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This year in science we are studying ecosystems. An ecosystem is a place where many habitats exist. For one of the games, each of us got a different organism in a ecosystem. We were supposed to go around listing the other organisms that we were connected to. After this we had a whole group discussion and we all realized that really everything is connected to everything.
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This is my Muir web. A Muir web is a web of what a person needs to survive. For our Muir web, we did it off of three meals that we had over the previous weekend. After I added all of the meals I began to add even more ingredients inside them and connected to them and it got super interesting. There was a point where I was listing things that I wouldn’t of even thought connected to the main meal.
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This is my Giver essay. At the beginning of school we started to read this book. After we finished it we each choose a theme from the book to write about. My topic was isolation and that is what I wrote about. I learned so much from writing about isolation in The Giver. It is a very important topic in this book. I found the concept of isolation in this community so interesting and confusing at the same time. It is so cool to see what two different people think about it
Giver Essay Name:Eli
Date:10/16
Isolation, for the Good or the Bad?
Picture a community in which you are constantly being watched over. Everything you do and know is controlled by the Elders who run the community. It also is impossible to escape from this. It can be very isolating. This is not a way to run a community but this is what it is like to live in the world of Lois Lowry’s The Giver. In the book the protagonist, a twelve year old boy, named Jonas, is caught in a very isolated community in which he lives in. When Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of Memories everything he knows about his community changes. He is shown what the world outside of his community is like and what the past was like for the community. He is also shown what the Elders in charge of the community are hiding from him. He must find out whether his community is a utopia or, if this is a problem and his community is really the opposite of a utopia, a dystopia. The Elders in charge of Jonas’s community are isolating people and what they know. The big reason for this is to prevent anarchy in the community.
The Elders in Jonas’s community control the knowledge you have. Not knowing key information isolates you from everything and everyone in the community. It’s almost like living life is meaningless if you can only know about something a certain amount. The things you do and the things you know are constantly watched over. The Elders in Jonas’s community limit what you know and that is a big problem in life. “‘He might make wrong choices’”, (Lowry, p.55). Jonas says this when he is talking to the Giver about Gabriel, the infant boy who Jonas’s dad, a nurturer, has taken in to give extra help to. It is a big statement. If you make a wrong choice or a wrong decision, it is frowned upon in the community. The reason for this is because the Elders believe if someone says something wrong, it could reflect badly on the community and the people of the community. If Elders shared information with them they would be a more well rounded community, and you wouldn’t have to be right every time you said something. Hiding information from the community is a very bad thing. The Elders don’t know it yet, but if one person finds this information, horrible things could happen. Limiting what people know is not the key to a utopian community.
Another big way that the Elders keep the community very isolated is that they release people in the community. Release is the only way you leave the community. After you get released you are dead so you’re not part of the community anymore. Isolation is a big part of the community but people are not aware of the fact that it is. The Elders do not want anything that doesn’t fit or, is to much for the community which is isolation, and that is why they release people. “‘Release is always like that?’”, (Lowry, p.126 ). This is an example of release in Jonas’s community. After somebody gets released, is the only time when you are not controlled by the Elders because besides that you cannot escape from the community. The Elders contol everything you do in life and there is no way to get out of it. The Elders are isolating what the people of the community know. The Elders are also isolating how the people of the community can live and they cannot escape from this. Release is a very important part of Jonas’s community. Nobody leaves the community except for this. It is the Elders way of letting go of you. The biggest part of this is that the people of the community aren’t aware of the fact that they are being isolated and that is a huge problem, but the Elders of course would like to keep it that way.
It is a very big problem to live in an isolated community and run an isolated community. The Elders in charge are trying to hide key information from the people of the community and aren’t letting them go. The Elders think this is the key to a utopian community but it is not. They think that if they let the people know this information there will be anarchy. This is not the key to a utopian community. You need to share information with the citizens of the community. When Jonas becomes the Receiver of Memories, a lot of his previous thoughts on his community changes. He is opened up to the outside world. The Elders don’t know it, but Jonas is starting to change his community. From becoming the Receiver of Memories, he is learning the secrets about his community. Jonas is learning how much information the Elders are hiding from the community. How would you like to live in a community where everything you do and know is controlled by a group of people? The Elders in charge of the community are isolating the people of the community. They think this is the way to a utopian community, they don’t know yet, but this is actually the way to a dystopian community. The Elders are trying to prevent anarchy by isolating everyone but they do not know that their community would work better if they shared information with the community and let people have freedom. The Elders need to realize that this is the key to a utopian community.
on This year in math we are working on stretching and shrinking. A major part of this is scale factor. Scale factor is the size difference between two shapes. This is a very important part of stretching and shrinking. Lets say one shape has a perimeter of three and you add a scale factor of three, the new shape will have a perimeter of nine.
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This is my value chart. A value chart is a chart for all the different techniques of drawing in art. In this picture I am working on the technique of cross hatching. After making this chart I really realizes the technique of drawing and it really helped me.
on This week I want to improve on finding the right notes. In the past I have had trouble finding the right pitch and note so I think I need to work on that. One thing I think I have improved on is memorizing lines. Even if we have the lyrics in front of us I think I have done a good job at memorizing them for the winter concert. I think I’m doing very well in terms of focusing in class when we’re singing and when Susan or a sub is talking.
on https://drive.google.com/a/lrei.org/file/d/0B_xha4fiui3xUmJRVHhZLVB2XzQ/view?usp=sharing
This is my mandarin video project. For this project, my group mates and I made a video on the dragon boat festival in China. It was a skit and we eached played a major character in the story and we retold the story. I was the main character qu yuan. This was a very fun project and I learned very much from it.
on Math in the past for me has had its ups and downs. In fifth grade I loved math. It was my favorite subject. As I got into six grade I started to struggle a lot which made it more stressful and dislike full. What I like about learning about math is that I can be really rewarding at times when you accomplish something. What I dislike about math is that you can get really stressed out with it at times when you don’t get something right. I consider myself a good math student because I don’t quit when I get stressed out. One of my flaws in math is studying and that is a really good goal for me in the future. I need to learn how to study and what to study. Another goal for me is to check over my work, last year on test I would just do the test and not check my work and many times my work was wrong and I got a bad grade so I learned that I need to go back and check my work when I think i’m done.
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on The year so far in vocal majors is very fun. I really like how it’s very interactive and fun. I really like the warmups that we do they ar my favorite. Three things I’ve learned about my voice is that it’s hard to find the pitch because it’s low, my voice doesn’t project as much, and I can use my low voice to my advantage in singing. One thing I’m wondering is when harmony started.