Tech-Taters

Writing stories is a universal thing. People do it all around the world. Even though, in school, we are not currently writing stories, many of us are at home. For example, I am currently writing three story’s at home, and I have two ideas for ones that I want to start when I finish one of my current ones. One of my stories is shared with my friend, we both write on it. You see, we use google docs to write, this way we can write on our stories from any computer, and we can work on a story with a friend or two.

Stories come in all shapes, sizes, and types. It may sound weird when I say shapes and sizes. What I mean is, if you have a book in a diary format, it’s probably going to look different to an epic. I think writing stories is very good for you. It is fun, but it can also help you. Writing stories has helped me a lot lately. My parents separated about a year ago, and writing about other people who have the same feeling as I do has helped me stay calm, when I feel like I could explode.

I think writing stories is good for the mind, and it is good for kids of all ages. I encourage everybody to keep up on the story writing!

-Catherine

This week we looked at polygons. We tried to figure out how many degrees are in each shape. We made a chart of the shapes triangle through decagon. We figured out the total interior degrees of all of those shapes. To do that, some of us split into groups, or partnerships. Each person or group investigated, and we, as a class, determined how many degrees each shape had. Also we realized that after a triangle each side adds 180 degrees, for example, if a quadrilateral has 360 degrees then a pentagon has 520, 360+180. Each person (or group) made a poster about one or two polygon(s), and how many degrees are in it. Then, we presented them in front of the class. We explained both visually and through words what we had done.It was a great project. Some kids were able to figure out a rule for finding out how many degrees in any polygon.

-Catherine

Decoding the Decagon from katy gartside on Vimeo.

Today we had a special visit. This year we are studying ancient china. Some musicians from the Music in China group visited our school. Music in China is a group of Chinese musicians. They introduced us to a few instruments. There was one that looked like a violin, except the bow was attached to the string. It also had a snake skin box on its bottom, which affected the sound. Another one was like a little guitar, except with a few variations. Its strings where nylon wrapped over steel, and they were so hard that you have to wear plastic nails to play it. Over all, the performance was very interactive, fun, and interesting. I hope many people have enjoyed it as much as I.

-Catherine

Music in China