and the Halloween party.

One of the things I enjoyed is the index card challenge. I enjoyed this because it was fun to build and try out different strategies. It was also a fun way to work with your table. I also enjoyed making $4 and $12 using coins. I enjoyed trying out different combinations and then sharing them with a partner and then coming up with some more new combinations together. Another thing I liked about the first week of school was making identity maps because I love drawing and coloring. I think that that was a nice way to relax yourself at the end of the day. It was also cool to see what other people were drawing and writing about themselves. And lastly it was really fun to have my friends in my class because not every year your friends are in your class and so when our class goes out for snack my friends will always be there. This will also be our last year in Heathcote so it’s going to be fun to spend it with each other. So those are some of the things I enjoyed during the first week of school. u

This year I’m looking forward to many things. One of them is The halloween party because I love costumes and candy which is basically halloween and so it would be really fun to go to a halloween party where you have the whole school to yourselves, Another thing i’m looking forward to is the Bedford Ropes trip because i love climbing and i’ve been to other climbing places so i know i will enjoy it , I also am looking forward to the poetry unit and that’s because I love trying out different types of poetry and also reading poetry that other students wrote. So those are some things that I’m looking forward to this year.

In conclusion, I had a really great start to the school year. I enjoyed the index card challenge, making $4 and $12 with coins and making an identity map.And I am looking forward to the rest of it like the Halloween party, The Bedford ropes trips and the poetry unit. Did you have a good start to the school year too?

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