14-Day Challenge Debrief- Meral- AEP 9

From how I see it, a habit takes a minimum of 21 days to master. When we form a habit, there is a chemical dopamine that is released to the brain, adding on to a sense of accomplishment and strength in one’s abilities. It doesn’t only increase our belief in oneself, but also enables us to perform the best of our abilities. Looking back into the duration of the 14-day challenge and all that I’ve achieved throughout, I believe I did fairly well as I managed to mostly score myself with 9’s and 10’s by the end of each day. Although, I have to admit, there is room for improvement.

For my pre-challenge, my main plan was to lessen the time I spend watching YouTube after school. Honestly I wasn’t expecting to completely fulfill this one but surprisingly most days I didn’t even visit YouTube and gradually forgot about it or there were a few days in which I watched for less than an hour, usually later on in the day to give myself a rest upon arriving home from long days filled with classes. Additionally the one specific task for a day was a good way to identify my priorities and track my progress.

My healthy diet challenge was to replace chocolates with a plate of salad. Now that I think about it, I might’ve chosen the easy way out with this one because I don’t eat chocolates as often as another unhealthy habit, which would be coffee. Although my sleeping schedule wasn’t horrible during this two week time period, I still needed my daily cup of coffee to function. So perhaps choosing water over coffee would’ve been a good improvement. Good news though, I am currently drinking less coffee and staying hydrated with water, upon breaking my fast of course :>. 

From the rest, this task was my least consistent one since I would sometimes forget to make myself a salad plate (but I would still eat it from the dinner table anyway). I did consume as little chocolate as much as possible but somehow I was offered a lot at the time right when I was trying to avoid it. As I’ve mentioned previously, my sleep schedule wasn’t completely horrible during the 14-days, so for the most part, I successfully got sufficient hours of sleep. 

Next up, the exercise snacks were quite helpful in fueling me to stay active, with designated times best suited for me (3:30 pm, 5:15 pm, 7:00 pm). For the first few days, I thought exercise snacks meant actual healthy snacks and I only realized later that it’s actual exercise where I had to get up/ stop whatever I was doing at the given time, for a quick exercise. It’s quite funny cause my mom was questioning why I was eating snacks as part of the challenge and that’s when I realized… Anyway I walked a lot for the remaining days I had to make up for it. 

Last but not least was the acts of kindness for each day. This challenge made me realize how a small kind act to someone can switch up their day to a better one. These little acts of kindness are quite significant. Whether that be spreading positivity, giving a helping hand, sharing, or looking after my pets, it definitely was a great reminder to me. Not to mention, this included the acts of kindness to myself such as allotting time to nurture my hobbies and interests, which I looked forward to as it sparks out joy.

Ultimately, the 14-day challenge was an eye opener as it enabled me to set out and accomplish some short term goals. As a person who makes to-do lists daily, this challenge enabled me to list out my main priorities as building blocks to creating new habits. I struggled most with remembering to update on my results in time as I found 7:00 pm too early to be able to finish off everything. I guess this could be because I work most efficiently during evenings and midnights. To sum it up, this definitely has to be my personal favorite project because it taught me the importance of being responsible with skills that can help me grow in terms of time management for setting habits. Thank you for reading and I'm hoping to see you in the next one!

Signing off,

Meral

Retrospective Blog- Meral- AEP 9- Blog 1

Hello! Welcome back to another retrospective blog from me! The second term was filled with lots of new lessons and fun activities! Read on to learn more on what we have covered throughout the second half of 2nd term. Enjoy!

Word Games

I gathered the list of word games we played throughout the second half of the second term, which included Wordle, Hurdle, Griddle, Weaver, Phrazle, Anti-wordle, and Contexto. 

Wordle is one of my all time favorites due to its originality and the simplicity of its objective. In short, you get six chances to guess a five letter word. It definitely gets my brain working. Admittedly, Hurdle is one of the difficult ones! In this word-guessing game, you have eight tries to correctly guess a five-letter word. You will get hints about the number of correct letters after each guess. However it doesn’t mention the specific letters that are green and orange, rather just their quantity. Therefore, it is quite a process to figure out and would take a whole lot longer if we were to work on it individually. Thankfully, we all work together and admittedly, I do sometimes depend on my classmates for this one!

Weaver is a word game with an aim of reaching from the starting word to the ending word. You can only modify one letter in each word you enter from the word above it. This one was quite enjoyable to me and stimulating to the brain! Griddle resembles a miniature scrabble board in some ways. It's definitely for those long AEP classes, where we spend a lot of time figuring out how to score the highest point possible.

Next up is the newly introduced game of Phrazle where you aim to find a well-known proverb (like an idiom) based on the letters present. I found this one quite fun and would like to try it out again! Anti-wordle is another variation of Wordle that aims to avoid guessing the hidden word in as many tries as possible. If you guess a letter that's in the word, you must include it in all future guesses, and if you guess a letter in the right place, that letter must be in that spot from then on. It can get a little frustrating at times but it can be exciting too! Contexto is another word game that was newly introduced to AEP. I had heard about this game before and thought it would be a good addition to the endless list of word games, and I was right! For most of the time, the rounds we played were quick and successful.

Overall, word games are very significant in shaping AEP classes. I’m pretty sure we will be continuing on with word games and I’d like to keep it that way. Preparing mentally for the class with these games are definitely a great addition!

Planning

We had to have an AEP planner with the tasks and activities for the next meetings of 2nd Term before getting started. Therefore, we made an effort to make an AEP planner with the tasks and activities in Miro and included some fresh ideas while maintaining a somewhat organized board.

Personally, I find planning things as a great way to check on the specifics of tasks needed to be completed and checking my progress along the way as a motivating factor. It can sometimes be overlooked but really just writing out what you store in your mind and organizing it in a way that focuses on your main priorities is a great tactic to actually get the work done. Hence, Miss Disa gave us a 14-day challenge which I’ll be expanding further on my next blog for 3rd term!

DOGOnews

This term was filled with reading lots of articles as oral work. We each had chances to read a few sentences at a time and shared one fact every after one article. In this way, it was very cooperative and we had to actively read to ensure that we had understood the topic.

Whether it be articles of animals or those focused more on scientific facts, they were all intriguing and informative to me. One of the articles talked about debris formation from octopuses that were captured in an underwater camera. It gave some distinguished differences on the way the octopuses attacked in order to protect their personal space. Another story concerned a fish called Carrot that was discovered in Bluewater Lake and weighed about 67 pounds!

In another article, a dog and a parrot were characterized as "animal thieves" for robbing reporters. Quite a funny one! One that caught my interest was an extract on the phobia of the number 13. Overall, I had a great time learning a ton of fresh information about various topics from numerous DOGOnews articles.

Scrabble

Next up, as a class we played scrabble and it was girls versus boys. Throughout the second half of the term, we played a total of three times and with either my pair or the group I was in, we won in every one of them! So I'd say luck has been coming my way through second term. Gathering around the scrabble table on a rainy day with a classical background music playing can be very relaxing and peaceful. I hope we'll have more of scrabble this term.

Passive Tense and Causatives

Looking back at our grammar studies, we learnt about the Causatives and the Passive tense. With a  PowerPoint and two YouTube videos Miss Disa prepared, she gave us a presentation on the passive tense. It was incredibly informative! In order to avoid being overly direct about an act or claim to the subject and instead place the emphasis on the object that has been acted upon. The subject, object, and verb form make up a passive tense sentence. It was a very helpful topic.

After that, we continued with a fresh grammar lesson on Causatives. Miss Disa gave us another PowerPoint presentation, and then we took a short quiz! I think I did quite well. Next, Miss Disa introduced us to our project for second term where we had to create a presentation explaining the grammatical mistake in this sentence (in regard to causatives): “Help me with my homework.” We distributed the tasks for everyone to work on their part. The following week, we presented the PowerPoint, discussing our parts, one by one. Once we finished, Miss Disa gave us some further information to wrap up the lesson.

Revision for Exams

One thing I like about AEP are the revision periods where Miss Disa lets us prepare for upcoming exams. During the last week of second term, our final exams drew near. I can vividly remember practicing balancing equations for chemistry even though I was on the verge of nodding off because of the calming music playing in the background.

Conclusion

The second term had its ups and downs, but I believe we've all gone through it successfully. In AEP classes, we were able to learn about grammatical lessons to better construct our sentences in the English language. Additionally, two classmates made an entrance, namely Naboni and Leo. I learned lots of new facts from all the articles we read in DOGOnews. To sum up, this term for AEP classes was a well-accomplished one! That concludes the end of this blog. Thank you for reading and I'm hoping to see you in the next one!

Signing off,

Meral

A Productive Time- Meral- AEP 9- Blog 3

Hello! In this blog I will talk about all the test practices, word games, and a project we've completed in AEP class so far this 2nd term. Plus, my thoughts and feelings regarding them. Let's begin! 

On November 7, the first day back in AEP class following finals, we played Hurdle as the day's warm-up activity. After roughly 30 minutes, we successfully identified the word "sauté".  For the remainder of the time, we wrote a "Retrospective Blog", containing recollections from the first term. It was a good start to second semester as I find looking back at all that has been completed a good way to feel that sense of accomplishment with a sprinkle of motivation for the upcoming activities and projects. 

The following day, class started with the warmup game of Hurdle once again. With only one attempt remaining to fill in the blanks to find the word, we continued the one Grade 7 were initially searching for rather than starting from scratch. Fortunately, we were able to access the website on our phones, and after some searching, we managed to find the word "singe." 

Next up, Miss Disa told us to finish our blogs, and in case we already were, she gave us a test on the past participial tense to answer. Since I had finished my blog, I clicked the website and took the test. I was able to earn an overall score of 42/50. Although I'm happy with my score, as I found the test quite tricky, I definitely could improve. I was unaware of how frequently I make minor errors in my everyday language. I believe it was an eye- opening and informative test.

The next week, we were introduced to a new game called Griddle. It is essentially a combination of Wordle and Scrabble, which makes it challenging to think of words that would reward us with the most points. Girls and boys were split up into two groups. Even though we didn't win, we scored 501 points in the end, which I guess is fairly good considering it was our first time. After that, we completed an exam on passive voice. Although these are the only ones we have checked so far, I received a score of 10 out of 12. 

The next day, we started AEP class with Quordle, a warm-up game that works somewhat similarly to Wordle except that the general search is for four different words. Next, Miss Disa displayed a YouTube video on passive tense on her computer screen. I found the video very creative and educational as always. Miss then gave us an overview of two PDF documents to provide us with more information on the passive tense. It was given for us individually to read-through on our free time.

On November 21, our first period was taken up by the honors' awarding ceremony. By the second period of AEP class that day, we did a warm-up game, being Hurdle. I remember I was very tired that day, so I stared blankly at the board, waiting for the others to find the word. Soon enough, the word "plank" was found after several attempts. Afterward, Miss Disa assigned us two exercises on past participle in google classroom. I managed to finish one of them and turned it in. Miss Disa told us that we would complete the other exercise the next day, and so that's what we did.

After a game of Quordle that lasted for ten minutes, I opened my phone and visited the AEP google classroom to complete the exercise 3 from where I had left off on Monday. At first I struggled to create text boxes for filling in my answers on the active tenses in Kami, but I soon realized that it was easier to type my answers in Google Docs. Even though the exercise was confusing at first, I believe I did well overall. Lastly, we played Griddle as a closing remark for the AEP class of that day!

During the double period on November 28, Miss Disa introduced us to a new game called Weaver. The objective of the game is to find the least amount of words, with only one change of the letters each try, that leads you from the first word up to the final word. The less amount of words one constructs from the initial word to reach the final word, the better! That day we were challenged with the starting word, being "scar", and the final word, being "face". Overall it was done in 7 tries which I'd say was pretty good. Lastly, Miss gave us a heads- up for the project where we had to write a poem relative to AEP classes. 

The moment I heard that we'd be writing a poem, I was very excited! The fact that we could talk about anything pertaining to AEP classes was something I was glad about. I guess Miss Disa did that so we wouldn't be limited and it would enable us to expand our creativity. With that in mind, I hurried my way to the notes app in my device and managed to brainstorm five poem topics, which I eventually narrowed down to one that just so happened to be the first one I had typed out.

I composed my poem about rainy scrabble days, with the correlation on how rainy days indicate a game of scrabble that offers delight and happiness to me. It looks into the way the games may easily alter around from one where you're losing to one that pushes you closer to victory. I'm hoping it is presented clearly but still in a poetic manner, with the usage of a few rhyming words and the general theme.

The next day and the week after, we were working on our poems with an addition of Griddle and Hurdle games. With numerous attempts to beat Miss Disa's consistent competitor in Griddle, namely "ABV", there were a lot of rounds we went through with the sole purpose to win over him/her. There were times we did and others where we didn't. Along with that, I had nearly finished my poem by the last meeting which was a few days before the final submission date. The next day, at home, I recorded a video of me reciting my poem and submitted it, to be later compiled by miss with the videos of my classmates as well.  

All in all, it was a productive half semester in AEP classes. I'm curious to know how many more word games would be added to the seemingly infinite amount we have already. It's true what they say- "one can never have a limit when it comes to word games". Not sure if that's an actual saying but at least, I'd easily imagine Miss Disa saying so or perhaps she already has. The goals I have set for the next half of the semester is to combine our forces (AEP 9) to win over "ABV"- which is quite a challenge at times! On a serious note though, I'd love to learn more on tenses and further grammatical rules regarding the English language. That concludes the end of this blog. Thank you for reading and I'm hoping to see you in the next one!

Signing off,

Meral

Blast to the Past- Meral- AEP 9- Blog 2

Hello! After a long time, I am right here seated in the AEP classroom writing down my recollections for the first term as well as my expectations this term. I am hoping this will be a good way to wrap up everything we've done so far and give me a burst of energy for this semester.

As a quick note, we allotted the first two weeks of class with Scrabble to get to know each other. Miss Disa reintroduced us to Wordle, being one of my ultimate favorite warm up game played in the beginning of classes. We also learned a ton about Future Tense and grammatical rules in applying it to the sentences we form in our everyday life. Looking back, I remember how we had several technical issues at times, whether that be the smart board or the sound system, and now I can happily state that we do not face as many problems when including Leo to be a part of the class.

Other than that, I believe we’ve all somewhat adjusted to the classroom setting. I haven’t done online classes since the beginning of this school year. That being said, face to face classes have been quite a blast so far and I’m hoping it will continue to be so! I have dwelled further on the first weeks on my Blog 1. You may check it out for other details!

On August 24, we had also started the day with the classic Wordle in which I managed to find both words. As a result of a rainy day, we got to play scrabble! It was truly a joyful moment. The following week, on a Tuesday, I learned new constructive ways future tense is employed in speaking and writing, through one of Miss Disa's creative YouTube videos. On August 31, the following day, we played three rounds of Wordle. Afterward, we had a short quiz to revise our knowledge regarding the future tense and present continuous tense. We then began a game of Scrabble while the rain continued to pour in the background.

Overall, Miss Disa used a variety of techniques to teach the future tense during the month of August, including interactive videos, brief revision quizzes, scanning for the tense in news articles, and answering questions in Miro. We frequently played Wordle to keep our minds sharp and Scrabble during the rainy weather. Personally, I found it serene and productive at the same time which was a perfect start to the school year. 

On September 6, Miss Disa raised the idea that describing someone's traits and qualities in a letter of appreciation would have a stronger impact than simply thanking them. Thus we were given the remainder of the class period to begin composing our first project. I decided to write for my mother and I got to work. The next day, I completed my appreciation letter! By the time I had finished decorating it at home, all that was left for me to do was to submit my work in Google Classroom. Turned in! 

On September 13, we played a game called codewords, which we had played a few times last school year, to begin class. The game basically requires you to fill in the boxes with letters to create words. To make it easier to fill it in, there is a different number for each one. We all collaboratively completed it smoothly and during the remaining class time, I revised for the business midterm. 

On September 19, we had a overview on the learning contract Miss Disa prepared for us. It included the second collaborative project we would be working on for the following weeks ahead. Basically, we were tasked to make a promo video about a country- we later decided on Japan at Hotel Gracery Asakusa! We selected Leo to be the organizer and delegate the tasks. Soon enough, each person had their own part to contribute on. Therefore, we started working on it. We also had a Quizizz test on future tenses to remind ourselves on it from time to time.

During the rest of September and early October, we slowly but surely made a lot of progress! After we had found a credible website and a suitable Canva template, we started collecting the information that led to the overall output of our project. Additionally, there were some fun warm-up games thrown in to the start of classes- though admittedly it sometimes took a lot longer than anticipated. These games included Quordle, Waffle, Letter Box, Hurdle, Anti-Wordle. All being difficult when put in comparison with Wordle, but that definitely gave everyone in the class a challenge and it was very rewarding whenever we successfully found the word! 

Although each warm-up game was quite unique to itself, I found Anti- Wordle the most difficult out of the rest. Even though we weren't able to find the word by the 7th attempt, I quite enjoyed taking my mind to a different route of thinking and looking at it from the opposite direction. As the name implies, rather than finding the word, we were coming up with words that don't contain such letters. I must mention though, all the other games Miss Disa introduced to us were really enjoyable as well! 

All in all, first term has been a total fun and productive time in AEP classes! I am expecting warm-up games in the beginning of classes as usual and learning more on the grammatical rules used in the English Language. I also find walking at the hallway during breaks really effective in powering us physically than just mentally for the upcoming activities and projects in AEP class. It is truly a joy to have AEP as a subject as it doesn't only enable us to absorb new information, but also feel more relaxed with the busy schedule I'm sure everyone has for their other subjects. 

I am looking forward to the new journeys we'll be undertaking this trimester! Thank you for reading this retrospective blog of mine. 

Signing off,

Meral

The Beginning- Meral- AEP 9- Blog 1

Hello! Welcome to my first ever blog for this school year 2022-2023 of AEP class. At the time I am writing this blog, we are already on the third week of face to face class. It still hasn’t hit me that we’ve already waved our final goodbye’s to online classes.

The first week of AEP class was conducted in a great way to adjust to the new classroom setting. The ability to finally see Miss Disa and my classmates in real life is totally a different experience. No longer joining google meet, not working entirely virtually, and being able to have real time interaction is something that I was looking forward to and I’m sure not disappointed.

I put on my excited shoes once I heard we would be playing scrabble. How’d it go? Well, it was fun! I was paired with Shasmeen. We both thought our way through with the letters we picked out each round. Though we didn’t win, I remember that we did a pretty good job. On Wednesday, we played scrabble once again. This time around, there were new rules implemented to spice things up. We weren’t allowed to use words consisting of 3 letters, and we played backwards on the second round. As far as I can recall, we won second place! There were many times where we found words consisting of high points but never got to place it on the scrabble board. Even so, it was a good two rounds of scrabble. 

Moving on, we started playing wordle! I remember the words were tooth and adage. Next, we brought out our notebooks and pens to answer a short seat work. It was about grammatical sentences where we had to fill in possible words. I was a little confused at first but soon I got the right answers to most of them. Two or three mistakes here and there, but overall I’d say I did good.

The following day, there were several technical issues that ate up our time. At some point, the board wasn't working properly and there was a problem with the sound system. Luckily, it was fixed and we were able to start learning about the future tense. 

Miss Disa presented her screen of a video made by her teaching lessons of the future simple tense. It was very well put together and I learned new things that I've never really taken into consideration before. Who knew there were so many terms used in the future simple tense? 

It comes in different forms including: will, won't and going to. We also learned the different situations they are used in which included: future fact, prediction, promise, offer, request, refusal, etc. 

Later on, we jotted down our answers to four questions on a Miro board to test our knowledge on future tense and how much we remember from the lesson. Overall, it was a productive two and a half weeks. It was nice to get back on the interactive websites of Wordle, Miro, Padlet, and Blogger. Oh and ofcourse- to get back to the face to face school environment. 

Thank you for reading this blog! I hope you are having a good school experience so far. 

Signing off- Meral

 

Trip to A Busy City- Meral- AEP 8- Blog 3

 Hello😊 Welcome back to another blog of mine! Before I start, I would like to expand to what I am meaning to say in the title. A Trip to A Busy City shows that this week's AEP class was filled with lots of activities and work. Not only that, but also the atmosphere pretty much seemed like one. It is a trip since it is one that you wouldn't want to pass over or miss! If you are willing to be a part of this trip, you may as well read the rest of this blog😃.

Typeshift

The Monday started with the usual Typeshift. I was hoping to get a better score than last time. Unfortunately, I had fallen a step back😞. I finished it in 2 minutes and 18 seconds. On the bright side, the result wasn't that bad and was still better than what I have expected from the experience duration of the puzzle activity😀. We wrote down our scores in the google sheets titled "AEP8 TYPESHIFT".

Entrance Ticket

Afterward, we did our entrance ticket. Miss Disa sent us a link that drove us straight to Miro. There were 3 sticky notes each containing a word📑. At the first glimpse, I thought that I had clicked the wrong link since we had already done a seatwork about this concept. In a matter of seconds, I realized the actual purpose of an entrance ticket is to remember past activities and assessments💡. Whereas an exit ticket is to write down your thoughts and feelings about the day. To get an overview, the words in the sticky notes were: friend, mate, and partner. 

Miss Disa instructed the class to fill in the sticky note with the meanings of each word. In that way, Miss Disa can get to know our general idea about these words and use them as evidence that we had read the comments in the assessment in Unit 1📜. Weeks ago, I had read it and knew some details about the meaning and difference between the words. I started typing... 💬

Once everyone was done, Miss Disa gave a broad explanation. A friend is someone you know but aren't that close with and you don't hang out together as much as a mate. A mate is someone you hang out with and have a close bond together. Honestly, I was quite surprised by the difference between the words😮. I had always thought that mate was only an informal word for friend. 

Moving on, Miss Disa talked about the word "partner". There are people that rather choose not to give much information about the relationship they are in. Therefore, they use the word: partner. Miss Disa also talked about gender neutrals. They are people that are unsure of their gender. This conversation gave me a better understanding about these concepts👍. 

Activities and Assesments

Next, we had a matching activity. Sounds familiar? Well, yes. This was also from a previous session in AEP class. There were in total 12 words to match to their definitions. Some of the words being: widower, will, and deceased. These are words related to family and death. The activity finished alot faster than I've expected😄. Miss Disa asked each of us to read the definition of the words in order. 

Miss Disa highlighted the words "inheritance and estate" by writing them into sticky notes of two shades of pink🎀. Basically, inheritance is something one gives to their loved ones when they pass away💸✉. It can come in different forms like cash, jewelry, or valuable objects. Meanwhile, estate is all the money or property given to their loved ones💰.

After all the work, we had a ten minute break✨. Following up, we moved on the next activity. There was an extract that we had to skim- read. This reminded me of Reading classes. It was one of my favorite class and it sure was one that I truly enjoyed. Miss Disa put on a 30 second timer⏲. Not goanna lie, I was quite panicked. Panic does no good in situations like these. Therefore, I started reading when there was only a few seconds left for the timer to finish😨. As you might have guessed, I couldn't finish the extract. Honestly, the extract was quite short but I was quite slow. 

The time had come. We were going to write down the main details we could grasp as we had schemed through the text. Miss Disa hid it from us so that we could write down our answers without reading it one more time. Chloe and Shasmeen were going on the right track. As for me, it was as if I had read another passage🤔. I did get a thing or two about the topic but was looking at it in another perspective. The passage was a reminder that parents should treat their adult children as adults and not as kids. Luckily, Miss Disa gave everyone another try to form one sentence about the topic in another sticky note😃. This time around, I was sucessful in forming a correct explanation. 

Answering the Poll Question

Moving onward, there was only one last task to complete! When Miss Disa placed the image of the page of reading extracts and questions, I was both excited and scared. Miss Disa gave us a choice on whether we wanted to work as a team or individually❓. She placed a poll in the activities section in google meet. I was not sure at all. Chloe and Shasmeen had answered the question quite quickly. 

As to Miss Disa's expression and to what she said, I am guessing it was a tie. I was the one who was to make the final decision. I was still deciding on my answer. I kept switching from teamwork to individually and vice versa🔍. All of a sudden, I accidentelly clicked vote when my option was teamwork. I was shocked. Miss Disa announced that we were going to work as a team due to two out of three voting for that option. I went along with it. I have to say, I didn't regret a thing🎉!

The Final Assesment

The assesment could have taken alot longer if we had done it individually. Plus, it would have been harder for us. The teamwork was real! Everybody answered about the same amount of questions🎯. Shasmeen disappeard in the last few minutes of answering the seatwork. She messaged me to inform that her computer mouse was acting up and that she had to restart her computer. Therefore, I told Miss Disa. When we were all done, Miss Disa checked each of the questions with a tick mark✅. We got an "excellent work" stamp. 

Exit Ticket

Finally, we did our exit ticket. I chose a blue sticky note since it matched the background picture which was a feather falling from the sky💫. I wrote down my thoughts and feelings about the two AEP classes of the day. Once we were both done, we each said our goodbyes to Miss Disa. 

Thank you so much for reading another of my blogs! Have a great weekend✌! 

Signing off - Meral

A Lively Week- Meral- AEP 8- Blog 2

Hello😊! I am back with another blog. This week in AEP classes we did a lot of things! Surprisingly, all these assessments and activities were done in only the two periods of AEP classes. If you are willing to take a trip to a thrilling adventure, then you may as well read the rest of this Blog😀!

A few minutes before joining the google meet, I was feeling active. I was pretty surprised since on Monday mornings I would mostly be sleepy. Therefore, I opened my camera. Before starting the class, Miss Disa saw the rainbow decoration on the wall that I decided to use as a design to create a more positive atmosphere🌈. She asked several questions like whether it was handmade or not. I had made it in summer as one of my crafts.

The first activity of the day was Typeshift. Therefore, I went to the website and started solving the puzzle🧩. At about half of the game, there was a letter that I couldn't match to form a word. Luckily, after about a minute I solved it😊. I finished it in 2 minutes and 11 seconds. It was not the best score but I was still quite proud of myself. Next, we did an entrance ticket🎟. You might be wondering "What entrance ticket?" Apparently, we will be reviewing for the previous sessions by having a sort of activity to enhance our memory. As a forgetful person, I find this very helpful and useful. The class clicked a link that drove us to miro. 

First, we had to draw non-identical twins. Miss Disa started the timer⏳. As the background music played on, everybody started drawing. I decided to draw the eyes and ears of the twins differently. Afterward, we drew a widower. When the timer ran out, we were all done🎨. It was a very fun activity!

Moving on, we had to choose whether we wanted an upbeat or quiet class for that day. Chloe went right on to the upbeat choice. I was unsure since I wanted it to be calm and lively at the same time. Soon, I chose upbeat since I was feeling energetic like I've mentioned at the start of this blog📄. 

Miss Disa announced that Chloe and I would be reading an article in DOGO News. Meanwhile, Shasmeen would finish Unit 1 from last week's meeting✨. Miss Disa had provided a website called "HowToPronouns" that helped me very much. It was very useful in finding the pronunciations of some specific words such as Gansu, linxiaens, and paleozoological. 

Thus, Miss Disa sent a google document titled "Things to finish: AEP 8". At first sight, I got quite scared😲. Fortunately, I realized that I had finished most of them. I immediately ticked off Unit 1 Questions 1&2, Blog 1, and the Labelling of the Blog✅. Therefore, there were only two things left to do. First, I had to make a final recording. Then, I would have to type the words I found difficult to pronounce. 

Honestly, finishing this activity took a lot longer than I expected. I had to keep redoing it until I could pronounce most of them correctly🔊. I have to admit that it did give me some hard time when there were some background noises. Even so, in the final outcome, I was the only one heard. As a whole, reading the article made me pronounce words I've never known before and learn many facts about dinosaurs.

I knew my time was limited so I told myself that I would try recording one last time or upload the spare one just in case it reaches the end of AEP classes. Well, I guess that technique worked. I was finally done with the recording😄!! All I had to do was to upload it in the Padlet link. Suddenly, I noticed that there was no add button. Turns out, Chloe had noticed it too. Therefore we both told Miss Disa about the issue. 

Eventually, the problem got fixed! I uploaded the final product. Now, there was only one task left to do. I had to write down some challenging words from the news article📰. I wanted to get the merit points so I typed as fast as I could. Some of my answers were: paraceratherium, linxiaens, and bugtience. In that case, I ticked off the last two tasks and was good to go! 

We wrote down our thoughts about the day in Miro to serve as our exit ticket🎫. Therefore, we all said "Goodbye and thank you, Miss Disa." and exited the google meet. Thus, the class had ended.

Thank you so much for reading this blog. Have a great weekend✌!

Signing off - Meral

The Start of a New Journey- Meral- AEP 8- Blog 1

Introduction 

Hello!😀 It has been a long time. Summer is already over! It seems to me that it has passed by very quickly. Even so, I am glad to be back with another school year. A new school year is like a new chapter and a new door yet to be unlocked. Although I haven't experienced face to face classes in Grade 7, I am looking forward to getting a chance to do so this year. Even if that might not be the case, I hope to spend this school year in my best possible way😊.

Monday was the first official day of Grade 8 AEP classes. I must admit that the first day of  AEP classes in Grade 7 did flash before my eyes. It was also the first two subjects on Mondays. I remember having a technical problem with my school Gmail. I had to contact the school admins and my advisor at the time. Being the hesitant person I was, I couldn't quite explain what was going on. At least it is a funny memory to hunt me forever😆. 

This time around, I wasn't feeling nervous at all! I knew that I had enough experience to deal with a technical problem if one would arise. I guess mistakes do teach you lessons. Therefore, I joined the google meet. The first impression I had was feeling relaxed and calm. From there on, is the new chapter to fill in to the book📖! The book of which I have paused on writing for quite some time. The last part being titled : "Some see weeds, I see wishes" and now I am glad to be back on track✨.

AEP Class

The first two sessions of AEP classes were cancelled due to the first day of school. All grade levels were in one google meet. The orientation and guidelines were discussed. Thus, our first meeting started on Wednesday. 

On Wednesday, we had one period of AEP class. We got an invitation to blogger. There were no technical issues this time around🥳! For the rest of the period, we were each given a dogo news article to read about. Miss Disa gave us time to record ourselves. My article was titled "Rosetta Sone Eruption Provides Insights Into Solar Explosions." It was about powerful explosions that might be dangerous for astronauts and disrupt satellites in orbit. Many space agencies stated that it all comes from the same source/ mechanism, but the explosions are at different scales. I was able to finish my final recording after class. 

On Monday, we started with a quick typeshift. The moment I heard that we had to do this, I was very excited. I didn't struggle to find the words. Thus, I finished it in 40 seconds. Miss Disa and my classmates did great too. I am looking forward to continuing typeshift since it has always been one of my favorites!

Next, we did Unit 1 "Family Matters". We had to answer a page testing our vocabulary skills. There were two sections. At first, I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do in the first part. Meanwhile, Miss Disa told the class that we would be given 5 minutes to finish the page. It was then that my panic mode activated. Not goanna lie, in between of panicking, I was also glad that we had five minutes to finish everything. I hear you questioning "Why?"🧐. 

Well, there is this personality trait in me. Basically, if a teacher gives a short period of time for an assessment, I happen to feel like it is in a simpler level of difficulty since they acknowledged the fact that us (students) can finish it in a simpler way than being given a long period of time and having to put more effort in it. Maybe it's just me...

Turning back to the topic, I read the instructions one more time. I realized that the task was rather understandable. We had to write the difference in meaning between the words in the groups. Basically, in one group there were about 2-3 words we had to differentiate. As I had just started, Miss Disa asked the class if we were all done or close to being finished with our work. To my relief, my classmates also needed more time to finish it⏰. Therefore, for the next 35 minutes, I was able to complete my assignment. I had to share my screen to prove that I've been working on something. I am glad that I had finished it.

After a ten minute break, the next part of AEP classes had begun. Miss Disa sent a link to a new website called "Miro". I am happy that Miss Disa has found this website because it's very fun and useful. This is coming from both my personal experience and my experience as a student. Once everyone in the class clicked to the link, there was the next page of Unit 1. There was a passage and we had to underline the words related to the topic of family. Miss Disa set the timer. The whole class interactively underlined every word that we could relate with family👨‍👩‍👧‍👦. Some of the words were: modern family, grandchildren, divorced, brothers, sisters, and so much more.

Once the timer run off, Miss Disa checked and made a tally of how many words each person had underlined. In my case, I had underlined about 7 words. I didn't know that our tally score would be individually written. I thought we were scored on how many words/ phrases everyone underlined. Either way, we all did a great job. The person with the most underlined words was...(drum roll)…Chloe. I want to congratulate Chloe and everyone else🎉.

Next, we did the following part of the page. We all needed to match the meanings of the vocabularies which were from the passage. This time when the timer hit on and the music played, I got more competitive. I matched some of the words to their corresponding meanings. The end result was quite successful🎯! 

 I have learned so many new vocabularies that would help me in the present and future. I took into account that in AEP classes we don't just learn for the sake of our grades. We also learn for our future. For example, back in Grade 7 we did many listening exercises and exams. This made us clear out some barriers in communication like the accents, word choice, pace in talking, and so much more. I hope to continue this way in AEP classes. 

Our exit ticket was in the same link. Thus, we all wrote down our feelings and thoughts about the day! I learned a lot from these exercises. These activities and assessments activated my brain a whole bunch more! Plus, I had lots of fun :D Now that we are tested on our reading skills, I hope to get better in that part of English. As the famous saying goes "There is always a room for improvement.✨"

Thank you so much for reading my first ever blog! I wish everyone the best of this school year!

Signing off - Meral