In language arts class we read “The Westing Game” by Ellen Raskin and one of the characters followed the stock market. We then decided to play our own game by investing 20,000 fake dollars to see who the big winner and loser was. My investments are in the picture above and I ended up making $963.08 in total.
In Language Arts class we recently got the challenge of creating our own TED talk. We had to choose and research a topic of our choice, make a slideshow, and present to the class. We worked on our TED talks for a couple weeks then came some of the first presentations. Here, I will tell the story about how my TED talk came to life.
Choosing a topic was the most difficult part, I ended up choosing “How to take a penalty kick in soccer.” I started off strong, researching and finding images for my talk and making what I thought was good progress. I finished my slides but had no idea what to say yet. I thought it was going great until I saw people already signing up to present. After this I worked extra hard and finished writing down what I had to say, know all I had to do was practice saying it.
Saying what I had to say was going to be the hardest part. I practiced over and over again until I had it down. Then, when I felt ready signed up to present. I kept practicing with some of my peers and they gave me feedback. Then it was time for me to present.
I had butterflies in my stomach, my body was shaking when I was pulling up my slideshow. I began my first line and just kept going through my slides like I had practiced. Then after what felt like two seconds, I was finished. What I thought would be super scary was ended up being fine. This project was super fun because I was able to be creative about a topic I was passionate about. Thanks for reading.
In Language Arts class we recently read a book called “The Last Cuentista” by Donna Barba Higuera. This book told about a girl named Petra who was forced to leave her home on earth and travel to a planet named Sagan. A group called the collective ran this mission and to eliminate all recognition of Earth they erased their memories during the time on the spaceship. But Petra’s brain wiping didn’t work, so she must pretend to be part of the collective to survive. Petra is also trying to bring people back their memories of Earth and to bring her stories to this new world. This was a really fun book to read and had plenty of excitement.
After reading about how Petra had to leave to go to a new planet, we decided to make our own dream planet. Our ideal world project consisted of writing about our planet in a creative way, and drawing our planet. I made my ideal world based around my favorite sport, Soccer, for example my planet looked like a giant soccer ball. There was a lot of detail we had to put into making our planet like what animals live there, how the government works, and what types of plants are on your planet. I liked being able to create my own planet because it allowed me to be super creative.
After we had finished making our ideal planet we made them into little pop-up books. We did akua ink printing on pieces of paper then made them into collages. We made a scene from our planet and made a fold up window to it and glued our ideal world writing to the inside of the book. We put on hard covers and wrote the name of our planet out by cutting paper into letters. We finished our books and put them on display.
We have had a lot of fun projects in Language Arts class and I hope you enjoyed reading about them.
In science class, we spent a couple weeks learning about electricity and how to build circuits with wires. At the end of the unit, we partnered up with a peer with the challenge of building a model house out of cardboard, wires and other materials. This was a tough challenge, our house had to consist of three lights, a buzzer, and a motor. This project taught us how to collaborate effectively, and how to troubleshoot problems. After everyone had finished we put all our houses on one circuit and made our own electric cardboard town.
I created a planet called Rocces and it is a soccer planet. It is located in the Milky Way. Its lightsource is the sun. Rocces looks like a big soccer ball. Rocces is in the middle of the solar system and a year is 200 days. There are 4 seasons: Winter, Summer, Spring, and Fall. Temperatures range from 25 degrees in the winter and 90 degrees in the summer, it is the same temperature, time, and sunlight on the entire planet. It snows for 65% of the Winter. Do you like the weather on this planet?
The nature of Rocces is based on Earth.The plants and animals are identical to Earth. Accept that palm trees are all over the planet. It is impossible for animals to go extinct. Hunting is illegal unless you have a permit. There is an ocean flowing down the middle of the planet creating two continents. All rocks found on earth can be found on Rocces. But unlike Earth, Rocces has a core made of gold. The air is perfectly clean and everything is solar powered. Rocces has one moon that is made of gold. The sky is dark blue at night and light blue in the day.
There are two continents called Bundesliga and La Liga. The people of each continent elect 5 representatives for their continent and all 10 create the supreme team. They vote on decisions and laws brought to them. The population of Rocces is 3 billion people. Split evenly between the two continents. Each town has its own court of nine members that decide laws and a governor. The governor is in charge of the police, fire department and hospitals. He is also in charge of the budget and economy of their town. All the governors come together and become the group of leaders for their continents. They decide on laws for their entire continent’s laws.
Each continent has its own soccer league of 20 teams. All the teams compete against the teams in their league. The top 4 from each league come together to compete in the Super Cup. Winning team is the champion of the world. Towns can form their own teams and try to get into their continent league.
Everyone on Rocces gets along because all issues are brought to their towns court. Food rains from the sky every 7 days so world hunger is not an issue. If you ever are below the poverty line the government will help you with their unlimited money only if they are working and their salary is too small to pay for their lives. So people won’t try to steal. During elementary and middle school everyone takes the same courses, but in high school and college you can pick what you study. You are required to pick 7 subjects that your school offers but it is completely up to you on what you pick.
On Rocces there are very cool robots that do your chores: dishes, laundry, clean your room, etc. There is always a team of scientists working on advancing our technology.
Some cool things on Rocces are there is an all you can eat ice cream buffet in the middle of each continent. Each family is given 2 cars once they have their first kid, and 100,000 gold coins for each kid. Lots of sports exist but soccer is the main one. Soccer academies are 10 gold coins and they train players for their city’s team. There is no crime on Rocces either. The number for the fire department and paramedics is 123,456,890.
Would you want to live on Rocces?
On Friday, January 27th, my peers and I stepped onto the bus ready to head to the Raleigh museum of Natural Sciences. When we got there, we sorted into our groups and headed inside. As soon as we got inside I knew it would be awesome! I saw a model of the Titanic, huge dinosaur skeletons, and so much more. As we walked around I saw a ton of cool animals like snakes and spiders. We learned about ancient animals and artifacts from millions of years ago. We also got to see the really cool RACE exhibit, it talked about how race is a made up thing and had lots of cool posters on how race came to be. Thank you so much to Raleigh museum of Natural Sciences for letting us come and giving us a great time.
Image from Sora
A window or mirror book is a way to tell if your book is like your life. If the book/main character has a life like yours it is a mirror. A window is if their life is not like your life.
A book I have enjoyed reading recently is The Compound by S.A Bodeen. This book is a window because I don’t live in a compound and my dad is not evil. I’m also not a teenager. That is why this book is a window for me.
My Lady Jane
Over A Thousand Hills I Walk With You
Take Me To The River
Witness
Eventown
If you didn’t know already, I really like soccer. I have been playing soccer since I was 2 years old. It is my favorite sport followed by American football. Soccer is a very fun sport and it teaches me a lot of skills in life. Some are to communicate with other people and how to be aware of your surroundings. It also is a fun way to get outside and be active. I hope to see you give soccer a try.
William and I partnered up for our Wisdom Tale project. The wisdom tale we chose was “A Monk with Heavy Thoughts” and we presented it in a rap.
Rap lyrics:
beat x2 Two zen monks walked on a muddy road [beat] but when the elder monk saw a woman! Scooped her up and walked over, puddle! [beat] hours and hours and hours and hours lateeer![beat] the younger monk said (PAUSE) We dont touch dem woman [beat] the elder monk says why then hours and hours and hours and hours later! [beat] why are u still carryin her. (Say ohhhhhhhh)
bold is Terrick’s lines.
non bold is William’s lines.