stasman24's learning journey

This month, my class is learning about the civil rights movement and about the March on Washington. To help us understand more about civil rights, we took on a role as someone in the time of the civil rights movement and figured out if we would march. I am a working white student living in Washington DC. It was hard to find a job. I’ve seen civil rights demonstrations on TV, but have never participated in one. I would march because it would be such a big crowd of people marching that I probably wouldn’t get hurt by people who don’t support us or arrested. I also wouldn’t have to travel very far. On the flyers that I’ve seen, it says to march on Washington for jobs and freedom. Maybe after African American people get better jobs, it’ll be easier to find a job for myself.

My one word goal for the rest of the year is perseverance. I chose it because in independant read, I think about which stop-and-jot I should do and then think it’s too hard, so I just try another one. I want to keep trying even when I think something is hard. To be perseverant, I need to remind myself to not give up.

In social studies, we’re learning about India. The topic that I’m most interested in is one of the Hindu gods, Vishnu (most of India is Hindu). He keeps things neat and in order. He can shapeshift and sometimes turns into a human shape. In certain stories, Vishnu turns into Krishna, a hero. He has blue skin, according to Hindu art. I still need to learn when he was created and some of his feats.

My favorite school Chanukah activity is the gimmelist competition. In that competition, everyone spins dreidels for one minute and whoever gets the most gimmels wins the competition. I like it because it’s fun and even if you don’t win. I love Chanukah at MJDS!

In math, we are making fast-food restaurants. You’re probably wondering what that has to do with math. Right now, we’re designing the restaurant. We’re using area and perimeter to do that. We have 2500 sq. ft. of space and we had to put tables and the counter. My group has the counter and we started on the tables. I’m excited about creating the menu and finding out how much money each thing needs to cost. I can’t wait to continue!

I’m thankful for my friends. I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful for a house. I’m thankful for clothes. I’m thankful for my life.

I feel good about using all five senses in my writing. I also feel good about the big multiplication I’m using because I understand all the methods that we’ve learned. I’m showing a growth mindset because when I don’t get something the first time, I don’t give up. In social studies the other day, I was trying to build a float for my state. When using the wood glue didn’t work, I asked somebody else for help next time. I’m going to keep working on not skipping words that I don’t know and using my background knowledge, finding clues from the words around it, or finding a dictionary. Overall, I think the year is going good so far!

Today we did another Repairing Together at Arts@Large. This is my reflection about all of the Repairing Together programs this year. The thing that I liked most about the Repairing Together was meeting new kids. The challenging part was talking to people that I didn’t know. I’ve changed because now I’m less shy around other people that I don’t know. It’s important to meet new people from different schools and areas because later in life, there might be people that are like them that I might have to talk to, so when we do this, we get more practice with it. What I do when I feel uncomfortable with different people is just try talking to them and see what they’re like. I can’t wait for next year’s Repairing Together!

We just finished our biography unit in writing. I wrote about Lemony Snicket, an author. I think what went well was writing the introduction. Something challenging about writing my biography was finding all of the books that he wrote and what year they were published. It was hard because when I searched for some things, like ‘lemony snicket books all chronological order’, it wouldn’t give me all of them, so I searched for another thing and I would find another book, for example, in 1999, that it didn’t list so then I would have find out when all of the books that were published in 1999 so that I could put them in the right order. If I could write another biography this year, I would write about Billie Eilish because she’s only seventeen and she’s writing songs. I can’t wait to read my biography to my parents!

On Friday, we went to Ovation Sarah Chudnow. First, we played bingo with them. Then we had Kabbalat Shabbat with them. After that, we had lunch with them. At lunch, we asked them some questions. Here are some things that I learned about the person I talked to:

1. She had a snake when she was younger
2. She was born in Milwaukee
3. Her favorite color is green

I enjoyed learning new things about someone else. The thing that was hard about the conversation was that I’m a little bit shy so it was sort of hard to talk to her at first but then I got used to her. I didn’t learn anything about Jewish Milwaukee or general Milwaukee history from talking to her. I can’t wait to go back again!