Aaron's 5th Grade Blog Blue fish, red fish, green fish, majestic fish 

Note: there was snow on Friday, when I do my posts, so in this post, I will do both week 23 and 24.

 

These two weeks, 23 and 24, were very crazy. The reason why was because on Tuesday and Friday on week 23, there wasn’t any school. As a result of this, 23 and 24 were merged, and that made things complicated. For example, we didn’t get another morning work sheet, but we did get another recces-ELA transition sheet. Another example is we were supposed to bring our folders home on Tuesday, instead of Friday, and I forgot because that was very irregular and I had to spend recess in study hall, which didn’t bother me, because then I had time to FINISH THE PILES OF WORK WE GOT THIS WEEK! Anyways, onto what we did this week, or should I say these weeks?

One thing we did these weeks was we started our second song, about opinion and informative writings. Also, I’m rushing this post so I can hopefully finish the extremely hard-to-make lyrics by the time the sun explodes. Another thing we did this week was we finished our opinion writing projects, and presented our PPTs for it. One more thing we did this week was we did our track tryouts, which I was not interested in at all. Yep. This was our week. All the fun things were work. Which I don’t mind. I like work.

 

Rescue Dogs Compare Contrast

By: Aaron Matheny

 

Have you ever seen a dog herding sheep? How about saving countless lives of avalanche victims?

In the two articles “It’s a Dog’s Life” by Rebecca Upjohn Snyder and “Hide-and-Seek School” by Vivienne Lenk, they are writing about two different types of working dogs, herding dogs and avalanche rescue dogs. In this essay, I will comparing and contrasting these two types of dogs.

 

Herding dogs and Avalanche Rescue dogs have many differences, and I know because the two articles “It’s a Dog’s Life” by Rebecca Upjohn Snyder and “Hide-and-Seek School” by Vivienne Lenk, they have a lot of information showing that herding dogs and Avalanche Rescue Dogs are very different. One difference is the two dogs work in very different places. For example, herding dogs work on farms, but avalanche rescue dogs work on snowy mountaintops. Another difference is they have different calendars. According to the texts,”It’s a Dog’s Life” by Rebecca Upjohn Snyder and “Hide-and-Seek School” by Vivienne Lenk, herding dogs work year round, but avalanche rescue dogs only work in Winter. Yet another difference is avalanche rescue dogs are their owner’s personal pets, unlike herding dogs, who aren’t. One more difference is the breeds of dogs used for these two types of working dogs. Border Collies are used as herding dogs because of there instinct to gather stock, or farm animals, and bring them back to their masters, while avalanche rescue dogs are usually shepherds or retrievers because they have strong instincts to retrieve, or bring back. These are the many ways herding dogs and avalanche rescue dogs are different.

 

The two articles “It’s a Dog’s Life” by Rebecca Upjohn Snyder and “Hide-and-Seek School” by Vivienne Lenk give me a lot of examples of differences, but they give also give me a large amount of similarities between Border Collies and Avalanche Rescue Dogs. One similarity is they both have instincts that are why they got the job in the first place. “It’s a Dog’s Life” by Rebecca Upjohn Snyder states “They were chosen for their instinct…”, and “Hide and Seek School” by Vivienne Lenk also informs us “They have strong instincts to retrieve…”. Another way these herding and avalanche rescue dogs are alike is they both have to go through training. “It’s a Dog’s Life” by Rebecca Upjohn Snyder states “Years of practice has helped too.”, and “Hide and Seek School by Vivienne Lenk explains “The dogs are trained to find people buried in avalanches,”. One more reason is both dogs work in a team. “It’s a Dog’s Life” by Rebecca Upjohn Snyder states “David and his dogs work as a team.”, and “Hide and Seek School” by Vivienne Lenk states “The dogs are their personal pets and rescue partners.”. These are just some of the numerous examples of the two dogs’ similarities.

 

 

In conclusion, herding and avalanche rescue dogs are very similar, but also different in many ways. I have heard of many other working dogs, such as police and marine dogs, but these two types are the best I have seen. If I were caught in an avalanche, with numerous feet of snow above me and freezing to death, I would hope for an avalanche rescue dog team to save me, and if I were a shepherd, with many sheep to get back in the pen, I would definitely want a herding dog to assist me in my hard work.

 

Should Pluto Be Classified?

By: Aaron Matheny

Have you ever heard of the expression, “My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas”? Probably not, because in two recent articles I just read, “What is a Planet?” by NASA and “When Is a Planet Not a Planet?” by Daniel Santos, both state that Pluto is not a planet. Many people are arguing about this topic, and the two sides are for Pluto being a planet or Pluto not being a planet. In this essay, I will give my opinion on whether Pluto should or shouldn’t be a planet. I strongly believe that Pluto should not be a planet because Pluto’s reclassification will add numerous other planets to our solar system and Pluto doesn’t meet the 3^rd criteria of a planet.

One reason I think Pluto shouldn’t be a planet is if Pluto is reclassified as a planet, many other objects found on the Kuiper Belt, which is a large belt in space with a lot of objects like Pluto, will also have to be classified as planets. Specifically, this means that there will be a total of 52 planets with many more to come. If this happens, it will be next to impossible to memorize the names of all the planets, much less give them names. The article “What is a Planet” states that “Some scientists believe that if Pluto remains classified as a planet, then the dozens of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) orbiting our sun will also be classified as planets.” As a result of this domino effect if Pluto is classified, I still stand with my belief that Pluto shouldn’t be a planet.

Another reason I am opposed to Pluto being a planet is that Pluto doesn’t meet the 3rd criteria in the IAUs, who are the group of people who name and classify planets, definition of a planet, which is “A planet must clear other objects from its orbital path”, which means the planet must have enough gravity to push other objects out of their paths, and Pluto doesn’t do that. It is true that less than half of the IAU actually got a chance to vote on the definition, but the majority of the people who did vote on the definition was for the decision to make an official definition, so it wouldn’t have mattered. “What is a Planet?” states “According to the IAU, Pluto doesn’t meet this third requirement but is now in a new class of objects called “dwarf planets. Since Pluto doesn’t meet the 3^rd criteria of the IAU’s definition of a planet, I still feel like Pluto shouldn’t be a planet.

In conclusion, I very strongly believe that Pluto should not be considered a planet because if Pluto is classified, many other KBOs will also have to be classified as planets, and Pluto doesn’t meet the third requirement for the IAU’s definition of a planet. There are also good reasons for Pluto being a planet, like “Not enough members voted”, and “For historical reasons”, but I still believe that Pluto should not be a planet.

My class and I have accomplished a lot this week. One thing we did, or 3 things we did was we did 3 writing prompts to practice for the big opinion writing test on Wendsday next week. It was hard to do all of those 4 paragraph prompts, but after doing them, I felt very good about the coming test. The first prompt we did was an opinion writing on whether Pluto should be a planet or not. The second prompt we did was comparing and contrasting two types of working dogs. The last prompt we did was comparing and contrasting two people’s point of views on pollution.

Another thing my class did was we hada basket ball tournament. I’m not going in to detail about this, because all I know about it was that it happened. One more thing that My class and I did was yet another pizza party due to someone in our class getting #1 in Ticket To Read. These are some of the things my class did this week.

 

Literacy Night 1

Literacy Night 1 from Jordan Haney on Vimeo.

Literacy Night 2

Literacy Night 2 from Jordan Haney on Vimeo.

Literacy Night 3

Literacy Night 3 from Jordan Haney on Vimeo.

Literacy Night 4

Literacy Night 4 from Jordan Haney on Vimeo.

Literacy Night 5

Literacy Night 5 from Jordan Haney on Vimeo.

This week was very exciting, because we got to do a lot of new things. One of these things is we finished our first song on punctuating titles, and my team did pretty well, I made up most of the lyrics and got them to go along with the song’s beat. We are also making a karaoke version for the song, but we haven’t finished it yet. The song is on I tunes, but I wasn’t there when we made the name, so I will give that later.

Another thing we did this week was we worked on our commercials for Literacy Night, which is a book fair at our school. The theme of Literacy Night went along with my school’s theme this year, which is superheros. I played one of the main roles in the commercial as Batman, and I will be uploading the commercials soon.

One more thing we did this week was we started our opinion writing. You see, we have been practicing opinion writing for about 2 weeks now, and judging from the opinion writing test today, I am pretty good at it. I admit, I am kind of nervous of the big opinion writing test, but isn’t everyone? You can probably see how this week was very exciting, and I am really (not) looking forward to the opinion writing test, and i’m talking about the big one, not the one I took on 29/1/16.

 

 

The one on the top is mine.

This week was not as good as others, but it was still great. One thing we did this week was we started working on our educational songs, and my team is doing the song on punctuating titles. Another thing that happened was we finally got the pizza party from JK getting 1st place in the country on Ticket To Read, which is a website where you read stories an then answer questions about the story you just read. One thing we will do later today, 1/15/16, is we will do an obstacle course with our new reading buddies from the special needs class. I am really looking forward to this because it sounds like it will be fun to do that with Will, my reading buddy. Most of you just read this will probably be thinking, “How is this week, in anyway, not as good as other weeks?” Just read my other posts,       and you will see what I mean.

As I said in my last post, I am getting of tired of saying “This week was so fun” so I’m going to come up with something else.

 

This week was so full of variety of activities we did. One thing we did was we finally finished our movie trailers, and we got to watch them this week, and judging from the reactions of my team’s classmates, we did pretty well. Another thing we did this week was we received cards from our Russian pen-pals, and we all got Russian candy, and I got some kind of rice cake. One more and very exciting thing we did this week was we got new reading buddies, but the special thing about the reading buddies we got was that we were working with special needs kids, and it may not sound very exciting, but it is actually very fun to help a kid with special needs read, and it feels like you are doing something very good to the world. This week was so amazing, probably because it was the first week back to school.