stasman24's learning journey

I feel good about my student-led conference. I feel good because I think I did a good job. One of my goals was to close my locker quieter to not disrupt other classes and I will start doing that. Gev. Voras also suggested that I look at the fourth-grade math curriculum. I think I got to say everything I wanted to say and didn’t leave anything out. I like being in charge of a conference because I get to say anything I want in m point of view. If a teacher was doing it, they could say something that’s not true for me like that something challenged me but to me, it didn’t. I can’t wait for the next student-led conference!

On Wednesday, we went on a walking field trip and to the Milwaukee Public Museum. On the walking field trip, I learned that the place that I always go past on the way to my synagogue is the place that Byron Kilbourn (one of Milwaukee’s founders) lived there and that it’s called the Benjamin Church House. It’s called the Benjamin Church House because someone named Benjamin Church built it. At the Milwaukee Public Museum, I learned that Solomon Juneau came to Milwaukee in 1818. I also learned that it cost $1 for six tickets for a restaurant and 5 cents for one movie ticket. That surprised me. I thought that the walking field trip was very experiential. I wish we could go again.

We had a math test today. I think everything went well on the math test. The thing that went the best on the math test was probably greater or less than in fractions. I know that when the denominators are the same, the fraction with the greater numerator is greater and that if the numerators are the same, the fraction with the smaller denominator is greater. I think that fractions went the best. I liked fractions the most on the test. Nothing really felt confusing on the math test. I stayed focused the whole time and did my best work.

School is going well. I think math is going well because I’m very comfortable with our time unit. I enjoy going with Gev. Milbeck on Wednesdays because her math is a challenge. I’m not really struggling with a class, but for the past few weeks, I’ve been forgetting my library books. I’m going to try to double check my backpack. Not just on Thursdays (library days) but every day to make sure that I have everything. My one-word goal (kind) is going well. I don’t remember any times where I was being selfish. Overall, I think school is going well.

Since we are talking about immigration in social studies, we interviewed someone in our family. I chose to do both sides of my family. Here is my dad’s side: My great-grandparents were born in Poland and then went to Italy in 1947 because of the Holocaust. They left by bus. That’s where they got married and had my grandma. All of them then left Italy in 1950. They went to Kentucky because they got a job there. They left by boat. Then my great-grandparents died when my grandma was older and she got married. Then she had my dad and my uncle. After meeting my mom, they moved to Chicago and got married. Then they moved to Milwaukee in 2001 and three years later they had my brother. Six years later, they had me. One of the similarities between my dad’s side and the people in the video were that they came by boat. Some of the differences are that they came from Italy and Poland and the people in the video came from places like Germany. Here is my mom’s side of the family: My great-grandma was born in Lithuania. They left Lithuania in 1915 because they wanted a better life.

My one-word goal is kind. It’s going well because I don’t remember one time so far when I made somebody feel bad or wanted to be the scribe and took it from them.

I think school is going well. The part that’s going the best so far is probably math. I pay attention so I understand everything and that makes math very comfortable and also I’m good at understanding complicated things.

The thing that is challenging is taking notes in Social Studies. In Social Studies we’re studying old Milwaukee and we’re watching videos about the making of Milwaukee, but it almost never gets paused, so I usually miss the most important things. But the rest of Social Studies is pretty good.

Most things in school I feel good about.

In our class, we did one-word-goals for 2019. My one-word-goal is to be kinder. What I mean by kinder is that I already know I’m kind, but sometimes I think I’m being a little bit bossy or selfish to the people in my team or group. I sometimes want to be the scribe and then I beg them and eventually they give it up, but it’s going to change this year. I’m going to do it by being more empathetic and kind. I’ll think, “How would I  feel if I  wanted to be the scribe and my teammate was begging me to give up my part.” Also, I think that I am kind in many other ways, so that’s good. I’ll try my best to be more empathetic and kind.

In math, we are reviewing adding three digits. Gev. Voras makes us do place value drawings/proof drawings. We are all getting really good at doing it and I think it’s really fun. It is very comfortable to me now. How you do it:

1. You draw how many ones, tens and hundreds there are (and thousands, if there are any).
2. You see if there are at least ten ones. If there are, add a tens stick to the tens.
3. You see if there are at least ten tens. If there are, add a hundreds box to the hundreds.
4. Write how many extra ones there are.
5. Write how many extra tens there are.
6. Write how many extra hundreds there are.
7. You’re done!

My group and I read Sarah, Plain and Tall. My partners were: esatler23, zmesserman23, mkhayat24 and rmiller24. For our project, we did a movie commercial. It went pretty well. What went well was that everyone got a part that they were fine with. The thing that I would do differently next time is I would probably try to convince my group to do a board game. Overall, I liked book club because it was really fun.

We did Repairing Together again today. I saw Marielle again. We went to First Stage and talked about Ruby Bridges. We split into three groups and acted out Ruby Bridges’ first day at school. We learned that she was the only one in her class because none of the lighter-skin parents wanted to send their kids to school with Ruby because she was black (I know, right?). I think the reason why we go with two different schools is so we can be around kids with different skin colors and different religions. We’re doing Repairing Together so that we can do things together and interact with other schools. I think we talked about Ruby Bridges so we could learn about her and her life and what she did to change history. Did you know that Ruby Bridges is still alive? It was fun learning about her and how she was the first black girl on the south of the U.S. to go to an all-white school. I can’t wait to go to Repairing Together again!