Pause for Thought: Enthusiasm

This week's Pause for Thought is about enthusiasm. Being enthusiastic means more than being just "rah, rah!" at a big game or competition. While it is important to cheer on your team mates, that's not the sole idea behind being enthusiastic.

As a learner, being enthusiastic means being interested in learning. It means going that extra distance to answer those nagging questions about a topic you've learned in or outside of school. Enthusiasm is infectious. It builds bridges, and results in action.

Be enthusiastic about something which makes this world better.

I chose this video because it is enthusiasm in the form of a small boy. What an effort he made and he didn't give up - and what about that cheer he gave at the end. When we are enthusiastic, we get that extra joy of a job well done.

So, thinking about your learning, what are you enthusiastic about? Why are you enthusiastic about it? What have you learned by being enthusiastic about your chosen topic?

"We're all going on a ... holiday!"

We'd like to thank all our visitors and subsribers and let you know we are going on a well deserved 2 week vacation! We'll return to our normal blogging activities on Tuesday, April 8th, 2014. Have a happy and safe vacation, where ever you go and whatever you do. Take Care, Mr. William

Year 3 & 4 PYP Exhibition

Year 3 and 4 put on a fabulous, sparkling exhibition in school today. Our roving photo journalists Iris and Adriel visited the exhibition and collected these interesting video clips from the assembly and the exhibition.
Great job Years 3 & 4!

Year 6 Exhibition

Yesterday, 5G All-Stars had an opportunity to visit our Year 6 friends in celebration of their PYP Exhibition called "Going Global". We had a great time finding out about world trade, black markets, child labour and a range of other important issues. The Year 6s worked super hard and clearly knew what they were talking about and didn't even need rehearsed speeches! Wow!

Here is a little video we put together using Animoto to help celebrate the great efforts the Year 6s have put in to expanding their understanding of these important topics.

Cheetah by James V.

LI: To write a descriptive paragraph using as many writing tools  (similes, metaphors, etc.) as possible. 

I can run faster than a race car at full speed. When I pounce - whoosh, I bring the flaming burning African air with me. Race me if you dare! My spots are a blur as I blast through the desert like a rocket. 
Runners in a race want to be me!


Image Credit: Airwolfhound

Cheetah by Adriel

My spots become a blur. 

The sand around me starts to fly. My fur whooshes in the wind. The sand is a field of bones. My tail swings side to side like a crazy whip as my ears start to twitch.

My eyes shine brighter than the sun.



Image Credit: flickrfavorites

Rainbows by Doga

Rainbows aren’t what people think.
In my imagination they are gray, brown, yellow and pink. Yellow is my favorite fellow. Black and orange are never seen. Green rainbows are a pretty scene. Rainbows are sparkly and shiny too. They are purple, red and blue, rainbows are here for you!

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Book Week: Photo Gallery

This past week, we've had a great time with Book Week. Here are a few pictures we took over the week. Enjoy!

Book Week By Lucy and Esmé

Book Week

Last week, Nexus had a week celebration. The celebration was called Book Week. Book Week is a celebration Nexus has once every year (so it's annual). It is where you try read as many books as you can, write book reviews and read new books. Also, on Friday you get to dress up as your favourite book character. 

This year there was a big dance in our canteen for Year's 4 to 9. We made a parody called 'This Books 'Gonna Be A Good Book'. We all got our books, Year 5 and 4 sat down on the benches while Years 6, 7, 8 and 9 danced to the music whilest coming into the canteen. Then, when the first chorus was sung, everyone got up and danced. We were allowed to dance on the benchs and tables! That was our favourite time in Book Week yet! 

Do you celebrate something like Book Week? If you do, comment about how your school celebrates Book Week. 

Check out other posts about Book Week by 5G and other topics. Don't forget to tell your friends and family and subscribe!

Have a extraordinary, tremendus, enthusiastic, groovy day!

Posted by: Esmé and Lucy

 

My favourite book (by Daniel) "Itch" by Simon Mayo

My Favourite Book is

Itch

"the explosive adventures of an element hunter"

This is my favourite book because i like going on adventures and this book has it all. I also like this book because it is about chemicals and explosions and someone who goes on a lot of adventures to find his elements. 

I would not recommend this book to a friend unless they liked science because there is a lot of science involved in Itch

The main characters in this book are: Itch, Chloe (Itch's Sister), Jack (Itch's Cousin), Cake (the dealer of the radioactive rock), Itch's Mum, Itch's Dad and Dr Flowerdew (Teacher).

At the start of the book he has a phosphorous explosion in his bedroom. At the time his mom is not at home yet and he blows his eyebrows off! When his mom gets home she is so mad because he had blown up his bedroom but also because there is a slight chance that his eyebrows wont grow back! He is always active and he goes on really fun adventures. 

He meets friends and enemies on the way, 

[SPOILER ALERT] 
One of his friends that he meets is "Cake" he is the dealer that "Itch" got all his elements from. "Itch" Then buys a rock that is so radioactive that it sent 10,000 clicks per second on the Geiger counter. He also buys an arsenic wallpaper which he then takes into the Greenhouse and everyone gets sick! After that the school had to take down the Greenhouse



If you want to read more get the book on his website
Go to his website now
http://www.itchingham.co.uk/



The author of this book is SIMON MAYO he has another book called
ITCH ROCK'S

"Itch" really does rock

Would you like to read my favourite book?

Alex's book review

How to train your dragon is a book that I like because it shows that kids can have great minds when they want to. This is my favourite book series partly because the pictures have no colouring and they were drawn by a kid about 11 years old. To me it is an excellent example of the "Action and Adventure" genre.

It isn't a book that bores you every 5 minutes, it actually makes you want to read the whole series and each book is are never too thick or too thin. It never had anything to do with a movie and now that a sequel to the first movie is coming out I think a new series of how to train your dragon  books are going to be out soon as well.

By Alexander

My Favourite Book by James V.

 Minecraft Adventures

Herobrine Rises

Written by S. D. Stuart

My favourite book is Minecraft Adventures written by S. D. Stuart, which is a series of nine books that are about ten year old twin brothers that play Minecraft. I chose this book because it looked like a great adventure book and also I like playing the game on my Xbox.

Herobrine is an evil pixel man that was created to destroy human players in minecraft. In Herobrine Rises one of the twins named Josh gets sucked into the Minecraft world with Herobrine in it!

Josh escaped with the help of his brother Andre. Andre used his computer to gain access to the Minecraft server. When he accessed the world he was able to give dynamite to Josh. He used the dynamite to blow them out of the world without getting hurt.

I like the book because it was breathtaking and captivating to read. The most exciting part of the book was when they got blown out of the world. I liked the book so much I bought the whole series! What I learnt from this book is that teamwork and cooperation are important.

It was a short exciting adventure book that was easy to read but hard to put down!

James .V

Image Credit: Niegel Burton

Pause for Thought: Cooperation

I actually wrote this on Friday but forgot to click "Publish"! Groan... 

Earlier today I had the opportunity to watch one of our school's sports teams (basketball) compete against a well known competitor in our first game of the season. I was very impressed by what I saw.

Although it was clear we had some key players, the team worked together and not one of the players went away without points to his name. That's not to take anything away from our opponents who were clearly skilled and patient. Throughout the game I found myself being impressed at the skills, passing, dribbling and play-making that went on from both teams.

While I was watching the game, it was obvious that the players had one objective. Get the ball in the net - obviously, and it didn't really matter who did it. To achieve that, they worked together really well, they cooperated to make up plays as the game progressed and our opponents clearly pushed us to raise the bar of that cooperation. When our number one and two players were taken out of play, our other members stepped up and performed superbly.

Both teams knew that games are won and lost together. No single player can win a game on their own. It is a similar thing outside sports. A great player, or team member or competitor is judged not by how they do the things that come easily, but by how they contribute when the challenge is beyond them as an individual. Do they throw up their hands and declare defeat as an individual, or work harder and contribute to the unit, group or team? I'm reminded of an analogy:

In a boat with 4 rowers, if only one rows, you go in circles. If everyone rows in their own direction, you'll go nowhere. If you cooperate, you'll get there faster.

Have a great week.

Book Week - My Favourite Book (Geronimo Stilton) by Iris

It's Book Week  at our school and on Friday the school is having an assembly to celebrate all the fantastic books we have been reading, or had read to us. We've had a visit from a storyteller from Canada and lots of fun activities in the different classes. In 5G we've been making videos, board games, posters and our own books. It's been a fantastic and busy week! The following post, is by Iris - great job Iris!

My favorite book is a book from Geronimo Silton. It's a series of books. 

The story I've read about is Geronimo Stilton. He was forced to join a marathon in New Mouse City by his friend Champ so now he needs to wake up at 6:00am. Champ forced him to practice every single day but Geronimo is not the type of mouse to run a long marathon.

Geronimo's family was supporting him everyday until the marathon was finally finished. When the time was up Geronimo was in a crowd of people and at the end even if he was not the best runner in new mouse city you won't believe that he survived the hardest marathon.

I like it because the stories are so exciting and you will want to read more books and find out what's going to happen on the next page. Suddenly, you realize that you are almost finished with the whole book. I also like the Geronimo Stilton series books because it has different stories in every book. It really interests me to read it because the book is a chapter book and it has a picture on most of the pages. They use lots of new words that I haven't heard or read before so I learn a lot of new words I can use later.

Geronimo Stilton is a book for everybody and especially for kids. I give it 5 stars!

This is my favorite book, what is yours? Who is your favourite character?

Acrostic Poem "Monster" by Aryana

Monster

Meat eater
Overgrown
Nasty beast
Scary faces
Terrifying shapes
Energetic
Rare

Image Credit: Gustavo Murcia

Acrostic Poem by James W

Danger

Deadly
Angry things
Nasty little demons
Great at scaring people
Elmo is the exact opposite
Really, really mean

Acrostic Poem "Portal" by Daniel

Portal

Past and present
Original
Ricochet between time
Teleportation
After Earth
Lost in time

Image Credit: Soongpa

Acrostic Poem by Ziyi

Trade

To give things
Receive money
A nice trading partner
Delivery
Export, import

Book Week in 5G! James W.

This week at school we are celebrating Book Week! There are lots of fun things lined up for us this week as we share our favourite books and characters.

My Favourite Book by James W.

Have you ever read about Diary of a Wimpy Kid? It is my favourite book.It is a novel in cartoons and it has been made into a movie too.

It's a series of books about this kid named Greg Heffley .Greg's life in middle school is bad and his holiday is horrible because he always gets bullied and is not strong inside his heart.Physically He is not strong either .Greg loves this girl named Holly Elizabeth but Holly does not love him back.

Sometimes he feels so bad that he pretends to be sick so he does not have to go to school. I like this book because it is really funny as well as sad. Once I laughed so much while I was drinking and ended up spitting all the water out. Good thing about him is that at the end of most diaries he usually finds a way to cheer himself up.

I almost have a full collection of the books now.It is such a good book maybe you should read it,watch the movie or go on the website:http://www.wimpykidclub.co.uk/.