Category: Humanities

All posts made in Humanities

MPOL Mayhem

Posted on by elsaw

MPOL Time!

Hello and welcome to my blog! It’s POL time! Today’s post is all about my first Presentation of Learning (POL)! Specifically, I’ll be doing an MPOL— a Mid-Year Presentation of Learning. This is a student-led conference where I get to share my learning journey with my teacher, my parent(s), and any other invited guests. It’s a great opportunity for them to understand where I am as a learner and how I’ve grown.

The MPOL is a 12-minute conference, with 7 minutes dedicated to my learning story and 5 minutes for questions from my teacher and parent(s). Let’s get started!

Opening Statement:

“ Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

My Vision, Mission, and Values:

My vision is just the things that I want to accomplish either by the end of the school year or by graduation. My mission is how I’m going to accomplish my vision and the work I will have to do to get there. 

Vision: 

On my graduation day I will find myself being a happy and healthy person, having reached my goals and being ready to move on into adult life. I want to have no regrets about my grades in school and my actions. I want to be able to leave school prepared to be an active citizen in society. I will be able to further my education in the form of going to a college or university that fits my preference.

Mission: 

To reach my vision I will have to work hard in my grade nine year to prepare myself for the years after. I want to have a good mindset about my learning and also have the thirst to further it. I will have to be able to successfully balance my school and home life by being responsible with my time and homework, so that i don’t get discouraged or too stressed. I want to stay active both physically and mentally, so that I am more engaged at school.

Humanities: 

Peak Potential: 

This project was all about getting over basically everything. Some of us had to get over physical and mental challenges with the hikes, and some of us had to get over anxiety challenges with asking complete strangers to get an interview (literally me). Before we left B.C, we were told we had to get with groups and then stick with them for the whole trip to conduct interviews. After the trip we put together all of the interviews and made one video on how to become the best version of ourselves.

This project helped push me out of my comfort zone when it came to talking with strangers. At the beginning of the trip I kept trying to procrastinate so that I wouldn’t have to talk to people but eventually I did and it wasn’t so bad. I had to use my communication and collaboration skills a lot in Alberta. This really helped me advance my agency and engagement success behaviours, by taking responsibility and taking action when we needed to conduct more interviews. At the end of the trip I no longer needed 3 friends with me to ask people questions, I could just do it myself. I also used my organizational skills a lot in Alberta when it came to keeping interviews saved in the proper folder, doing my daily checks on my note sheet, and keeping track of the interview questions and answers. 

PGP: 

TYKTWD:

This project was for the grade 9 take your kid to work day activity. For my “Take Your Kid to Work Day” blog post, I shared my experience volunteering at the Seymour Fish Hatchery since neither of my parents could take me to their workplaces. Along with my sister Emilia and my friend Brooklyn, I got to participate in activities like feeding baby salmon and doing a carcass recovery. The carcass recovery involved wading through the creek to count dead salmon and record important details like gender, size, origin, and whether they had spawned. This helped gather data on the salmon population. To add more depth to my post, I also conducted an interview with Megan Sampson, a volunteer at the hatchery. Talking to her gave me insight into the roles and responsibilities involved in wildlife conservation.

This project helped me advance my skills such as: 

• Reflective Writing: I was able to clearly communicate my experiences and observations, making sure readers could understand what my day at the hatchery was like.

• Interviewing: I prepared thoughtful questions for Megan and learned how to gather valuable information from a professional in the field.

Analytical Thinking: Participating in the carcass recovery and recording data required me to observe details carefully and understand their significance.

• Environmental Awareness: This experience gave me a deeper appreciation for conservation efforts and how people work to protect wildlife.

Overall, this day was both educational and rewarding. Not only did I get hands-on experience with conservation work, but I also developed important skills that I can apply in the future.

 

How have I shown growth as a learner this year?

Throughout the year I have been working very hard to keep on track with my homework and school time. This year has been pretty stressful because of outside activities but I’ve been able to keep atop of all my work! I am good with time management but sometimes I need to be more in charge and do my work earlier so that I don’t have to stress about it the morning of. I’m a morning bird so that makes me very productive in the morning. If I need to do some extra work, I will take responsibility and do it in the morning. I am good at putting my thoughts into words, especially if I’m writing. I am working to having a more open mind when it comes to school work because if I like the subject I will pay more attention and contribute more. I enjoy reading and history so I like it when the subject revolves around that sort of thing.

– Homework

– Self regulation

– Time management

– Having an open mind

 

Thanks for reading my blog post. I hope you enjoyed the story upon my learning! Until next time!

Rise of Change🧸

Posted on by elsaw

The Frankenstuffies!!

Hi and welcome back! This is my blog where you can read about everything that I learn. This post will feature my latest humanities project called…. Fankenstuffies: The Rise of Change! This project was all about the Industrial Revolution and the changes it brought to society. The Industrial Revolution was a period of major changes in the way products are made. It took place more than 200 years ago and greatly affected the way people lived as well as the way they worked. In earlier days, people made products by hand. They worked mostly in their own homes or in small workshops. During the Industrial Revolution, many factories were built. Labourers began making large numbers of things using machines powered by engines such as steam, or coal powered.

Driving question: 🏎️ How can we, as writers, weave historical details into our creative storytelling to convey a clear and impactful message?

We kicked off the project with the urbanization game, which was a fun and interactive way to get a feel for what life was like during the Industrial Revolution. Urbanization happens when people move from rural areas to cities, usually because of job opportunities in growing industries like factory work. As we explored this shift from farming to factory life, we started to understand how drastically things changed during that time. Cities became overcrowded, living conditions were often poor, and factory work was exhausting and even dangerous. It was interesting to put ourselves in the shoes of people who experienced such a massive transition. We imagined what it must have been like to leave behind a familiar way of life, move to a busy city, and try to keep up with all the changes happening around them. Here’s a picture of the city my group created: 👇

Making the frankenstuffies: 

The Hero’s Journey

For this part of the project we had to create our very own frankenstuffies! It was a super fun (but slightly sad) activity that took around 3 classes to finish. We had to bring in around 3-4 stuffies that were no longer loved (my heart💔) and cut them up and use their body parts to create a whole new stuffie. I learnt a lot of things during this part of the project but the thing I learnt most was hand sewing. (Strange thing to be learning in a history class). Anyways, here’s a short video on how my beloved stuffie came to be!

Film Pitch 

My Storyboard

For the last bit of preparation we had to do, we made a story board to map out our films. A storyboard is very helpful when you want to be organized before you create a story. Mapping out your ideas will help you create a more precise and easy to follow story. I used drawings to create my story board.

The Final Draft

It’s finally time to introduce my beloved Stefan!! Isn’t he gorgeous?! Anyways, for the final draft I worked really hard to find pictures and sounds that were copyright free to use in my movie. We used iMovie to create a short story that featured our characters in the Industrial Revolution! Here’s mine: 

Thanks for reading all about this project!

Revolutions In Action🚦

Posted on by elsaw

Hello and welcome back to my blog. In this blog, I will talk about my PLP 9 experience during the winter exhibition! This blog is a 2-parter so you can read about BOTH the exhibition and the project called “Vive Les Machines À Métaphores”. I’ll start with the humanities project that led up to the exhibition. 

Vive Les Machines À Métaphores⚙️

This project was all about What Factors Precipitate ‘Revolution’ and How Have They Shaped the Modern World? Revolutions happen when economic struggles, political oppression, and social inequality push people to demand change. Big ideas, new technology, and outside pressures often fuel the fire, like in the French Revolution. They’ve shaped the world by ending monarchies, spreading democracy, advancing rights, and driving progress. Revolutions show that the fight for freedom and fairness never stops. 

Animal Farm:

Our project started off with us doing a novel study on the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. Animal Farm is a book about animals who rebel against their farmer to create a society where they are all equal. However, as the pigs take control, they become as oppressive as the humans they replaced. The story highlights how power can corrupt and how revolutions can betray their ideals. After we finished reading, we made an infographic on the four stages of revolutions and how each stage represented an action in Animal Farm.

Crane Britons Theory:

The first stage of a revolution is the incubation stage, people are unhappy because of issues like inequality, bad leadership, or economic struggles. Tensions build up, but nothing major happens yet—it’s all bubbling under the surface. Next is the moderate stage. Protests, strikes, and calls for change begin. Moderates try to fix things with reforms, but they usually don’t go far enough. The situation becomes more unstable, and people start to lose patience. In the most violent stage, radicals take over, the old system collapses, and things get chaotic. You might see violence, extreme measures, and big changes as the revolution reaches its peak. And finally in the moderate stage, things start to settle down. A new government forms, often less extreme than the radicals wanted. Society gets back to normal, though some parts of the old system might come back, just under new leadership. 

Revolutions in action:

Our next step was to learn more about revolutions. There were 5 different revolutions we could choose to learn more about. The Russian, American, Meiji, Haitian, and French revolutions. I chose the French Revolution because I already knew a little about it, so I took the chance to learn more. After we became familiar with our different revolutions, we were instructed to make an infographic on them. We used Canva to make our infographics both aesthetically pleasing, and packed with information. Here’s mine:

Exhibition Ending: 

Now it was time to put all of our learning into action. The grade 9 section of the winter exhibition was based off all of the revolutions. Each revolution group had about 5-6 people in it. My group consisted of Samuel, Eloise, Evelyn, Carmyn, and Liann. (I will link their blogs down below). Each group was to make a Rube Goldberg machine that was a metaphor for a revolution. A Rube Goldberg machine is a device that preforms multiple actions in order to complete one simple task (for example, turning on a light). Since they needed to be metaphors for a revolution, each action had to directly relate to an important event during the revolution. 

Spiral The economy spiraling.
Dominoes The government pushing aside the poors needs.
Bouncing off the National Assembly The third estate getting rejected from the National Assembly.
The tennis court The poor protesting in the Tennis Court Oath.
The rights of man board The government finally signing the rights for all men.
The knife and figures The execution of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The end of the monarchy.
The car and flames The Reign of Terror and chaos.
The car knocking over a board The execution of Maximilian Robespierre. Also the end of the Reign of Terror.
The ball hitting the French flag. Napoleon finally taking down the French government.
The crown The end of the French Revolution and the beginning of the Napoleonic Era
The ball going back to the top The symbol of how revolutions never truly end and how once a revolution does end, a new one is ready to begin.

From the Top:

These are just a few video clips that highlight the progress we made while building. (My YouTube wasn’t working otherwise I would have posted this video)

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Presentation:

For the actual exhibition, all of the grade 9’s were put in a room with their Metaphor Machines. Once the people started to flow, it was time to present our machines. Each person in the group was explaining one stage of the machine. I was in charge of presenting the 6th action. Although I had to leave an hour early for a hockey game, I enjoyed seeing some of the other grades, and presenting our metaphor machine. On the whole, I think our group was the most successful. We had great organization and every single member contributed. It was hard work to build a Rube Goldberg machine, and even harder to get it to work properly. But in the end our group did really well and I enjoyed myself at the exhibition.

The End

That’s it for this blog post! Hope you enjoyed reading about the winter exhibition. Oh and also… Happy New Year!!

The Wilderness!🐻🌲🌊🌷

Posted on by elsaw

The Wilderness Must Be Explored!

Heeeellllooooo goooberrrrsss (my fandom name)! Welcome back to my blog! This is a post all about the most exciting humanities project I’ve ever experienced! This project was all about advertisement and inspiring adventure. The driving question was “How does language inspire adventure?” Ads use awesome visuals and cool stories to get you curious and excited. They show epic places, crazy activities, and breathtaking scenery to make you dream about going on adventures like that. Ads create a strong connection and make you want to live those experiences. They often paint a picture of a perfect life where adventure is a big part, pushing you to want to explore and discover new things. Some ads create urgency with limited-time offers, pushing you to act fast. When they feature famous people or influencers known for their adventurous lives, it’s super convincing because you want to be like them. Ads also say that trying new things and stepping out of your comfort zone can help you grow and discover more about yourself, encouraging you to be more adventurous in your everyday life.

The Quarry Rock Ad!

Who are first assignment in this project we took a short field study up to Quarry Rock where we then took pictures and asked hikers what brought them to Quarry Rock. Then we took this information and made an ad to visit Quarry Rock! We found out that most people go there for the excitement of a challenging hike (and an opportunity to take Instagram photos.) For the ads, we got maybe one or two revisions but in the end, we were all pretty happy how they turned out. 

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The Oregon Coast!!!!!!!!

Every year, the PLP grade 8’s, go on a trip to Oregon and now it was finally our turn!! on the trip we would learn a ton of stuff and also get to experience the coastal beaches and learn more about the history of not only Oregon, but the entirety of the US. This trip was a great way to test my limits on needing time away from my classmates and also running a whole day on 5 to 6 hours of sleep. This trip also tested teamwork skills like for example the quests that we did together, (you can read more about this in my adventure book that I will put below.) 

 

 

Rubber Boot Evidence!

Also, this wasn’t exactly an assignment, I just wanted to put it in here because it’s hilarious.

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The Adventure Book:

During our adventure in Oregon, we were supposed to keep track of our time by documenting everything in an adventure book! Although I wasn’t glad at the beginning that we had to do this I’m really glad that we made this book because now I can look back at this trip and look back at all the fun memories and experiences that I got to do. If you would like to flip through my book and learn more about our Oregon adventure in better detail, please do, I recommend it. It will be a fun experience.

2024 Spring Exhibition:

Now it’s time to talk about the (second) highlight of this project…..THE SPRING EXHIBITION!! This being my first spring exhibition. It was all new to me. The main theme of the spring exhibition was based off of our Oregon ads. My groups theme was excitement and escape, so we decided to play in zip lining, which was the most exciting part of the Oregon trip. Our food choice was apple juice and cookies. Apple juice and cookies are the two consumables we chose to enrich our audience with, because we thought it tied into excitement perfectly! During our field study to Oregon, we went zip-lining! During the zip-lining adventures, we were given the food choice of apple juice and cookies! Then we used our Oregon ads to make a display that would hopefully get the audience wanting to go to Oregon. I think that the exhibition went well, other than the fact my group had water balloons and I’m guessing you can tell where that led to. Thought to be fair, it’s not entirely realistic to expect a bunch of 13-year-old kids to be able to stay in one place for four hours and not want to have a little fun with water balloons. 

GROUP MEMBERS BLOGS:

Siena:

Eloise:

Cole:

Samuel:

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Thanks for reading!! 

I’m hoping this is my last blog post for the year, so I’ll see you silly goobers next time!!

 

ITS T TIME!🗣️‼️🔥

Posted on by elsaw

TPOL

Hello you silly goober! This is the blog post all about my very first TPOL! I made it through my first MPOL so hopefully I make it through my first TPOL (I’m crossing my fingers). Just kidding! If you don’t know already, POL stands for Presentation Of Learning and the T stands for Transitional meaning the transition to the next grade. In this blog post I will talk about 10 main things, including the driving question, my growth as a learner in all my courses, my work ethic, my work habits, my areas for improvement, my success behaviours, revisions, teamwork, responsibility, and my production of work. These are just some of the things that make me a learner. Like my MPOL (Mid Year Presentation Of Learning) the TPOL also has a time limit of 7 minutes. In those 7 minutes, I will tell my story of learning. I hope you will enjoy my story. 

POL declaration: 🗣️

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

Science: 🦠

I have demonstrated my growth as a learner in science by applying critical thinking skills to go beyond the basic requirements and thoroughly answer the driving question. I have also been very active in the classes making it ten times more interesting then if I weren’t actively learning in the class. I think that at the beginning of the second semester when science started I wasn’t exited for science because I thought it would be boring, but as soon as we started working I realized that we were going to be doing some really interesting stuff and soon came to love science. 

Humanities: 📖

In humanities, I have previously struggled a lot with organizing my time well and I would constantly find myself being swamped with work. Now on the other hand, I have gotten much better at organizing my time and work much better. I have made out a system that works really well for me because that way I can balance my school and social life as needed. 

Revisions: My Oregon Ad 🔁

After our trip to Oregon, we were required to make an ad that displayed a certain theme about Oregon. My theme was ‘excitement and escape’ so I had to make my ad correspond correctly to the theme. I had approximately 4-5 revisions, but throughout the revisions I pushed through and came out with a final product that I really liked. You could tell that every time I made a revision, it looked better and better. I’ve always had some struggles with getting told my work isn’t good enough or that I need to re do it, but PLP has taught me that its not a bad thing to get a revision, but instead it pushes you to get your best work done. 

Before:                                                  After:

Teamwork: The Spring Exhibition 🌷

I think that one of my best moments for teamwork was the spring exhibition. Because of our group being the smallest, we all had to put in much more work than some of the other groups. I was very proud of my teamwork in this event because even though I had to put in more work, I enjoyed it and did it to the best of my abilities. I was also responsible enough to make sure that the work that I had to do was done and was also better than was expected. 

High Quality Work: Peanuts Character & Oregon Adventure Book 💯

I have two examples of some work that I am really proud of. Firstly, I have my peanuts character and although I didn’t make this during school year, I’m still really proud of it and I thought I did it to the best of my ability. Knowing that I can’t draw that well, I was really proud of this piece of artwork I made. The task was to draw yourself as a peanuts character, and I think it turned out really well. My second piece of work that I wanted to show you is my organ adventure book. Even though I got a couple revisions on this book, I am really proud of it because I worked very hard on it and I love the way it turned out. I think I put my design skills and writing skills to the test on this book, but it worked in my favour to create a really cool book to remember grade eight by. 

Work Ethic: 👍

If I set my mind on something, I’m really good at getting that done and to the best of my ability but every once in a while, I struggle with putting my best work in for something I’m not very interested in. Sometimes if I’m doing something that I am really interested in I will only focus on that one thing and then get it done really well. on the other hand if if it’s something I’m not very interested in or it’s a job or chore. I tend to have not very good attitude about it and work ethic. Sometimes I will be very obvious with my attitude towards a task or job, but other times I will just quietly judge it. 

Work Habits: 📚

As a person who likes to get something done in one sitting, my work habits aren’t always healthy. But over the year, I have learnt to overcome this and have done really well at spacing out my work blocks and break times. I’ve gotten really good at knowing when I need to stop and have a break and knowing how long I can continue working for. I’ve always been a morning person so for me it’s much easier to wake up at five in the morning to do homework then stay up until 12 doing homework. Being a morning person, I will often leave my work to the last minute and just wake up the very morning it’s due and do it all then, but I have also learnt that that is not an efficient use of my time so I have gotten much better at getting my work done in a little bit instead of in one sitting.

Agency: Seeking help 🙋‍♀️

I’ve always struggled with asking for help whether it’s from a friend, coach, parent, or teacher but over the school year I noticed that I have definitely gotten better. Many times during the school year I found myself stuck on a certain question, or task, but I have been pushing myself to ask for help not just try to figure it out myself and potentially get it wrong. I don’t know why I find it challenging to ask for help but I always struggled with it. I know many people who are told that they ask for help too much but I’m the opposite. This first year of PLP I noticed that I have been in more situations where I needed to ask for help, so that has pushed me to ask for help more often which I think really helped.

Agency: Goals and self assessing ✅

I have never been the type of person to set goals for myself, but with new opportunities like for example, the app Things has really pushed me to set goals for myself so I can grow as a learner. If you don’t know already, the app Things is a great way to keep track of tasks, chores, and of course goals. It is an app you will have to pay for, but it is a great investment. (This blog post is not sponsored). I have realized this year that goal-setting is a great way to push yourself and make sure that you get to where you want to be.

Communication and Collaboration: Peers 👂

I think that overall, I’m very good person to have in a group project because I will do the work that you ask me to do, I will put in ideas, I will provide supplies and most importantly, I will listen and be active in the group. Every single group project that we have been in this year I think I have been an asset to the group and hopefully I will continue to be a helpful and respectful group member. I have been told many times by friends that if they want an opinion on something, they will ask me because they know that I will be brutally honest and give them helpful criticism that they can use to grow. 

THANKS FOR LISTENING TO MY LEARNING STORY!

Thanks for reading all about my first TPOL! I’ll see you silly goobers next year!

MPOLSSSSSS!

Posted on by elsaw

FIRST EVER MPOL!!

Hello you silly goober! Welcome back to my blog! Todays post will be all about my first POL (presentation of learning). In this case the POL will be a MPOL (Mid-year presentation of learning)! Basically an MPOL is a student led conference where you tell a story! Not just any story though… Your learning story! It’s a story that you will tell to your teacher and your parent (and anyone else you have invited). It’s a good opportunity for your teachers and parents to understand more about how you are and where you are as a learner. It’s a 12 minute conference ( 7 min for your story and then 5 min for parent/teacher questions). Lets begin!

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

My learning plan: 💡

At the beginning of the year, we created learning plans that highlighted areas we wanted to improve in different aspects of learning, like taking initiative, staying engaged, behaving well, being ethical, preparing effectively, managing ourselves, communicating, and working together. We also wrote down our goals and intentions for what we wanted to learn and achieve.

My statement of learning intent: 🎓

As part of the learning plan, we made a statement of learning where we write about what we plan to do, learn, act, and grow as learners. This school year, I’m eager to deepen my understanding of science, humanities, and maker. In science, I aim to grasp key concepts in biology, and other aspects of science by conducting hands-on experiments and exploring how these subjects relate to everyday phenomena. I want to develop a strong foundation in scientific inquiry and problem-solving. In the social studies aspect of humanities, I want to explore history, and geography, to better understand the world around me. By studying different cultures, historical events, and societal structures, I aim to develop a broader perspective and critical thinking skills. In the language arts aspect, I plan to dive into literature, writing, and communication. I want to improve my reading comprehension, writing style, and ability to express ideas effectively. By analyzing literature and engaging in creative writing, I’ll enhance my communication skills and appreciation for diverse perspectives. I’ll showcase my learning by participating actively in discussions, writing thoughtful essays, and demonstrating a strong grasp of key concepts in both parts of humanities. Similarly, in Maker, I plan to learn practical skills like coding, digital design, etc, using them to create innovative projects. I’ll demonstrate my proficiency by actively engaging in building projects, and presenting my work with confidence and creativity. This year I want to really get into the High-school lifestyle and grow as a learner. I also hope to learn new and interesting things that I can grow my knowledge of. 

Strategies and habits I will work on: 🧠

  • I need to work on having better time management so that I’m not handing things in late or just barley on time.

Getting better at managing my time is crucial for meeting deadlines and reducing stress. Setting clear goals, prioritizing tasks, and minimizing distractions during work will help me stay on track. Regularly checking my progress and taking breaks for relaxation will keep me productive. By doing these things consistently, I’ll improve my time management and get things done on time with less stress.

  • I think that by upping my self regulation I would have a healthier balance between school and my own time.

Strengthening my ability to manage impulses and stay focused on priorities will help me allocate time more effectively for academics and personal activities. Setting clear boundaries, like establishing specific study hours and designated relaxation periods, will contribute to maintaining this balance. With better self-regulation, I’ll make smarter choices about how I use my time, leading to a more satisfying and well-rounded daily routine.

Science: 🧪

For my first reflection, I wanted to start with science, because it is the easiest. I have only finished one project in science so far, but it was a blast. We made a video game to display our knowledge about atoms. It helped me use my tech skills and also experiment with the website scratch, and coding! As of now, we are working on a project about cell biology, which I find really interesting, so that has been fun so far as well! I think based on my level of understanding on atoms, I could have gone more into depth and made a more advanced game, but otherwise I was really proud of my final product! This is my science blog post!

 

How have I demonstrated my learning? 💁‍♀️

I have demonstrated my learning in science by using my critical thinking skills to look past what I need to do and try to answer the driving question to the best form of my ability. I also was very active in the learning so that helped me stay interested in the learning and also be more into the classes. 

What are areas of growth? 🌱

I think that some areas of growth are for me to be more prepared and have better management with my time so that I’m not procrastinating and handing things in late/last moment. I have so many tools on my IPad to help me with these things, so I think that I need to get better at utilizing these incredible tools. I think based on my level of understanding on atoms, I could have gone more into depth and made a more advanced game, but otherwise I was really proud of my final product! I also think that instead of going a little beyond (for example, doing five pages instead of four) I could be going a lot more beyond, (for example, eight pages instead of four). Because I know I am capable of doing it. 

Maker: 💻

For my maker reflection, I wanted to reflect on my favourite project, called Becoming a PLP Learner! It was our first maker project and it was all about getting to know the tech we were given and getting to know our selves as learners. We made some really fun things such as my User Manuel! It’s was a fun way to write about yourself, in the form of a user guide. I am also really proud of my Memoji! As another aspect of the project, we made a customized Memoji using stickers and images to display who we are as learners. This is my maker blog post!

How have I demonstrated my learning? 💁‍♀️

I have demonstrated my learning in maker by being active in the learning, and having a open mind when it came to learning things I wasn’t super interested in. Like for example, I wasn’t exactly stoked when I heard about the project “Finding Fun with Drawing”, but I kept an open mind and it ended up being rather fun!

What are areas of growth? 🌱

I could work on many things as a learner, but I think the things I could work on most, especially in maker is, my ability to stay on task, and be productive with my time. I found myself low on time to hand in something or get something done plenty of times. I think I grew more nearing the end of the semester, with more time to get things done and having things handed in on time more often!

Humanities: 📖

As my reflection for humanities, I would like to mention how many projects I’ve done in humanities, so this was hard to choose. I think my favourite project was “Bon Voyage”. It it was on an interesting topic and it allowed me to use my (mediocre) drawing skills and (mediocre) video editing/making skills to create a AR video, that displayed the causes and consequences of colonization. This is my humanities blog post!

How have I demonstrated my learning? 💁‍♀️

I have demonstrated my learning by being interested in what we are learning (except for our poetry project🤫), and being able to share and collaborate with my classmates to gain a deeper understanding of what we are learning. 

What are areas of growth? 🌱

Some areas of growth for me are being able to go more beyond of what’s asked of me in order to expand my learning. 

THATS IT!

Thanks for bearing with me and reading this post (I don’t mind if you didn’t actually read all of it, I wouldn’t)! That is the long and boring story of my learning. Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to check out some of the links and media I added (again, I don’t care if you don’t)! 

AR Making Something!

Posted on by elsaw

AR Making Something (see what I did there?)

 

Hello and welcome back to the amazing and radical place that is my blog!!!‼️🐺😛🔥💥😎 today you guys can read all about the humanities project called BONVOYAGEEEE‼️👺💥🐺😎🤟 Its set in the age of exploration, so the age when the Europeans started to colonize all around the world. This age allowed for so many opportunities and new ways to be uprooted by other societies and places. Without the age of exploration, we wouldn’t have access to half the things we do today. The driving question is “How can we use storytelling to investigate what sparked global exploration and understand its impact?” I think that by making a story to spread knowledge is the best way to get people to understand because it activates all thier senses and really gets people active in the learning. It can also make the learning easier because you are hearing it in a way that you understand. 

Brainstorming boards:

For our fist assignment we made brainstorming boards on Padlet! It helped us find all the different reasons (causes) and affects (consequences) of the Europeans coming to North America. 

(Sorry for the bad quality)

Cause and consequences:

For this assignment we made a sheet that connected the causes and consequences of the Europeans coming to North America. Some causes were for example, the king being rich enough to fund exemptions to gain more land and power. And then a consequence of this would be racism. Filling out this sheet helped me really start to connect the two different factors.

AR Makr: 

For the final assignment, we made a story. But it wasn’t just a story, it was made in a cool app callled “AR Makr”. AR Makr allows you to tell a story while also displaying images! For the actual writing part, we had to create a fictional story about a exhibition to North America. My story revolves around a ship captain who accidentally goes to North America instead of Madagascar. After we finished our story, we made drawings to correspond to the different parts. Then we put all the drawings into AR Makr and made a video/story. My story has a beginning, middle, and end that clearly displays a historically accurate struggle about racism and many other real life problems. 

(Flip your screen for better view)

Thank you for reading this blog post! I had a good time making this project, so hopefully this post was just as good! Happy spring break!

All about poetry!

Posted on by elsaw

All about poetry

~Hello, and welcome back to my radical blog! This post is all about poetry and my latest humanities project! This project is called ‘Working With Words’ and it’s all about poetry! The driving question for this project is “How might I write poetry that I enjoy, and shows who I am?” I think that writing poetry is different for all people, but to me I think that the most important thing for your writing to be meaningful is that you write about something you care about. If you write about something meaningful to you, your words will come across that way. 

In this project we wrote ten different types of poems! All of them were about our worldview’s.  They were all personal poems we used to express ourselves, and convey messages we think are important.  We also looked at many other poems, and did some brainstorming to help make our own poems even better. Then we used the incredible app called  ‘Book Creator’ to make our own poetry books!

We also made an all about me video! It is a 1 minute or less video describing everything about me! If you want to check it out on my YouTube channel where it’s posted!

 

~Thanks for reading my post! I hope you enjoyed all of the poetry! Make sure to check out my book, and have a good time reading all of the different poems! Bye!~

Radical Innovations!

Posted on by elsaw

Radical innovations or how it’s going

Welcome back to my blog! For this post you will learning all about the last humanities project we had before winter break! The driving question was “what can we learn from the past and why does it matter to us today?” I think that by learning about the past, we can recognize how lucky we are to be living in a world where the beliefs, laws, and ways of life are very different from the past. 

As one of the assignments we had to make and artwork choice chart! It helped us share with our group to and to help us get ideas for our final real life triptych! 

This project was extra special because our final products would be shown off at the winter exhibition! The winter exhibition is a PLP exclusive event where all 5 grades show off what we have learned in the form of for example a debate, or in the grade eights case, a triptych! A triptych is a three piece artwork that usually has a similarity between the three, like for example, the background. We made our own triptychs and then preformed them by standing still in a certain position to represent a different person in the society’s of the medieval, renaissance, and modern times, in front of a big audience! 

At first we made a digital version of our triptychs and then we preformed it in real life!

The digital version:                                        The physical version:

Radical Innovations or How it’s Going, built on our previous project “Power Play or How it Started” in many ways. For example many of the assignments were similar therefore, we could build from our previous one too make the new one even better! In Power Play or How it Started, we made an artwork choice chart, at first I struggled a little because I didn’t understand but then I got the hang of it, so when we did a second artwork choice chart in Radical Innovations or How its Going, I new what to do! Also, both of the project’s had the same driving question, meaning we could use the answers from the past project to help us elaborate more and give a better answer this time. 

If you would like to read more on our past project, Power Play or How it Started please click on the link provided!

Power Play!

Posted on by elsaw

Hello, and welcome back to my radical blog! This blog post is all about my humanities project. This project is called “Power Play or how it Started”. The driving question that was to be answered by the end of the project was “what can we learn from the past and how is it relevant to us today”. For this project we went through many assignments that made up the project. Let me go through them!

The Book of the Lion:

The Book of the Lion was a bit of a challenging read, because it was set in the medieval ages when the crusades were happening. Personally, I wasn’t a huge fan of it because it was a very slow moving book with little conflict. However, it did help me find out more about what it was like back then.

The Great Law of Peace:

For this part of the project we learnt about the  Haudenosaunee society, a First Nations group still here today. I choose to write a blog post to show my understanding. Here is the link: https://www.blog44.ca/elsaw/2023/11/03/the-great-law-of-peace/ 

The Feudal system:

For this, we learnt about the feudal system. To show our understanding we had to use the evidence of our readings, to complete a window notes diagram.  

The crusaders dialogue:

Next we made a dialogue, to represent the two different worldviews of the muslims and the Christian’s. We used evidence from our reading to make a little skit about the crusades. It shows how the Christians were only doing it for fortune and clearing their sins, and how the Muslims were trying to get them to stop killing thousands of innocent people.  

The Tribute:

For this benchmark, we made a tribute/skit for a historically significant leader. My group chose to do our tribute on Queen Elenor. We made our tribute funny but still serious. It highlights how much impact Elenor had on feminism and empowering women. 

 

The Sketch and Tell:

For this we made a sketch showing how power can be gained and lost. But there was a catch, we weren’t allowed to use words! We had to represent all that without a single word!  

The Artwork Choice Chart:

Last but not least… The final product! We used an app called Arts and Culture to find specific images to insert into our Artwork Choice Chart. Then, we incorporated all of these images into our main painting.  

  

Thanks for reading all about my project journey! I learnt a lot and had a good experience! Hopefully you did too!