Category Archives: Writing

The National Constitution Center

Philadelphia, PA, November 9th, 2018. It started out as a rainy morning for the Heathcote Elementary 5th graders. When they arrived they went to the National Constitution Center. There, the 5th graders saw four main exhibits. The main exhibit, the shows “Living News”, “Freedom Rising” and a special Alexander Hamilton exhibit.

At the Alexander Hamilton exhibit 5th graders saw incredibly well preserved artifacts, such as Alexander Hamilton’s papers, his duel gun and even a lock of his hair! At the main exhibit the 5th graders got a chance to interact in activities such as discovering the qualities people needed to be able to vote in the 1800’s. The two shows were a great learning experience. “Living News” was interactive. The students got to put in their own opinions. The second show “Freedom Rising” wasn’t interactive, but 5th grader Julia says, “I thought that it was really cool. I learned a lot from it and I liked the pictures on the screen.”

5th grader Alba says, “I thought that the National Constitution Center was very enjoyable. I had a great experience.” In the reporter’s opinion the 5th graders had a very fun, enjoyable experience. In conclusion, 5th grader Kate says, I had so much fun going to Philly! It was a great learning experience.”

 

Two Long Months

The construction started on September, 4, 2018. We have now endured 2 long years of construction. Now we are taking on the construction of the kitchen. We are living without a kitchen for a while because of the construction. We set up a makeshift kitchen in the hall. We move our microwave, toaster, steamer and table to our new “kitchen”. So far, it has been ok, but  the food isn’t as good as homemade food. On the weekdays we warm up chicken or meat in the microwave and steam vegetables, pasta, rice and couscous. On the weekends we get takeout or go out. “It is not as good as home cooked food,” I say, “But it’s still good.”

The house is really noisy with the bangs of nailing a cabinet or something into the wall, the sounds of ripping the whole room apart and the sounds of workmen talking. The first couple of times I heard the different sounds I practically jumped out of my skin. The whole downstairs except for the guest room smells faintly musty. Sometimes it smells a bit like muffins. There is also the smell of fresh paint. I always make sure before I touch something I ask myself “Is this wet?” It sounds strange, but after awhile you get used to the smells and noises.

There are drop cloths all over the house and the dining room and living room are bare and empty. Upstairs we have to be really careful that we don’t touch wet paint. Downstairs we have to be careful with the floors, making sure we don’t step on them with shoes. We have to be careful walking through the kitchen, because of the appliances. We have to be really careful in general.

We check on the kitchen multiple times. My mom doesn’t let me in the construction zone because there are things you could trip on, dangerous machines and dust. Then, a few weeks  later she started to let me go into the kitchen.

“Wow!” I exclaim, “It looks so good!”. Everything is ripped out. My mom tells me the plan for the kitchen. A few weeks after, we put in the hardwood floor, but had to move to my aunt’s house for a few days, because they had to stain the floors.The stain is toxic. We moved all our furniture upstairs because we couldn’t have it downstairs with the staining happening.

Now we are back in our house, but still cannot put any furniture downstairs. Our guestroom is our kitchen now and my sister is sleeping with me because my room doesn’t have extra furniture and her room is being used to store furniture. My mom and dad sleep in their their room with a sea of furniture around them. It’s not that bad. It is just a bit strange to have no furniture downstairs and a ton of it upstairs. It is also weird to have the guest room as our kitchen, but it is ok. Now it is just waiting, waiting and waiting. The stone is coming today. The construction is almost done and we will soon have a kitchen again.

I can only imagine what it will look like when it is finished. From what my mom told me it sounds really nice. It’s hard to imagine what it will look like, although I can kind of get the picture I know what it looks like so far, but it is still hard to imagine. I think my mom did a really good job designing it. She spent a lot of time and effort on it and should be very proud of it. Even though I can’t exactly envision yet, I am sure that it will be really, really nice.

Colonial America Reflexion

The process of this book was long and hard. First, we had to research on regular colonial life for our Chapter 1. We also had to research for Chapter 2, but this time we picked our top 3 choices and our teacher chose our topic out of our 3 choices. Then, we had to write out our chapters 1 and 2. Next, we had to type those chapters. After that, we used our topic research to write our Chapter 3 which is a letter that has to do with your topic. Then, we typed our chapter 3. Next, we wrote our chapter 4 and typed it. After that, we had to type our glossary and bibliography. Last, we had to put in images, captions and finishing touches. That’s how we made our book.

I really liked working on the colonial america books. I especially liked writing chapter 3  because I liked being able to make something up and use history to make it into a letter. I also liked writing chapter 2 because I liked learning about colonial doctors.

The most challenging part of this process for me was researching for my chapter 2 because it was difficult to find anymore information then what I already had.

I learned that I really like to write historical fiction.

If I did this project again, I think I would have tried to find more images because I would like a few more images.

Overall, I really liked writing this book.

 

Book of the Month – Ted Talk Reflection

“One Plastic Bag” is mainly about getting rid of plastic bags in Gambia. My favorite part was when Isatou and the women of Gambia made the purses, because I thought it was really cool. This book reminded me of when the playground was littered. I think the message of this book is if you can do something – do it! I think that this book was written to tell us that you can make garbage into something pretty, because of the way the author talked mainly about it.

Image result for one plastic bag by miranda paul

 

The Ted Talk is mostly about banning plastic bags in Bali. My favorite part was when the Governor signed the promise of Bali being plastic bag free by 2018. This video reminded me of all the plastic bottles that are littered here. I think the message of this video is kids can do things. I think that these girls were very proud of themselves because of the amount of work they had done.

These stories inspired me to do everything I can to help ban plastic bags in Scarsdale. In Scarsdale we have a problem where a lot of our trash ends up in our ocen. I learned that kids can do things if they’re determined to fix it!