E stands for me

In humanities we did a lesson on finding our dominant profile with Mr. Whiting. We did this lesson to find out how we learn and ways to help us learn in class. I agree with my profile and here are facts that help me on my studies.

1. I learn best when......

I learn best when I work collaborative with other people, because then I don't have to do all the hard work alone and also I can get more ideas when working together, helping each other understand the situation, like team work. I also learn best by communicating with details of information. In class I also have to sit somewhere near the back so that I don't disturb anybody around me. Well this trimester I am sitting at the back and I do seem more concentrated. Also when I am relaxed I am more interested in something than when I am in stress. Normally nice music maybe like jazz or classical music will help me study well in school and on my homework. This is how I learn best in class and I agree with all of this, it those show who I am.

2. I need to....

For now I am going in the right direction but there is one group of people that I cannot work with are people who speak to much instead of doing the project (Auditory group). I get really stress out when I work with someone who speaks to much and can't stop so we can actually start our work, I get really annoyed, since I am more of a hands on person and a verbal person, someone who doesn't like to read the instruction before starting to make the object or item and someone how likes to say things in detail but not for a long period. I also need to plan my movement before doing it. I am having a bit of trouble thinking that way but I’ve almost got the understanding of it. My biggest challenge is to be able to work with a gestalt brain, because once am able to do that we will make a perfect team.

3. The strategies that would help me in my learning....

A few strategies that would help me to learn is to listen or play music like in band, also I have to be able to move around and be active like in P.E, and doing art like what I would do at home sometimes. All of these strategies will help me in the future and also for my learning in school. When I am experiencing difficultly, for me to get out of it is for me to talk it through with someone to understand it more. When under stress I must try to relax myself if I want to enjoy learning a topic.

4. I would like my teachers to know this about me.....

That for me I need calm music to help me study more, like Mrs.Narsiman would do sometimes during class time. I would work best as a collaborative group to share ideas and understandings. I need to be more relaxed to learn something in a more concentrating way. I think leaving me near the back helps me a lot to study more and not to disturb anyone around me a lot. I think that is all the important stuff I need to tell my teacher.

My Hatchet Group Collabotration

In humanities we are doing a collaborative activity called lit circle. Normally we would have to do this activity individually but in this lesson we had a partner. My partner was Olivia. The book we are doing is called "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen. Both of us had challenges that would help us in our next lit circle.

The benefit of working with my classmate is the feedback we give to our partner and to read what they have to say such as how well they understand the chapters we read.  The reason why I chose this is because when I read my partners work I find mistakes or sometimes she could more details and improve the paragraph. This will make the work more descriptive and better, because we can't always see mistakes on our own. It's best to send it to someone to check your work and the feedback is to make you fix your mistakes for example: spelling error, the wrong page number, or maybe you could add more details and evidents. That is what I did with my partner and we improved it a bit more and a little help from our parents too.

There can be challenges when you have partners because your not sure if they would do there work and if it would be just a copy of your own. My partner is Olivia and we both had to write one of each passage, question, response, connection, and vocabulary. I shared the work sheet with Olivia and I got started with my work before her. after two days I got a little worried and send Olivia an e-mail. I didn't get an answer from her but at school she told me she did all yesterday so I was relief and happy. I checked it on the computer and spotted that she had chosen the same vocabulary, I asked her if she can find another word and she did. It was a little bit of a challenge because if one of our work isn't good enough our grade wouldn't be good. We also had another challenge but was solved quickly.

My new understanding from the novel Hatchet was when Brian gets more used to being in the woods and starts to slowly forget about the people who are suppose to come and find him. He also starts to change and become more of a wild boy instead of a city boy like he use to be. This is new to me because the author mentions Brian's change in the book and I thought it was interesting because Brian noticed himself change in two different ways: I changed from the outside by have a tan and more mosquito bites, while the other change is from the inside, he was more into the wild wood than the city since he was stuck there and his attitude changed almost every time. Once was when he heard a engine of a plane, he tried to run to make a smoke signal but didn't make it time,which made him really mad and he wanted to kill himself. The other was when he was hungry and couldn't find anything, but finally found turtle eggs which made him delighted.This is why I thought that this is my new understanding of the book so far. 

Lit Circle Blog Post #1 Hatchet

The discussion group helps me understand the novel because I sometimes have trouble understanding the parts in the chapters. When I ask my group they help me by explaining them.  In case I have difficulty in understanding some words, I would ask my group for the meaning or we would look them up in a dictionary and write them down in a note book or type them in our computer to help us remember the new words. Sometimes in lit circles I ask myself and my group discussion questions such as "what we think would happen next in the book" or "how does this part make you feel when the character did something heroic"for example.  My group and I come up a lot of different of answers.

Some of us had connections with the novel, but sometimes we don't. Sometimes we have similar connections. Also, some people have an interesting connection which makes the group want to know more about what happens. I sometimes enjoy finding connections because I know exactly which one would fit the event in the story. Sometimes I have trouble finding a event that I can connect to. Connections can sometimes be difficult to find if our group doesn't quite understand an event, but if we do it is a lot easier to connect because we can compare it with something that happened in our life.

There are many things my group can predict that might happen in the next chapters. For example in "Hatchet", the book I'm reading this trimester, Brian was steering the plane, but he ran out of fuel. We predict that he might find a clearing or maybe he might land in a lake. Predicting is fun to do, because there are no wrong or right answers. Some predictions have many possibilities, but some have only a few. Such as in the book "Call It Courage". Mafatu was sailing through big storms and there could have been several predictions: maybe he will survive the storm or he will die or he will end up on an island somewhere else. Predicting can be quite tricky to do, but really there are no wrong or right answers.

#2 Even though Papua New Guinea is located in the same region as Australia and New Zealand, why is it that Australia and New Zealand became technologically advanced and wealthy?

 I chose question number two and has found two reasons on why Papua New Guinea has less technology advance and wealth.

First reason is that Australian and New Zealand people are actually from England. The people there are English so this means their European. The British people traveled to Australia and New Zealand to trade for the whale's oil and skin. So, the government of England brought some goods to support them to have a better life. But, for the New Guinean they didn't have anyone to support them. They are actually Asian. Since they didn't travel out of their country they were stuck in New Guinea so, they had little knowledge about the outside world and the new technology. They were poor in their technology and poor in knowledge about the outside world they were behind a lot of information about the world. They needed to catch up and now the are still struggling.

My second reason is that the people in New Guinea are spending most of their time finding food and finding new ways to improve their life that they didn't have a good food supply.  Also they have only a few domesticated animals in their field and not as much crop. In the mornings the men has to go hunting with a bow and arrow while the women catches insects for protein and gather plants for vitamins. In Australia and New Zealand they domesticate a lot more animals such as cows, pigs, dogs, goats, ducks and chickens. They are able to grow more crops and import it to other countries and then earn some money which could help to buy more food to grow or some savings.

These are the two reasons on why Papua New Guinea has less technology advance and wealth than Australians and New Zealand people.

Fireflies

Today was a great day for skipping around in the muddy pond, so I went out with a few of my friends Cheyenne, Li-yen and Nadia. We were just enjoying our self skipping in and out and everywhere else in the mud until I heard some noises it kind of sounded like children talking and screaming you know like being really excited. So I called my friends to stop skipping around and asked them if they heard some children talking, Li-yen said" Yea, I do hear some children like yesterday some other children came too". I agreed that it did sound a bit like the children from yesterday,then I turned around and saw my friends skipping around in excitement. I asked "What are you guys all excited about"?

Before they could answer one of the teachers came to the mud and got the students attention. He was really loud so we couldn't hear our self talk or even think, so we waited for a while and then he stopped talking. He grabbed one student and told him to follow the guide to plant the mangrove trees. The guide said to walk a bit fast on the mud or else you would sink into the mud and if you did then don't panic because help would come, but if you think you could get out by yourself then you could. So the kind ran but got stuck all the students started to laugh because he couldn't get out even me and my friends it was hilarious because he sank even more, then he got tired of stand and he sat down. Finally after maybe six students came back from planting the mangrove trees he was free.

Suddenly there was a student who noticed me and my friends just skipping around like ordinary mud skippers and reached down and tried to catch me. She couldn't catch me, but then adventuly she caught me. She showed me to some of her friends and I was pretty scared because I have never seen a human so close up. then one all of her friends reached down to catch my friends Li-yen, Cheyenne and Nadia. Nadia was really fast because she won a lot of medals in a skipping contest but she got caught. They called us cute and all the stuff you would say to a cute little puppy you know. We tried to escape their hands we couldn't. Then they ran to their teacher to show them, but the teachers felt sorry for us so they told them to put us back to where they found us. I thanked the teacher who saved us from the students horrid hand that smelled so bad and was really warm.

Well the day was almost over for the students and almost over us the mud skippers, so when all the students left the mangrove planting area we all stayed out in the warm sun bathing. I felt said for the students because I wouldn't see them again but then there was another class coming so we got to bed and shall be ready for the next class, but one thing I hope was that we wouldn't be picked up again or else we'll have to be saved by the teachers again well any ways see you tomorrow good night.

Here is a video about mudskippers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHwxW8Kapyc

Bullies

In Shanghai I didn't have any friends and I was really shy. I didn't really know what to do or where to go, but then a girl came up to me and do you want to be my friend and I said why, she said that I looked lonely. So I went with her to every place and was actually very nice at the beginning but the worst coming.

One day I was waiting for her in the canteen for lunch and I was just sitting there waiting for. Then all of a sudden I see her coming in with her lunch and a bunch of few friends I was really happy because I though she was going to introduce me to more friends but instead she went off to sit on another table, so I followed her to the table which only had three seats that were all taken by her friends. I asked politely if I could sit here with her but she told my to get lost and I question back why and she said because I wasn't her friend any more. That really made me sad so I ran to the girls W.C and cried there with no one to comfort me or even care about me.

When school ended I went home to tell my mom that I did want to stay her any more because I don't have any true friends. My mom said we were actually moving away in a few weeks and that really brighten me up. That the next day I was so happy to leave I just couldn't wait. And everyday I count how many more days or weeks till we would move. Now finally that day came we were packing all our stuff all the furniture and my toys, my books and everything else that we had. I just felt so free when we were driving to the airport like a prisoner who has been taken out of jail. So free so happy.

When  we arrived in Malaysia I was wondering if in my new school would I have the same problem or what but I didn't I was happy, free and all my friends were nice to me their always there for me when I'm down and all the good stuff you could think of. But  when my parents got the computer fixed I went to check my email on if I got any from my friend and I did it said that she didn't want to be my friend any more, so I wrote back to her "it doesn't matter now because I'm not there any more so you can hang out with your own friends and see if they can be any better as a friend than I am".  Then the next day i got another email from her say "What ever loser I'm not gonna send any more emails to you." I just couldn't stand it any more so I just deleted the email and we never email each other any more.

My Courage

Ever since I was small I was afraid of spiders but not of other creepy crawlies. I would just pick up a grasshopper, a ladybug, an earthworm and other insect but when it comes to spiders I would just scream and run away even at the smallest one. that was one of my biggest fear of all.

When I was sitting in the car driving to the airport there was a small spider just crawling around on the seat next to me and I would just inch closer to the door until the spider gets closer then I start crying to my parents about the spider. But my father would always say that the spider can sense my fear so it would come closer and might even attack. So I would just sit back in my seat trying to calm myself down and over come my fear.

Finally we reached the airport we were travelling to Belgium for the Christmas holidays and it took 8-10 hours from China to Belgium. But I was happy to arrive in Brussels safely because of the hard snow but we still had to drive to Antwerp to stay with my grandparents and  their house is really old and it's filled with spider which I was afraid of. But once my father told me that these spiders are the common house spiders, the daddy long legs and they're harmless and if you get scared  just sing the itsy bitsy spider song.

We all went to the town to go shopping and I saw a small spider that was black and on its back it was green and purple. I sang the song and put my hand down on the ground and let the spider crawl on it put my mother told me to put it down because she was afraid that it might as well bite me, so I let it down slowly to the ground and it crawled away.

Now I've overcome my worse fear and learnt to enjoy my life with or with out spiders but I'm still a bit freaked out about big, huge, hairy spiders.

How did early humans use art to express their prehistoric culture?

In  humanities we were studying about our artifacts that we found in our scavenger hunt. And my group had to do study about a painting from the early hominids. I'm wondering what these cave paintings could actually mean.

This one of the cave paintings found in France.

Maybe the mythical and spiritual stories that they told or heard through their life were what inspired them to teach to their young by painting them on the walls. Then when the younger members grow older and have children of their own they could tell it to them. I think the reason why the hominids painted the story on the wall is because then they can remember it and the story can just be passed down to their yong ones.

Perhaps they could have told about what they saw happening to the world surrounding them. It could be that a deer was born and each day the hominids saw it growing and in time becoming the leader of it's group. It seems liklely that the paintings on the wall are about their daily observations.

Lastly, maybe the painting could be like a diary that everybody shared and they painted what they did on a certain day. Perhaps they went hunting and killed a ferocious bison or a huge elephant or a stampeding rhino or perhaps they found a new river or another tribe.

FIRE EXIT!!

There could be many reasons why they painted pictures on cave walls. We may never find out what made them do it.                                   

social scientist

I wanted to be an archaeologist because I like digging for information of the past and actually my favourite subject is history. It's a lot of fun reading and finding things that you never knew about till now.

I found archaeologist an interesting job because you don't only flip through pages about history but you also dig for history to actually study the past.  I like to travel around the globe and so do archaeologist, they travel around the globe to study about the people like who lives there and how they lived. I love digging for things in the ground i always thought that if I dig deep enough i might be able to find dinosaur bones but really its hard to do, but I like dinosaurs. I like to actually buy this digging kit were it comes with all these strange tools that archaeologist use to dig for bones or fossils.

 Another reason on why I chose archaeologist is because you get to see things from the past and you can compare it to now like in the Romans the mad really old coins and now we have improved ones, and their clothing and lifestyle and all different kinds of objects and things. For example in Egypt when a royal family dies they prepare the things he/she needs for the after life and they prepare a tomb and build a pyramid for them, and now archaeologist create a site and starts digging and they are able to discover a lot of wonderful facts that was never uncover for many years and I want to do that as my dream job because it's cool to just mummified people resting with their stuff in the underworld.

   My last reason is I think that being an archaeologist is a lot more fun as a dream job because you get to dig and find bones and then you get to connect the bones together to form the shape of a human or if you find  a vase and it's all broken up you can think of it as a puzzle. I would say that this is a great job for me because I like digging, doing puzzles, learning about history and traveling.

Websites:


http://www.physorg.com/ , http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ , http://www.cartoonstock.com/

Hi I'm Michelle

Hi my name is Michelle and I am from Bangkok, Thailand and Antwerp, Belgium. My birthday is January 29 and I'm an Aquarius.  I am studying at ISKL middle school in KL, Malaysia. I live with my parents and my pet fighting fish, Thunder and Lightning.

My main hobby is reading but sometimes I would just sit at my desk and start making the creation that pops up in my head. When the holidays come I get really excited because I love travelling and the countries  I have visited are the U.S (Louisiana and Texas), France, Belgium (Antwerp and Brussels), Croatia(I live 3years in Split), Italy( Venice),  Holland( where my auntie lives), China (I lived and went to school for 1 year in Shanghai), Thailand (everywhere), Malaysia  (KL, Penang, Lumut, Miri), Singapore, Laos, and S.Korea (Ulsan where I was born, Chinhae and Okpo where I went for school for 3 years).

So far on my Summer holidays I read 2 books: Summer Camp Secrets which is about two friends going to summer camp together and they get all mad at each other, while the other book is Nancy Drew, whom most people know she is a detective who solves crimes and mysteries. My favourite movie that I watched over the holiday is "How to Train Your Dragon" which is about a vikking boy named Hiccup who caught a dragon named Night Fury, aka Toothless. Later on he began to train it.

My goal is to improve my writing skill, because I'm not that good yet. I am improving though! My social goal is to use my time wisely, which normally never happens at home but I'm trying. I think my best class so far is maybe math or science or both, but I do like solving math problems and doing fun experiments in scienceclass.I don't have a least favourite class, unless you count Remembering your Locker Combination as a class.

There is one more memorable holiday which is the most favourite one in my whole life, and that was taking a bus trip to Singapore Universal Studio. I went on all the rides and had so much fun there going to the stores and taking pictures with Frankenstein, Betty Boop, Kung Fu Panda and with Alex the lion.

If I were to describe myself I would say: Funny, Cheerful, Friendly,and a little bit shy.