Investing in Stocks

In Language Arts, we read The Westing Game. In The Westing Game, there is a character named Turtle Wexler. Turtle really enjoys investing in stocks, so we decided to join in on the fun and invest in stocks! Well, sort of. We were given $20,000 FAKE dollars and we invested in six stocks. The stocks I invested in were Home Depot, Disney, Target, Nike, Amazon, and Starbucks. The stock that made the most for me was Home Depot, but other than that my stocks really sucked. My final profit at the end was $-964.43. At the beginning, we had the math specialist at our school come and help us set up a stocks spreadsheet and give us more details about the stock market. In the end, this was a fun assignment and I might invest in actual stocks. Thank you for reading!

The Last Cuentista and My Ideal World Process

The Last Cuentista. Have you heard of that book? It is a science fiction novel written by Donna Barba Higuera. In my 6th grade Language Arts class, the first novel that we read is The Last Cuentista. The Last Cuentista is about Petra Peña, a 12 year old girl who has to go on a journey to another planet because a comet is going to destroy Earth. However, the planet is almost 400 years away! So, they have to put all of the passengers asleep while they travel. But, when the 400 years pass, she still remembers everything, but no one else does. Does Petra help bring back their memories? Read the book to find out! Personally, the book was not my favorite, but we all read books that we don’t like. But, I did like all of the cuentos, or stories, that Donna put in the book.

 

After we finished The Last Cuentista, my Language Arts teacher assigned us a task to make our own planet, our ideal world.  We had to make up a planet that we would love to live on. We had the opportunity to make up a name for the planet, design the planet, and write a blog post about the planet. You can scroll down on my blog page to read about my planet, Apollo! My planet’s name is Apollo, because some of NASA’s missions to the moon were named Apollo. On Apollo there were 10 lands that a person could live on, all named after different flowers that you could find on the land. There is a queen and nature and no racism, it is my perfect land. It was very fun to come up with my ideal world and draw a picture of it! 

 

 

After we came up with the planet, wrote a blog post about it, and drew it, we got to make a homemade book about it! We had a local artist, Peg Gignoux, come in and teach us how to make our books. We learned how to do Akua ink printing, collaging, and making covers! It took about four whole class lessons (about four hours) to complete the entire book. I went with an Earthy vibe for my book, having a blue/green cover.


On May 24th, all of the 6th grade ideal world books are going on display for my school to see. The whole process from starting to read the book to finishing our ideal world took about 7 months, from November to May. Keep in mind, we didn’t spend every single class working on it so we also read The Westing Game, invested in *fake* stocks, and did vocabulary! In conclusion, I enjoyed doing the project and had an okay time reading The Last Cuentista. Thank you for reading and have a great day!

My TED Talk Experience

Have you ever heard of a TED Talk? Well I have, and actually, I have presented one. Well, not at a TED event but for my Language Arts class. At the end of the year in my 6th grade LA class, we are given an assignment to research a topic that we are passionate about and then present a TED like Talk about it. The topic I chose was The History of Gymnastics because I really enjoy doing gymnastics.

Although I really enjoy doing gymnastics, I didn’t know much about the sport so I went to Google to research more about it. Google did not tell me very much, so I had to research deeper into the topic. I finally found a website (The Smithsonian Magazine) that gave me the entire history of gymnastics. When I scrolled through the page I thought there was no way I could read all of the information but I took it step by step.

Before I even started researching the topic, I started to make my script which is a very bad idea. I only went back to the Google Doc occasionally and didn’t really care about the assignment until people started presenting. This is because I didn’t know how to tackle the assignment, but when I saw how my classmates did their talks, I started to get inspired.

That is when I went to the website and started reading about gymnastics. I learned so much about the history of gymnastics like how it was created in Ancient Greece and how it was used as a warm up before a person played a sport. So, I scraped my entire Google Doc and started making a Google Slide presentation about gymnastics. I then found images to put into my slideshow that showed the evolution of gymnastics and presented it for my family multiple times that night (Tuesday).

 

The next day (Wednesday), I went into my LA class and told my LA teacher that I was ready to present and I showed her my slideshow. She said that it was amazing and that the next day (Thursday) I could present in front of the class. I was kind of nervous since I had made my whole presentation in one night, but I felt more relaxed after Mrs. Donnelly told me that it was a great presentation.

Then on that Thursday, I went into LA class with my head held up high while I waited for the other presentation to finish. Finally, it was time for me to present my TED like talk. I was a little nervous but when I started talking, the nerves went away. Like a snap, my presentation was over and my classmates were clapping. It was very fun doing the presentation and researching about gymnastics. Hopefully you are now inspired to research about a topic you are passionate about. Thank you!

Chorus

My current Fine Art is Chorus. When you take Chorus at my school, you learn all about vocal types, singing, vocal warmups, etc. At the end of the trimester, we choose songs to sing for our parents and perform with the band. This performance is February 28th for me, and I am very excited! We are singing five different songs that range from Hamilton to Bruno Mars.

My teacher is Ms. Richardson and she is fabulous! This trimester she has taught us so much about how our voices work, how to preserve them, and how to sing confidently. She helped us choose songs to sing with the 5th graders who are also taking Chorus this trimester. Ms. Richardson picked people’s names out of a hat and those people got to announce one of the songs. I am introducing the song “Pirate Story”, it is about kids pretending that there are pirates. Overall, Chorus has been very fun and I am very excited to perform!




Field Trip to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science

On Friday January 27, my classmates and I went on a field trip to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences to reflect on what we have learned in science and history these past few months. We saw meteoroids, amazing exhibits, and learned so many new and cool facts. My favorite part of visiting the museum is seeing all of the live bugs, sea animals, and insects that the museum showed us. There were lots of animals including jellyfish, ghost shrimp, and snakes.

Another part I really enjoyed was the RACE exhibit where the museum exhibited different races and questions about race. Some questions they asked and answered were about how and why the pandemic affected certain races and what race means. It was very fascinating hearing different perspectives from different people from different races and how their races affect them and their lives. Overall, the field trip was very informative and fun! Thank you North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences for having us!

Window or Mirror

I recently re-read the book Wonder, a fiction book written by R.J Palacio about a little boy who has a severe face deformity and is going into middle school. I chose to read this book because I read it once in second grade and I wanted to read it again. Wonder is more of a window for me because I don’t have severe face deformity, I don’t live in New York, I am not in fifth grade, I don’t have a dog, and I do not like Star Wars. I don’t really choose between window or mirror books and I read an even amount of both. When I read graphic novels I normally read mirror books and when I read chapter books I normally read window books.

 One character I feel resembles me in Wonder is Charlotte Cody who shows August Pullman (who has severe face deformity) around the school. She is nice and friendly to Auggie throughout the book but is not friends with him. I feel like I relate to Charlotte because she likes to dance, she has two siblings, and she has lots of friends. Even though Wonder is a window book for me, it is one of my all time favorite books and I would definitely recommend reading it.

Wisdom Tales Project

 Have you heard of Wisdom Tales? Wisdom Tales is a book written by Heather Forest. Wisdom tales are about different folk tale stories from around the world. My personal favorite Wisdom Tale is The Wooden Bowl, which is about an old man who moved in with his son and daughter-in-law. He tried to help out around the farm, but he was getting weaker by the day. He started dropping things and his daughter-in-law got mad and took away the glass bowels from him. His son and daughter-in-law had a baby and started ignoring his father. They gave him a wooden bowl to eat out of since they didn’t trust him to use the glass bowls. They soon realized that when they are old and frail they want to be treated well and how they want to be trusted enough to use a glass bowl. Lastly, they start treating his father much better, and they become one big happy family. The moral is treat others the way you want to be treated. This story originated in Germany, Europe.

In my Language Arts class, we had to make a project about a Wisdom Tale in the book. I chose The Wooden Bowl, which in the last paragraph I explained to you about. I made a comic for my project and I attached a picture to this blog post. I made the comic in Comic Life 3 which is an app that helps you make comics. I drew my pictures in the app Paper and inserted it into Comic Life 3. I hope you like it! Thank you for reading!

Camp Hanes 2022

On an early, crisp Thursday morning, we boarded the clean, fresh, blue bus to go on the adventure we had all been waiting for, Camp Hanes. The bus was full of excitement and nervousness as for some of us, this was our first time away from home, but not for me. I have been away from home many times before, but this was my first sleep away camp. When we saw the first glimpse of the rocky, gorgeous mountains, we all looked in awe as we drove into the green, cheerful camp.

My favorite activity that the camp offered us was rock climbing/the outdoor obstacle course. I loved this activity the most because it was super fun cheering our classmates on and timing ourselves on the obstacle course. On one of the rock climbing walls there was a rusty, old, wiggly rock that made it basically impossible to climb. I tried and tried to climb over that rock but it was too hard so I lowered myself down. Next, I tried another rock climbing wall and made it to the top twice. The rock climbing walls and the obstacle course were huge! It was overlooking a lake and the woods at the same time, it was gorgeous! After everyone in my group had done rock climbing and the obstacle course many, many times, we went off to our next activity.

Thank you so much to Cammi, Kayla, Dem, Sarah, and Bella for making our Camp Hanes trip super memorable and fun! Without them, our trip would have not been the same, for we do not know the camp like they do! They helped some of us overcome our fears of things we have not tried. I am very proud that Kayla taught me how to shoot an arrow in archery. Thank you so much Camp Hanes staff for making us 6th graders happy!

 

Finding Someplace Backpack

This summer, I read a book called Finding Someplace written by: Denise Lewis Patrick. In the book, Reesie (the main character) had to collect valuable things she needed to survive Hurricane Katrina (2005). Valuable things such as important papers , her water bottle, and very special book her neighbor gave her.. After she quickly packed her bag, she ran to her neighbor Miss Martine’s house to evacuate. Unlike Reesie, I would be prepared and pack ahead.

If I had to bring a bag full of important and valuable things like Reesie did, I would bring a big hiking bag to hold everything in. Next, I would separate what I would bring into sections. The first section would have electronic items, such as my phone to contact my parents if I got stranded, a portable charger to charge my phone, a normal flashlight for the night, a portable tiny radio, and batteries for the flashlight and radio.

 The next section would be foods and water. From what I remember, Reesie brought a couple snacks, but I like food so I brought a lot of food. I would bring: 3 canned fruit, 3 canned vegetables, to get healthy food inside of me. a full giant water bottle, 3 Gatorades (for electrolytes), chia seeds (for protein), 4 granola bars, 2 tiny packs of Goldfish, 3 apples, 2 oranges, one little loaf of bread, and a pack of canned chicken. I would eat the canned chicken the first 3 days so it won’t get bad.

 

 The next section would be hygiene. Reesie did not bring things like her toothbrush or hand sanitizer, so I remembered to bring them. Other items I would bring for hygiene would be my toothpaste to brush my teeth, 2 toilet papers, 2 packs of wipes, 2 first aid kits. In the last section, I would pack extra items: like my birth certificate (in a waterproof folder), just in case someone in the officials need it. The card game Uno to play in our freetime, 2 books to read, my vitamins to keep my body healthy, melatonin in case I can’t fall asleep, a taser in case someone tries to steal me, 2 pairs of extra clothes, 1 pair of pajamas, a pillow, and a sleeping bag attached to my bag.

 

Lastly, after all those things are in my bag, I would be prepared to leave. I suspect I would not have to restock my food for at least 1 week. If you are wondering, I will be traveling with my family so they will pack their own bags. I would also ask my mom to bring a wagon and a tent to sleep in. Now the question is, how will I hold it all?