Vice Principal For the Day

      Not too long ago it was go to work with your parent day. I had been waiting for this day ever since my sister did it when she was in grade 9. She went to work with my dad and she said it was very boring so I decided to go to work with my mom. My mom is a vice principal at Mount Royal Elementary School. I had never been to her school before so I was very excited. I have been wanting to go and meet my moms students for a while. I love working with kids and my mom said that her students had been struggling with using iPads so she wanted me to help them.
    I had to wake up a little earlier because my mom needed to leave at 7:30. I really like sleeping so getting up early was kinda hard. On the way to work we stopped at Tim Hortons for some yummy breakfast. Once I was done eating I was ready to start my day as a VP. We pulled up to the school and my first job was unlocking the door. It seems like a pretty easy job but my arms were full and I could not open the door. After struggling for a few moments my mom finally helped me open the door. As soon as I entered I was greeted by some of my moms coworkers. They were all very nice and told me that my mom was a great VP. 

      When the bell rung the students piled into the classroom. I was very excited to start the day. We started off by goingdown to the gym to do some yoga. I was excpecting to just watch the students but my mom made me participate. 

After yoga we headed back up to the classroom to do some math. I helped hand out sheets and helped students that were struggling. Next it was recess. The students went outside and my mom and I walked around the school. After recess the students had Music so my mom and I stayed in the class and sorted out forms. 

When the students came back they were working on finishing their IMovies for a science project. Some students were struggling with using IMovie so I was able to help them with it. Next was lunch. Sadly it was pouring down rain so they had an inside day. I learned that inside days are horrible for teachers. The kids are way more energetic and most of them don’t listen. We had to walk around the school for a bit and check on all of the classes. After that we got to sit in the office and eat lunch. A couple of students were misbehaving so they had to come sit with us at lunch. After lunch my mom read to her class for about 40 mins then they got to presents their skits. After the skits my mom taught a lesson on advertising and then the day was over. 

It was really interesting to get to see my mom working and help her out. After school was over I helped her with some marking at home. For a VP/tecaher you don’t just go to work 8 hours. You still do tons of work at home. I have a new appreciation for my mom because her job isn’t easy. I don’t think I want to be a Vice Pricipal/teacher but I do really appreciate people that do. 

Haitian Metaphor Machine Finally Finished!

My group has finally finished our Machine. It took a lot of trial and error but we managed to make everything work. This project had a lot more to it then I tought it did. If you would like to read more about this project and the first half of working on it check out my other post on it Here. Once we hit the halfway point I was kinda worried. Most of the parts were turning out nicely but there were a couple parts of the machine that we had no idea how to make work and our machine didn’t have much of a steampunk aspect. Read my blog about steampunk Here. I was worried we weren’t going to get it done in time. We also had to do a video on our machine that we had barely started. Luckily for us we have a great teacher who helped us get back on track.

Our teacher made us make a schedule of what we had to do in each day to get our machine and video finished. This really helped us manage our time better so we get could get everything done. We started off with with working on the electrical circuit needed in our machine. For our circuit we used a copper sticker to run our circuit up a mini flagpole. I’ve never used stickers in a circuit before and I was kinda worried that it wouldn’t work. Thankfully we got the circuit to work and it really made our machine look complete. 

The last thing we had to do to finish off our machine was find a way to make a piece of paper rip in half and release a golf ball. We spent a little bit of time in every class trying to make it work. Sadly we could not find a way to rip the paper so we had to try and find another metaphor for the start of our machine. It was a little tricky but we came up with a good idea that was easy to make work in the little time we had left. Sadly we ran out of time in class to finish the machine so we had to finish it at Sofia’s house on Sunday. When we finally finished I was so proud. I was very happy with how it turned out. Eveythjng worked perfectly and our machine looks so cool.

While we were working on the machine we had to make a video on it. The video describes our project, the aspects that needed to be included in our project, and our making of the machine. We worked really hard on the video and it turned out really nicely. I never really enjoy making videos because I hate the sound of my voice but this one wasn’t that bad. ​​

Metaphor Machine Video

In the end my groups machine and video turned out amazing and I’m really proud of the work we did. It wasn’t the easiest thing but we worked together really well and got the job done.

Check out my group’s blogs

Sofia’s Post

Simon’s Post

Reid’s 

Metaphor Machine Progress Report

As you know in PLP we have been doing a unit on revolutions and steampunk. It is now finally time for the big end of the unit project. For the project in this unit we are making a Rube Goldberg Machine. A Rube Goldberg machine is a machine that makes a doing a simple task more complicated by using a domino effect. Here is and example of a Rube Goldberg Machine. We were all put in groups of 4 people and assigned a revolution. For this project we have to make a machine that uses metaphors to show the revolution. We also have to include a steampunk aspect into our machine. In my group is Simon, Sofia, and Reid. We were assigned the Haitian Revolution.

We started this project a couple of weeks ago by doing research on our revolution and making a timeline for it. In the timeline we had to include the big events in the revolution, metaphors to relate the revolution to our machine, and how the revolution followed Crane Brinton’s Theory. We all put a lot of effort into making our timelines perfect so after they were done we did a Mini project as a break.

After the break we got to start building the machine. My group had lots of great ideas and how to make our machine so we ended up combing our ideas to make the best machine we could. We all brought in our supplies as soon as we could so we could start building. The first day of building was spent mostly planning out the machine with the parts we had and cutting them so they would work better with our idea. There were a couple parts of our machine that we had to alter because they weren’t working. So far our machine is turning out very nicely and is almost working.

While we’ve been working on our machine we have been working on a storyboard for a video. We have to make a video about our machine. We have to explain our revolution, show how we built the machine, and show the machine working. Normally half of our group would work on the machine and the other half would work on the storyboard. We just finished the storyboard today and Sofia and I started working on the video. Everything is coming along very nicely and I think our machine is going to turn out great.  

Check out my groups blog posts

Sofia’s Blog post

Simon’s Blog post

Reid’s Blog post

Dream House

In math we have been working on a unit about graphing. We did many work sheets on calculating the are of rooms and houses. To finish of this unit we got to do a project. We got to go in groups of 2-4 people and had to make a dream house. My group was Kate, Adam, and me. We used an app called room planner. We had to have at least 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, and 1 kitchen. It was a really fun project. I enjoyed being creative and making the house look cool. It was a little hard working in a group with Adam and Kate because we all have very different opinions on things. We managed to agree on things and were able to make a great house. We each had our own room and we were aloud to do whatever we wanted to make our rooms perfect for us. The house turned out really good and I was very happy with our finished product.

Trains During the Industrial Revolution 

       In PLP we are working on a unit about Revolutions. We have learned about different revolutions and what makes something a revolution. To read more about revolutions check out my other blog post Here. In this unit we were assigned a mini project. For this project I had to make an explain everything about how Trains impacted the Britain during the Industrial Revolution. We had to do three drafts so it could be as good as possible. I’m going to be honest. I was not excited for this project at all. I don’t like using explain everything because it is very hard to use and almost always deletes my work. For some very odd reason I actually enjoyed working on this project. 

       To start off the project I had to fill out an outline so I could know what I was going to do. I did a little research on Trains in Britain during the Industrial revolution. Once I had enough information I filled out the outline and handed it in. 

Once I got my outline approved I was ready to start. It took me quite a while to get started because I was really dreading doing it. I eventually started and it wasn’t that bad. I edited all of my pictures, I wrote my script, I added animation and then I was done. I was quite happy with the finished product so I handed it in. You can watch it Here but I’m warning you it is very bad. The next day at school I got one of my friends to critique my work and I had a lot of improvements to make.

I wasn’t as mad to start the second draft. I just had to do a lot of editing to the first draft. I just really wanted to get it done so as soon as I got home I started to work on it. I re-did some of the voice recording and I added more animation and pictures. Once I was done I was very happy. A couple of days later I got critiqued again and had to do a third draft. I added even more animation, changed some of the pictures, and re-did more of the voice recordings. I was very happy of my final draft. I had made it much better than the first draft and I was happy to be done​​.​You can watch it Here. Throughout this project I got a lot better at using explain everything. I don’t hate it has much as I used to and I find it a lot easier to use. This project want as bad as I thought it was going to be but I hope I never have to do another explain everything again. 🙂

Steampunk?

In PLP we are currently in the middle of a unit on steampunk.  Steampunk is a a genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology. It is a different universe that tries to show what the world would have been like if the industrial revolution happened in the Victorian era. When we started this unit I knew absolutely nothing about steampunk. Now I know so much about it but I still have lot of questions. In my blog post today I will be researching and trying to answer one of my many questions. My question I will be focusing on is 

When making something steampunk what are the minimal requirements something needs to be considered steampunk?
I was very curious about this because ever since I learned about steampunk I have been wanting to make something steampunk. To start off with answering my question I thought it would be smart look at what some other people have made and see if I could find a common theme. I looked at a few things and it didn’t take me long to find a theme.

Here is a picture of some cuff links and ring that someone has steampunked. The first thing I noticed about them is that they both have gears. Gears seem to be very popular in the steampunk world. They are a way of showing the mechanical part while still making it look fancy. While looking through pictures one item stood out to me. 
The top hat is one of the most common things I saw while looking through pictures. I found it is one of the most perfect steampunk items. It shows the mechanical part with gears, bands and copper items while still looking like it was from the Victorian era. I decided that I wanted to try and steampunk a top hat but before I could do that I would need more information on how to. 

I found lots of great information to help me get started. I learned that most steampunk items have four elements.

Era- the retro element 

* post industrial revolution, pre-combustion engine

* retro, or latter-day based

 

Power- the fuel element

* steampunk is pre-electric, so lighting should come from natural oils like tallow, or the more typical (of the era) carbide, which is more commonly known as lime or arc-light

* the technology should be steam-powered

 

Technology- the contraption element 

* anachronistic inventions and innovations which would be easily recognisable in today’s world, but which wouldn’t have been possible then

* Robots, submarines, airships, holograms.  Clockwork toaster with in-built egg-fryer, bacon-griller, sausage rotisserie, and coffee brewer a la Caractacus Potts
Materials- the wood and copper element

* Steampunk has no plastic or fossil-based products.

* Polished wood, brass filigree, leather and stained glass should be there in abundance

* Wild West, or Victorian England, appearance is a key element, harking back to the days of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

I thought this information was great but it seems very hard to make one item have all of these elements. I kept reading and I learned that steampunk is a very flexible term. The four elements are more of ‘ideals’. Yes steampunk should be set in the Victorian era but everything else is quite flexible. You can be as creative as you want. As long as the item is based off of the Victorian era all you have to do is add more to it to make it steampunk. After acquiring all of this new knowledge I had answered my question and was ready to start making my own steampunk top hat. To get started I thought it would be a good idea to learn some of the most popular materials people use and use some of them.

Popular Materials

* Wood

* Pipes

* Washers that look like gears

* Flexible metal faucet connectors

* Faucet handles

* Plastic pipe lengths 

* Metal flashing

* Resters

* Copper fittings

* PVC fittings

* Car accessories 

* Wooden dowels

* Sheet materials

* Metal tubes, wires, and rods

* Flexible copper tubing

* Hose clamps

* Brass fittings

* Thermocouples

* Heating elements

* Thermometers

* Knobs

* Handles

* Plastic tubing

* Wooden doodads

* Hooks

* Sprayers

* Lamp pipes

* Screws

To make my steampunk item I found a top hat that looked like it came from the Victorian era and tried to be as creative as possible. I was very happy with my finished product.

I tried to fit in as many as the elements as possible. I put a gear on the right to show the mechanical part and I put a watch on the write to help show the era. I thought making something steampunk was going to be really east but I was wrong. I didn’t realize how much time and planning it would take and my item was pretty simple. I have a new appreciation for people who steampunk items. 
Bibliography:

5 Elements of Steampunk

http://www.steampunk.com/what-is-steampunk/
http://steampunk.wonderhowto.com/news/28-most-popular-steampunk-materials-your-local-hardware-store-0141461/

Revolution Theory Question

In PLP we have been learning about revolutions. To learn about revolutions we had to know what a reavolution is so we look at Crane Brinton’s Theory. His theory follows many steps and he compared the steps to a fever. A revolution starts off with a few signs such as people disagreeing with the ruler with is much like a fever starting off with a sore throat. In this post my job was to ask a question about his theory and answer it. My question is “Why did crane compare revolutions to fevers as if they are all bad?”. Now I will try to answer that question. 

To try to answer my question I will tell you about a few different revolutions and see how they end. I will tell you a little about the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the American Revolution. First up is the French Revolution. The French Revolution started in 1789 and lasted 10 years. A revolutionary government was formed and was in constant turmoil throughout the revolution. There was also the reign of terror. The reign of terror was 1793-94 anybody who opposed the revolution would be charged on treason and executed by the guillotine. Thousands of people were executed including the Queen Marie Antoinette. The revolution changed the social and political structure of France with an end to the French monarchy. It took political power from the Catholic Church and brought new ideas to Europe as well as giving freedom to commoners and abolishment of slavery. These new ideas Continued to influence Europe and helped to shape modern day governments. The outcome was both positive and negative because change was necessary and it gave freedom and rights to the working people but many people lost their lives to make that happen.

The next revolution I will be talking about is the Russian Revolution. There was a series of revolutions against the Russian empire during 1917. Russia was becoming more industrialized bringing many people to the cities for jobs. Working in living conditions were very poor and the people were being oppressed by the ruling family led by tsar Nicholas the second. He was forced to step down and create a provisional government. The second revolution was in October. Communist bolsheviks replaced the provisional government and the royal family was shot and called. Millions of people died of starvation as the bolsheviks fought to control and create a communist government none as the Soviet Union. Communists were able to establish a goverment that was recognized by the rest of the world. The outcome wasn’t good because the people of the Soviet Union were still oppressed by the communist regime.

The last revolution I will be talking about is the American Revolution. Essentially the British government was making new laws and taxes on the colonies of America and the colonies had no say. These 13 colonies wanted a say in the government if they were going to pay these taxes. At first there were just protests and arguments, then some small skirmishes between the colonists and the local British army. Things got worse and worse over the years until the colonies of Great Britain were at war. America gained its independence and united as a single government in 1776. Their were lots of wars and many people were killed.The outcome of this revolution was good. They did have independence and formed a untied government. Even though many people died the America was on their way to becoming the united country and that was better for everyone. 

It appears that revolutions were necessary evils in order for change to take place. It’s important to remember that change takes a long time and Revolutions were not a quick fix. I have drawn a few pictures to represent each of the revolutions I looked at and I put them on an Instagram page for people to see. Here is one of them.

H After all of my reasearch I partly agree with Crane that revolutions are like fevers because they can be very bad but they can also be very good and have helped shape our world and make it great.

Summer 2016

       Wow. This was an amazing summer and I’m so sad it’s almost over. The first couple of weeks weren’t that great. I didn’t really do that much and it was pretty boring. Everyone in my family was bored so my Mom decided to book a last minute camping trip at the end of July. We went camping at Birch Bay State Park and it was very fun. My dad and sister could only stay for the first night because they had to work so the next night my mom and I were alone. On the third night our family friends joined us and we had so much fun. We roasted marshmallows on the campfire, went shopping, and played games. It was very enjoyable but I was so happy to go home. 

       About a week after camping I had to get ready to leave again because I was going on a cruise. I was extremely excited. I had been on a few cruises before so I knew exactly what to expect. I was excited to meet new people on the ship and make friends for life. On the first day of the cruise we didn’t do much except explore our home for the next week. That night I went to the teen club and met a bunch of amazing people from all over America. It was really cool meeting people from different places because we would talk about school and everybody’s schools were completely different. The second day I spent mostly at the pool and the water slides. 

The third day was our first day on shore. Our first stop was Mahogany Bay, Honduras. It was an awesome place. There was a shipwreck right next to where our ship had docked and that looked really cool. That say I went snorkeling with my uncle and we saw so many cool fish. We had heard that Mahogany Bay had beautiful coral reefs and we weren’t disappointed. This was only my second time going snorkeling but it was way better than the first time. After we went snorkeling we spent the rest of the day just lounging on the beach.

       The forth day was another day at shore and it was even better than the first one. Our second stop was Belize. This was the stop I had been looking forward to the the most. In Belize we went cave tubing and zip lining. Cave tubing was an amazing experience. We all sat down on tubes that were tide toghether and we floated through a cave. The cave was beautiful and was very big. When we came out of the cave we were floating down a river through the jungle until we arrived at the zip lining. Zip lining was very fun but I was a little scared at first. It was so cool getting to zip line through the jungle. 

       On the fifth day and our last day on shore we went to Cozumel. This was by far my favourite port on the cruise. We got to go on this super cool speed boat to an island with a gorgeous beach. It was paradise. I spent the day swimming with my sister and lounging on the beach. It was an amazing. The only bad part about that day was I got burnt by the sun. Other than that this was probably one of the best days of any trip I had ever been on.                

       The last day on the boat was very fun but I was sad it was almost over. The next day we got off the cruise but our trip wasn’t over yet. We still had four nights in New Orleans before we had to go home. The first day in New Orleans we went on a tour of the city in a horse drawn carriage. It was really cool but it was so hot there. The next day we went on a swamp tour to see some alligators. It was so awesome. We saw lots of gators and some wild boars too. The next day in New Orleans we went to the World War Two museum. I was actually very excited to go there because I love learning about wars. The museum was very educational and interactive and I enjoyed it very much. On our last day we went on Steamboat Natchez up the Mississippi River. It was a little boring but I had ice cream so I was happy.

Sadly our trip had come to an end and we had to head home. We woke up the next morning and headed to the airport. After a long day of flying, we were home and I was very happy. I missed my dog so much while I was gone and I couldn’t wait to see her. Now sadly summer is almost over and it’s time to head back to school. I’m very excited for a new year of fun and learning with my friends.

SLC

        This was such a great year. I loved doing so many projects and using technology to learn. This was probably one of the best school years I’ve had so far. I was very proud of a lot of work I did this year. For my best evidence of learning I would have to pick my blue sky project. I put a lot of time and effort into it and I am extremely proud of how it turned out. When I first started this project I thought it was going to be really easy. I was wrong, but I’m happy it wasn’t easy. I worked really hard on it and it made me feel so proud of it when I was done. It took a lot of trial and error. I used to give up on projects if I messed up and I didn’t do that this time. Even when I had a good product for this project I thought of ways I could make it better and I redid it. It shows a lot of growth from the beginning of the year. For the mini blue sky we did in December I didn’t work that hard on it and I was not happy with how it turned out so I knew that I would have to work a lot harder on this one. In the end I’m not only proud of how the project turned out I’m also proud of how much effort I put into it. If you want to read more about it I wrote post on it Here. I can’t wait for the next blue sky project.

       For the best evidence of learning and work that could be improved I would have to pick my blog. I have never been excited to write a blog post and I really don’t enjoy doing them. I feel that is why I never put much effort into them. There have been some blog posts that I am proud of but most of them aren’t that good. Most of the time I’m not thinking about how good the blog is I’m just thinking about getting it done. My blogs were better at the beginning of the year but have defiantly gotten worst. A lot of my posts went up late and are repetitive and could use some more creativity. I know for next year I will definatley have to work harder on them. I will have to be better with my time manegment so I can get them done while still having enough time to make them good. I will also have to be a lot more creative so they don’t all sound the same. I will probably write a couple of posts in the summer to help me right better posts for next year.

          This has been an amazing year and has changed me so much. I have not only become a better learner but I have become a better person. I have made so many great friends that have helped me become a better person. At the beginning of the year I was really shy and didn’t like to present my work to people. Now I’m a lot more confident with my work and find it easier to present it to people which was a big goal of mine. I have also gotten a lot better at using critique from other people and critiquing my own work. I used to struggle at finding ways to make my work better but now even when I’m finished I still think of ways I could have improved my work. One of my biggest goals from the beginning of the year was to get more of a growth mindset and I feel like I have definatley done that. I now believe that I can change and I have changed since the beginning of the year. Without PLP I would probably still be a shy person who is never confident with her work but now I’m so much more outgoing and confident with my work and I am really proud of myself.

Blue Sky 2016

Blue Sky is the king of all projects. It is a huge project that we have to do at the end of the year. I had to come up with a problem that I have. It couldn’t be too specific but it couldn’t be too open either. I then had to come up with a ” how might we” question. That asks how we could solve the problem. To help come up with the problem, question, and answer I had to use the launch cycle. The launch cycle is a cycle you go through to help come up with creative ideas for things. Here is a video explaining the launch cycle.

My problem was that make-up has a lot of toxic ingredients that are bad for your skin. My question was “How might we make a line of make-up that is natural and good for your skin?”. I was really excited to start working on this project because I love making things and I enjoy using make-up. Before I could start making things I had to collect all of my ingredients. I already had a lot of the stuff I needed, such as mint extract, vanilla extract, and coconut oil. Once I had collected all of the ingredients I was ready to start. My first batch of products turned out horribly. None of the products were the right constancy or had enough pigment in them. My second batch turned out a lot better and a couple of the products were perfect. I had to make a couple of the products a third time because they weren’t quite good enough. After all the products are done I had to come up with a name for the line and make packaging for them. I wanted to make the packaging unique so I went with a triangle design. I named the line Rosabella because it means beautiful rose in French and I love roses.


I was so happy with my finished products I couldn’t wait to share them with everyone.Once I was done making the make-up I had to make a poster board and two slideshows showing me making the products and what they looked like in the end. Then it was time to present. I was a little nervous about sharing my project with everyone but I was excited to see what people would think. I set up everything and I thought it looked really good. I was really happy with how the exhibition turned out. A lot of people liked my project and that made me even more proud of it. Even though it was a fun project it took a lot of work and I’m happy it’s over.

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