In Language Arts for the last few months, we have been keeping track of some stocks that we picked. I learned that you have to be very careful on which companies you choose to invest in. This is very important because if you choose a smaller company, then you might not gain as much money. Though, you will also not lose as much money if you invest in a smaller company. In addition, I learned that to earn a lot of money with stocks, you have to invest for a long period of time. In the end, I think that investing in stocks is a good investment if you do it for a long time.
We each picked about 5-6 different stocks. These are the stocks that i picked and why.
Amazon – a lot of people use this so I new the numbers would be high. Barnes & Noble – I chose this because I love Barnes & noble Pinterest – during Covid people use online stuff
Tesla – a lot of people are buying these now
Nvidia – this is what my dad uses for our movies so I decided to check out it’s stocks
Disney – people love Disney so I chose it
Do stocks interest YOU? At the start you might not think so but once you get into them, it is really fun. You might not want to invest but just look at some of the stocks now and then look back at them in a week or so. See what you notice!
For 2 months the whole 6th grade at Durham Academy made tree books. This was a long process. We had to write, decorate and design the actual book. For the writing we did:
- Salute to My Roots
- Life List
- When this is Over
- My Wish
We had multiple sections of writing that all end up in our tree book. Salute to My Roots was a section of writing about our life hero. This was our largest section of writing that was in paragraphs. Some of our writing was in bluet points for example, in our Life List and My Wish we could use bluet points. On the other hand, our When This is Over was a poem which was about what we we never agin take for granted after Covid is over. In the end, i think that When This is Over was my favorite piece. Some of these were shorter than the others but all equally important.
We also did a lot of art work. Some artwork that we did was:
- Screen Printing
- Paper folding
- Akua ink
- Collage
- Pockets
You might not know exactly what each of these are. When we started this project I didn’t know what they were either. Let’s start with screen printing. Screen printing is when you have a screen and you put ink over it. Then, you would put it over our board and push the paint down with a scraper. After you do that, you lift the screen up and you see you beautiful words that you just made.
Next up is paper folding. This is literally what it is called, paper folding. We got a long piece of paper. Before we did this we had to use blue paint and paint the paper, this was so that it looked like the sky. After we had our paper ready, we did a hot dog fold and a hamburger fold. This was to get the shape of our books.
I think that Akua ink what the best part of the whole tree project. To do Akua ink, you start with a jelly pad, akua ink and a roller. After you have all of you supplies, you have to put the akua ink on the jelly pad. Then, you have to place a plant or object on the colored jelly pad. Get a paper, put it on the jelly pad and roll over it with the roller. This was a super fun piece of artwork. We used these to collage on the pockets and the rest of the books. In the end, this project really made me think about how this year haas gone for me and my family.
Do any of these activities sound interesting to you? If so, you should try them. They are super fun!
Hello, it is good to be back! In Language Arts, for the past week my classmates and I have been practicing and presenting TED talks. They are all so interesting some about climate change and some about masking emotion. I did mine on the different types of RVs. I did this because when I was 7, I traveled in an RV for two and a half years with my family around the country. This was the outgoing experience! Doing this changed my life, so I decided to tell people how to chose which RV is best for them so that maybe they will end going on an RV trip like I did. Let’s look into more detail on how we did these talks.
First of, we had to start by choosing what we wanted to do and why it is important to us and the audience. I think that quite a few people had trouble with “Why is this important to me” part. This is because some people wanted to just do a cool topic that would be interesting but it doesn’t really add anything. In the end, everybody ended up having very interesting and important TED talks.
The next step, was to decide how you want to start your TED talk. Some people started with a question, a picture or even just a statement. I started mine off with two questions. The first one was “Have you ever wanted to buy an RV and travel?”. Then I went into talking about how many family’s have traveled the country in an RV. My next question was, “Does anybody know any types of RVs”. When I asked this I didn’t get any names of RV. After that I went into talking about the different types of RVs.
The last step, is to have a conclusion. I feel like I didn’t really have one of these. Or at least I just forgot to say it, which kind of disappointed me. Though most people did have them and they’re very important because it kind of ties everything that you were talking about together. Since I didn’t have a conclusion, I ended mine with showing a bunch of pictures of my travel in an RV. Because I thought that everybody would like it and they did and it was just cool to see the inside of my RV. In the end, nobody’s going to be perfect but you can make it the best you want to be.
Do you want to listen to TED talks?
Go to TED Ed or you could just go to the TED app and watch tons of amazing TED talks!
It is powerful to have good friends throughout your life. Friendships happen when two people, that are either very similar or very different, meet each other’s paths. This doesn’t always make friendships of course, but it can if you end up liking that person and think they are cool. It means a lot to be a good friend. Friends can impact how you think, feel or act. They can also help you get through a hard time with your family or other matters. I think having a friend keeps you happy and not lonely. To keep a friendship you have to respect that person’s boundaries and say/do nice things for them. You are not going to keep a friendship if you push them down instead of lifting them up. In the end, friends have a lot of impact on your life, keep you happy and help move you forward.
Spilling Ink
The Art of Tinkering
The Creativity Project
A Light in the Attic
Wet Cement
Where the Sidewalk Ends
For the last couple of months we have been writing a very organized story. You might think that this story is just a bunch of words mixed together. But no. My classmates have had the amazing opportunity of being able to create a story with personal advise from an author. This author was Frances Dowell. She has been helping us create such imaginative stories. She gave us steps, advise and support.
Frances Dowell is a local author in Durham, NC. She mainly writes middle grade fiction books. The most recent book she wrote was, How to Build a Story . . . Or, the Big What If. This experience with her was such an interesting one. I hope to work with her again.
My story, The Hunt, is not quite finished yet but it is moving along quickly. I am hopeful that it will be finished by next week. I would like to take some time to share a part of my story. This part is not the start of my story but it is near the beginning. Here it is:
“Then it happened… again. I get sucked into a reality of thoughts. I think that I am in Hazel’s thoughts. She is letting me in. For the guard it was a lot harder. I see that she is thinking about me. When you are in someone’s thoughts it gets pretty loud if the person is thinking about many things. Witch Hazel definitely is. I didn’t get an exact message but I heard something like, “She is special.”. Right when she said ‘she’ I knew that she meant me. When I start thinking my own thoughts I get pulled out and fall straight back. Luckily, Hunter caught me right before I hit my head on the ground. I look up and see their faces hovering above me. “What am I?””.
I hope that that section of my story was interesting. I plan on posting some more parts of my story if you would like. I will be sure to tell you when I am finished with it. Please, if you want, go look at Frances Dowell’s website.
There she has all of her books. I have not read any of her books yet but I plan to later this year. I will see you next time. Bye
Here is her website:
Home
Hello, it is good to be back. Today I am going to be explaining if I think my book is a Window or a Mirror. The book that I am going to be talking about is…. Percy Jackson the Lightning Thief! I have just finished this book and i am excited to talk about it today. I think that Percy Jackson is an amazing book. I am only on the second one but I already love the whole series. Alright, lets get started!
First of all we have to know what a window or a mirror is. It is not really that hard to understand. I book that is a window is a book that you can look right through. When I say “look right through” you might think she’s crazy I have read Percy Jackson before and you can not see right through it. But no, when I say “look right through I mean that you have nothing in common with that book. I mean that there is nothing that you can relate to in that book. A mirror is kind of the opposite. a mirror is a book where you have a lot in common with that book or even just a few things in common. A book can be a window and a mirror. You might be able to look right though some parts of the book but other parts are mirrors.
For me, I think that Percy Jackson the Lightning Thief is a window. I think because I can’t relate to most of the book. I don’t really have anything in common with any of the characters. I mean, obviously I am not the daughter of a god or am I….. I don’t go to a camp with kids who are the sons and daughters of gods. I don’t have dyslexia. I am very different from all of the characters in Percy Jackson. Windows and Mirrors are weird things to think about. They really make you think about the book and reflect on it. Percy Jackson is a window for me.
Think about the book(s) you are reading or have read and just think if it is a window or a mirror for you. If you would like, type in the comments and tell me what book you are reading and if it is a window or mirror for you.
See you next time!
My daily habit tracker.
My daily habit was to read every day and to get outside every day. I chose these because I want to get better at reading and they are both good for me to do everyday. It felt good to have something to do every day and be able to color it in on the tracker and see your progress throughout the whole month. Doing this made me notice many things. For example, I noticed that I read a lot more than I think I do. I also noticed that when I don’t do one of my daily habits than my day feels incomplete.
Before we did our own daily habits we did a plank everyday. This daily habit was a little harder than just reading every day or going outside. But it showed us that you can do any daily habit you want. Even if it is just making your bed or going on a 3 mile run every day. I thought that mine would be good for me because with doing so much online school it feels so good just to get outside and take a break from the screen. I chose to read every day because I am a pretty slow reader and i would like to get better at reading and to read faster.
Those where only my daily habits for January. For February I think that I am going to still read every day but replace get outside with relax. I just think that with all this school stuff and COVID-19 i just need a time to relax during the day when no one can interrupt me.I plan to have a successful month with lots of time to read and relax.
You can have a daily habit too! And you don’t even need anything!
Have a good day and I will see you next time!
I think that I am a question mark because I ask a lot of questions. I might not always say them out loud but I always have some sort of question in my head. For example, when we do an assignment I might not know exactly what we are doing so I will ask a question. Most of the time I am just asking myself the question. If the question was “When do we turn this in?”, then I am not going to actually ask that because I know a place to find that answer. But for a moment it got sucked out of my brain so I had the urge to ask the question. I also do ask a lot of questions about what I am interested in. For example, I am interested in doctors, politics, education, and nature. In the end, I think that I am a question mark.
This is my Wisdom Tale! The comic above is based of of the wisdom tale Feathers. It’s moral is to “Think before you act”. Wisdom tales are tales that have a moral. I chose the wisdom tale, Feathers, because I thought that this tale has a very important moral. The moral is very important for everyday life and I wanted to show that to people.
I created my comic using Sketchbook and this was my first time use in Sketchbook. I had a friend help me figure it out. And having that extra help really helped me accomplish what I wanted to accomplish and finish my comic. I really love using the layers, I thought that those were very helpful. Making this comic was really fun for me and I hope that I could see some of your comics!
Are you making a comic?
If so, show me!