The Stock Project

 

Throughout the last month our class has been doing a project about stocks! We each choose 5 companies to invest a total of 20,000 dollars. I really liked this project because it was a good real life experience of how the stock market works, and how anything can change in the blink of an eye. Two teachers named Mrs. Donnelly, and Mrs. Sprague helped us a lot throughout the project, which was very helpful.

This project connects to the book we were reading called The Westing Game. One of the characters named Turtle Wexler loves the stock market, and reads the paper every morning about the stock market. Later in the book she invests in multiple companies making a lot and losing a lot of money. In the last chapter when she is older, the book says that she made 4 million dollars, lost it all, then made 6 million dollars. That is how powerful and often the market can change.

During this project we used a spreadsheet, and formulas to record all of our data throughout the month. This was incredibly helpful to keep everything nice, tidy, and overall easier to manage! I loved this project so much and I’m excited to see next years 6th graders do it too!

My TED Talk

The past month we have been working on presenting a TED like talk! My talk was about LEGOS® and how much you can do with them. I felt really good about the project, and I thought it was a great experience! My favorite part of the presentation was that you could be creative with it and it could be about anything you want. I was the first person to go, so I was a little nervous at first, but then I just started talking.

 

The preparation for this project took about one month of memorizing, script writing, slideshow making, research, and getting feedback form my peers and teachers. The easiest part for me was the slideshow. For me, these types of things are kinda relaxing for me in many different ways. It is just so satisfying to line pictures in the perfect place and click the next slide button with a new image on each slide. The hardest thing for me was the script writing. Sometimes just looking at a blank document not knowing what to do but make it 5 minutes is really hard. The motivation of the whole speaking part can be hard for me because I’m always thinking, “Am I going to mess up? Will I say the wrong thing? Is this correct grammar? Do they like it?” This is what makes the project hard.



It was one week until my presentation, and I was still knee deep in the memorization part of my talk. During all my X periods leading up to it, I was practicing with peers, reading it over, and over again, and again, until I had it all memorized. The day had come and I was ready. I stood up on the stand, and just started to talk. Words just started coming out of my mouth, and it was going great! And the end everybody clapped, and I sat down feeling accomplished of my hard work and dedication throughout the whole project.

 

MY BOOK

My Book

This year in Language Arts class, we read the book The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higueria, and I loved it! I really like how this book was in the future, and the concept of the whole plot. The main character’s name is Lita, and she is on a spaceship. They are going to be traveling for over 300 years, so they put her in a sleep chamber. Things don’t go to plan when she wakes up, and the story takes a turn. I totally recommend this book to all ages!



Another project I loved doing this year was the ideal world project, which was my personal favorite project all year. This was a project where you designed your own world in any way you wanted it to be. This project let my mind go wild with the endless amount of possibilities for it. I ended up making a planet that turned out amazing, and I also loved my classmates’ designs too! I ended up making a clay sculpture of the planet which you’ll see below!

 

The most recent project we did was my tree book! The tree book is a book we make out of paper with akua ink, and cut the pieces up and made pictures in our book! We also added the writing part of it was our ideal world project writing, and we made a cuento! I made my cuento about a childhood story about my dad, which was very sentimental to me, and he loved it! Overall, this was a fun year of projects in Language Arts class!

 

My Band Experience

 

This trimester I had band as my fine art, so far I’m enjoying it a lot. At first it was slow, and we weren’t going fast, and for the first week, we didn’t even get to play! But, we quickly progressed through the trimester learning new techniques and new songs. During this process, Mr. Lovett helped us through the whole thing and I couldn’t have done this without him.

I played the instrument called the baritone, and I loved it! It’s quite the big instrument and there are only 3 keys to play, so you have to use your voice to play different notes and patterns. One of the biggest things was articulation. Articulation made the notes sound, the way the notes sound by making each note clear and using the tongue to do that. The instrument is huge with long pipes going around and through the whole instrument, which I think is kind of cool.

You HAVE to take care of your instrument properly, or it wont play! Doing stuff like putting it back in its case, making sure it’s clean, handling it gently etc. Those things will make sure your instrument stays fresh, and ready to play. Overall, I really enjoyed band!

Image from: http://jupitermusic.com/international/products/brass/baritones/

My Ideal World

Tafag 

Welcome to Tafag! Tafag is a beautiful planet from its wildlife, to its people, and you have to go check out the shopping district! On Tafag, there is a limit of 5 people per household and your children are the same gender. All of the houses are tree houses and they vary in size for the amount you pay. Inside an average house there are 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full kitchen,living room, and study! Don’t worry about seeing homeless people because there are none. If you become homeless, they are nicely escorted off the planet.

The economy on Tafag is not like others. The currency is called zalo coins.The way you earn currency is from community service hours. You might be wondering, how does the planet make money, who does the actual jobs? I have an answer to that. One of the most unique things about Tafag is that there are diamonds EVERYWHERE! We sell them to other planets so we can keep the Tafag economy, and lifestyle great! Now, to answer the other question, we use robots! They are friendly to the customers, and they don’t malfunction. In the case of an emergency, they expand into a giant bubble that 30 people can fit in that will protect everybody.

My favorite part of Tafag is nature! The only trees on Tafag are redwoods, and maple trees. They are planted in special places across the planet called tree-tags. The plants are the most important thing on Tafag. The plants provide lots of food and most importantly, THE AIR! We have these special plants across the whole planet that produce air, and they’re never ending. My favorite place to visit is the cavafalls. These specimens are deep,deep caves that at the end have the prettiest blue water you’ve ever seen. My second favorite place to visit is the tree-tags, specifically the redwoods.

The oceans on Tafag cover ¼ of the planet, so there are a lot of beaches and wildlife around or in the oceans. The ocean floor is covered in beautiful coral that shines and sparkles like the sun, and stunning sharks and stingrays that sway through the water like they’re flying. And when you look you’ll look up and see the only breed of bird: phoenix’s that sore through the flapping its red and orange wings like there’s no tomorrow. The beaches are filled with toys for kids to play with. But every night, the robots come and fill all the sand in to make it flat and smooth again.

You might be wondering,how do you get to all of these places? Spediphants! Spediphants are very fast moving baby elephants! But don’t worry, those aren’t the only animals on Tafag…. Some of the other animals are spider monkeys, dolphins, non-poisonous snakes, and rabbits. Dogs bring a sign of protection over your family, and house. Dogs that are Irish Setters also bring good luck. On Tafag, ⅓ of the planet is for animals and other types of nature, not including your maximum of 2 pets, which can only be a rabbit, dog, or garden snake.

In every tree-bour-hood there is one main place for shopping for food, clothing, household items, and luxury items. The name of this place is voted on every couple years, and one year is 653 earth days. The luxury part of this place is full of stores such as LV, Gucci, Balenciaga, Chanel, Prada etc. the home essentials can get a little pricey, because cleaning tree houses can be hard sometimes on Tafag there are 5 main food groups:  sweets, fruits, veggies, orzo, and lemonade. So at the grocery store there are lots of different types of orzo, lemonade etc. Also, when you put something in the cart, it automatically pays for it so you can just walk out of the store.

The government is hetgenoria. A hetgenoria is when the government has no people or ruler, but there are still laws in place. If you break a law, you’ll be escorted off the planet. You might be wondering, who takes care of taxes and financial things like that……ROBOTS! If there is a conflict, you will be taken to the courtroom, which is NOT fun at all. There is one courtroom in the middle of 5 tree-bour-hoods. Those are city’s. So far, the government hasn’t been an issue on the planet.

Visiting Tafag is very expensive, but it will be a once in a lifetime experience! Once you arrive you’ll be escorted by zeta-1,zeta-2,zeta-3, or zeta-4 to your spediphant that you have for 3.75 days. It will be a 46.5 min ride to your hotel, which is when you’ll see the planet the most. When you arrive you’ll go to your room, unpack, and the adventure begins! One thing is that you are not allowed to tour the tree-bour-hoods because the people want their privacy, and safety. If you have a criminal background you are not allowed on the planet at all to keep everybody safe just in case.

On Tafag everyone has one screen in their house that informs them about all of the news or if there’s a case of evacuation. In the luxury section, they sell something called Gigaphones. These phones are the smartest things on the planet. The screen is perfectly clear with unlimited data that never glitches. On the phone the apps cost nothing, but there are only seven you can have: call, text, FaceTime, Snapchat, Instagram,calendar, and Gamex. Gamex is every game in one app, which the kids love!

Speaking of kids, you must be wondering about education! This is one of the most important things on Tafag. There are 5 grades 1-5, and you take them ages 3,6,10,12, and 15. But when you turn 20, you have to take a final test to move on in life, and if you fail you have to retake grade 5, then take the test again. In the years when you’re not taking school, you’re doing fun camps! We have things from nature, sports, arts and crafts, or just doing community service! Tafag has been a planet for over 3000 years, and we hope it will continue on forever!

My Field Trip

Last Friday my grade went to the Museum of Natural Sciences, and it was so much fun! The bus ride their was an hour long, but we sang some fun songs. Once we got there, we got into groups, and went in the museum. There were SO many cool animals and statues. They had snakes, to beavers, life size dinosaurs!

My favorite thing throughout the whole trip was the 3D printing lab. There were so many cool designs, from fabric, to big Dino heads! The museum was huge it had 4 floors, an 2 separate huge buildings! After that we went to the capital building. It was really cool and historic to the area, and the detail on the statues were amazing! I overall thought this was a great experience for everybody!

Images from DA Teachers

Window Vs. Mirror Book

 

  Getty free images

I have recently been reading the book Space Case by Stuart Gibbs. So far I have been really liking the plot of the book and the characters. It’s about a boy and his family living on the moon, and he doesn’t like it. But then all of the sudden, someone dies. That’s when the story gets interesting.

In class over the last couple weeks we’ve been talking about window and mirror books. A window book is a book where you don’t relate to the book at all. A mirror book you can relate to with either the characters or the setting or just the story in general!

This book for me is a window book because he is living in space, he has a younger sister, and everything about his day is different than mine besides brushing my teeth. I personally don’t care if the book is a mirror or window, but it can sometimes be fun to read a book about someone or something that’s like you. Overall I’m really enjoying this book!

 

 

 

My Top 3 Favorite Lego Sets I Have

Lego is one of many hobbies, but it is definitely my favorite. Today I’m going to be talking about my top 3 favorite Lego sets, so lets get into it!

 

#3

Porsche 911- Targa/turbo

One of the reasons I like this set so much is because of how realistic it is. This set is 2 in 1, which means that you can build to separate cars. The one in the first picture is the Turbo. The second one is the Targa, which is the one I built. I also have this car in real life personally, which is really cool to.

 

#2

BMW motorcycle 

This Lego set is massive. It is very detailed, and it took me over 10 hours to do! It has a working engine, and it is incredibly realistic. My favorite feature is the dashboard. It has working handle bars, a speedometer, and a screen. This is a very, very cool set.

 

#1

 

The Titanic

I am one of few people to get my hands on this monstrosity of a set. This is the single biggest lego in the world, and took me over 30 hours to build!!! It is realistic, gigantic, humongous, and many more things. This was my most special build of all time.

My Stop Motion

Click here for the video

This week my friend Nolan and I made a stop motion movie! A stop motion movie is basically when someone takes a bunch of photos, puts them in order, and press play! For each photo they move the set just a little bit so it’s smooth.

We based this off a wisdom tale called The Red and Blue Coat, which is from Northern Africa. We had the option to do any wisdom tale, but we chose this one because it really stood out to us. If you want to watch the video, click the link at the top of your screen. This was an overall super fun activity!

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