Collaborate Constructively

The last time I did lit. circles, I had to do them with a partner, otherwise known as Pasha. I thought that the benefits of working with a partner is that you can see what their thinking for lit. circles before they actually present. It's like a sneak preview of what they are writing down. Plus, with partners you only have to do half of all the work so it's less stressing to me and my partner. The downside of this all is that sometimes your partner doesn't do anything at all! By the time it's time to present, you only turn in half of the work. I almost thought that Pasha was slacking off and not doing his job because his half of the lit circle was empty. The next day I found out that he was using Microsoft word (because our lit circles were done on Google docs) to type it up and then copying and pasting it onto our document. I was relieved, but the next time we do this, I just hope that we have a better connection. I thought that understood the novel better when we did partner lit circles because I could listen to my partners opinion of the question or passage and compare with my own. If the my partner's questions was different to mine, it would make me re think my entire answer. One question was ' Would Jacob find his dad in the end?' A first I thought no because things like that happen in story's like this, and then Jake would have to live with Supeet. But other people said yes which made me actually compare my answer to theirs.

Literature Circles Reflections

Ah, Lit Circles. This is a project where we read a book and then write, come up with questions about the book and so on and right now i'm doing one about the book Thunder Cave by Roland Smith. I thought doing the Lit Circles helped me understand the book more because of the fact that along with finding passages and questions we also have to find vocabulary. This helped a lot because usually when I read a book with new vocabulary, I would have been to lazy to find out what that meant and I wouldn't understand it much. For example, "I've never seen anyone scarper so fast." now you probably won't know what scarper is right? Now if that sentence was in a book then you probably won't understand the whole page or chapter if it isn't explained (scarper is a synonym for run) which is why I thought that doing the vocabulary was important, not only does it help us comprehend the book more, it also helps me learn more vocabulary that I can use in everyday life (in fact, the vocabulary is the easiest part of the project, hehe..) Some key ideas my group and I talked about usually involved the main character in pain or in trouble. Events in the story include the main character's mom dying and him getting beat up and he coming face to face with a lion. I thought these ideas were important because in shows us how the main character is always in a bad situation. This means that the plot of the book will have something to do with the main character having many conflicts in search for his dad.

I didn't really make any connections throughout the story but I did manage to make one or two reactions about what I thought about the book. My reactions are mostly on how the author writes the book. For example, 'I thought the author made the book interesting by leaving clues to the next chapter. One of them was on the way Roland made everything sound like it was going to be okay when all of a sudden making something bad happen. I chose to write and talk about this because when I was reading, I started to get bored and predicted 'oh everything is going to work out, how boring' but when I read the part when something bad happened, I then thought 'oh my gosh, I didn't expect that! I wonder how he'll get past this obstacle.' That part just gave me interest to read on like once in the book, the main character was about to book a plane ticket to Kenya. I thought, since he withdrew ALL the money from his bank account ($1,800), he could have afforded the ticket. But when his travel agent said it would cost $1,964 I had interest to read on and see how he could have afforded the ticket. He also needed extra money to buy food (because they didn't allow food in Kenya) and rent a hotel room.       

My predictions for rest of the book, like I stated above, is the man character facing page after page of conflicts to find his dad. I thought that this would have been an appropriate prediction because from the previous chapters, I noticed that most of the time the main character faces many problems. One example is a problem where he has to get away from thugs at a bazaar in the maze of people, and another one is where he meets a hungry lion. But in any situation, the main character, Jake (yes, I know I should have used the name sooner) always manages to win. When he was chased, Jake managed to loose the thugs and when the lion met him, he threw a bicycle wheel at it and the lion ran away. So that's what I predict for the rest of the book, Jake encounters a problem, Jake finds a way to win, Jake encounters a problem, Jake finds a way to win and so on.        



    

Lines of Symmetry

This is a picture of a chair I took in our dining room. If we ignore the background, this chair has one line of symmetry running directly through the center. Through the wooden bars and down the seat. So if we took a saw and cut the chair directly through the middle, the two parts would be completely identical. 

SLR's of My School Field Trip

Two SLR's (Think Creatively, Live Ethically, Collaborate Constructively, Reason Critically, Communicate Effectively etc.) I performed well on the Kuala Selangor field trip would be Communicate Effectively and to Collaborate Constructively, and I have happened to have done both when I went mangrove planting.

I performed Communicate Effectively during the middle of the mangrove planting when all of use were struggling pull our feet out of the mud, for we were planting the mangroves in a pit of mud. Everyone was struggling to get their stuck feet out of the wet mud. To me, it seemed like the mud was dragging me down even though I wasn't sinking at all. I performed this SLR when some one told me they could cut a hole around my feet and then pull it out. I also realized I could dig myself out to. So I went and told the people around me the discovery. Soon enough, a few people around me started cutting themselves out of the mud.            

The next SLR (Collaborate Constructively meaning to work together well) was performed just as I had done planting my mangrove. as I was walking off to shore, someone nearby told me he was stuck. I instructed him to cut a hole to pull it out but, it failed.i had to walk back to him and help him try to dig his own feet out. But in the progress, my feet got stuck so we had to dig them out too.

In the end, I have learned that you can perform the SLR's anywhere whether it's in school or deep inside a pit of mud

The Time I Showed Courage

One time I showed courage was probably the first time I went to camp Awana. Two years ago, my class took a field trip for Two days to camp Awana. Once we dumped our stuff of at our tents, my class and I went to rest a little outside in a nearby field. After that, we then headed to our first activity, the Flying Fox (da da da daaaa!)

 When I first saw the flying fox (even though I knew there were safety harnesses) I was scared to death because it was so long and high. We all got in a line with me at the back and some of my friends in the front. At first, they were actually scared too, but after the first turn, they all wanted to go again. Before I decideed to sit this one out one of my friends urged me to go up and try it, so he dragged me up to the top of the tall hill and left me waiting in a line at the top of the hill.

When it was my turn, I almost peed my pants. The Flying Fox harness was to high so I had to stand on a plastic chair to attach the harness. Suddenly a wave of worry swept over me as I thought about crazy things that could have happened during the trip down like the harness snapping or crashing into the place where we should have gotten off. Then the Flying Fox helper pushed me off. I sped down the zip-line feeling the wind against my face but I was slow enough to see the scenery around me. I could see why my friends all wanted to go again. When I finnaly got down, my friend gave me an 'I told you so' look, I just shrugged and ran back up the hill. By the end of the day, I was tired from zip-lining over and over again and thought how much fun I had today. Tomorrow, however, I had to go absailing in another part of the camp, but that is another story...           

What Do The Artifacts Tell Us About The Lives of Early Humans?

Archaeologists studied artifacts from early humans to learn more about how they lived.

One artifact was a sculpture of two bison that was found in a low room deep inside a cave in France It was 23 inches long and was made 10,000 to 14,000 years ago. The artist sculpted them from gold-colored clay. Carved lines show details such as the bison’s faces, coat markings and the fringe of fur below their powerful necks. Scientist have two main ideas about why these sculptures were created. One was that the sculptures belonged to a clan. Another one is that it was used for an important ceremony to show that a child has become an adult. 

Another artifact was a spear thrower that was found somewhere in France.

The spear thrower was made from reindeer antler bone and was 10 inches long. It was probably made 18,000 years ago. The spear thrower has a leaping horse carved on the top. It seems that the artist carved hundreds of tiny dashes to show details in the horse’s head. The artist must have really cared about decorating this hunting tool. Some scientist believed the artist carved the horse for decoration. It also could have been a good luck charm to protect the hunter or make him/her more successful. It could have been related to the hunter’s name or which clan he/she belonged to.    

Archaeologist also discovered a cave painting in Argentina (South America). The cave painting shows a shape that looks like a bull’s eye; stick like animal that look kind of like deer and several handprints. Paintings of shapes and handprints are very common in cave art, but their meaning is a mystery. Many scientists believe that the handprints were a way an artist signed a painting. Some think that the geometric shapes had special meanings in rituals. Researchers tried singing inside another painted cave in France and discovered that the sound was loudest in the places that were painted. They guess those areas were used for special gatherings.     

 

From some of the artifacts that the archaeologists study, we can now understand more about the life of early humans.

Geographer, Historian or Archaeologist?

I would have chosen to be an Archaeologist because when I was little, I used to dream about digging for fossils and I always wanted to find a time capsule in my sandbox. Another reason why I would want to be an Archaeologist is because I think it would be fun to dig up ancient artifacts and look for clues about ancient civilization. The final reason why I would like to be an Archaeologist is that I would have loved to get in the dirt and dig and dig and dig to find fossils or ancient artifacts or even valuable treasures.

http://www.padfield.com/bible-times/archaeology/ 

http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/images/cambourne/archaeologist-work

  

Hello There!

Hi! My name is Viet Bui and I'm from Vietnam. Right now I'm in middle school Humanities(but I play piano on Wednesday's, I hate it though) and this is the very first blog I ever made (for homework).

The sport I love the most is badminton (I'm not so good though) because I love the sound my racket makes when I hit the shuttlecock and that you get to hit something around. Some hobbies of mine include eating pizza, listening to music (preferably instrumentals like Look Busy), playing Lego and practically any other 'build it yourself' toy (like puzzles, Bionicles, Nano Blocks and Megablocks), but my most favorite hobbie is drawing (mostly doodles and cartoon) because I can express my feelings put through a pen (or a pencil).When I'm happy, I can draw a person happily walking down the road. When I'm angry, I can draw someone chasing another person with a stick and so on.

Creative, positive and lazy would be three adjectives that would describe me. I think creative would describe me because I like drawing picture and doodle and i have a very vivid imagination. Positive would describe me because I'm almost always happy even when I do get homework from school. Finally lazy would describe because i spend most of my time lazing around in my room reading a favorite book or just lying there and when I receive homework I sometimes wait till later to do it instead of doing it just as I arrive home.

One academic goal I think I should have for Humanities is to learn least 10 new words and their meanings. On the other hand, one social goal I should have is to try and introduce and talk to more people in my class. I think that the year ahead will be a good one as long as I get enough sleep at night.

Well that's pretty much the end of my first new post, I hope you enjoyed my it.