A Field Trip to Remember by Sierra

Rory, Dylan, Abel, and Mrs. Marco put their invention on the test pad.

Kids learn about the brain.

On Tuesday, October 21, my sixth grade class and I went ot the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley. We learned many things, such as traction and global weather. We were split up into three different lab groups: One group learned about what makes up the brain, what triggers what, and even touched a real brain! Another group had the chance to learn about hydraulics. The final group, which I was in, learned about wind turbines and watts of power. During the hour, we discovered how many blades are usually on a wind turbine ( windmill ) and about what shape, size, and weight of blades produced the most wind power. Cool fact learned: wind turbines turn wind energy into electrical energy. Additionally, the energy travels to smaller towns and fuels electronics such as lamps, radios, and computers.

After we finished our labs, we broke into little groups and explored the museum. With many activities, nobody was left behind. Many people visited the “ Math Around the World “ room and tried games from Japan, China and more. Who knew that math could be so fun? Others decided to stay by the “ Weather Conditions “ room. In this room, students could make it “ rain “ with the movement control simulator. By putting your hand over the glass screen the valley would soon experience rain or snow. Of course this did not happen in the real world, but it was still fun to imagine. Other classmates chose to stay by the “ Insect Zoo “ , where different species of bugs could be seen. The size of the bugs varied from microscopic to the size of a hand!

One of the most popular spots was the outside area. There were structures to play on, a beautiful view of the San Francisco Bay, and even a pond. People leaped from stone to stone and attempted to block the water ways with plastic boards.

The front of the museum was a vast and open area to play….. Everything having to do with science. There was a DNA strand and a life size, 45 foot model of a whale. The fountain was a hit and a nice spot for lunch.

This was a fieldtrip to remember! All of my classmates thought that we should do something like this again. Possibilities surround us for taking another fun adventure with our school.

      

                                     

6th and 7th Grade Pre-Algebra Students Unite to Work in ♥Math♥ │By Rani

It’s always great to work together in any way, and that is why working together is one of Leading Edge’s pillars. And that is also why Mrs.Hanson (6th Grade Math Teacher) and Mrs. Ferran (7th Grade Math Teacher) thought that they should take each of their kids from the same level of math and have them work together for a fun and mathematical project.

In the 6th Grade Pre-Algebra class, everyone was to pick a partner even though they already had a partner from 7th grade, so they made a team of four.

Together, they were assigned a mathematical subject that both classes had already learned and have to reteach it to everyone else. Example, my partner is Manelle and we were assigned “ Multiplying Fractions Using Real World Problems”. Now Manelle, Her 7th grade buddy, my 7th grade buddy and I have to make a video reteaching that same lesson we learned before using any program we would like. I think that it will work out! ☺

To Mrs. Hanson: Congratulations from Leading Edge about your wedding! I hope you have a wonderful marriage! ♥

My Blog: LHS Field Trip By Alexis

As everyone knows, we recently took a field trip to Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science. It may have been a long drive, but it was definitely worth the wait. There were so many awesome exhibits to see, and there was something for everyone. The three workshops that we were split into seemed very interesting and awesome! Whether you were looking at the human brain, creating a hydraulic machine, or building a mini windmill, I think it’s safe to say that everyone had a great time! I know I did!



The hydraulics workshop was the one I was involved in, and I know that it was very fun! We created our own machine using the science of hydraulics to be able to lift 12 ounces. Manelle says, “My favorite part was the workshop! It was so cool to see all the animals!” From what I can tell, everyone loved this awesome experience!


The museum was so cool and interesting with so many things to see. There were creep crawlies, games, and interactive exhibits such as the create a dam that was outside! One thing that was very much worth pointing out was the amazing edge-of-the-world-like view from outside. You could see almost all of San Francisco from there! That view made me a little scared due to a small fear of heights, but I still enjoyed every bit of it. I would have to say that the outside area was my favorite part of the museum. It was so beautiful, relaxing and peaceful! I could’ve spent hours looking of that ledge! Alyx also says that her favorite part was the view over San Francisco!

This field trip was lots of fun and I’m sure that lots of people will want to go back again soon! Thanks for reading!

Lawrence Hall of Science, by Sai

I had a lot of fun at LHS. We did things like engineering, playing games, and playing around the museum. I went to engineering with hydraulics lab, and it was super fun! Amol (my partner) and I had to create a machine that could lift 12 OZ. using only piston, little tubes, a platform, wooden lifts and arms, and plastic cups. Amol and I were the first ones to finish and accomplish the challenge. Here is our machine to the left.

After everyone made their machines we got to present them, and me and Amol rose our hands as high as they could go. The teacher picked us and we presented with a lot of enthusiasm. After that other people presented theirs and they used ideas that were very unique like ours. after everyone presented we got to go in to the actual museum and explore. I found some really cool stuff like a room with a big sphere hanging from the ceiling that has projections on it.

We went to another room where there were games for the mind, for example, mancala. After that I went outside in the back of the museum and played around in the water. there were also telescopes we could see through and look at things like the golden gate bridge and islands in the ocean. after we went outside we went to the game room again and played really fun games for a longer time. After we played games for about an hour Ms. Hanson came and told us we had to go. We were sad but we eventually went to the bus.  That is my trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science.

Lawrence Hall of Science, by JohnPatrick

When we got to the Lawrence Hall of Science, we played on the whale until the bus got there. Mrs. Hanson told us us what to do and where to go so we wouldn’t get lost and have no idea where we were going. We had to quickly run down the stairs until we reached our lab. We were the first people there so we sat down closest to the door. Those were the closest seats when we walked in. In our group was Caleb, Caleb’s dad, Jeren, Christian, Zachery, and myself.

We built many different wind turbines and our wind speed got up to 1.2 volts of power. The best was 1.8 by two other groups. I learned a lot about wind turbines and it was fun. I learned that people use wind turbines to power electricity. The faster the wind turbine rotates, the more electricity is generated. We all had different fans that caused the wind turbines to rotate faster or slower creating more or less energy.

After, we explored the museum's other two stations. One station we got to race cars and I beat all the courses. The second station we got to make video’s out of pictures. Zachery, Caleb and I, made two videos. Both videos were silly, but fun to make.

We found a fountain outside and tried to block the water flow with a few boards just for fun. But we didn’t have enough boards to block the rivers flow. We took a few pictures of the best view in the world and we could see the whole city from that viewpoint .

Caleb and I, found a building area and we built a few buildings and had a competition to see who could build the highest one and he won. We knocked down our buildings the fun way ( we tossed blocks at the buildings).

It was fun, but it was time to leave so we said goodby to the whale and left after having a great time and great experiences.

            

            

Mesopotamia Puppet Show Palooza, by Shelby

The Puppet Show Palooza was a puppet show dedicated to ancient Mesopotamia. Two groups from each of the sixth grade classes showed their plays based off of real historical events. As a spectator, the show was fantastic and each play was funny and full of information. I interviewed some of the actors, and this is what they had to say… ¨I thought it was great, and all the plays were great!¨ reported Cole who played Nebuchadnezzar in The Hanging Gardens from Ms. Meindl’s class.
 “Cole’s performance with the waterfall was pretty cool,¨ agreed Daniel who played Hammurabi and Patrick low from Mrs. Hanson’s class.
 ¨It was funny and had a lot of information, but I thought Charlie [as the Hammurabi puppet] was abusing his servant [Ryan’s Enkidu puppet],¨ said Michael who played Gilgamesh in Gilgamesh and Enkidu from Mrs. Bibayoff’s class.
 ¨I think Charlie just got a little too into character,¨ Ryan agreed with a smile. Overall, actors and spectators all enjoyed the Mesopotamia Puppet Show!

A Letter to Kids in Haiti, By Anshul

LE Alumni, Sarah, with Haitian students in Port-de-Paix.

October 2014: Currently, in the 6th grade Leading Edge Expression class, everyone is sending letters to 5th-7th grade students in Haiti. It is like having a pen pal. Sarah, a former Leading Edge student is helping everyone in the classes with how to make the letter, and is teaching how to draw the art in the letter so is Mrs. Meindl.

I think that this is a very interesting project for anyone to do. Many kids are excited here, and many of the kids in Haiti would be too. Everyone is very excited to receive a letter in response. Everyone wants to know: How’s life in Haiti? What do they eat? What is interesting in Haiti?





February Update: Leading Edge students have exchanged letters with their Haitian pen pals during Expressions class. They've enjoyed learning about each other. Sarah Allen (Leading Edge graduate currently in high school) has created a beautiful art installation of portraits of both student groups. It is on display February 2, 2015-February 13, 2015 in the NCS Multipurpose Room Gallery. Photos below are by Charles Allen.

Jaden’s Blog: Genius Time in Science/Tech

I want to write about the Genius Time project we have in Science and Tech class. For Genius Time, the main thing we have to do is try to build something, try to learn and finally explain a lesson to the class. For this project I am doing a solar paneled robot that is called the Quadru-bot. It has 4 legs and has a Wally shaped head with a solar panel on top. I chose this design because it looked like a cute bug and it had small legs. After I finish building the robot, I then will show it to my classmates.

"It is also fun to learn how to do things that you think are impossible or you think you can’t do."

I think this is a perfect idea for us to learn and build experiments doing it ourselves and presenting something we wanted to do. It helps us learn how to build complicated things. It is also fun to learn how to do things that you think are impossible or you think you can’t do. In Genius Time, we also get to see and learn what others did for their experiments. There are some examples of projects in class where other students are trying to fix or break apart a broken object that doesn’t work any more to figure out how it worked. Some examples are solar paneled items and objects or animations.

Artist Reports by Kate

Amol's Tribute to Picasso

In the 6th grade expressions, the classes just finished up their artist reports. They had to pick an artist of their choice and learn about the world famous artist and write a report and do a recreation of their work.Everybody worked very hard with making a report. But people worked even harder on the recreation of the artists’ work.

Shreya's Tribute to Brandon McCollen 

I am in awe over Amol’s recreation of Picasso’s work. And Shreya’s recreation was very good. I also learned a lot about my artist, the world famous Walt Disney. I learned that Walt Disney made over 20,000 films/cartoons. I am happy we did this project because it helped everybody learn something new, and I think that was the important part to this project.The effort everybody put into this project blew me away. It was easier to succeed with Ms. Meindl being generous with class time and helping and being supportive.I couldn’t have asked for more supportive classmates and teachers.

Star Wars Rally (from Two Perspectives)

Amol (Leadership Member aka "Darth Amol"): 

The rally was enjoyable for the people who put it on and the people who came to attend it. Being on the Leadership team, I was one of the people who produced this event. There was no challenge because it all fit together and everybody was committed, including the Spirit Squad. In fact, we didn’t even know what our scripts were until that morning which kept it fresh. Our team just fit in even with only one hour of practice. This rally was really awesome because of the support and effort by Leading Edge.

JohnPatrick runs through the Spirit Squad Tunnel.

Nicole (Spectator/Volleyball Player): The rally that was held at Leading Edge was absolutely amazing. The taiko performance was full of color and it really helped everyone get excited. Leadership did a great job at putting everything together. In my opinion, the Star Wars theme was a great idea. Many people at Leading Edge love Star Wars and this really gave them a chance to show their spirit. It was great for NCS boys’ soccer and girls’ volleyball players to be recognized for their achievements on and off the field. Also, Spirit Squad did an amazing job at getting our school excited for this rally. This rally was fantastic and I really can’t wait for the next one.

Video Link: Check out Taiko's "Glow Show"

Welcome!

Welcome to our new Sixth Grade at Leading Edge Academy blog. This blog is intended to be used by all three Core teachers. Each week, selected students from each Core class will blog about a school topic of their choice. We'll rotate this writing duty so all students have a turn to add to this throughout the year. Please follow us if you'd like to be emailed updates for new postings!