2022-Innovation day

Last month marked the start of Innovation Day, where the entire school took part in a month-long project. Each grade was given a different assignment to work on, and grade 6 was given electricity. The objective was to create a PowerPoint about electricity and circuits. After the slide that we made we made a game using wires, batteries, buzzers, and lights. Wires, batteries, buzzers, and lights were used to make a variety of inventive games. People made something called “don’t touch the wire”, basketball, soccer, pinball, etc. My partner and I decided to make pinball.

My mind was blown when we first received this assignment since we got to construct electrical circuits and games. It was a bit of a time crunch for us, and if I were to do this process again, I would make several changes. As a result of our poor time management, my partner and I realized that we needed to work smarter, not harder. Following that discussion, Joel and I worked much more efficiently to complete the job and receive an excellent outcome. I’ll apply what I’ve learned from this project to my other projects so that I can be more organized when it comes to planning.

Here is a video of our project:

Stuck inside of a video game

I woke up to the sound of a loud bang and discovered I was in the middle of a large crowd watching a boxing match. I assumed I had forgotten to remove my VR headset because it wasn’t the first time it had happened, yet I kept banging my head and I wouldn’t wake up. I went over to one of the security guards to ask about where I am and the boxing event, and he told me that it was the finals of Crow vs the undefeated Rising Falcon. Now I remember clearly that that’s one of my older brother’s video games (Crow vs Falcon). So that must mean that I’m stuck inside his video game. But no, how can this happen? We gave that game away to someone years ago, so that can’t be the cause. Anyways, I need to get out of here now before it’s too late.

 

I tried texting my parents but it wouldn’t work; it kept saying, “Your message has been declined,” so I tried to remember back to when I went to bed. I think I turned on the TV and accidentally fell asleep before I could turn it off. I checked my pockets and there it was! The TV remote was right there, I must have put it in my pocket right before I went to bed. Right before I went to sleep I think I was watching youtube so that also couldn’t be the case. I looked around and realized that everyone was staring at me and that I was in the boxing ring, being stared down by the undefeated Rising Falcon. The referee blew the whistle and the match started.  I kept panicking for my life and tried to get out of the ring but was unable to do so because of an invisible wall. That should have been obvious to me! I remember always playing the game with my brother, and the game would not end until someone was completely knocked out. Rising Falcon moved over to me in anger, ready to throw his first punch, but then right before he struck, my life turned black. Oops! I accidentally touched the off button on my TV remote. I turned it back on and that’s when a new beautiful world was in my sight!

 

I look around and I see no clouds in the sky, with beautiful seas. Oh, I think I recognize this game. It’s called Blox Fruits and it’s about pirates and seas. Well, at least it’s better than fighting that big monster. I guess ill take this ship then. It looks nice and doesn’t have a million bugs on the floor. This would be a nice place to stay for the day, but I need to get out of here right now. “Wake up, wake up, breakfast is ready”.  what is that noise?    Am I dreaming?  “What’s happening ?” My eyes slowly return to reality, and I notice my mother standing right there, waiting for me to arrive. I asked about what was going on, and she said that I had been asleep since 12:00. “Get up and eat breakfast, or should I say “lunch,” as the case may be. When I told my mother about my nightmare, she said she had a dream that was similar to mine. I said, “That’s really cool.” “Perhaps we can talk about it over breakfast,” she suggested. And with that, my strange nightmare comes to an end.

Board game

For this project, we had to create an artifact for a specific book of our choice. Artifacts that we could’ve created were a board game, a mock YouTube channel, a children’s book, a web page, or even a podcast. I chose to make a game.  In this post, I will present to you a summary of the book and game instructions.

This book contains 4 short stories about different kinds of dragons. In the final story, Arctic was an Icewing who was forced by his mother, Queen Diamond, to marry a dragonet he didn’t like (Snowflake). Even though he knew Snowflake disliked him, he still felt obligated to obey his mother’s orders. There was a visiting delegation of Nightwing dragons to negotiate a truce between Icewings and Nightwings. One day, Arctic met this really nice Nightwing dragonet named Foeslayer while Snowflake and Arctic were out for a walk. Foeslayer was apparently a dragonet who was just a Nightwing passing through the Icewing Kingdom. They fell in love. (I hate that part).  It was unfortunate for the Arctic that Queen Diamond would not allow him to marry a Nightwing because she was very nice to him, unlike Snowflake. Snowflake had this friend named Fox, who also despised Arctic. Soon after, Snowflake and Fox came up with an idea to kill Arctic. Arctic and Foeslayer decided to run away. When they did, the guards were angry and tried to stop them. The Arctic used its magic to freeze them. He stole some items and planned a get-away. Unfortunately, when one of his friends tried to stop him, he used magic and accidentally killed him and six other guards. Also, when Snowflake tried to stop him, he magnified Foeslayer’s fire breath and burned off her wing completely. He felt very bad about maiming Snowflake and killing all the guards, including his friend. Lastly, instead of running to a faraway island, he had to go to the Nightwing Kingdom, where he would be an outcast. In the end, I think he made a bad decision which he will regret. Love makes people do dumb things.

I thought it would be fun to make a board game based on moving around the Icewing Kingdom, fighting other dragons, stealing things, and trying to escape. I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Dragon Escape

 Instructions:

How to Win:

The objective is to win by either fulfilling your mission and getting to the Nightwing Lair or being the last dragon alive!

Set up:

Each dragon starts in a hallway. The youngest player is in hallway 1, and players clockwise will be in hallways 2-4. To see the location in the hallway, roll the die and start that many spaces away from the Great Hall. Each player picks a dragon card, a mission card, and a skill card.

Dragon Cards:

Each dragon card has attributes that inform their fighting, health, and movements. Health is how much damage you can survive on. Each attack from another dragon or an NPC (dragon guard) takes away your health. Keep track of your health with a piece of paper and a pencil. Defence is your shield. Whoever is attacking you needs to match or beat your defence with a die roll. For example, if your defense is 4, your opponent must roll a 4, 5, or 6 to successfully hit you. The attack is your modifier to your die roll for how much health you remove from your opponent. Speed is your modifier to your die roll for movements on the board. For example, if you have -1 and you roll a 4, move 3 spaces.

Mission cards:

Before you make your way to Nightwing Lair, you must go to a room to retrieve an object or fight someone for an object (your mission). Your mission card tells you what your mission is.

Skill cards:

Every dragon has a skill. A skill card will help you with fights or movement. Skill cards include:

  1. Fireball: This gives automatic damage of 6 without a die roll. Note that this can only be used once against each player.
  1. Spear attack: Can be used to attack another dragon from a range of 4 spaces. You can only have one successful hit per opponent.
  1. Freeze: This attack allows you to freeze your opponent for one turn (skipping their turn).
  1. Teleport: This move allows you to teleport 6 spaces away (you can’t go past a player or NPC and can only be used twice).
  1. Ice Shield: Can defend against any attack (can only be used once).
  1. Sweet talk NPC: An extra 2 attack points on an NPC (can be used until one successful hit).

Prize cards:

Prize cards can be achieved on your way towards the Nightwing lair! You can earn prize cards by stepping on purple spaces. Prize cards can grant you many benefits, such as increased health or the ability to pick up another skill card.

Some prize cards that I made were:

  • Gain 5 health points
  • Spear attack-allows you to attack a dragon up to 4 spaces away instead of 1. This can only be used once per opponent.
  • Fly fartheradd 2 spaces to your next die roll.
  • Pick up another skill card.

How to fight:

A fight begins when you are in the same space as another player or are one space away from them. The last person to move starts the fight. You first roll to see if you can get past their defence, and if you do, you roll again to see how much damage you can inflict on them. If you have any modifiers on the attack, apply them after the role.  If an attack is successful, the dragon that is attacked loses that much health. After one full round of fighting, you or your opponent can choose whether to continue fighting or flee. For example, if Foeslayer attacks Arctic, and Arctic responds, Foeslayer can leave or make a second attack. Then Arctic may leave or make his second attack, etc. Note that you cannot pass a dragon without at least one round of fighting.

NPC:

An NPC is a non-player character. These are guard dragons. If you have a die roll that takes you through an NPC, you must pause and make it through the NPC. Roll dice—one for you and the other for the NPC. If you roll higher, continue with your original movement. If the NPC rolls higher, you lose that much health and roll again until either you die or you get past the NPC.

Here is a picture of my board game:

 

Reflection questions:

  1. Explain why you chose your specific artifact type to connect to your book

I chose to make a board game on my book since my book is an adventure story with fighting, magic, dragons and travel. I enjoy all kinds of games including sports, video games, card games and board games. I made this game to incorporate different parts of this story.

2.  Explain why you chose the elements from your book that you included in your artifact

                    My book involves dragons so each character is a different dragon from the book. I added attributes such as speed, health, defense and attack to individualize each character and make the game more interesting. I added skill and prize cards to add more elements of the book such as fire breathing, freezing guards and throwing spears. Lastly, the objective of the book is to escape to the Nightwing Kingdom just like in the book.

3. Reflect upon what you would change if you were going through this process again

                   If I were to go through this process again, I would start writing the blog earlier and blog about my book along the way, and I would possibly read a sequel to the book because I am so interested in it.

 

Grade 5 Public Speaking: Diversity in Hockey

Hockey is Canada’s national winter sport. Even though Canada is one of the most diverse countries in the world, you wouldn’t know it from going to the local hockey rink, or an NHL game. I’ve been playing hockey for 5 years, and I’ve noticed less diversity on the ice and in the locker room than at a park, restaurant, or museum.  Is my observation real?  Is diversity in hockey even important?  Yes and Yes. Good morning Judges, teachers, and students, today I will be talking about diversity in hockey.

 

In the NHL, only 5.7% of players are BIPOC – that means Black, Indigenous, People of Color. Compare that with 80% in the NBA, and 70% in football.  Five points, seven percent. The problem in part comes from the fans – 77% of hockey fans are white – basketball, by the way, has 45% white fans, soccer, 34%.  Maybe white fans mean white players.  Another cause of the problem is access.  Hockey can cost a lot of money.  In a recent poll, most parents said they spent over $5000 on equipment, team fees, tournaments, and courses.  Since BIPOC people are often disadvantaged, they may not have the money to spend on hockey.

 

Diversity is important because when we are around different people we can learn from them. People from different cultures have different stories, ways of eating, playing, and even laughing.  On the other hand, when there is a lack of diversity, people grow ignorant and sometimes mean. It is also important because there are many races and cultures in Canada.  But if this is not reflected in workplaces, universities, and sports, that means that there is probably unfairness.  So improving diversity improves fairness and is a win-win because we can eat, play and laugh together and learn from each other.

 

In fact, lack of diversity can even be associated with racism.  Calgary Flames coach, Bill Peters, was abusive to a lot of players and made racist comments to black players like Michael Jordan, who were afraid to speak out because coaches have a lot of power. There are lots of examples in the past decade of fans being racist to black players too. For example in 2018 a black player, Devante Smith-Pelly, was taunted by opposing fans shouting “basketball, basketball, basketball”. 

 

But hopefully, we are reaching a tipping point.  Young people like me are demanding change. There are new movements and organizations like the Hockey Diversity Alliance, whose purpose is to get rid of “racism and intolerance in hockey and to inspire a new and diverse generation of hockey players and fans”. They raise money to buy equipment for young Black and Indigenous players, provide diversity training for coaches, and scholarships for qualified players. I support their efforts and call on the NHL to try to get more diverse fans.  In the end, we all win when diversity and fairness happen.

 

Hero School

For creative writing, we had a few options of what we could write about. I chose to invent a school for heroes! As stated in the document, this school is located underground so it is very hard to find. This is a boarding school so you can send your kids there for a year and not have to worry until next year. I chose this idea because I knew I could write a lot about this topic and it would be very fun. The next day when I started writing about it, ideas burst out of my mind. It was really fun working on this project and I had lots to write about.

Here is my creative writing:

                                                   A.S Academy 

                 

The school that I am going to invent is a school for heroes. The school’s name is A.S Academy. It Stands for All-Star Academy. A.S Academy is a boarding school so people live there! This school contains a multitude of different heroes like super strength, invisibility, flight, and mind-reading. The school is very safe. It has an alarm system so that the school will know if anything goes wrong, like if one of the villains attacks the school. The school is located underground so not many people know about it. To get into the school you have to try out. It is very dangerous trying out because you might get severely injured. If you pass the tryouts there are 4 different houses you can be put in. There are the Black Bulls, there are the Golden Dawns, there are the Hobbins, and there are the Goblins.

 

 Each house has its missions. If you complete a mission you get stars for your house. Each year all the houses compete to see who gets the most stars. You don’t have to complete a mission to get a star because there are year-round festivals that you can win at. Depending on how hard your mission is, you get more stars for the harder your mission is. 

 

When you reach grade 12, you have to fight against villains who try to destroy the school. You get a lot of stars if you defeat a villain. If you get injured during battle it’s ok because there is a medical team to save you. The medical team is very advanced so nobody has ever died in battle. To get into the medical team you need to pass the medical test. The test is very easy because all you have to do is heal an injured person. Each medical team has their own personal trainers and they get 1 dummy assigned to themselves. They are very skilled and a helpful part of A.S academy.

 

This is what every hero should look forward to. It is called The Sports Festival. The Sports Festival is a festival where all the heroes compete against each other to win 100 stars for their house. There are different themes for the Sports Festival. Each year they change it up. For example, for one year maybe we could play soccer. For the sports festival, you are not able to use your powers because that would be unfair to people with different powers.  This will be a very fun school that you should sign your kid up for! I’m telling you, you won’t regret it! Contact us at 613-245-3452 or ua.acad@gmail.com.

 

My Mishpacha

A few months ago we started a project about our family. When our class first got assigned the project I was really excited because I could learn a lot about my family and some facts about my family. The information that I shared in the slide were where they originated from, what our traditions are, why my parents moved to Canada, my ancestors jobs and their hobbies. There was also one part where we had to write about our Hebrew names and their meaning behind it. My name is Benjamin and my Hebrew name is בנימין . בנימין means son of the right hand. I believe that every name holds a special meaning behind it. When I presenting my project I was very confident that I wouldn’t screw up. This was a very good experience in learning about my family.

Here is my Mishpacha project:

Truth And Reconciliation

Have you ever heard of truth and reconciliation week? The term reconciliation means to restore a relationship. From 1880 – 1996 Indigenous kids were taken out of their homes to go to these schools called residential schools. These schools would take indigenous kids and force them to not speak their language, they would cut the kid’s hair, and they wouldn’t be allowed to talk with their brothers or sisters or else they would be punished. 

 

The kids were really excited to go to school for the first time and they thought it would be really fun and they would learn new things. When the kids arrived there they had to leave their culture behind them and they were forced to learn and speak English. If the teachers heard them speaking their own language they would get whipped. If you have ever heard of orange shirt day it’s about this girl who was so excited to go to school and her grandma bought her an orange shirt for school. As soon as she arrived at the residential school they took away her shirt and made her wear a uniform. That is why we have orange shirt day because it is to pay tribute to the indigenous community that had their culture taken away from them.  It is important that we continue to learn yearly as part of our school curriculum about indigenous people, and the atrocities that happened to them when they were forced into these schools. 

Monday, September 30th is Orange Shirt Day - Métis Nation of Ontario

Residential School Photos Show Canada's Grim Legacy of Cultural Erasure -  The New York Times

 

 

You In Numbers

 

A few weeks ago we started a project called you in numbers. You in numbers is a project where you write about yourself but in numbers. For example, how do you spend your day, write it in a fraction? There are different slides that you can choose from. different slides had different questions. One of the questions is: Do you prefer the mountains or the beach? I personally like the mountains more because in the winter I get to ski!