Wonder

Ms. H's class finally finished our first read aloud of the year, Wonder, by R.J. Palacio. The book Wonder is about a boy named August (Auggie for short), and he has a unique face. The story is basically how he starts school in 5th grade after being homeschooled for his whole life, and what he goes through.

Words I would use to describe this book are:

• Marvelous
• Exciting
• Amazing

I think the message the of the book is not to judge someone by their appearance because appearances (and faces) don't matter, and only a person's personality is what should be judged.

Summer is my favorite character because not only was she Auggie's really close friend, but also acknowledged Auggie for who he was and not what he looked like. Summer is a great friend to have, because she would give up a lot of opportunities to be your friend.

I would definitely recommend this book because it was very meaningful, and what Auggie went through is realistic, yet very interesting. The book showed feelings that a real person might have and also many friendship problems that are pretty common in the real world. R.J. Palacio made fiction feel true.

Genre Pie Challenge

In Semester Two, our next reading challenge is Genre Pie. We will be celebrating by eating the wonderful sugar of sweets on Friday the 9th of May.

Here are the genres we have to read:

Chocolate Pie!

Free choice HumorDouble genre Award-winningRealistic Fiction Classic 
Poetry Non-fiction

My favorite flavor of pie is chocolate (pie).

Semester One Reflection

Semester 1 learning

Grade 5 Memories

Non-Fiction Expert Group Presentation Reflection

We have just finished our non-fiction presentations. My group were experts on Germs. Here is our presentation.

The most interesting I learnt about was germ fighting cells and how to keep germs away. An interesting fact I learnt was nose hairs help keep germs away

My job in my group was to make the slides look "nice" and to talk about germ-fighting cells, and what they do.
What I would do differently next time is to look more at the audience, and explain what I'm trying to say more precisely.
I enjoyed making the presentation the best, because we got to do whatever we wanted for making the presentations or poster.

Hour of Code

Today, Monday the 9th of December (Naina's B-day) began the week of coding. We completed our first hour in the grade 5 group room. Here's the coding website we used.

Coding is important to learn because you can delete unimportant things and you can add in important things needed.

Genre Pizza

This semester our teacher set us a challenge to read eight different genres, in 14 weeks. The genres we had to read were:

• Mystery (The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer)
• Historical Fiction (Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls)
• Non-Fiction (Exploring the Ocean Depts by Peter Jedicke)
• Biography (Michelle Kwan Quest for Gold by Mark Stewart and Mike Kennedy)
• Science Fiction/Graphic Novel (Percy Jackson Graphic Novel by Rick Riordan)
• Fantasy (The Anybodies by N.E. Bode)
• Realistic Fiction (The Steps by Rachel Cohn)
• Action/Adventure (Escaping the Giant Wave by Peg Kehret)

I completed the challenge the day before the due date, and to celebrate we ate as much pizza as humanly possible. I ate 3 slices of pizza, and to measure up the unhealthiness, I ate a grape. The genre I enjoyed the most was Historical Fiction because I read an interesting book, and I like to compare and contrast my life, and the life in the 1800's.

The genre that I did not enjoy was Non-Fiction because I don't like how there aren't fun stories.

A genre I discovered I like is Mystery, because they are really intense, and interesting.

Next semester we are going to do Genre Pie, and my advice to myself is to send an email to Ms. H instead of a conference, because you may not have time to do a conference (by speaking).

(Picture to the right: You see me in the background waving!)

(Picture to the left: I'm sitting next to the girl in green!)

 

Tabitha Jump-A-Thon - Visit by Janne Ritske

Today, Janne Ritske will be visiting us to discuss her foundation, Tabitha. 

We will be doing the Jump-a-thon on Tuesday, 21 January to raise funds for this worthy cause. Here are some things I learned from the Tabitha website.

• Tabitha has made an impact to  407,616 families with 3,260,928 dependents from 1994 to date.
• The Cambodian families saved US$3,369,223 this year.
• The Cambodian families purchased US$21,626,575 worth of goods and services

Here are questions for Janne Ritske:

• What inspired you to start Tabitha?
• Who has the ideas for what to make for Tabitha sales?
• How did you start Tabitha?
• What's your daughter's name?
• How many times have you been to SAS?