My Ideal World Book

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We made books of our ideal worlds, and they were inspired by the book The Last Cuentista. Mine was called Lucyland. We worked alongside local artist Peg Gignoux, and she helped us with the backround, and they all turned out beautiful. Here is my story:

I opened my eyes to see a beautiful land called Lucyland. I quickly ran to the closest window on the ship. The first thing I see is the amazing sky. The sky is a beautiful mix of purple, pink, and blue. The grass is a bright green. I also see a beautiful beach with the clearest waters I’ve ever seen. In the distance, I see a huge garden with beautiful flowers and trees everywhere.

The announcer yells on the loudspeakers, “We will go out onto Lucyland in 30 minutes. You will be assigned a place to live based on your preference. You can choose the mountains, the beach, the city, or the small town. Please find me and tell me your preference. Thank you.” My heart is thumping. Ever since scientists found out about this land, I’ve felt like it was perfect for me. I quickly rush to the announcer and tell him my preferences.

Once we get to the beach, I gasp. It’s even more beautiful than when I first saw it. I look around and see a beautiful white house with light blue windows and a big porch at the front. I walk in to see a big living room with a comfortable couch and a big TV. A kitchen with light blue chairs and marble countertops is next to the living room. After I walked through the kitchen, I got to my room. It has a wooden bed with white sheets, a big blue blanket, and a big closet. It also has the most beautiful view of the beach. I quickly change into my pajamas and fall asleep.

When the morning comes, I immediately leave my house to explore. I walk for a long time on endless, winding roads. I usually would feel tired or bored walking for so long, but something about this land made me feel happy, like I could walk forever and not mind. Eventually, I get to the mountains. The sky looks even more beautiful from this view, now a mix of gray, purple, and shades of blue. The mountains are peaceful. Light purple and white snow falls from the sky and lands on me as I walk down the windy road back on my way to the city.

I finally got to the city and could tell from the bright lights and music in the distance. The buildings are huge. A lot of them are apartments, while some are restaurants or shops. There are lots of people, but it isn’t packed.

After walking around, I walk through the city, down the windy road, and back to the beach. I say hello to my neighbor, Eva, who watches the sunset on her porch. I walk up the steps to my house, open the door, and walk through my living room and kitchen. I collapse on my bed. I think about my day and how peaceful this planet is. I don’t realize it, but I fall asleep thinking about Lucyland.

Wisdom Tale Comic

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Throughout this year, we have read parts of the Wisdom Tales book. There were stories and legends from all over the world that we read and summarized. In total, we read 20 stories. After we read all of them, we had a parent visit our grade who makes drawings. Brittain Peck is a visual storyteller and artist. He taught us how to draw characters and how to tell a story with drawings. We had an assignment to do a comic showing a story of our choice, so his advice really helped us with our project. 

I chose the story Fire, Water, Truth, and Falsehood from Ethiopia. I chose this story because I thought the moral, which is that truth always wins, was very good. I liked how the moral meant so much, but it was still a simple story. I thought that it was a great reminder to always tell the truth, because so many people are lying so much. But they need to know that it will always come back to them. 

After I chose my story, we started drawing. We used an app called Comic Life to make our story really look like a real comic. We also used an app called Sketchbook to draw our comic. I really enjoyed drawing my comic because it was very calming to do after a long school day. 

While learning about different types of stories, the Wisdom Tales also showed great morals and lessons. The moral for Fire, Water, Truth, and Falsehood is that truth always wins, or as they said it in the book, falsehood can only rule where truth is struggling to be heard. I thought that was a very wise and meaningful moral, so that’s the main reason I chose this story. 

Overall, this was a very fun learning experience for me. Have you ever drawn a comic before?

Plank Blog

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Our habit tracker

Our class before we planked

From October to December, our Language Arts classes have been trying to make habits. The habit we did was planking every day. We started at 30 seconds and then we added 15 seconds every week. We ended at 2 minutes and 15 seconds this week. Then every time we did it, we colored in that day on our habit tracker, which is one of the photos above. Yesterday, we did a final plank challenge. Everybody had to plank for at least 2 minutes and 15 seconds then everything after that was extra. I only planked for 4 minutes and 10 seconds, but the winner planked for 18 minutes! Do you think you could hold a plank for that long? I certainly could not. We were supposed to go as long as we possibly could without going into the side plank or putting our knees down. After we all finished the plank, we did a reflection. We all chose a habit to start. I chose doing all the splits. We also talked about the benefits of habits, and I really think there are many. Overall, I think it was a great experience. I think that everybody should try making a habit of something.

Book Blog

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I am a reader. I started liking reading over the past summer. Earlier, I couldn’t find the right book so I wasn’t very interested in reading. But, in my opinion, reading is relaxing now. It makes me happy to read a book that I really like. Reading is also something nice to do when I’m bored. It’s a nice way to calm down and, for some reason, reading makes me less tired and have more energy. I love reading so much now and I have really gotten into it.

I love reading realistic fiction and fantasy books. I like realistic fiction because I can somewhat relate to it and it is very comfortable to read realistic fiction for me because they are usually pretty easy to read. The other genre I like is the opposite of realistic fiction: fantasy. I love fantasy books because I can imagine so much. I love reading about these fake worlds that just seem so real. I just have so much room to imagine so many things for fantasy books. As much as I love realistic fiction, I can’t really imagine that much because there are limits. Realistic fiction sounds like the world we live in, so I can’t really imagine that much.

A realistic fiction series I am reading right now is The Summer I Turned Pretty series. I am currently reading the second book which is called It’s Not Summer Without You. I started reading this series because I watched the show and all my friends had read it, so I decided to start reading it about a month ago. I love this series because it seems so real. I can really understand everything because I live in the same state as the characters in this book. I don’t really relate to what’s going on in the book though. The series is about a girl named Isabel (or Belly) Conklin. She is 16 years old. She goes to her family friend’s house on a beach called Cousins Beach every summer for the whole summer. She has a brother named Steven who hangs out with the family friend’s kids, Conrad and Jeremiah. I don’t want to give too many spoilers but I can say that I love the series.

I love the author of The Summer I Turned Pretty, Jenny Han. I also love her book To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before which is also a realistic fiction book. Another author I like is Carl Hiaasen. I read his book Flush and I loved it! It was about a boy in Florida saving the ocean from a cruise ship. Do you have a favorite author?

I love reading. Some books don’t catch my interest as much as others, but I still love reading. I am always looking for new books or series to read. If you have any favorite books or authors, I’d love to know.

The Summer I Turned Pretty

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Photo from Sora

Recently, I read The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han. This is definitely a window book for me. A window book is a view into another perspective or something you don’t relate to. However, a mirror book is a book that you see yourself in, and you can somewhat relate to. The Summer I Turned Pretty is about a girl named Isabel, Belly to her friends, who goes to a summer house on Cousins Beach every year with her mom’s best friend, Susannah, and Susannah’s two sons, Jeremiah and Conrad. Belly always feels left out when her brother, Conrad, and Jeremiah hang out. But this summer, she changed. I can’t really relate to Belly or any of the characters in this book. Sure, I have a beach house and I’m living at the same time as her, but I don’t really see myself in any of the characters which is why it’s a window book to me.

 

Alaska 2023

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Image from Unsplash

This summer I went to a few places, but my favorite was our trip to Seattle and Alaska. We were so excited because this was our fourth year trying to take this trip. We were originally going in 2020, but for obvious reasons we couldn’t go. Then in 2021 we were nervous to go on a cruise when covid was still everywhere. Then, in 2022, my sister got covid four days before our flight to Alaska. We thought since we had been waiting for so long, we would go to Seattle for three days before the cruise, and three days after. We arrived in Seattle on a rainy night, and we took an Uber to our hotel. I loved our location. When you looked out the window there were hills and beautiful houses. I thought our view looked like California. It almost looked like the Hollywood sign would be sitting at the top of the hill. As soon as we got to the hotel, we fell asleep. It was almost 3:00 AM in North Carolina by the time we fell asleep. Good thing the beds were super comfortable.

I woke up at 7:30 the next morning, tired but excited to be there. When we were in Seattle for the first three days we went to a glass sculpture museum and the Space Needle. We also just explored the area. After the three days, we flew to a small town in Alaska and stayed there for 1 night. It was a beautiful town. While we were there, we went to a place where they kept bears and a place where they kept birds. The bird place had old birds that couldn’t be in the wild anymore. The place that had bears had 5 bears, and they lived in a place that looked a lot like their natural habitat. After staying in that town for a night, we left to go on the cruise. We were on the cruise for a week. There were only about 40 passengers (not including staff) on the cruise. While we were there we saw sea lions, bears, otters, jellyfish, whales, and lots of other animals. We also saw 2 glaciers! We went kayaking, hiking, and just exploring Alaska. After we left the cruise, we went to Seattle for another three days.

Camp Kirkwood

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The 6th grade came to Camp Kirkwood on August 30. We arrived around noon. First, we went off to our cabins to unpack. Girls cabins were 1,2,3, and 4. Boys cabins were 5,6,7, and 8. I was in cabin number 4. My cabin had one other girl from my advisory and two other advisory’s girls. My friend Ainslie and I bunked together. After we got settled in and unpacked we ate lunch at the Dining Hall. We ate a grilled cheese sandwich with ham. After we ate, we went off to activities. We were split up into 6 groups. I was in group 6. The first activity my group did was the Kanga jump. The Kanga jump was a trampoline. It was a different shape than most trampolines. It was a curved shape, but instead of climbing onto it from a ladder, we ran onto it. All of the activities were one hour, except the pool was two hours. After the Kanga jump, groups 4, 5 and 6 went to the pool. Before we got in, we had to do a swim test. We had to do Freestyle across the pool and if you passed, you got a blue band, but if you didn’t pass, you got a green band and wore a life jacket. I passed the test. Once everyone was done with the test, we played moss, swam around the pool, and dived for two hours. Then we did a team building activity.  After we did that we ate spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. After dinner we went to our cabins and got into our pajamas. Then, instead of a night hike, we watched The Lorax. Then we went back to the cabins and went to bed around 10:00 pm.

We woke up the next morning at 7:00, got dressed and headed to the dining hall for breakfast. The hurricane had hit the first night so it flooded. We couldn’t do outdoor activities in the morning because it was flooded and raining. So after breakfast my group went to the pavilion and learned how to use a compass which was fun and surprisingly easy.  After we did that, we did forest ecology inside and learned about trees and what some parts of trees are called. Then we had lunch. After lunch we went to the pool, then we had dinner which was chicken and mac and cheese. After dinner my group did the V swing which was scary but super fun. Then we had some advisory time for 1 hour. After advisory time, we had s’mores in the woods. After that, we went to our cabins and went to sleep.

Then, on the third and final day, my cabin woke up at 7:00, got ready, and went to breakfast. After we had breakfast we did the kanga jump again, went canoeing, and did a super fun zip line over the lake. After the activities we went to the Dining Hall and ate pizza for lunch. Then, we went to the cabins and packed up our things. When we were done packing we had to bring our duffles all the way from our cabins to the bus. Then we went to the Pavilion and a teacher told us which bus we were on. I was on bus 1. I sat at the back with my friend Sona. After the two and a half hour ride back, we were home.

That’s what I did at Camp Kirkwood. One thing that wasn’t my favorite was the food, but I loved the V swing and zip line. But overall it was good!