Wonder

This year we have been reading an interesting book called Wonder, written by R. J. Palacio. We just finished reading it last term. It is a book about a fifth-grader that is deformed and has never experienced being in school before.

The part that stood out for me the most when I read the book was when a girl called Summer started sitting with Auggie while they were eating lunch, because she didn't care if Auggie was deformed. The others would just try to avoid him as if he were some sort of alien, although he was just a normal human being.

The story has changed me by teaching me that you should never judge a book by it's cover. There's nothing wrong with being deformed or looking bad. You shouldn't be ashamed of the way you look, there is a reason God chose us to look that way.

I identify with summer the most, because I like to help others that feel left out.

You shouldn't blend in when you were born to stand out. Everyone is unique and different, there will never be another person that is just like you.

Supervillian Design

This term we had to make a superhero/supervillian and make a stop-motion using that character. I am partners with Kayleigh. We had to make our character out of plasticine. We created a supervilian that is a unicorn, and his name is Mr. Twinkletoes. He is a unicorn that has the ability to make people levitate by shooting 'levitation pew pews' at his enemies, using his horn. He has sunglasses so that the sun can't hurt his eyes (or he just wants to look cool). The colours of his hair are blue and purple. These colours make him look more magical. His enemy is a superhero called Candy Girl.Candy girl has many minions that help attack her enemies.We created our character because we wanted to make a unicorn instead of a human so ours could stand out a bit. It is quite frustrating when we try to make our characters walk, it's quite hard to make Mr Twinkletoes walk, because he has four legs and they kind of break off easily. It is also hard to make Candy Girl walk, because she can't stand for a long time. I think it is because she has a skirt. We are a bit behind on our work, because we were absent a few times. I don't want to change anything about my character, I like him just the way he is. We have started on our recording last week Friday and it is going very well so far.

Instant Messaging

For IT, we've been working on a poster about instant messaging. The Grade 6's had to write about how messaging can go wrong and how they can't hear your voice or see your face when messaging. Today the Grade 4's came to visit us so we could talk to them about instant messaging. The Grade 4's only started using their iPad's this year, so they haven't experienced messaging or emailing yet. We showed them our posters we made and explained about how messaging could go wrong and about facial expression and tone. The Grade 4's seemed to learn a lot from these posters and we hope they don't forget to make their messages more clear.

Skype

On Thursday, the Pelicans went to the IT centre to go skype with Wilmington School in North Carolina. I was partners with Gabi. We had to do the greeting and thank you's. We never got to say "good morning" in all of our official languages, because the children in Wilmington School started first and asked us questions right away. We had to sit in front of Mrs S's laptop to talk to them so they could see us. When everybody else finished talking to them, Gabi and I started saying "thank you" in all 11 languages. We only skyped their school for about 30 minutes, but we all enjoyed it.

The Build of SA

Yesterday, we had to get a partner to use play dough to make the build of South Africa. I was partners with Mafuze.The green play dough was the coastal plain, the orange play dough was the escarpment, the red play dough was the plateau and the brown play dough was the mountains.Mafuze made the build of South Africa while I was writing the labels.When we were both done, I made the mountains and she put them on our build of South Africa. We cut out our labels and stuck all 6 of them on the toothpicks. After we both placed our labels in the right place, we were done.

Grade 6 ILT

Last week, all of the grade 6's took part in a poetry ILT. ILT stands for Integrated Learning Task. It is something we do every term. This term, our ILT was about poetry. I was in a group of three with Gabi and Daniel.P. We started with task 1, where we had to write the definitions for a few words that were on a list. We chose to do a time-lapse for it. We each took turns to write, hold the camera and search the definitions. For our next task, we started with out black-out poetry. We all had to get one page from a book called Wonder, and circle any words from the page, so that it would make a sentence. First, I started circling the words, and then I started making a phew blobs around the words, and I made sure that all of them were connected. Then Daniel and Gabi coloured them in. We then started with our poetry writing. We all decided to make our theme 'Ocean'. After we decided what theme we were doing, I wrote down lots of ideas on the ideas page. I chose to do an acrostic poem about the theme. This is what I wrote:

Over the world
Creatures swimming and splashing
Everlasting mysteries
Avoid the sharks
Never pollute the waters

I tried to think as 'out of the box' as I could, but then we were running out of time, so I just filled the rest with not so good ideas. Our next task was the Slam Poetry (which took forever). Our theme was 'Night Time'. One of us kept on getting distracted, so it was quite hard for us to work together. I came up with the first half of the poem, but then we started running out of ideas, so I just filled the rest in. The next task was Analyzing Poems. That's when we choose one of the poems that our teachers give us, and we answer questions about it (kind of like a comprehension). It took quite a while for all of us to finish. Then, we started with our Imagery task! This was my favorite task, because I love drawing, and there were no restrictions! I drew a picture about a poem called 'The Tyger'. I just basically drew a 'Fun 2 Draw' tiger, and I drew a sunset in the background. It was looking good so far, until I tried adding glitter glue to the sunset. It just ruined most of the picture, because there was a glue mark. I then decided to add glitter glue to the rest of the background. Then, last but not least, Our next task was the Self Reflection task. It was when you had to answer questions like: 'What was your most favourite task and why?' I really enjoyed the ILT, and I really learnt about how poems could make you feel!

Falcons 2017

It's now 2017 and I'm officially in Grade 6! I'm so looking forward to learning with my new teachers. My goals for this year are to get great marks, get over 75% for my average, play less on my electronics, concentrate, improve in ballet, try my best, never give up and to have a better time management. Now, all my best friends are in the same class as me. At my desk I sit next to Hannah, Gabi and Kyla. We are so lucky to be the first class that can be monitors. My friends and I have so much fun monitoring the stairs. I'm really excited for camp, because last year's camp was amazing, but except for the part when I thought I lost my watch. It turns out that it was at the bottom of my bag! This year, I'll try my best to have a better time management, because that's what I always struggle with. My dad once told me that you need to try your best to get great marks if you want a better future.