Tag Archives: Reflection

Posted on by
Reply

Have you ever thought to make a feature article? I made one. There was many more steps to make it than I thought. It was pretty challenging. It took a long time to make but it ended up looking really cool.

My topic is softball. I came up with it because softball is my favorite sport. I know lots about it and there was no research in the feature article project. When my teacher told us we had to know a lot about the topic we were writing about, softball just popped into my head, since I knew a lot about it. My message for my feature article was softball is unique. I came up with that message because I really thought it was different from other sports. Even though softball is similar to baseball, they do have lots of differences. I wanted to show the reader the differences between softball and the other sports.

I thought there were lots of parts that were challenging, but there were also some parts that were fun. One thing that I thought that was pretty hard was putting in the pictures, captions, and text. We had to keep consistent spacing, and text size. I thought this was hard because once I had the layout, some of my text did not fit and some of my pictures did not fit. I also had to make room for captions for the pictures. Sometimes the pictures barely fit and there was no room for captions, then I would have to revise and adjust the picture so it would fit. That was only one picture. Some of the pictures did fit though. Once we got the hang of the formatting and making the feature article it got easier. Another thing that I thought was pretty easy was writing the actual text. I knew a lot about softball so I put what I knew that fit with my message. Another thing that I thought was hard is coming up with is the headings. I had to ask myself does this go with my message or does it not.

I used lots of techniques. A technique I used was a vocabulary box. A vocabulary box was helpful because it showed some of the words in the article that maybe some people wouldn’t know of. I used a vocabulary box twice. Another technique I used was a diagram. I thought the diagram I made would be very useful for people who did not know where the positions were and what the field looked like. I also used a fun fact box. One other thing I used was captions to describe the pictures. I was very proud of how the feature article all came together. I spent a whole month writing and putting it together. I didn’t think my feature article would look that good because the formatting was really hard. In conclusion, making this project was pretty hard and took multiple steps. How it turned out in the end was worth the process.

Here is my feature article!

Board of Legislators Reflection 

Posted on by
Reply

 

Did you know there are 17 legislators in the Board of Legislators? Each represents different towns in Westchester. Well my class recently went on a field trip there. We got to bang the gavel and so much more. You will learn about my experiences and what I learned at the Board of Legislators trip.

During the trip I had lots of favorite parts. My first favorite aspect from the Board of Legislators trip was talking to the legislator who represented our town and a few others. His name was Benjamin Boyken. I liked talking to him because it was cool to see an important person. I learned so many things from him. When our tour guide said “ you will be able to see your legislator Benjamin Boyken,” I’m surprised because I thought we were just touring the building and what it was like to be a legislator. When I heard her say that I thought when is he going to see us? When he talked to us had a lot of questions answered by my classmates like “How did you become a legislator?” He stayed with us until we went into the next room and he went back to work. Another aspect I liked at the Board of Legislators trip was the mock board meeting in the chamber room. The chamber room is where the legislators gather together and talk about important things such as voting on laws. That is what my class did except it wasn’t real. There was a chairperson and two clerks from my class who were picked to do it. A chairperson is someone who hosts the meeting and bangs the gravel and is the person who calls on the legislators when they want to say something. The clerks are the people who take attendance and write down votes. We also got to sit into the seats that legislators sit in. They even had their names on a plaque on the desk. When we got into the chamber room, I was like “is this where the legislators meet?” “This is probably my favorite room yet.” The Chamber room kind of looked like an extended auditorium but instead of a stage there was a big desk up high where the chair person sits and connected to that there was a big desk lower to the floor where the clerks sit. In the Chamber room we discussed a fake law: Should we ban unhealthy foods and sodas from school cafeterias. We all got to vote and the majority said no. The last part I liked from the Board of Legislators trip was having a mock committee meeting. This was the first room we went to. Our class got split into two groups of two tables and there were two chairpersons one for each table. The chairperson for my table was Charlotte and the chairperson for the other table was Theo. We discussed if all private and public schools should wear uniforms to school. We all voted no. I was like “I would never want to wear uniforms to school.” so I voted no. These were my three favorite parts to do in the Board of Legislators trip.

There were so many surprising facts I learned at the Board of Legislators trip. The first surprising fact I learned was that Benjamin Boyken represented more than just Scarsdale. Benjamin represented Scarsdale, most of White plains, and some of Harrison. Before Benjamin Boyken told us that, I thought there were 17 different Legislators in Westchester county each representing one town. I thought Benjamin Boyken represented Scarsdale and no other towns.That was probably one of my favorite facts. Another fact I learned was that there are 1.3 million people in Westchester and 20,000 people in Scarsdale. “There are 20,000 people in Scarsdale? That’s soooo many, I thought there were way less”. The last surprising fact I liked was when you are in a board meeting people call the legislators legislator and then their first name. For example Legislator Talia. I learned this when we were in the mock committee meeting. Our tour guide told us exactly how the legislators talk and how they call each other and what they discuss. That were my three favorite facts from the Board of Legislators trip 

In conclusion, the Board of Legislators trip was really fun. I had so many favorite parts and many facts that I had learned there. Have you ever gone to the Board of Legislators?            

Ignite Talk Reflection

Posted on by
Reply

An Ignite talk is where we presented a slideshow and had a speech where we talked about our research question from our topic that the teachers chose. The Ignite had to be exactly 1:45 seconds, 15 seconds per slide. We also had to talk about some reflection on the process whether it was easy or hard or what skills we used. The slideshow had to be one picture per slide. Extreme weather is a natural disaster on the earth. Everyone had a different slideshow, but was connected so there was no pausing between each person.

A challenge for me was memorizing the script because I thought I had it memorized perfectly but when I go to practice it on the chrome book there are a lot of stops because I forgot a part. Another challenge for me was coming up with a research question and finding information to it because all my original research questions did not have a lot to it. A success of mine was putting the ignite together and the steps in it once I found a good research question like paraphrasing which is not copying authors exact words.

I liked this experience but it was a little challenging for me at first to get started. I thought this was fun putting everything together and to memorize the script because you kept trying to memorize it with each script block at a time and it was very exiting to perform it.

 

My Expert Book: Hanukkah

Posted on by
Reply

Starting my expert book I had to first think of a topic. Next I had to brain dump a piece of paper. Afterwards, I had to organize my brain dump into my chapters. Then I had to write the expert book on paper. Lastly, I had to make a slideshow and add pictures and links to it. The most difficult part for me was to come up with the idea and chapters. My favorite part was linking and adding pictures. I learned to link, start a new slideshow and write an expert book. I feel really proud because it was really hard to write it.

This is my expert book.

 

 

Thank you for reading.