The last and final step in Capstone was up. We were going to present our final project which mine was a Ted Talk. The day was finally up to present I was so nervous that I was going to mess up or forget something. We were presenting Capstone two days Monday which we would show the kids and Tuesday we were going to present it to family’s. When I first written all my flash cards I thought to myself there is no way that I could memorize all the cards but soon after that when I practiced a lot I got the hang of it. I memorized most of my cards but I wanted to hold them in case I forgot what to say. I was going to present my Capstone in Mrs. Coopers room. I was glad about that because I wanted to present in Mrs. Edwards room but Mrs. Coopers room was about the same, so I was glad about that. I wanted to present a class in the wing so I was glad about that. I was going to present last, which was fine because I don’t like going first in things. It was finally time to present our Capstone. I was getting more nervous as I was getting closer up. It was my turn I was presenting in front of Mrs.Citron’s second grade class. I was happy because she was my teacher when I was in second grade. When I was presenting after I got sedled in I felt more relaxed and started talking slower. I thought I was doing really well! It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I remembered my information and looked up. I was finished and I felt really proud of myself. The only thing that was bothering me was I would have to present in front of a bunch of family’s. The next day I was so scared I practiced over and over again because I didn’t want to mess up. After the ceromony of the moving up It was time for Capstone sharing. I was SUPER nervous. It was my turn. When I started I talked really fast and stumbled with my words a little but otherwise I felt like I did great and remembered my information. Overall I learned a lot about Crayola and had a great Capstone expirence!!!!

When we found out that making our final project was the next step in Capstone I had no idea what I was going to do. The choices were iMovie, Ignite, and a Ted Talk. I already knew I wasn’t going to do an Ignite because I wouldn’t get that much information out. But I wanted to do an iMovie but what would bring it together. By that I mean like an interview, travling back in time e.t.c. and that didn’t really make sense with my topic. I knew you can’t just list random facts. Mrs. Edwards gave me the idea to do a time line and focus up on the really important parts but It sounded a little boring. The last thing that was left was the Ted Talk. I thought it would be good because I would be able to tell a lot of information but I just didn’t want present it. I would have to deal with it thought. I decided to do a Ted Talk. The next step was deciding what slides I would want to have and how many slides I would have. It was hard coming up with the slide because I was going in the direction of doing each slide as a different important time. I didn’t like that idea so I did the things that would be most important. My interview answers helped me with that. When I was done making my slides this is what I came up with. The introduction, How Crayola came to be, Crayola from the beggining, The Crayola crayons thought the years, Crayola now, Hit products, Improvments and the ending. I thought these were the right amount of slides and I would be able to tell a lot of information about these slides but it would take some work doing it. I decided to write a script becasue I’m not the type of person who can just go up and present all the information that I know that relate to the topic. I would take a while thinking of it and making sure it would make sense. I would also repete a lot of things. I started writing the script one slide by each slide. I started writing on the index cards and I relized it’s hard to get the really important parts because there is so  much information included in each topic. Now I finally finished my index cards on what I’m going to say during my Ted Talk. All I have to do is practice and fix some little things. Overall I can’t wait to present my Ted Talk!

Here is a link to my slideshow. 

The next step in Capstone was answering my main inquiry question. In case you don’t know what it is, it’s:

How has Crayola evolved and what have been the key elements to the company’s success?

I thought it would be really hard; I was right. But the sub questions would REALLY help me answer it. I had a lot of different facts and examples in my head, but putting them into an essay in an organized fashion would be harder. The first thing I decided to do is break-up my main inquiry question. So I decided to make an introduction, a paragraph about how Crayola evolved, a paragraph on how Crayola is successful, and a closing paragraph. First, I wanted to do the draft in my social studies notebook so I could have people edit it and so forth. I started by writing my introduction, including my thesis, which is, “Crayola has evolved many different ways to make the company successful.” Then, for my first body paragraph it would be about how Crayola evolved. For example, 1) They changed their products over the years and 2) How they promote there products. Then, for my second body paragraph it would be about what products made Crayola so successful. For example, the 64 crayon box or washable markers. Then, last, the conclusion. I just restated my thesis, which was Crayola has evolved a lot of ways that had made the company successful.

I was checking it with Mrs. Edwards and she suggested that when I say how Crayola evolved and what products that had made it successful she said that I should name two products and really get into the details of it and I sort of agreed with her because I read my first answer over and it didn’t really sound that organized. I would have to write a full other answer but I felt like it would be the right choice. Even if I felt like I would give less information on this new one because I would just be talking about two products and really be getting into the detail with them. I choose the two products. The Crayola crayon and the marker. I thought these were the best products and the most popular ones too. I wanted to change my introduction so I played around a little and had some help and it turned out to be. “There are many elements that have influenced Crayola’s success, some more than others. After reading books, going online, and visiting Crayola Experience for my site visit and interview, I have identified one major event that has contributed the most to the company’s success: inventing the crayon in 1903.” I thought this was a really good introduction and thesis. I started writing the crayon paragraph first. I wrote it so that it was very detailed. It took a lot of hard work and I finished it. Now I would have to start my marker paragraph. I looked it up, but I realized that there aren’t many websites or information on the marker. Carrel is named after the crayon.  So I decided to fix my crayon paragraph a little. Mrs. Edwards said that I should write how that is the main thing that Crayola has sold and is selling. It turned out to be this. “You probably think that there are so many more things that make Crayola so successful. But after all of my research, site visit and interview, I learned that the crayon is the main reason Crayola is so successful..” After all this hard work it finally paid off and this is how it turned out to be:

There are many elements that have influenced Crayola’s success, some more than others. After reading books, going online, and visiting Crayola Experience for my site visit and interview, I have identified one major event that has contributed the most to the company’s success: inventing the crayon in 1903.

The Crayola crayon comes from the french words “craie” (which means chalk) and “oleaginous” (which means oily). Alison Binney created this new word and the company Binney & Smith became “Crayola” in 1903. The first box of eight crayons included the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, and brown. Crayola didn’t invent the crayon because Europe was the birthplace of the crayon. Even though Europe made the crayon it was expensive and toxic. So, Crayola decided to make their crayons non-toxic. The mixture that Crayola used back then contained waxes, talc and pigments and were mixed in small batches and the mixture was poured into molds so it could harden. Then, the workers attached labels to the crayons by hand. Today, they make crayons by melting the wax in a pot. They take the liquid wax and pour it into molds that hold 100 or so crayons each. Then, after the crayons harden, they put them into a wrapping machine. (Even though there are more than 400 colors, there are only 13 different color wrappers.) After the crayons are wrapped, they go into a packaging machine. From there, the crayons are separated into boxes and are put into big shipping boxes and are shipped to stores etc.

After the eight-color crayon box came out in 1903, later in 1949, the 48-color crayon box was introduced. Then, in 1958, one of the most famous box of crayons arrived: the 64-color box of crayons with a BUILT-IN SHARPENER!!!  That was the first time the crayons were arranged in tiers. Tiers are different assorted sections. Then, a few years later, Crayola made the 96-color crayon box and introduced 16 new colors. They held a contest, so the people could name the crayons. One name included macaroni and cheese. Crayola makes 8,500 crayons a minute, 13.5 million crayons a day, and almost 3 billion crayons a year! That is enough to go around the world SIX times!

Lately, Crayola is getting greener! One billion of the three billion crayons Crayola makes a year is manufactured by solar power. One study showed that if you blindfold a person and you put out a box of crayons for them to smell, they will recognize it. By the age of ten an average kid will wear down about 720 crayons. Crayons come in over 400 different colors! They also come in many different-sized boxes. Even Crayola is named after the crayon. You probably think that there are so many more things that make Crayola so successful. But after all of my research, site visit and interview, I learned that the crayon is the main reason Crayola is so successful.

I was SO happy on how it turned out.

I just had my interview with Kristin Louise, my mom and I got to explore the Crayola Experience! There where four floors so we decided to do each floor one at a time. Here are the top four activities at the Crayola experience.

#1 Wrap It Up. Wrap It Up is a machine where you could make your own label for a crayon for example you could choose your color that you wanted, write anything you wanted on it and then put a design next to it. I did this a bunch of times.

#2 Spin Art. Spin Art is a machine where you melt whatever crayons you want and when they melt it is being poured onto a piece of paper that is spinning and than it turns out as a melted crayon piece of artwork!

#3 Crayola Factory. The Crayola Factory is a room where there are machines that resemble of how Crayola crayons are made. For example, there are five machines that are used to make Crayola crayons #1 The melter pot. When Crayola gets its crayons it is just a big block of wax so they put it in a melter pot and it turns into liquid. #2 The shaper tray. Than they pour the liquid into this big tray with a bunch of molds of crayons and wait for it to harden and scrape off all the assess.#4 The table. Than they take the crayons and put them on a table. #5 The wrapper machine. Than people take the crayons off the table and put it into the wrapping machine which than wraps all the crayons.(Fun Fact, There are more than 400 colors but only 13 wrappers that Crayola uses)#6 The packaging machine. Last The crayons go to a wrapping machine that puts all the different colors into different packages.

#4 Melt and Mold. Melt and Mold is a machine that melts a crayon and that crayon melts into a different mold which turns into something like a crayon ring e.t.c.

Than we leave Crayola and decided to visit the actuall factory which is about 20 minutes away. When we get there the entrance it is all blocked off with a train track going into the factory we are not allowed to go into the factory but we take a picture of it. It was SO cool. Than the main headquarters are right next to it. The day was so fun and I learned a lot. I thought it was so fun and was the best part of Capstone so far and I learned a lot.

Today I interviewed Kristin Louise who works in sales and marketing at the Crayola Experience. For the interview I audio recorded it because I wasn’t going to take all those notes and every single detail of the answers. I asked her ten questions about herself and Crayola. The questions are,

#1 What do you like most about working at Crayola?

#2 What time period was Crayola most successful and why? What time was Crayola least successful and why?

#3 How has technology affected the type of products Crayola makes?

#4 What are the top ways Crayola promotes its products?

#5 What is involved from the idea to the end product with creating and selling a new Crayola product?

#6 What are the most important or key products in Crayola’s history?

#7 Who are Crayolas biggest competitors and how do they compare to Crayola?

#8 How does Crayola come up with the idea of all these different colors and how do they name them with names like “middle yellow red” e.t.c.

#9 Where are Crayola’s products mostly made why was those/that places selected for making the products?

#10 How are children’s opinions used when new products are made?

When Kristin answered  the questions she gave very detailed answers which were very helpful/useful. For example, part of her answer for question two was “It’s not a specific time that Crayola did the best but it’s when Crayola remembered what they where about. The number one thing Crayola is about is teaching kids how to be creative. Crayola does this because they think kids will be the leaders of the world one day. So Crayola wants to give kids the tools they need to be creative.” I thought this answer was interesting because it was not what I was expecting.

I thought the interview was really fun and because I learned all this information that you can’t find on some websites and it will definitely help e out with answering my sub questions. I can’t wait to see around the Crayola experience for my site visit!!!

Here is a picture of me and Kristin Louise.

I think On Point is very inspirational. One example why it’s inspirational is, Misty Copeland is  an only black out of 80 dancers is showing it doesn’t matter that everybody else is thin and white skinned and she is black; if you have a passion pursue it. In the text it states,”For so many generations ballerinas have been seen as these frail white women Misty Copeland is proud to set an example that you don’t to fit a mold to succeed.” This shows that it is good to be different, the world would be a boring place if everyone was the same. Even though Misty Copeland started dancing at age 13 she tried hard and succeeded. Misty Copeland became the first African American women to be a principal dance in ABT’s 75 year history on June 30th 2015. Another example why Misty Copeland is inspirational is, she helps kids in the Project Pile which will help kids find there inner talent for dancing. In the text it states, “Misty Copeland hopes that Project Pile will help pave the for other young dancers.” This shows that the kids she is helping she hopes that they will become dancers one day and follow there dreams. Overall I think this TFK On Point is very inspirational.

I learned a lot from this story The Power of Quiet. I learned what introvert, extrovert and ambivert mean. For example, introvert means quiet, not that social, shy, and not that outgoing. On the other hand extrovert is the complete opposite there outgoing, loud, and they stand out of the crowd. Ambivert means that they are a little of both. Sometimes they can be outgoing and sometimes they are not as outgoing. That is what I think I am. The story explains how this kid Davis  is introvert but he trys tip #3 that Author Susan Cain offers which is,” EXPAND YOUR COMFORT ZONE. Try something new. Stretch you limits, within reason.” Davis is trying out for the class president; he is running against the most popular girl in the grade and he won. This taught me to try new things even if your not sure because you never know what could happen.

I think Grace Lin is very inspirational and strong. One reason why I think Grace Lin is very inspiration is because she shows that kids should be themselves they shouldn’t try to be someone that there not. She is also inspirational because she shows you that you should be proud of who you are, you shouldn’t be someone you’re not. She showed us in her visit that for her ugly vegetable book she was the only one growing Chinese vegetables and everyone else on the block was growing flowers. One reason Grace Lin is very strong is because she got bullied when she was a kid because she looked different from everyone just because she is Asian. When she grew older she wrote books(not everyone) that include Asian characters. She wrote these books so that kids that are Asian could have books where they are seeing themselves in it and not seeing someone they are not. Overall I think Grace Lin is very inspirational and strong.

Once I chose my topic, the next step was to write my inquiry questions and sub questions. I started working on our inquiry questions first. An inquiry question is the question that gathers all of your Capstone research together. When I changed my topic to Crayola, I changed it last minute. I had already made an inquiry question for Dylan’s Candy Bar. It was “Who are Dylan’s Candy Bar’s top competitors and how do they compare?” So when I was thinking of a inquiry question I didn’t want to do a compare question because Crayola is probably the most known. I felt like this topic was harder to come up with a inquiry question about because there is more information about Crayola than there is about Dylan’s Candy Bar. I knew I wanted to do something with how the crayons are made and what are the ingredients but more advanced. Mrs. Edwards said you can look that up online and there would just be a list of ingredients. She gave me a suggestion of doing something with the color alive app. Here is what it was: “How is Crayola using augmented reality to make coloring and interactive experience and how can it be used for educational purposes?” I didn’t really want to do my Capstone related to Crayola technology. So I tried to think of what I could do. I thought of doing it on how Crayola evolved since it started as a company. I asked Mrs. Edwards to see if it was fine. Mrs. Edwards said it was good – it just needed an extra part. I thought, and I came up with, it could be something about how what have been the things that have made it successful. So I wrote: “How has Crayola evolved since the company started and what have been the things that have made it successful?” I asked Mrs. Edwards if it could be my inquiry question. She said some words just needed to be fixed so we did that and I had my main inquiry question. This is what it is: “How has Crayola evolved over the years and what have been the key elements to the company’s success?” Next, we started our sub questions. They had to be questions that answered our inquiry question. We started by getting a worksheet organizer that had six spaces for each sub question. I wanted the first sub question to be something like: “What are the most popular products sold?”  I worded it: “What have been the most popular products that you have sold?” For my second question I wanted it to be something like how the products that they made how it has evolved. I thought this was a good way to explain it: “What are the different types of products that you make now?” The third question I wanted it to be like how they came up with all the ideas to make the coloring materials and how they thought to create them and that has to do with the success of the company. I wrote it like this: “How did the crayon, marker, and colored pencil come to be?” The fourth question I was wondering how has technology changed Crayola or something related to that because that shows how Crayola evolved. I thought I would do something that would involve a little more of an answer and I came up with this: “How does Crayola of the 20th century compare to Crayola of the 21st century?” Then, for my fifth question, I thought of something. does it take longer to make markers than crayons and why does that certain one take longer. I thought it would be a good way to word it like, “What is the daily production of each product?” You can have five or six sub questions. But I wanted to have one extra one just in case. I thought Crayola is really popular – why is that? So I thought to word it like: “How is Crayola above other competitors?” Now I had all my sub questions written. In class, we had partners and we checked over our sub questions with them and re worded them.  My partner suggested I change them to #1,”What have been the key products that Crayola has sold?” #2,”How have the products that Crayola makes now compare to the products used to make?” #3,”What information did Crayola use to make the color pencil,crayon,marker or twistable?”#4, my partner thought I should keep it the same as “How does Crayola of the 20th century compare to Crayola of the 21st century?” #5,”How has technology changed the way Crayola produces there products?” #6,”How has Crayola make there products more popular than other companies?” Those are all my revised sub questions by my partner. All I have to do is check them with Mrs. Edwards and find the answers to them. I can’t wait to do further research on Crayola for my Capstone!

The 2016 Summer Olympics are taking place in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil. The Olympics will take place August 5th to the 21st and the Paralympics will take place September 7th to the 18th. More than 11,000 of the athletes will attend the games. The total cost of the games is 11,000,000,000! How do they make that much money? Rio has been prepering for this event since 2009!