Wisdom Tales

Leave a comment

In my Language Arts class, we learned about wisdom tales. These stories are from around the world and teach very important morals. One of the morals from a story called The Tiger’s Whisker was to be patient. We learned about these tales for four months and did a project on a Wisdom Tale we chose. I chose Antlers, a wisdom tale from Greece. I chose this Wisdom Tale because it teaches an important moral in a short story. Even though the story was short, the comic wasn’t. The story is that there was a deer that thought that its antlers were so beautiful and large, but it thought that its legs were ugly and spindly. A hunter tried to kill the deer. It ran away, but its antlers got stuck in some branches, but because of its powerful legs, it managed to get out of the branches and escape from the hunter. The moral of the story is that beauty isn’t everything.

Before we made the comics we had a special visit from a professional graphic designer. Brittain Peck gave us tips on how to draw comics better. One of the tips he gave us was to use simple shapes. One of the ways I used this was how I made my trees. I used a rectangle for the trunk of the tree and a circle for the leaves. Another tip he gave us was to change the size of the comic boxes. I varied the shape and size so that I could include farther out drawings or close ups. 

The tools I used to make this comic were Comic Life 3 and Sketchbook. I made the speech bubbles, comic boxes, and comic format on Comic Life and the drawings on Sketchbook. One tip I learned with drawing on Sketchbook is that you shouldn’t put all of your drawings on one layer. If you put parts on different layers then you can erase parts of one layer and the other layer will not be changed. I’m not good at drawing but this experience helped me understand that you don’t have to be good at drawing to tell a story. I also learned a lot about clearly stating what you want when you draw even if it isn’t a masterpiece.

 

Daily Planking

Leave a comment

In my Language arts class we had to plank every day for 7 weeks. We started out at 30 seconds then added 15 seconds to the plank every week. It was a bit challenging at the start even though it was only 30 seconds, but as we progressed through the weeks we got 2 minutes and 15 seconds. When we got to this point, planking was easier but still challenging. Another challenging thing was to remember to do the plank every day. It was especially hard during Halloween and Thanksgiving Break. At the end of the 7 weeks we did a plank challenge to see who could plank the longest. I topped out at 3 minutes. The really amazing thing is that there were people who planked longer than 10 minutes! A person I have to give thanks to is my dad. He encouraged me and he did the plank with me to boost my confidence. Finally, my new daily habit will be doing 5 push-ups every day. This will help me get better at push-ups and concentration. Overall, this planking experience helped me make good habits and it was actually fun to do.

Books

1 Comment

I read books. Mystery, fantasy, and science fiction are my favorite genres. I like reading Mystery books the most because I like how there’s something waiting to be uncovered and the feeling of suspense when the characters are going to find out and the satisfaction when the main character finds out the answer. A mystery book I read recently is Spirit Hunters. If I can get my hands on a fantasy book I will. A fantasy book I read is The False Prince. I like that I can read about an unreal world and the quests the main characters go on. I also like science-fiction because I like reading about humanity in the future. I like imaging robot apocalypses and dangerous diseases that plague futuristic worlds. So I really like reading about how someone else thinks it will be in the future. My favorite science-fiction book is NYXIA. 

Something that I do that most people probably don’t do when reading books is reading books until a certain page. I usually read books until the 60th page then stop for the day and read another book. Unlike most readers, I don’t read for a long time. I only read for a minimum of 15 minutes to 40 min. If I read a really good book then I’ll be sucked into it for an hour or more. I usually read more on weekends because I have more free time. I read for about 20 to 40 minutes on average on weekends. Overall, I would consider myself an average reader.

I usually get hooked onto a series of books and try to read them in order. For example, I read all the books from the FunJungle series. Books like Belly Up, Poached, and Big Game. I also like to read books from the same author. 

I usually just browse books and see what interests me. If I don’t find any books I like from authors I like or a series I like, I just browse books. I usually browse books based on the first few pages I read or books I’ve heard about. Sometimes I just pick my books based on the cover. I know there’s a saying that you should never judge a book by the cover. I just choose not to do that with actual books.

The Best At It Book Talk

Leave a comment

https://www.amazon.com/Best-at-Maulik-Pancholy/dp/0062866427

The Best at It

I read a book called The Best At It by Maulik Pancholy . It is a mirror book and a window book because it’s about an Indian boy who’s in middle school and he has to find what he’s good at. He also has a younger brother and his grandpa lives with him. A mirror book is a book that has a character that is similar to you. A window book is a book about a character that is different from you.

I usually choose mirror books because it’s important to know other perspectives and it’s more interesting to read about someone that has a different life than you. It was different reading a book that was a mirror book and a window book because it was normal reading about someone with a different life but he was also similar to me in interests, hobbies, and family. I would definitely recommend it.

 

Homework

Leave a comment

Homework creates unwanted stress and worry. Most teachers don’t know how much homework we have every day and that we do a lot after school. I think that we need less homework after classes and have more time to be able to do homework and class work when you have the class. 

It will help with stress and worry and will help students have less work to do after school. At my school, we have time before the end of school to do homework for 40 minutes. In this amount of time you can ask questions or meet up with your teachers if you need help. I acknowledge that most schools don’t have this privilege and their students do homework at home. All schools should have a time at school to do homework so that you have minimal to no homework after school. So that you have time to have more free time at school. 

Overall, I think that there should be a notice to the U.S Department of Education for less homework and time to complete homework at school so that students don’t have unnecessary stress, little to no free time, and an opportunity to ask questions with they’re homework.

Camp Kirkwood

Leave a comment

On Wednesday morning, I got on the bus to Kirkwood with my suitcase, sleeping bag, and string bag. It was very exciting to finally be heading to camp. I was ready to go to the camp. Most of the bus ride I just read The Hardy Boys: The Mark on the door. I talked with my friends for the rest of the bus ride to camp.

Around two hours later we arrived at Camp Kirkwood. It was wet, raining and hard to get to the pavilion. This was because of the hurricane that was passing through at the time. When I finally arrived at the pavilion there was an introduction to the campus and the rules.  After that talk we got our luggage and we were told where our cabins were. I finally got to rest for a bit after that long trip to camp. It was so good to finally know that we were at our destination that we were waiting for.

After we were settled into our cabins we got to have our first meal at Camp Kirkwood. It was a ham and cheese sandwich, an optional salad, and an apple if you wanted one.  After our lunch, we went to the flagpole to be split into groups. We were split into six groups that all went to different activities. My group, group 4, was going to the low ropes course first. It was a challenge because we had to coordinate with the rest of our group to know where to go. If you thought this sounded easy, it was not! We had blind folds and we had to know where to go as a group and not go on separate ropes or get split up. After that we went to the pool, which was really fun because we got to hang out with friends and just play in the pool. There was also a diving board which was really cool.

 

We did a lot of cool things at Camp Kirkwood, we did orienteering with compasses which was a challenge for me because I’ve never used a compass. One of the most memorable activities was the v-swing. It was an exhilarating activity where you would get pulled up, then you would pull a latch which would swing you several feet forward and back. Afterwards we went canoeing across the lake. It was a bit difficult communicating with the rest of your group on the canoe so that you wouldn’t crash into the sides of the lake or go off course, but it was still very fun canoeing across the lake. Something really exciting was the kanga jump which was basically a giant blob that was like a really big trampoline. On the same lake we went ziplining. It was really fun to zipline across the lake and also see the group that was canoeing at the time. 

 

I had a great time doing all the fun activities at Camp Kirkwood. The staff at camp were very nice and welcoming. If you needed anything they were there to help. Overall, I had a great time at Camp Kirkwood and would definitely come back to visit another time.

Basically my life

Skip to toolbar