For my Language Arts portfolio—The Importance of Being Earnest, I did not do really well at the beginning. The play was really long so that it was not easy to remember all the details of the play. Besides, the vocabulary was really difficult as well. Therefore, it was quite hard for me to get an overall understanding of the play. For the responses of act 1, it took me an hour to answer each question because I did not know how to gather the information from the book. I decided to read the play for more times so that it would be easier for me to know what to write. I suddenly came up with an idea that maybe I could read it in Chinese first then I could understand better. I found a Chinese edition on the Internet and read it for more than 3 times. It helped a lot since when I picked up the book and read again, I was able to understand what those characters were talking about even if I did not understand some of the words. Once I could understand the story, I felt much more confident to work on my portfolio. I felt like I already got the essence of the play and what Wilde was trying to show to the audience. Therefore, it took me shorter to answer those questions. I think I did quite good at responses part. However, I think what I did not do really well was that I should not have just answered all the questions directly on the responses lists. I should do something more creative and helps combine the portfolio as a whole thing. In the end, I was really happy to see I created such an exquisite piece of work.
Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event which is celebrated each year on April 22; it was first celebrated in 1970. People celebrate it in order to raise the awareness of environmental protection. Nowadays, Earth Day becomes more and more important because the environment is badly damaged by human actions. We have to save it before it is too late. As a student, we should not only focus on our studies, but also focus on what simple actions we can take in our daily lives to save the environment. On April 22, 2016, our Leman students did many fabulous activities to make us have a better understanding of the importance of protecting the environment and how people are damaging it. Grades that are below grade 10 were led by one or two higher-grade students to walk around and visit different activities.
We are going to talk about bag painting, carbon footprint calculation, vegetarian café, water filtration, vampire energy, and t-shirt bags. Bag painting was a useful and entertaining way to use bags. You could create your own bags in whatever you want. You would like to cherish the bags you made by yourself. For carbon footprint calculation, people could realize how much energy they waste so that they would take delight in saving energy in their lives. Vegetarian café is where you can eat some food but is only made from vegetable. Actually, the food tasted quite good and like meat even if they were just vegetables. I personally think vegetarian café is a very good activity because if people can eat more vegetable instead of meat, first, it is quite healthy. Besides, contemporary meat production requires a lot of crops. For example, in America, 80-90% of cereal is used to feed animals which is a huge number. Meanwhile, meat production also causes serious pollution to water, air and soil. That’s why people should eat more vegetable. For water filtration, it helps people to clean the water using natural resources without using any chemicals which can cause pollution. It is a more environmentally friendly way to deal with waste water. People now use electric appliances more and more frequently; and vampire energy tells us how much energy is wasted by the electric appliances we leave plugged in. This activity is quite effective and useful because it is trying to remind people one of the most common but serious problems in their daily lives. To make a t-shirt bag, all you need are an old t-shirt and a pair of scissors. With these two things, you will be able to make a pretty, strong and useful bag. Therefore, you will not waste the t-shirt that you don’t need anymore, and you can bring it with you when you go shopping so that you don’t need to buy a plastic bag which is very harmful to the environment.
After these funny and interesting activities, we know more clearly about the environment. I believe everyone is happy to make their own effort to do something for our mother Earth. I hope everyone can regard every day as Earth Day and cherish this planet we live on.
Science Week
For science, we should not only study it from textbook, but also experience it in our lives. That’s why we had science week. In this week, our higher-grade students led lower-grade students to do a lot of fascinating and interesting experiments and learn something from them. On the first day of science week, we did the experiment of mixing corn starch and water. Higher-grade students helped teachers finish the site layout such as covering the ground with huge plastic bags to keep the ground clean. Then we helped kids to put on their aprons so that they would not stain their clothes. After all the preparations, we started out experiments. The mixture of corn starch and water was an amazing substance. When we let it still, it was liquid; but when we pressed it really hard, it would become solid. I guessed it was somehow related to attraction force, repulsion force, and the distance between molecules. Looking at those kids playing extremely happily, we did not care if our clothes would be dirty or not anymore and joined them to play together.
On the second day, we did the experiment of magic milk. When we put milk and food color together then put cleanser, the food color would spread and diffuse. I did some research for this experiment. It may be because the density of food color is lower than that of milk; that’s why the food color floated on the milk and stayed still. When we added cleanser, the cleanser would destroy some interior structures in the milk and lessen the surface tension of it so that the food color would move. We were so happy while looking at the expressions of happiness and wonder on those kids’ faces.
On the third day of the science week, we made a beautiful decoration with oil and water. First, we added a small amount of water with a depth of 2 centimeters in a plastic bottle. Then we added plenty of oil but without filling the bottle. The water and oil did not mix with each other because they had different densities. After these steps, we added a few drops of food color. It passed through the oil and mixed with the water at the bottom of bottle. Then we put a piece of Alka-celcer tablets in the bottle; it would sink and react with water to produce a lot of bubbles. If we used flash light to irradiate the bottle from the bottom, the light would go through the mixture of food color and water, then lighted up the oil and bubbles. It looked so beautiful. Kids were really happy because they could keep those bottles as presents.
On the last day of the exciting science week, we did the coolest experiment—Alka-celcer tablets rockets. We put a piece of Alka-celcer tablets in a tiny plastic bottle with water then it would explode. It was because when the tablets reacted with water, they would release a lot of gas; and the lids of the bottles were not able to stop the increasing amount of gas so that they explode. Kids had a lot of fun in wonder but a bit fear too.
For me, the science week was funny and pleasuring. Besides, I was able to learn some scientific knowledge and strengthen the ability of communicating with other people. Most importantly, I noticed the ideas of teaching in Leman. For those little kids, we should always let them do what they could do by themselves and only help them when it is necessary. It is good to build the ability of being independent, Meanwhile, after the experiments, the teachers would always ask the kids why do you think it is like that, certainly, 99% of them could not get the right answers; but it cultivated imagination, the abilities of seeking knowledge, asking why, and thinking. Plus, little kids would say thank you to us after every experiments. They learned to be polite. Science week was pleasuring as well as educational.
Literacy Week
On March 21, we officially started our literacy week. It was such a long week because there was so much fun that the time went quite slowly!
We started with the tongue twister competition. Some teachers demonstrated their incredible skills for us first. Those similar words were as easy as breathing to them naturally and clearly pronounced. All of us were so impressed. The competition was divided in three levels depending on the difficulty. The lower graders started first. Although the tongue twister of them seemed to be easy for us but it was hard enough for them. However, all of them did a great job because they all finished their tongue twister. For them, I don’t think we need to compare their speed as they should be complimented just because of their courage. For the higher graders, of course, the twister was harder but they still challenged themselves and finished the competition. Still, they were great enough just because they could read out loud in front of many students and teachers. I think the tongue twister competition is a great way to encourage students to practice their pronunciation.
Then the next day we had the Reading Under the Star. To understand it literally, we could tell that we read in a darker environment. Thank the parents in LFA, we were able to read in a room exquisitely decorated by them. There were small colorful light bulbs and electric campfire to ensure there was light for us to read; tents and chairs to simulate field, tatami and blankets to avoid us sitting or lying on the hard ground. We were allowed to bring our own books or listen to our teachers read for us. It was a great way to make students feel reading is more interesting and fascinating in that novel conditions. It made us love reading more. Meanwhile, it also helped us have an understanding of the learning conditions of the children in the mountains and cherish the environment we have now.
There were most events on Friday to end this fabulous literacy week. On period 3-5, we started those events with categories games. It required us to write down English words in different types such as movies, names and cities started with the letter we were given. We were divided in different house so it was a house competition too. The moment teacher read out the letter, everyone in every houses started thinking immediately. Higher graders and lower graders cooperated so well. Sometimes, those creative little kids even came up with more words than middle and high school students. We were really impressed and proud of them. There was one thing I remembered clearly. When we tried to figure out words, those words were from students from different countries and we had no idea what some words were so I wanted to call that global quiz. I think that was the essence of international school. Then we went to have a look at students’ school work. There were many articles in different topics and different language and some models made by primary school kids. All the articles were fantastic and same as those models. In this event, we could know what other students in our school were learning and increase some knowledge as well. After that, we went to library to have the scavenger games. We were asked to find the books with different conditions in the list. It was hard because most of us were confused about the categories of the books in the library but all of us tried our best to cooperate and finish our own tasks. Although it was hard, when you found the book you would have a strong sense of achievement. I think that stimulated us to finish that game. We could have a better understanding of the categories of the books and find the books we read before or haven’t read yet through this game. Besides, it also made us more patient and careful because it took us a long time to find them.
Passion Project
For my passion project, since it was my first time to do this, I felt a bit confused at first. I couldn’t figure out an idea. My thoughts were not crazy enough. Mrs. Taynton helped and encouraged me a lot; she told me that I need to do something which I am interested in. I like to do sports and make something on my own so I planned to make a bow and arrows with PVC tube. Tiger suggested me to look for some videos on YouTube to learn the techniques. It was a good way for me to improve my English hearing too. In those videos, it seemed that making a bow with PVC was really easy but actually I am pretty sure that I will fail for many times.
To make a PVC bow, I need some PVC tubes for the body of bow, a heat gun to make PVC tubes softer so that I can curve them into the shape of a bow, and some bead wire to make the bow string. Since I don’t have a heat gun, and I want to make a bow with low cost, I am going to have a try with the stove in the kitchen first. I am not really sure if it is going to work or not. For the arrows, I planned to buy some at first but then I found that maybe I can make some with branch or bamboo so that it costs less and is more funny.
I am going to buy some materials and get started this weekend. Hope that I don’t fail for too many times.
Experience of Reading Frankenstein(Stage 3)
When I first saw the introduction of this book, I fell in love with it because science fiction is one of my favorite types. It tells a story about a scientist’s life. This scientist found the secret of lives and then he created a machine that could give lives to dead bodies. He stole the limbs from corpse to make a body. He didn’t tell anyone about his works because it was kind of dirty. Then he gave life to the dead body he made with that machine. The creature was so enormous and ugly so the scientist ran away immediately when he saw the creature woke up. No one liked that creature. Whenever people saw it, they either ran away or hit him. Then he learned to hate. Because the creature was strong so that he learned how to kill. His father—the scientist didn’t give enough love to it which encouraged him to destroy the scientist’s love and life. The creature killed the wife of the scientist on the first day of their marriage and then killed all the family members of the scientist. At last, the scientist died in sadness and the creature suicided. It was such a sad but also educational story. It was sad because that was not the first purpose of the scientist to cause the death of his family members and himself. It was educational because it warned people to use the science wisely and the advantage of technology has benefits as well as disadvantages. I realized that people should be responsible and nice to everything. Sometimes, we shouldn’t be misled by the external image, the inside part is more important. This was the first time for me to enjoy reading an English book so much. Frankenstein (Stage 3) is easily to read and has a quite good story. I felt the sense of achievement when I found that I knew all the words in this book but it was kind of too easy for me so next time I will get a harder one to read.
My Feeling about Language Arts Class
Hello everyone. This is my first blog since I joined Mrs. Taynton’s Language Arts class. For me, I don’t think my English is good enough to participate Language Arts because I still cannot understand what teachers are talking sometimes. I don’t even know why I am already graduated from EAL class, that’s amazing. But honestly, my English improved a lot compare with that when I just came to Leman. Before joining Language Arts class. I was so afraid of it that I always think Language Arts class equals to 2000-word essays and I don’t think I can write good essay. Besides, Mrs. Larson always told us you are going to do most of the things by yourself without teachers’ help. That made me more terrified. But actually, at the time I came to Language Arts class, I found that I was wrong because Mrs. Taynton always helps us with our questions and the class doesn’t always equal to essays. Other students did variety of works such as campaign, presentation, shelfie and reading. In class, we are sort of free sometimes because we can arrange our own time to decide work we are going to do. I think that’s a good way of having class. Although reading English novels is still a bit hard for me but I will try my best to improve my English to catch up other students. Most importantly, I realize that it is much easier for me now to understand what teacher and other students are talking about than my first Language Arts class!
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