Rein Rain: Weekly Reading Reflection

          In the book, Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin, Rose is obsessed with homonyms. She has her own list that she has rules for and it's written by hand so if she doesn't have room for a homonym she thinks of she needs to rewrite the entire 4 page list. Rose explains her life and how she is in a 5th grade class. One night her father brings home a dog. He said he found her behind the Luck of the Irish, a bar the her father likes to go to a lot. Rose and Rain are best friends. One time her father takes Rose to school with Rain in the car and Rain gets out of the car and follows Rose to her classroom. Rose is having trouble behaving correctly in school and her father is getting fed up with all of the meeting and bad report cards that are happening. A hurricane is scheduled to hit their town one night and it does hit hard. The morning after Rose wakes up to an empty bed and finds out that her father had let Rain outside during the storm. Rose and her father have lots of tension between them now and Rose tries to look for rain but can't find her. Rose makes a plan to look for Rain at all the animal shelter near and in her town. Eventually she gets a call back from one of the shelters and she finds Rain, but when she gets there Rose finds something out. Rain has a microchip in her neck and her real name is Olivia. Rose didn't realize she had other owners. 

          My friends had told me that this book was good and that I should check it out. I checked it out of the library and started reading it in literacy ladder that day. As I was reading it realized that it was going to be a very quick read. I'm already two thirds of the way through the book and it is not interesting to me. My friends had told me that they loved the book and I had high hopes for it, but once I started reading it I realized that I really didn't like it. I could take the book back to the library but I know that I could finish the book whenever I want. The story seems almost to quick for me. I don't like that there isn't much detail or elaboration on events that happen inside the book. I don't enjoy the characters and I feel like they haven't made the characters yet. I don't know what Rose really looks like, or what her father looks like, or even her uncle. I'm not enjoying the story so far.

Pick one of the main characters. Think of a shape that fits that person's traits. 

          I'm going to pick Rose for the character shape. I pick a hexagon for Rose. I've picked this shape because Rose is an odd character. She has many sides to her personality. A hexagon is a closed shape and I feel that since it is closed it has everything on a routine, everything needs to fit perfectly. Rose is very much a routine person. She does the same thing with Rain every night. Rose also always has to have everything right. If she spots someone not driving correctly she will flip out and start crying. If someone breaks the rules at school she has a temper tantrum. Everything needs to be perfect in her world. This is why I can connect a hexagon to Rose.

Watershed

Reflection: the watershed map could teach a person where all the lakes,ponds,headwaters,tributaries are in a certain area.

When I was creating my map first thing I did was make the 3 cm border around the map, then I drew out the watershed of the Lamoille river, I got a special map that told me where everything was on the map waterways I then drew all of the tributaries,ponds,headwaters and lake Champlain. I took on the part of doing the whole watershed I also took on doing the tributaries and coloring in some of the map. Working in a partnership was great I didn't have the whole weight of the project on my back and because you can get it done twice as fast, I will include that my partner ship was much better than others. The map taught me a lot about my local water shed and all that goes into making a river system.

Personal Goal Reflection

Personal Goal: My goal is to raise $800 dollars for a school in Kenya. So far we have raised about $175, but we still have a long ways to go. One challenge I had this week was another group and their bake sale. A sixth grade group wanted to also do a bake sale and it was difficult to combine our bake sale in an effective way. In the end, the group didn't even hold their bake sale, and we ended up with more work than expected. The good thing is that we ended up not having to split the money, but instead donating a small amount to a charity. 

Goal Reflection

This week one challenge that I had with my goal, was finding time to sit down and practice piano.  I was recovering from a cold, so I tried to go to bed as soon as possible.  School work this week also seemed like an a lot, and this week I needed some more "me" time.  I know that technically if I had "me" time then I could of practiced piano, but sometimes you just need your own free time.  I have finally done something that I have been meaning to do for a long time, and this is to make myself a schedule.  Here it is:

5:00ish (sometimes a little before) - 5:10 -- get a snack and tea/check instagram

5:10 -supper (around 6:00 but it depends on the day) -- homework

after supper - 7:25 personal time this includes writing to my pen pals, planning things, piano and random stuff

7:25 - 7:32ish shower

7:32ish to 8:10 -- read in bed

I have not been able to try this out to much this week because on the days this week were so busy, but yesterday when I tried it, it worked out great.  When you have a schedule with personal time and homework time built in you put a limit to non homework things. 

With my personal goal, I also need to step up on.  Although I have been reading, I don't think I have been reading as much as I should.  To help me with this I am going to do two things.  The first one is I fit a special time for it in my new schedule so I can make sure to read every night.  I also am going to set a goal for reading over Christmas break.  I am going to try and read 3-4 books.  I will be able to read on the car ride (to and from) Connecticut which is 5 hours. In Connecticut I also read a lot whether I'm helping at the day care or during Grandpas naps.

Personal Narrative Learning Scale

Personal Narrative Final Learning Scale

1. What was your goal that you set for yourself before you started writing your personal narrative? Did you meet your goal?

          My goal was to get the entire proficient column highlighted. At first I wasn't sure that I would have gotten into the proficient category but after revising my story by using the techniques that we learned in humanities through the mini lessons I was confident that my writing was proficient. 

2. Looking at the learning scale and the annotations, where would you place yourself on the scale? What evidence do you have that reflects this decision? 

          I would place myself in the proficient column. (As seen above) I've looked through what I highlighted and what annotations I made. Throughout my story I've used the techniques that we have been taught in the mini lessons. I believe that I've used each of the categories appropriately while writing, revising, and editing. 

3. What are the two best things that you did either in the planning or writing of your personal narrative?

           I think one of the best things in my narrative was how I expressed my character was thinking. The story is set in fourth grade and thinking about how I hated reading and how animals could be different colors was what I was like three years ago. I included a lot of thoughts throughout my story because I was very quiet in fourth grade and still am. I thought it would be a good idea to show that I don't talk much. 

          Another thing I liked about my narrative was how I planned my storyboard. Drawing out what happened three years ago really helped. If I hadn't done that then I would have been still trying to remember what happened next. I included enough detail in my storyboard that I remembered what had happened when I looked at the pictures. 

Scale Drawing

A scale drawing is a drawing smaller or larger than an original photo or shape. Its exactly the same shape, just in a smaller or bigger form. 

A scale factor is how much you enlarge or reduce from the original drawing. 

If the scale factor is <1, it means to enlarge the drawing by 1. If the scale factor is >1 it means to reduce one from the original drawing.  

Proportional Relationship Business Project

Proportional Relationship Business Project

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2-Sk6TNemkeTXRuLVExX1hTNkU

Our presentation was on proportional rates. We made a business and showed what we learned during this unit. Our business was a pet play service. We showed a proportional graph, table, and equation. We also showed a non-proportional side to our business. We talked about pay per hour, how many hours we would work to make one million dollars, and explained our rates.We used the app desmo's graph to create our table, graph, and equation.