So recently we had take your kid to work day. Well for me it was take your brother to work day. But anyways it was still a good learning experience. I was there from 10:00 – 3:00 and while I was there I helped sort the back room of the store.
That day I also interviewed my brother(Owen) about what he dose at the store. We were supposed to interview 3 people but it was only him working that day.
After going to work for a full day here are my reflections on that day. I feel that if I were to work there it would not be a permanent job it would be a job to get some money, get some work experience and then move on. I feel that I would be good at organizing and managing the social activities of the store. If I were to work there some skills that would be useful for that job would be being patient and calm also having a good work ethic.
Recently I went with my class went on a fun and interesting trip to Calgary for a city-wide science art and engineering fair of sorts it was called beaker head. That was only one of the stops on this busy trip. Our itinerary was full. Here are a few daily highlights. I would love to link that awesome itinerary here but I have tried 3 times and it causes my page to freeze. Trust me. It was cool.
Day 1. We stopped at Craigellachie. This is the place that I chose for making my short film. One of our tasks was to tell the story of a place with a 3 minute video. This is where the last spike of the trans Canada railway was placed. Many hardships and delays were overcome in the building of the railway that linked Canada from East to West for the first time.
Four second stop was Three Valley Gap Ghost Town. This is a collection of buildings brought to the site from ghost towns around the province to create a full ghost town that we could tour.
Day 2. Wolves! There were 6 wolves in the sanctuary. We learned how important they are to the ecosystem and food chain. Unbelievably, we even got to pet them. Later, at the Banff Park Museum I found the taxidermy animals were less exciting after seeing live wild animals.
Day 3. We found ourselves trapped in a room. Actually this was an escape room where a team has to solve puzzles to get out of the room within an hour. Two hours and 17 puzzles later we were still trapped. Good thing we aren’t detectives.
That afternoon we visited the Glenbow museum packed with Canadian history. The best part was we had the whole museum to ourselves.
Day 4. More museums! This time about dinosaurs. It was a long drive to the badlands where we explored dry, barren landscapes. There were a lot of cool dinosaur fossils.
During that day we had to make a 1 minute second video on a dinosaur that we found there.
Day 5. Beaker Head. We toured the city and checked out art installations that were a part of the city. That night we saw Serpent Mother, which was a fire-breathing animatronic snake which made quite the spectacle at night.
Day 6. This was technically the start of the trip back but was also one of the most action-packed days. We went to the Calgary Tower, Cave and Basin national historic site, Lake Miniwaka, and the Banff Hot springs. My favourite part of that was the stellar tour guide of the Cave and Basin who gave us the history in a fun and entertaining manner.
Day 7. This was a day of walking on ice and nature’s beauty. It was spectacular to walk on a glacier at the Columbia Icefield and drink glacier water full of minerals. Then on to the Glacier walk which was a glass bridge 30 meters out from the cliff and 300 feet above the riverbed that was carved by the glacial runoff.
Day 8. This was our final day and a long haul home. 8 hours and 15 minutes of driving. On a school bus. Full of sick kids. We stopped at the Enchanted Forest where we made a 1 minute video of a fictional story including props we found in the forest. I would have liked to have more time to explore but my time was occupied on the project.
Overall I thought this trip was a very good experience. It is different travelling while doing work like, creating videos, compared to when travelling purely as a tourist or for fun. It’s hard to see everything and get the job done.
The school year is coming to a close, so most people are happy for the summer break to be here and have some more free time to do personal activities. This final blog post for the year will be a reflection on the year’s learning and will be explaining why I’m ready to go into grade nine.
One thing this year that I think that I have improved on the most is my cooperation skills. Over the year my part in group projects has become more prominent by helping others get work done or doing a bit extra if need be. One of the goals that I set in my last SLC was to make sure everyone in the group had an equal role and I feel that I have accomplished that and I am quite happy about that goal.
One goal from my last SLC that I did not accomplish, was the enrichment of work documentation. I think I failed this one because I was normally too distracted on the work being done to remember to document it. I think this was because I normally felt a bit rushed, so I focused on the work and not so much on the documentation. If I had scheduled better I think that I would be able to manage all my activities, and I could balance work and therefore giving me more time for documentation. I hope to apply these skills for next year.
One assignment that I had a lot of fun with was my science and light project at the end of the year. I feel I enjoyed the project a lot because of the open-ended nature of it, and how I could pick something related to light and just learn about it. For my learning style I think that was better for me than just doing a work sheet and handing it in. Having choice dramatically increases the enjoyment and actual learning that I get out of a project.
In conclusion I know that I am ready for grade 9 because of my willingness to improve old skills and develop new ones. I have had encouraging feedback from my teachers which also makes me believe I am ready for grade 9.
So one of the luxuries of being in PLP is that twice a year we have to do a student led conference, SLC for short. This is like a parent teacher conference but you show your parents what you have done this year.
So I will be showing you some of the work that I am proud of and the three goals I have set for the rest of the year.
The work that I am the most proud of this year is D.I. I think this is because it had a lot of hands on work like making a boat or a ramp or costumes and script writing which made it more engaging. We got second place in regionals and first place for our instant challenge (which is pretty good). If you want to read more about Destination Imagination Click here!
So a great place that has shown my learning has been my learning portfolio. I think this becuse if you look at one of my first blog posts it had just text and one photo and barely any spacing or links. Also the grammar and spelling is bad.
but now my blog posts are longer and go into more depth about the subject even though the grammar could use some work I think that they’ve improved by a lot!
One thing that I showed a growth mindset was in my grammar/spelling. I think this becuse befor I thought “I am just bad at spelling and grammar” but know I think I just have to do multiple revisions to get better.
Now let’s talk about some goals that I have set for myself for the rest of the year.
My first goal is to help everyone in a group have an equal role or job. I think this is becuse sometime I feel feel in charge of the group but it should be everyone’s responsibility to help out equally.
My second goal is to make my blog posts more enriched by larger and more complex words. Its hard for me to do that becuse sometimes I have a wonderful word but I don’t know how to spell it so I just don’t ad it in. So now I will try harder to look up the word or dictate it to improve my posts.
My third goal is to record my progress during projects. What I mean is I want to take more pictures and videos of the progress. I want to do this so I can fill up my blog with some interesting posts with more pictures and videos.
So Google’s Year in Review has come out and you are now thinking…
“What is this and why should I watch it?”
I think this video is very similar to YouTube’s “YouTube Rewind 2016” becuse of how it makes a compilation of all the major trends and events that took place over the year. So if you have seen that I think it would also be a good idea to check out this.
I think we should care about these things because some had a meaningful impact on the lives of many people, including ourselves. These events included wars, elections and the deaths of many prominent people.
One thing I didn’t recognize was the Space X program launch that spectacularly failed. This was shocking because it blew up before it was even ready for launching. This is very rare, and made the Space X failure something unusual. I think I missed it because I don’t watch news channels and it may not have been trending on YouTube even though it did have over 5 million views.
This video was made from the top hits on Google which are displayed on Google Trends.This is searchable so people can easily find popular information and news from their own country or around the world. This is a cool and convenient way to learn about current events.
Normally it only snows on the mountains in Vancouver but not this time; it came down the mountains and into the city. So now we have been getting snow on and off for the past few weeks!
It’s amazing having snow because it makes everything look pretty and it makes everyone stay inside so you can have fun family time and its also just another reason to get hot chocolate. Overall its been a pretty good winter so far : – ]
A lot of people think you need to be born smart, physical or have a good voice. The truth is, anyone can be successful as long as you have a positive mindset and are committed to doing the work. If you are determined and confident about learning something or getting better at something I belive that you can accomplish it.
Our Unit in Growth mindset.
During our unit in growth mind set I have learned that these skills can be applied to school or just anything that you want to get better at. I think one reason I like PLP is because we do not just get marks for just completing a project but for the effort we put into it. Also, you have a growth mindset, you perceive failure as learning.
My famous growth mindset paragraph.
One of the first major assignments this unit was to write a paragraph on someone famous and see how they showed a growth mindset.
Famous person: Michael Phelps
Olympian Michael Phelps showed us how a growth mindset can be life changing with his comeback at the RIO olympics. After his success at the 2012 Olympics he fell apart, ending up in rehab in 2014. He was able to be successful in 2016 because he changed the way he viewed himself. Phelps said, “I thought of myself as just a swimmer, and nobody else.”.He got help to change the view of his character which he says was critical for his success. This inspires me because if you are passionate about one activity it doesn’t mean you can’t try more activities and change yourself.
My Growth Mindset Selfie!
Our final project in the growth mindset unit was to make an inspirational poster with a quote made by us. For my picture I chose me with my dog in the snow because I love hanging out with my family and being outside in the snow. (Awww cute pupper – editing Raina)
I used Snapseed for my poster
Reflection
I feel that this unit has thought me vary useful and practical skills that I hope to keep using. One of the other things that I think was important to learn was how to keep a positive mindset when you fail and how to cope.
So we are “Half Way There OoooOOO” sorry for the random reference but let’s get to the point we are half way through the unit using Swift Playgrounds and overall it’s been pretty exciting.
We started with what I thought to be to simple coding, but after the first few lessons it got harder than a rock, so currently I am at a point were it takes a while to progress through 1 lesson. I still find it to be a fun challenge, though.
I think that Swift Playgrounds is a very fun program to teach kids to code, and it doesn’t really get to be ‘impossible’; there’s always hints so you don’t get stuck.
A few weeks ago we made three advertisements one a Turist ad one a business ad and finally a advacosy ad. We had to do 3 drafts for the 3 ads in 3 weeks. (3 3 3 iluminati confirmed)
The first ad I made was a tourist ad it had to be about a place that wasn’t famous but you found cool or interesting. This is the first draft out of three it is a hedge trimmed to look like a whale I deal that many peaple would want to see it becuse of its detail.
For my third draft I had edited the photo I made the colours brighter I removed some dead/gray leafs and removed so unwanted tape from the fence. I deal that it mad the photo way better I also changed the font to make it easier to read.
My second advertisement I made was a business ad. The business ad had to be about a local business so I picked my dads business. After we picked the business we had to interview them and ask question about what’s you’re motto what to you want the image of you’re business to be etc.
This is my first draft of my business advertisement.
For my second draft I wanted to add to have a more personal conetion to the client so I chose a picture of him working.
My third and final advertisement was about a natural disaster and how you mould prepare for it. I choose earth quakes becuse that is the moast relevant natural disaster in Bc.
Here’s my third draft of my advertisement I tried to make it simple and noticeable that’s why I used allot of red and white also so it resembels the medical red and white first aid cross
Hello this is my first blog post today we worked on camera angels.
The first thing we did in this project was defied the class into two groups. One group had to play an action paced game so we could get some good and funny pictures. The other group had a list of camera angles, they had to to take a picture from each angle.
This showers how easily emotions can be expressed by just changing the angle of the camera. One thing that I learned from this is that changing an angle can change a story. This project was good becuse I learned how to use comic life, if I use it in future projects I will have that information to use this app.
