In science we had to make a muir web of 3 meals we had. We broke it down a lot, with consumers, producers, etc. I learned what a muir web is from this project and I also learned that it takes a lot of moving parts to make 1 meal.
In science we did an experiment with roto copters in the beginning of the year. My experiment was to see how long it took a small, big, and medium sized roto copter to hit the ground. I learned that the size of the wings can affect how long it takes to hit the ground.
1607 was a very important year to the british. In 1607, the English made their first successful attempt at colonizing in America. “The ships were the Susan Constant, the Discovery, and the Godspeed, and they had been sent from England by a business corporation called the London Company…The voyagers had been told to look for gold and a river or passage that would go through the country to China or Japan,” (Hakim, p. 25). The trip to America, that was approved by King James, as symbolised on the London Company’s seal, was meant for gold. In the end, they started a new country. If the English didn’t know that there was no gold or passage to China in America, then it would have never been founded. Overall, 1607 was a very important year.
The English fort was a very bad settlement. They had bad terrain, and bad location. “As it turned out, they (British) couldn’t have picked a worse spot. The land was swampy, the drinking water was bad; it was hot in summer and bone chilling in winter. The mosquitoes drove the settlers crazy and carried malaria germs,” (Hakim, p.28). This quote shows how bad the British chose their location, even if they did think it was good. You can’t build very well on swampy lands; everything sinks on it. You also can’t farm on it. Even if the British knew how to farm, they wouldn’t be able to make crops. Their location was good for fighting; they could see the enemy coming no matter what, but they didn’t know how to fight. The location was very bad for every other reason. The terrain was bad, there was lots of mosquitos, there was bad weather, and lots of germs. Overall, the English had very bad terrain and geography.
The initial settlement was was very unsuccessful. Almost half of the british died because of the bad living conditions. “…the drinking water was bad; it was hot in summer and bone chilling in winter. The mosquitoes drove the settlers crazy…they had bad luck-lots of bad luck. The worst may have been that they brought some English germs across the sea. One was a typhoid fever germ that killed many of them. Tidewater Virginia had other germs that made some sicken and die. The Indians killed still others. Some starved,” (Hakim, p.28). This quote shows how bad the conditions were in the initial settlement. Lots of the English didn’t make it back because of how bad the conditions were. Add in how bad the geography and terrain was, and they have a recipe for disaster. None of the gentlemen knew how to live for themselves too, so they didn’t help the settlement. Overall, the initial settlement was a complete disaster.
In Humanities we are using a book called Making 13 Colonies. After we read each chapter we have to answer questions on it. This one is from chapter 4. I am very proud of it because I wrote a lot more detailed than I usually do and I because my writing was very detailed. I also spent a lot of time on this homework.
Dictated Dystopian Community
Imagine that your entire life is planned out for you. You don’t get to make any decisions for yourself. You can’t control what you see or feel. That is how Jonas feels in The Giver, by Lois Lowry. Jonas is a 12 year old boy in his what’s supposed to be an “utopian community”. He thinks it’s a dystopia, which is an imperfect world. Jonas becomes the Receiver of Memories, which is the person who holds all of the memories from the past. The memories show Jonas what the world used to be. He learned that the Elders (Leaders of the community) hid a lot of important parts of life from the people, like colors and feelings. When Jonas finds out about the Elders’ lies he is outraged. He wants to make the community a better place. The Elders control everything in Jonas’s utopian community, which makes it a dictatorship and a dystopia. This control makes Jonas want to rebel against the community.
Jonas’s community is a dictatorship because the Elders control all things. In the community, no one has any freedom. Their entire life is planned out for them; the Elders choose their spouses, their children, and their jobs. Something that supports this is a quote of the Elder giving out the assignments (Jobs). “I apologize to my community,” (Lowry, p.55). This quote shows that the Elder said my community, not the community. Her use of the word “my” shows that the community belongs to the Elders, not the people in it. The Elders made a dictatorship. They choose everything about everyone’s’ life. They control what they are able to see and feel. Jonas starts to not like his community once he learns the truth. Jonas’ community is a dictatorship, but it is also a dystopia.
Jonas rebels against his community because the Elders have made it a dystopia. When Jonas becomes the new Receiver of Memories, he finds out the truth about how half of his life was hidden from him. He starts to rebel against the Elders, because he disagrees with the rules of the community and lack of freedom. In the upcoming quote, Jonas is starting to rebel by not taking a pill the Elders required everyone to take. The pill stopped Jonas and others in the community from feeling love. “The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away,” (Lowry, p.108). This quote shows how Jonas is rebelling against his community to get some of his freedom back. Jonas likes the feeling of love, so he stops taking the pills. This is the beginning of his rebellion. Jonas then leaves the community. He left because his community was a dystopia. He wanted freedom, so he had to rebel against everything he knew. As much as the Elders were trying to make the community perfect, Jonas thought it wasn’t working. He was furious when he starting seeing all the colors and when he experienced the memory of death. These reasons are why Jonas rebelled against his community
The Elders in Jonas’s community are trying to make a utopia by taking away a lot of the people’s’ freedom. This control makes a dystopia instead. When Jonas becomes the Receiver of Memories, he sees what the world used to be. He sees all of the hidden colors and feelings and learns the secrets of the community. Would you want to live in a world where everything was hidden from you? Or would you prefer to live in the world we have now, where you have freedom? Jonas leaves his community because he wants his freedom instead of staying and fighting for everyone else’s freedom. Would you make the same choice as Jonas, or stay and help the community?
In humanities we read a book called The Giver. We made annotations about themes in the book, and eventually chose one theme to write about for the giver essay. I’m very proud of this writing because I had a good intro, which helped me make write everything else because I already had the ideas.
In this assignment we had to draw similar figures to the pre drawn ones on the back page. On the front page we had to find the similar figures and explain why.
I used what we had learned about similar figures to figure out the answers, also I used what learned about scale factors.
I think our group worked well together. We all worked on everything and used everyone’s ideas in the project. To complete the skit in time we wrote a draft during class and then we would all edit it for homework. I think my performance was okay. I mispronounced a few words and said one line at the wrong time. I think to improve next time we would practice the skit more, with the menus and everything else, go over the skit a few more times to make sure it was perfect, and work on our pronunciation.
I used the ruler with the cross hatching so I could get neater lines. If I had a lot of non strait lines then it would look like the random marks. It also stops the lines from overlapping each other if they’re wobbly.
A success I’ve had in math was in 5th grade. Ana gave Elijah and I a really hard math problem to work on if we finished our work early. It took us from october-may and we were really happy when we finished it.
A disaster I’ve had in math was in 3rd grade. I had a hard time learning division, but by the end of the year I had it figured out. It also took me a little while to get the hang of stacking, but I figured that out as well.
I like working on hard problems in math. I really like problems that have a trick to it, for example, we did a problem in seminar last year where we had to make a square 5 with with five lines in it or something along the lines of that. We had to convert the square into a 3d square and solve it like that. I also like ken ken and sudoku a lot. I dislike take home tests. Last year I always had a tough time with those, besides the last one.
When I’m studying for math I usually read over all my notes and do some practice problems for it. When I’m doing my math homework I usually listen to music, which makes me more focused. If I get stuck I usually read over the question a few times until I figure it out, and if I don’t get it still, I ask a friend for help.
On page 9 I wrote, What is going on? Is a 4D shape a time machine? I predict they’re related
On page 15 I wrote, What’s the point of sending the machine to the future without them? There’s no witness that it went to the future, it could have gone next door
On page 21 I wrote, I think the time traveler went to the future, not went somewhere random
On page 28 I wrote, I predict he went back to dinosaur times or to a really advanced time
On page 47 I wrote, I like how the book is not how you would normally think of the future. It’s almost like he went back in time
On page 56 I wrote, I predict that he is going to destroy everything until he finds the machine.
On page 69 I wrote, I think they hid the time machine in the well
On page 77 I wrote, I think that spiders evolved and humans devolved instead of splitting into 2 species.
On page 91 I wrote, I predict that he’ll become friends with the morlocks
On page 105 I wrote, It’s so cool how he’s at a museum from his time. I think that the time machine is in there instead of the well.
On page 116 I wrote, I think Weena died and the morlocks will get used to the light
On page 124 I wrote, Did he just go to present time? I predict he accidentally went further into the future
On page 138 I wrote, I predict he made up half the story.\
My favorite project this year was the map project. I really liked that we got to work in 3D. We haven’t done that a lot this year, and I really like working in 3D. I made 3D monuments, and that made it really fun for me because that is my favorite type of 3D art, working with clay. 