Global Warming Report : 5th Grade

Hrishika chose to work on "Global Warming" for her Earth Sciences project this year. She spent several days researching on the subject and wrote, edited and typed it all by herself. She also had to make a PowerPoint presentation for her class and give a quiz. She scored a perfect 100% on her report which got her an A+. Click on the cover page below to read her report.

Here's are the links to her PowerPoint presentation and quiz:

Global Warming Presentation by Hrishika

Global Warming Quiz by Hrishika

Since working on the report, she is putting more emphasis on being GREEN!!!

Walden West : Field Trip 5th Grade

This year one the highlights of being in 5th grade is going on a week long trip to Walden West. From the perspective of a student, it is the most anticipated and awaited field trip and from the perspective of a parent this is a very dreaded field trip. That's because, for the first time there are no parent volunteers and the children are away for the whole week. Parents are not allowed to visit unless it is an emergency. Also as a parent I was concerned about the 2 minute long showers, where they have to shampoo their hair every day.

The children on the other hand just couldn't wait to get started. I remember my daughter was so excited the day before the trip, that she was finding it hard to fall asleep. Still she was up very early the next morning and got ready for the week long trip. I can see why children are so excited, they got to do such fun stuff on each and every day. Their days' were jam packed with fun stuff like going on hikes, singing and dancing around camp fires, fun games and bunch of other stuff. Basically it was a 5 day long sleepover party with no parent in sight. Who could blame them.

Upon return she told me it was the most fun field trip ever! Here are some stuff they collected during their nature hikes.

Recorder : 4th Grade

Hrishika's school had taken part in karate recorder challenge in 4th grade. The students show their progress by working for various levels of belts that go on their recorder.

The following is the list of songs they need to performon recorder to earn each belt.

Hot Cross Buns – White Belt
Gently Sleep – Yellow Belt
Merrily We Roll Along – Orange Belt
It’s Raining – Green Belt
Old MacDonald Had a Farm – Purple Belt
When the Saints Go Marching In – Blue Belt
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star – Red Belt
Amazing Grace – Brown Belt
Ode To Joy – Black Belt

Here's a picture of all the belts Hrishika earned.

Art In Action : 4th Grade

Hrishika took part in "Art in Action" as an after school activity. The class would meet once every month. It was a fun class. Here are some of the artwork by Hrishika:

At the end of the year they have an art show and here is some of the artwork from the art show.

Enjoy!!!!

Stock Market Game : Award Ceremony

Hrishika's team got to attend an award ceremony for their second place win in Stock Market Game (SMG). The award ceremony was held at Bank of America in San Francisco's Financial district. Each winning team got to give a speech.

Here's the text version of their speech:

We are honored to be here today to share our experience about the Stock Market Game. Before we were in the stock market game, we all thought that the stock market was something to do with business and money. Through this experience, we learnt what Stock Market meant and how to invest our money carefully. Our biggest highlight in the game was when we found out we were in second place, all the way up from 13th place just a few days earlier. The best thing we learnt was even if the stock value is high; it doesn’t necessarily have to be good.

The way we chose our stocks, was we chose companies that we knew people use a lot, and rely on. The stocks we chose were Skechers, Fed Ex, Apple, Yum brands, Children’s Place and Scholastic. All of our stocks performed very well, except for Yum, which we traded for Microsoft.

The things we learnt about long term planning, saving and investing, are if you are not sure whether a stock will earn or lose money, do not invest in it for long-term. Also, you have to plan carefully before you buy a stock, or things might go wrong. To save money, don’t use all your money on one stock, in case that stock goes down.

Our team worked well together and we enjoyed working with each other. When we couldn’t decide on which stock to buy, we listened to each other and did what seemed more sensible. Our funny experience was when we typed in random stocks and one of them turned out to be a good stock, even though we didn't invest in it because we didn’t know what it was.

When we begin working and earning money, we will save money and invest some of it in stocks, so if our investing doesn't go well, we have a backup plan. When we think about our participation in the stock market game, the thought that stands out the most is that we learned two important things, first to invest our money wisely, and second to closely monitor our stocks, which helps us to know if we need to trade any stock. It was a worthwhile experience.

We all thank SIFMA Foundation and SIFMA member firms for making the stock market game and giving us this opportunity. We also thank Ms. Fleischer, for teaching us the stock market skills we now have. Thank you.

Here's a link from an article published in San Jose Mercury news regarding the SMG.

San Jose elementary and middle school students beat hundreds of other schools in a virtual stock market game. - San Jose Mercury News

Doodle For Google : 2010

Hrishika's school registered for the doodle for google art contest in 2010. The theme was "If I could do anything I would". Here's what Hrishika came up with. She would "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle". She was one of the finalists from her school.

Explorer Diary : 4th Grade

As part of the 4th grade projects, students had to write diary entries for an explorer to include some important and relevant information about the explorer in his own words. Also the students were asked to make the diary look old and worn out by using different techniques. Hrishika's had to write all about Sir Francis Drake. In the following slide show you could take a look at the different diary entries Hrishika came up with for Sir Francis Drake's diary.

Jedi Warrior Training

We had been to Disneyland for Hrishika's sprig break this year. One of the fun things Hrishika got to do was take part in the Jedi Training Academy in Tomorrowland terrace. We did not know about this before we went there. Hrishika is very interested in Star Wars, so when we saw a show with star wars characters we wanted to check it out.

Basically the Jedi Master chooses some 25 to 30 kids randomly from the audience in the age group of 5 to 12 years old. He seems to pick those with a lot of enthusiasm to participate. Hrishika was lucky enough to be chosen. Basically they make them all wear a brown padawan robe and give them each a light saber. Next they have to take an oath. Then they are shown some basic Jedi moves and out comes Darth Vader and each child gets to fight against him.

She had a real fun experience. At the end of the training they gave each child a certificate.

School House Rock

This year Hrishika got to take part in a musical, "School House Rock". PTA hired Starting Arts, an outside company to help with the musical. Basically Starting Arts asked for 100 kids in total, so they could divide them up into 2 groups of 50 each. Each group was further divided into four sub groups (A, B, C & D). Only around 70 kids signed up for the play, however. That meant there was only one group. What that translated into was more kids in each sub-group and kids had to perform in four shows instead of just two. So Hrishika was in Group C. Each group had to learn two songs plus a third song which all the groups had to perform. Hrishika enjoyed learning and performing. It was a fun experience overall.

Science Project : 4th Grade

For her 4th grade science project Hrishika worked on a simple electric motor with a switch.


The following are the materials used for the electric motor.




Here's the elctric motor with the switch open.



Here's the electric motor with the switch closed.

Mission Brochure : 4th Grade

As part of the 4th grade projects, Hrishika had to do a mission brochure. Her mission happened to be "Mission Santa Clara De Asis". Here's her brochure.

She drew the picture of the mission on the front cover.

In the middle of the brochure she wrote about how the mission evolved over the years to it's current state.

On the back of the brochure she wrote about some important facts about the mission and a map and directions to get to the mission.

California Relief Map : 4th Grade

Each student was asked to make a California Relief Map, using dough, salt, and water. At school, first she made an outline of California on paper. Using this outline, she formed the relief map out of dough. Once the dough hardened she painted the relief map. The map was mounted on cardboard.

The following recipe was used to make the salt dough:

• Mix together 4 cups of flour and 2 cups of salt.
• Slowly pour in 1 ½ to 2 cups of water. (Add water only as needed.)
• Knead well.

Map includes the following:

• The San Joaquin River
• The Sacramento River
• The Sierra Nevada Coastal Range
• The Coast Mountain Range
• The four main regions (desert, Central Valley, mountain ranges, coast)

Field Trip : Fourth Grade

This year Hrishika's class went on a field trip to Sacramento. This was an all day (7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M) field trip and covered some of the important spots in California history. It is an important field trip for 4th graders since it covers lot of what they have learnt in social studies this year.

This field trip was different in the sense, that the kids got to ride a luxury bus instead of a school bus. They were allowed to eat food on the bus and watch DVDs. So the kids were super excited. Here are some of the sites they visited and the pictures taken. Click on the links (links appear in orange) or the picture to find out more about the places visited.

• Eagle Theater
  
  



• Sutter's Fort
  
  



• State Capitol Building
  
  



• Wells Fargo Museum
  
  Here's a link to read more about the Wells Fargo's history
  
  



• Railroad Museum
  
  Here's another link to read more about Railroad Museum History.
  
  

Here's slide show of all the pictures from the Sacramento Field Trip.

Stock Market Game

Hrishika's school offered the Stock Market Game (SMG) as an after school activity. So we signed her up for the class. The class would meet every other week for an hour. This was a great way to teach kids about the stock market in general and in the bigger picture also teaches them how to manage money. The details about this game can be found at the SMG's official website.

Each team is given a virtual amount of $100000. They have to use up but not exceed that amount and the other rule is they need to buy a minimum of 100 stocks of any given company. These are some of the stocks she and her friends decided on buying with their virtual $100000. Apple, Sketchers, Yum, Scholastic, FedEx and a few others.

Hrishika's team placed second in the entire western region. So her team was awarded a medal and a certificate of recognition. Hrishika was totally thrilled with her medal. She was sporting it all day(I don't blame her). I too was proud of her performance.

Rain, Oh, Rain

It has been raining here all week long. Hrishika's class was asked to write about Rain. This is what she wrote. Her teacher thought Hrishika did the best job of writing and asked her to share it with the whole class by reading it for them. All I can say is, that makes me proud!!!

Rain, Oh, Rain

I woke to the sound of rain tapping on my window, like knocking on the door. As I stretched, I saw the trees sway in the breeze, and I started getting ready for school. At school, the Pitter - Patter of the rain overwhelmed me. I watched as the rain fell to the ground, and then crawled in all directions. it looked as if it was Spaghetti, and a large fork was spinning it around. The rain was dancing to the song of the wind. About five minutes before recess the speaker turned on, and the principals voice bellowed, " Rainy Day Recess." Oh no. Not rainy day recess once again. It was rainy day recess for two days in a row already. During recess, I looked out the window and watched the rain drop down on the floor. Suddenly, a long sharp piece of lightning dashed to the floor. Followed by that was a loud thunder, growling at me. As the thunder echoed, I thought, what a storm.

Reverse Glass Picture Frame

Hrishika's friend Chandana gifted a reverse glass picture frame to Hrishika on her 7th birthday. She finally got to work on this picture frame. I got these Fevicryl glass paints from India.

Hrishika learnt that you start glass painting by outlining the design with a black out liner. Here is the picture frame with the outline done.

Once the outline dried, she painted the blue and green glass colors. Here is the finished product.

Speech : 4th Grade

This year's topic for the fourth grade speech contest is "Peace - What It Means to Me". The student speeches are supposed to characterize what peace means to them in either a global, local, family or personal context and describe why peace is essential in the world or community they live in. The speech limit is 300 words.

Hrishika chose to write about inner peace. She wrote the speech all by herself without any help. I was completely in awe when I saw the content of her speech. Considering that she is only 9 years old it had quite a deep meaning. I was speechless (pun intended). The following is what she came up with for her peace speech.

PEACE

Have you ever wished you were always happy, never sad, angry or afraid? Well if you have, peace is the key for you. If you tell me the words inner peace, there are three main things I’ll think about. One is how it feels to be in peace. Another is yoga and meditation. The third is how inner peace is a treasure.

There are many different feelings going on in a moment in peace. When you’re in peace, your mind is clear and all your troubles vanish. You feel free to be yourself, and happiness flows through your whole body. When your mind is clear and relaxed, you earn peace, and the power of being happy and calm. Being in peace is like a bird, flying free, after being stuck in a cage for a long time.

Yoga and meditation are two ways to bring peace to your mind and body. Meditation is a way to be peaceful. It helps you be calm, and sets your mind in the state of peace. Once you do meditation, you can really focus and think about the things that matter to you. Yoga brings relaxation to your body. It helps eliminate stress. It also helps you to think clearly.

What’s truly a treasure to you? To me inner peace is an important treasure. Inner peace not only brings happiness but adds relaxation and harmony to our lives. Inner peace can’t be given to you, but you can earn it if you try from all your heart. With inner peace, your worries are behind you, and wonderful things are the only things you think about.

As I told you, the three things important to me about peace are, how it feels to be in peace, how yoga and meditation help achieve peace, and lastly, how inner peace is a treasure. Peace is important to this world since peace brings a sense of joy and harmony, which makes this world a better place to live in.

Canvas Tote Bag

Hrishika's friend celebrated her 9th birthday at Michael's Craft store. So they got to decorate a blank canvas tote bag.

Hrishika decorated hers beautifully. First she started with an orange border on the top edge. Next she ironed on some applique flowers, dragonfly and a butterfly. She used 3D outliner to outline the dragonfly. She glued on some stones and stars randomly. She also did some stenciling using lavender and purple. Finally she wrote her initials using permanent markers.