I learned how to serve forehand, backhand, and hold in a forehand and backhand pose. To hold forehand, you can do the handshake pose, like your shaking the badminton racket. To hold backhand, you can pretend you are holding a pan. I also taught myself how to spike when the shuttlecock is high in the air.
What did I improve on?
I improved on serving forehand because I’ve always serve with backhand. I learned that to serve forehand, you need to hold the racket like shaking a hand. This is really crucial for accuracy.
What am I good at?
I’m good at a lot of skills, but my best is backhand serve because I’ve used it for a long time and my accuracy is really high.
What worked?
Something that worked is the serves and the strike, because I feel like I really mastered it.
I learned about dystopian fiction by writing academic paragraphs and discussing topics collaboratively – related to the book: The Giver. We studied the elements of dystopian fiction by comparing and contrasting it to the book. We checked our knowledge by doing multiple vocabulary tests and discussing in groups occasionally about the elements in the book The Giver.
What did I learn?
I learned new vocabulary in the book, for example ‘forsaken’ and ‘excruciating’. We used these words to form sentences in order to better learn the meaning. In our Commonlit assignments, we wrote academic paragraphs using transition words and answered questions related to the topic we read. We also had collaborative discussions about topics in The Giver.
What worked?
I am proud of my Commonlit assignments because I finished all of them not only on time but also efficiently and detailed. I wrote my answers in full paragraphs and displayed my knowledge thoroughly. I used the transition words our teacher gave us, and I crafted my response well with ideas that make sense.
What did not work?
Something that I can improve on is the details when I write paragraphs. Some comments my teacher gave me was to not use ‘I’ or first person when writing discussion or Commonlit paragraphs. Sometimes I try to write my paragraphs quickly and forget about the little details like reviewing my paragraph by reading it a second time and finding mistakes. Sometimes, these little mistakes are ones that could worsen my whole paragraph.
Personal Relevance
This is a unit that allows us to use our imagination when discussing with groups. It also teaches us about dystopian characteristics and the dystopian category of writing. I look forward to learning more about these fiction units!
I learned about the underhand serve and the bump in this volleyball unit. The underhand serve and the bump is crucial for a volleyball game. If you want to do the underhand serve, you have to hit the ball with the other hand with great precision so it won’t fly in a direction you don’t want it to.
What did I improve on?
I improved on everything, since I’ve barely played volleyball before. I improved on teamwork, underhand serve, and bump. These are skills that also helped me in the game of volleyball.
What am I good at?
I am good at bumping and setting the ball, as well as passing it to my teammate. These techniques are basic techniques, and I think I improved a lot and is good at these techniques.
What should I improve on?
I should improve on serving my ball from the back of the court, because it is really hard to get to the other side.
During this unit, we worked on answering the essential question “Why should we care about the past?” By doing this, we wrote observations, inferences, and wonderings on several images in the ‘Ötzi Case File Images’, we worked on writing CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) paragraphs on the topic ‘How Did Ötzi Die’, and we answered and asked open ended and closed ended questions. At the end of the unit, we worked on preparing and being in a mock trial surrounding the question “Did Ötzi Die from Murder or Natural Causes?”
What Did I Learn?
I learned about the essential question “Why Should We Care About the Past?” At the end of the unit, we found answers to this question. We should care about the past because it teaches us about our future and helps us learn about why we are like what we are today. We also learned about Ötzi and information about him throughout the preparation and the mock trial. To add on, we learned about archeology and basic information about prehistoric people and times.
What Worked Well?
Something that worked well was the mock trial at the end of the unit. I, as an expert witness, learned a lot about Ötzi’s health problems, and answered them thoughtfully and thoroughly with my partner during the mock trial. Something that also worked well were the CER paragraphs that I learned to write. I learned to write thoughtful ideas on my CER, and I used sentence starters and the information I learned to write a successful and helpful CER paragraph. To add on, I also exceeded in filling out my graphic organizer because I articulated my thoughts and ideas with well-explained persuasive arguments.
Me and My Partner
What Did not Work?
Something I could improve is adding more detail into my work. According to my teacher’s feedback, I could’ve added more color into my sketch notes to make it seem more appealing to the eye. I could’ve also made my handwriting neater on some of my work. This is because when I look back to finding information, I notice I can’t read my handwriting, which is a huge disadvantage.
Personal Relevance
This Ötzi mock trial and ‘Why Should We Care About the Past’ unit has taught me a lot about writing a CER, cooperating with my expert witness partner, and applying real-life knowledge into an education unit. The skills I learned during this unit also helped me explore several careers and enhance my learning in the past, as well as archeology. This unit is a great chance for middle schoolers to learn about being in a mock trial and learn about Ötzi at the same time.
We made brownies for the bake sale by using math. First, we decided what to make, and then found a recipe and materials. Then, we converted the the units from cups to grams. After that, we calculated the unit price for each of our ingredients by dividing the price by the cost. On the next step, we found the cost per batch by multiplying the amount for recipe by the unit price. On part six we found the serving price by adding all the numbers on the last part, which got us 61.71¥. Then, we divided 61.71 by twelve because there are 12 servings in each batch, and then we got 5.14¥ for the serving price. Lastly, we found the sell price by marking our product up by 20 percent. We added 5.14 by 10.28, which got us to approximately 15¥.
What Did We Learn?
We learned to persevere through challenges throughout the process of doing the math. This is because during the math process, we made a few minor mistakes. This made us slower than the rest of the class. However, we worked together outside of class, and our project eventually succeeded, which made us learn a lot about perseverance and never giving up. I, personally learned that by doing the math, I can have a very precise number of how much I earned. This helps me a lot because I know exactly how much I earned, instead of only having a slight idea of the amount I earned. I also learned about calculating the unit price, as well as marking the product up by percents.
What Worked?
Something that worked was the math process which was associated with the money we got after the bake sale. Because of the math, we found out our product’s price is really expensive. Because of that, we determined an appropriate sell price by marking our price up by 20 percent. If we didn’t do the math process correctly, we might’ve gotten less money after subtracting the price we spent on the product. We double checked our process a lot throughout the project, which made out product’s sell price really reasonable and precise.
What Did Not Work?
There is not really something that did not work for the math process, but we can do better on packaging our product for it to look more appetizing. This is because we didn’t have time to work together, so I had to rush through baking the product. Next time, we can work on the product’s packaging less-rushed, to make the look more appetizing so more people would want to buy our product. However, I believe this project is a success.
Personal Relevance
This project taught me about unit rates, mark-up price, perseverance, and teamwork. I look forward to doing more group projects next time!
I learned how to dribble the ball more precisely and shooting into the goal more precisely. For dribbling the ball, I learned to control the ball little by little and not to run after the ball. For shooting into the goal, I now learned more about how to aim the ball at the goal post.
What Helped
The practicing of kicking the ball and dribbling the ball with two partners really helped. I was fully warmed up after the drills and was ready to play. I also learned a lot about teamwork during the drills and when playing the game.
What is something I am proud of?
I am proud of my improvement throughout this soccer unit. I learned a lot bout foot control and shooting. I gained a lot of knowledge about team work in soccer, since it’s very different than non-team sports I do like fencing.
What is something I work on?
I can work more on shooting precisely. Even though I improved on shooting during this unit, I still sometimes cannot shoot fully into the goal. I need to improve more on my foot control when shooting, as well as calming down before I shoot to try to shoot into the goal.
I built a car that could contain an egg with my partner, Phoebe. We made the car out of three pieces of A4 paper, 1 meter of masking tape, one straw, and wheels with axels. The egg should be able to stay full and not crack on the car when hitting a concrete block. This is a video of our egg car sliding down the ramp.
I learned more about Newton’s laws by building safety designs. For example, I learned about Newton’s 1st law of inertia by sticking the egg inside a cone shaped tube so the egg would not fly out when the car jolts to a stop; this happens because of Newton’s first law that an object in motion stays in motion. I also learned about Newton’s third law of action and reaction by building a crumple zone in front of our car to withstand the reaction of the concrete block caused by our car’s action.
What worked?
Something that worked was the design of our egg car. We made the egg fit right into our cone-shaped seat, and therefore it did not fall our of our car. Our crumple zone also worked really well. It is a piece of paper curled into a cone-shaped shape. We attached it to the front of our car so it acts as a design that resists the impact force.
Our car close to falling apart after the expieriment
What did not work?
Something that did not work was our time limit. Time is definitely a constraint to our project. We used the first whole class to build a seat for our egg, but at the end of class, we have come to realize that we had to throw the whole design away because it was too big and our car was falling apart. In the second class, we had to come up with a design out of scratch. The design was really helpful, but if we were given more time, our egg car would have been much more stiffer and not close to falling apart.
Personal relevance
I learned a lot from this challenge. I learned about persistence especially when we had to trash our whole design on the first class and quickly come up with a design on the second class. I also learned more about how Newton’s Laws come to life when car engineers design cars. I look forward to doing more challenge designs in the future.
We built a balloon car using a balloon, a cart, wheels, axels, and straws. The purpose of building this balloon car is to learn about all three of newton’s laws.
What did I learn?
I learned a lot about Newton’s 3rd law of action and reaction. Newton’s 3rd law states ‘Every action has an opposite, equal reaction.’ We see this law in action with the balloon car when the balloon releases the air and the car goes the other direction. The air is pushing off, and so the car responds with an opposite, equal reaction of going forward.
I also learned about Newton’s 2nd law of F=MA (Force = Mass x Acceleration). Newton’s 2nd law states ‘The greater the mass of an object, the more force is needed to accelerate it.’ We see this law in action with the balloon car when mass is added to the balloon car during the mass investigation. When more mass is added, the car goes slower, because we did not add any more amount of air in the balloon, so the force that is used to accelerate it is the same. Therefore, if we add more mass, the balloon car goes slower.
Lastly, I learned about Newton’s 1st law during this investigation. Newton’s 1st law states ‘An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest.’ We see this law in action when we had to add tape to the washers on the car. Because the washer is moving with the car, when the car jolts to a stop, the washers would want to keep moving, according to the first law, so we have to add tape to keep the washers on the car.
What Worked?
Something that worked well was our weight investigation. The independent variable (amount of washers), dependent variable, (distance car travels), was very well planned. When we tested, the actual data matches our hypothesis, which also matches Newton’s 2nd law. The more weight added, the less distance traveled.
What did not work?
Something that did not work was the process of building the balloon car. We added smaller straws on the balloon instead of bigger straws. This impacted highly on the speed of our balloon car, since the bigger straws can exert more air out of the balloon.
To solve this problem, found a bigger straw, and eventually, our ballon car could travel faster than before.
Personal Relevance
The Balloon car taught me about perseverance, grit, and imagination. I see Newton’s laws in real life during this investigation. It is important to know these laws because they impact us in life. This investigation taught me a lot about these important laws.
I am proud of making this art piece using clay. This project is made in two classes, and I made a lot of modifications before making it look like what it is. I am proud of this artwork because I’ve failed many times with my original plan, but in the end, I decide to push through it, modified my ideas, and got this piece of work finished.
At first, I wanted to make a stenciled 3-D clay flower and apply it on the pot. However, I failed every single time I tried to make the flower during the first class. During the second class, I finally succeeded in making the flower but it was too big to put on the pot. In the end, I modified this idea and instead, I attached some small flowers onto the pot using the scratch, slip, and score method.
I learned a lot while making this artwork. I learned to be patient and persist through challenges, to believe in myself, and to consider carefully before making something.
I wrote a fantasy story called “Turning fourteen” based on the theme: Always believe in yourself. This is strongly inspired by the book the Giver, and the Red Queen.
What did I learn?
First, I learned about thinking and writing a story revolving around the theme, or a message the author wants to deliver to the reader. Then, I learned about developing my characters. Each character needs to have a unique personality, traits, and quirks. I also learned about the plot, which is the sequence of events in the story. In my story, I used the kind of plot that goes up and down and up and down, which means my story has a lot of good parts and not so good parts. Besides learning these, I also learned about the setting. This is really important to my story because it takes place between the vampire world and human world, which makes the vampire in the story learn more about the outside, human world.
What worked?
I really enjoyed the part where I get to make and craft everything in the story, and sometimes it adds to the tone. For example, when my main character is sad, I write the weather as stormy or cloudy. I am proud of the plot of my story, because I thought it was really one of a kind and easy to build on. I got inspiration by reading a lot of books. For example The Giver, or other books about character versus society. I also got inspiration from thinking of what-if questions. What if a vampire is betrayed by her family? What if there was a vampire in disguise living in the human world? The best line of my story: “Then, I looked outside my window at New York. The streets are long and filled with opportunities.” I love this part the most because it was the ending of my story, and it leaves a cliffhanger for the readers. Also, it combines the word opportunities with the streets of New York, adding a unique style.
My Areas for Growth
The challenge I am dealing with is controlling the length of my story. The main problem is I was careless about the deadline, so I had to end my story hastily. That leaves the readers thinking the story is too hastily ended. Next time I will aim for a medium/short length story instead of a medium/long length story. I don’t really have a least favorite part of my story, but I think next time I will make each section stretched out so the end doesn’t have to be too hasty.
Personal Relevance
Creative writing would really help me in the future because it helps me with my imagination, and it could also help be express my feelings. If I’m in a certain mood, I can write a creative story in that style. I really, really enjoy creative writing. It’s my favorite kind of writing. The story telling, the imagination, everything in it makes me feel at ease and it calms my mind.
