Monthly Archives: January 2022

I’ve really learned a lot this year

Hi! Today I’m going to talk/write about my mPOL. If you didn’t know this stands for Mid-Year presentation of learning. In my mPOL i’m going to talk about all my favourite projects this year and what I learned from them. I am also going to answer the driving question “How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?”.

 

Learning habits and systems 

One of the habits/systems I’ve gotten this year is using the app “Things”. Things is an app which you can put an assignments you have and put a due date to help keep you organized. You can also add to do lists and notes to help you remember the important parts of the criteria. Things has helped keep me organized throughout the whole year so I’ve been able to hand everything in on time. Another habit/system I’ve gotten this year is plugging my iPad in every night so I’m prepared for the next day of school.

Core competency 

Communication: For this my goal was to get to profile 3. Profile 3 was “I communicate purposefully, using forms and strategies I have practiced. I feel like I am on my way to achieving this. One project that really helped me achieve this was the poetry project, because in poetry we had to learn how to speak with meaning to preform our poetry live. I feel like i could work on communicating more ideas when i’m doing group projects because I usually have very good ideas but I don’t share them.

Collaborating: My goal for this was profile 2. Profile 2 was “In familiar situations, I cooperate with others for specific purposes”. I feel like I’ve accomplished this because in familiar situations i’m able to collaborate with other people and help my teams succeed. 

Creative thinking: For this I was aiming to get to Profile 3. Profile 3 was “I can get new ideas in areas in which I have an interest and build my skills to make them work”. I feel like i have almost accomplished this. I am able to come up with ideas about certain topics. One way I show this skill is by my mind maps which I’ve done in scimatics before.

Critical and Reflective Thinking: I was aiming for profile 4. Profile 4 is “I can gather and combine new evidence with what I already know to develop reasoned conclusions, judgments, or plans”. I am definitely working towards this goal. I am now able to gather evidence and develop my own conclusions, but I still have a lot of trouble doing this. 

Personal Awareness and Responsibility: The profile I choose to aim for was Profile 3: I can make choices that help me meet my wants and needs and increase my feelings of well-being. I take responsibility for my actions. I feel like I have definitely accomplished this goal. I’ve become really good at making decisions that don’t hurt me and I also almost always take responsibility for my actions.

Positive Personal and Cultural Identity: For this I was aiming to get to Profile 4. Profile 4 is “I have pride in who I am. I understand that I am a part of larger communities.” I feel like I have accomplished this. I have pride in who I am but i also recognize that I am part of larger community and I need to respect other people.

Social Awareness and Responsibility: For this I chose Profile 2: In familiar settings, I can interact with others and my surroundings respectfully. I think that I have accomplished this because I am able to respect the people around me and in familiar settings I am able to help the people around me.

 

What I have learned this year 

Humanities                                                                                                                               

In Humanities my favourite project was definitely Medium is Message, because I want to go to business college and one day open a successful business so I was very fun being able to
work with clients and learn how the world of advertising works. I also really enjoyed designing the ad and I was very proud when my ad got chosen. I feel like I could have worked on my communication skills during this project because I didn’t talk much during the interview and I could have added more ideas to our group ad.

Scimatics 

My favourite project in scimatics was definitely Laser laws whichever we just finished this week. I learned a lot about how light works and how to work with a team to make something very difficult to accomplish easier. I also loved how we got to actually make a laser display instead of just working on textbooks about lasers, this is one of the reason why I enjoy PLP so much. What I could have worked on was communicating with my team more. I did help but I didn’t really come up with any of the main ideas so I could have done better on that.

Maker                                                                                                                                        

My favourite project in maker was constructive creative communication. I learned all about
communicating in different ways, using photography and art. I really enjoyed this project because I love making art. My favourite thing I made in this project was the still life object. For this I drew a cactus and used shading and perspective to make it look more realistic. I also really enjoyed the photography section. I learned about using perspective and filters. Learning how to use editing apps and taking creative photos has really helped me make my blog more creative. I could have improved on doing well in every assignment because I definitely did better on some assignments than others.

 

Just wrote an E-book :D

Hi! This was our last project of maker grade 8 and we wrote an E-book with a bunch of poems we wrote. You can visit my e-book here

In this e-book we wrote 9 different poems about us and our worldview. The 9 poems we wrote were

A simile poem: A simile is a phrase comparing 2 unlike things using like or as. For example as quiet as a mouse is a simile.

An Extended metaphor poem: A metaphor is comparing 2 unlike things but not using like or as. For example my heart is a rose that grows for you, it compares a heart and a rose.

A haiku poem: A haiku poem is a poem that has 3 lines. The first line has 5 syllables the second line has 7 syllables and the last lines has 5 syllables.

Found Poem: A poem made with pieces of text from another paragraph.

Imagery poem: A poem describing a scene to the 5 senses.

Sound poem: A sound poem uses onomatopoeias like Bang! Or Smash!

Experience poem: A poem describing and experience you lived. This poem uses denotation/ connotation, mood and a specific theme.

Personification poem: A poem that gives an un-human object human characteristics.

Self-Portrait poem: A poem describing yourself. Like what you look like and what you enjoy.

Thanks for reading my e-book and blog. Have a great day!

Laser project! :D

Hi! For scimatics we just finished our laser laws project. This was a very interesting project where we learned about the law of reflection and the Pythagorean theorem. The driving question of this project was “How can we test the Pythagorean theorem and law of reflection?” and we broke this project down into 5 milestones.

Milestone 1

Milestone 1 was “What do I already know about light and what do I need to know to do this project well?”. To answer this we made a mind map. In the mind map we wrote what we already knew about light & lasers and any question we had. Here is my mind-map.

Mind Map 2

Milestone 2

For this milestone the question we answered was “How does light behave in predictable ways?” For this we did a lab report on an experiment we did. In the experiment we had a small laser/light and we pointed it at a mirror and wrote about how it reflected. Some terms we learned in this section were 

Normal: A line perpendicular to the plain that the light is reflecting off of.

Line of incident: The line of light that hits the plain first. 

Line of reflection: The line of light that reflects off the plain.

Angle of incident: The angle between the line of incident and the normal.

Angle of reflection: The angle between the normal and the line of reflection (this angle is the same as the angle of incident)

Here is the lab report I wrote

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Milestone 3

In milestone 3 we answered the question “How are the sides of right triangles related?”. For this section we did a lot of textbooks about the Pythagorean theorem. The Pythagorean theorem is A squared + B squared = C squared. You can use the Pythagorean theorem to find the missing side of a right triangle. Another thing we learned about in Milestone 3 was Pythagorean triples. The most famous Pythagorean triple is 3 squared, 4 squared and 5 squared because if you square 3 and square 4 it equals 9+16 which equals 25 and 25 is 5 squared. There are lots of other Pythagorean triples. You can use these to see if a triangle is a right triangle.

Milestone 4 

In milestone 4 we answered  “How can we design a laser display that tests the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection?”. For this we used an app were we could make a simulation of a laser display. Then we made a lab report to try to prove the Law of Reflection and Pythagorean theorem. Here is my lab report

 

 

Milestone 5 

The last milestone we answered was “How can we build a laser display that tests the Pythagorean theorem and the law of reflection?”. This was our final product for the whole project. We had to make a real life laser display using mirrors and a small non powerful laser. We presented this by putting smoke so you could see the laser display. The display that we tried to make was a right angle triangle to show what we learned about the Pythagorean theorem. Here are some pictures we took of our display.

 

Curricular competency

This section is about the rubric of the project (what we were meant to do). The first curricular competency is Questioning and predicting: Demonastre a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest. I think I did ok for this because I was able to ask a lot of questions and I was very into this project. I also handed all my work in on time.

The second curricular competency is Communicating and Representing: Represents mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial and symbolic forms. I think I did really good on this curricular competency because I understood all the math and made sure to show the process of my work.

The last curricular competency is Applying and innovating: Co-operatively design projects. For this curricular competency I feel like I did ok, but I could improve on helping my team mates more and contributing more ideas.

Thanks for reading. Have a good day!

 

Sewing Q&A (:

Hi! For this post I decided to do a Q&A about very common question asked about sewing. Hope you enjoy!

Is it difficult to start sewing?

No, not really. If you really want to become good at sewing, then it’s a pretty easy to learn. It’s a bit more difficult to learn things like making your own patterns but overall it’s very easy.

Where can you find good fabrics? 

Made by me sewing sells really good fabrics and they also do lessons. Spool of thread sells lots of nice and creative designs and they sell patterns for lots of types of clothing. You can also buy fabrics at Costco and Michales.

What are some easy things to sew?

You can either create something like a pillow case or a stuffed animal. Or you can start off with a simple shirt which can be fairly easy. Here’s one of the first things I made…

 

What supplies do you need to start sewing?

1. A sewing machine –  There are lots of companies that sell these. 

2. Fabric scissors  – To cut out fabric for your patterns 

3. Unpicker – To unpick seams when you accidentally sew in the wrong place.

4. Chalk pencils – To draw where you need to cut during hemming and cutting out patterns

5. Pins and pin cushion – To pin where you need to sew so your fabric doesn’t move while sewing. 

6. Thread – For actually sewing  

Thanks for reading! I hope I answered a question you might have had.

Designing my own fabric

For this post we had to create an original photo using multiple apps. The photo also had to be about a topic you really enjoyed, for me this was sewing. 

Here’s my original photo …

I decided to take a photo of some fabric I had and use the procreate pocket app to draw over the picture designing my own fabrics. I kept the overall pattern of the fabric but I changed the colours and added some additional design elements to each. Here are the steps on what I did to change each design.

1. I took a photo of fabric that I had.

2. I put the photo in procreate and traced over the lines.

3. Inside the lines I added colour and made the background black to add a neon affect.

4. Lastly I took the photo and put it in a photo editing app called Snapseed. In this app I played with the saturation and colour levels.

This is my final product/ fabric design.

Thanks for reading about how I edited original photos into designed fabric patterns. Have a good day!

7 things you didn’t know about sewing

7 interesting facts about sewing 

1.There are over 4000 types of sewing machines in the world: Brother is one of the most popular sewing brands. You can visit their website here.

2. The sewing machine was invented in 1790 by a man called Thomas Saint, but in 1874 it was patented by William Newton.

3. The first needles that went in sewing machines were made out of bone and ivory instead of metal.

Early sewing machine

4. The weaving of natural cloth started in the Middle East around 4000 BC. Back then they used fur and hides instead of fabric. 

5. The first electric sewing machine was invented in 1889, it had a bulky motor and the lightbulb was only invented 10 years before this. 

6. Cotton lasts a century (100 years) before decomposing.

7. The print Calico comes from the word Calcutta which is a city in West Bengal also known as Kolkata.

Some types of Calico fabrics

  Hope you learned something you didn’t know. Have a good day!

“Sewing” Why I love It

Intro 

Hello! Today I’m going to write about sewing. I’ve been sewing for about six months now and I’ve made a couple of pieces of clothing. I got into sewing after my friend introduced me to it. I now go to a class once a week at a place called Made by Me sewing, I also like to sew at home with my own sewing machine. My first project was a blue long sleeved turtleneck shirt. Here are some pictures.

 

 

This wasn’t very a complicated project because all you had to do was put the 2 main shirt pieces together, sew the sleeves on and add the turtleneck. Even though it was very easy it was definitely one of my favourite projects and I love the outcome so I wear the shirt a lot.

Why I like sewing 

I enjoy sewing a lot because most of the time you can just shut your brain off and just sew. I also enjoy being able to make clothing that I can wear instead of just going to a store and buying what you like. You can also design your own clothes and make them without a pattern so it’s completely original.

Thanks for reading about my interest. Have a good day!