My Ideal World

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In Language Arts we read a book called The Last Cuentista. After we read the book, we had a project to make our own world our ideal worlds. We got to work with Peg Gignoux to make our books. Soon my ideal world became a reality. Down below is my story to enjoy.

 

Samele

 

Hello, I am the founder of Samele. I found this world on a mission to look for a place to live. Samele is a sustainable and healthy planet. Let me tell you the story of Samele.

I first landed on Alder. I am in my full-body suit with an industrial helmet, ready for anything. Alder is a big lush forest with wildlife surrounding it. I investigated further and found bones, plants, and animals like earth but never seen before. Then, out from a tree, a creature jumps on me, and instead of attacking me, it hugs me. Little did I know this cute-looking animal, called a Torga, was calling his friends to give me more hugs or suffocate me, but luckily, I had some beef jerky that stopped the creature. Right after I gave the creature beef jerky, I realized that the creature had taken off my helmet. Surprisingly, I was still alive. I continue to see many different animals and trees covered in a moss-like plant. I take off to the next island, hoping it’s not too dry.

Next, I landed in Cairo. This place is a desert, and it looks like nothing is here. Underneath me is a scorpion-like creature that is way bigger and fuzzy. It lunges towards me with its six legs. I jumped out of the way in time. It scurries towards me again, but something behind it eats it. It looks like a huge bunny species called a Scupy. I thank the Scupy with yet again beef jerky, and by the Scupy’s signs, it is telling me that it wants to go exploring with me. I see no other animals around, and the Scupy looks lonely, so I hop on the Scupy’s back and keep exploring with the Scupy called Winston. I say, “Winston, let’s adventure on.”

I then landed on Taiga. This place is a lot like the tundra with a blizzard. Winston is freezing because he is usually in the warm sun. We just see snow and ice for miles. It looks like there is no life, but Winston and I hear some sort of gorilla mixed with a bear species in the caves. The Geiller species is ruthless. At the water, we see the Nahwle species. There are probably more animals here, but Winston and I must visit the next island.

I land on what looks similar to Alder but with fewer trees and less hydration. There are huge mushroom-looking objects taller than Winston and me, combined with huge trees all around me. Just above is this big bird-looking shadow that is getting closer and closer and closer until it’s right above me. It looks way bigger than me. Suddenly, I got swooped by a type of bird, but luckily, Winston scared off the bird before it caught me. I thanked Winston for saving me and we next traveled to the abandoned island.

I land on Tenua, the abandoned island, looking for life. There is nothing in sight for miles and miles. This place looks like it has been abandoned for one billion years. Winston smells something. He dashes toward the smell with me on his back, trying to hang on. Then suddenly, Winston stopped. Right in front of us were flat pieces of land going on for miles. I say, “This place would make a great city.” I track back to where I landed the ship to get on to Tenua. I fly back to Cairo to put Winston home. I leave Winston in Cairo, telling him I will be back for him.

I launch a submarine down into this huge ocean named Adva. I see what looks like coral reefs filled with life going forever. I decided to go deeper into Adva, but soon I would regret it. I cautiously go deeper and deeper into Adva, and then something bumps into me. Again and again until, I now see that the Megalodon was right in front of me. I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there and waited to see what it would do. Surprisingly, the shark just swam away, not knowing what to do. I now go back to my ship to tell my boss everything.

I am now on ship R275 GCT, reporting everything I know about Samele. I told Winston, “The sun is about to have a supernova. Samele would be a perfect place for our kind to live.”  He agreed, and NASA started building ships to move people to Samele.

500 years later, we are in the present. Tenua is now a city where people have jobs, and those other islands are the same right now. I am living with 25-year-old Winston in Aase. Now, I am living as a retired astronaut explorer and a savior of our people. “Isn’t that right, Winston?”

 

Durham challenge, Solar eclipse and the Planetarium

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Durham challenge, solar eclipse and the planetarium…

Back in February my school partnered with Keep Durham Beautiful for every student in 6th grade to plant a tree. There were different types of trees and we planted them in a neighborhood. In total, we planted more than 70 trees that day.

In April, it was all the hype and it was the solar eclipse. I was going to watch it at my house but my school had an afternoon event where we could watch the solar eclipse with the special sunglasses while eating moon pies and sun chips. The whole school was invited including parents. We all got to play on the field with our friends while watching the solar eclipse.

Before the eclipse a couple days before the 6th grade went to the planetarium to get some knowledge on the eclipse. We drove to the Morehead Planetarium in Durham, NC. We got to see a 3D projected room with different programs on it. My group saw the program on Mars. Before the 3D room we got to see all the rooms that have things about space like history about astronauts or an AI bot that could help us in the future.

All of these field trips were so exciting! I can’t wait for what fun things we will do in 7th grade.

Wisdom Tales

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We started reading wisdom tales and we made a comic. You might be asking what wisdom tales are? Wisdom tales are short stories that teach a lesson or a moral. I chose Blinded by Greed. I chose the story because I think the moral is important and the story is interesting. Blinded by Greed is about a thief that steals jewelry when people are watching and when he gets captured he says, “ I was blinded by greed.” The moral was to think before you act.

Before we started wisdom tales we had a presentation from Brittan Peck. He is an illustrator and he came to talk about how he uses shapes for art and other tips. I learned that using shapes brings out a character so much more than you would think. I used the apps Sketchbook and Comic life 3. Here are some tips. For Sketchbook I would recommend using layers, using the rulers and using the shapes they already have. For Comic life 3, instead of making your own comic layout you can use one of the layouts like I did and edit it from there. In conclusion, I think stories like wisdom tales have important lessons in them and are important to teach.  

Daily Habit

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You might be wondering what is a daily habit. A daily habit is something you do every day to make you a better person. Doing a daily habit was hard for me because I don’t keep up with things like making my bed, getting up when my alarm goes off, or remember to play with my cat. For Language Arts we had to plank every day and each week we would add 15 seconds. So starting on October 24, 2023 we started our daily habit of planking every day for 30 seconds. We had to plank in class and out of class to keep our streak. We used a habit tracker to track when we planked. I planked every day but Thanksgiving break when I forgot because I was in Italy. I noticed my ability to do the plank improved every day. I included my friends in this habit. My friends had to do it too so I called them everyday to just plank. I did it every day but I did it facetiming my friends to give me motivation and distract me from when I was doing the plank when I was not in class. My new habit will be drumming for at least 20 minutes a day because I don’t feel like I get enough practice. A small daily habit that might help with mine is work on a warm up for drums. Doing a daily habit improves your well being and you don’t even realize it.

I Read

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 I read

I am a reader. I read because I want to relax and I want to expand my vocabulary.  When I was around 9 and younger I hated reading. I don’t know why, but I just thought it was really boring just to stare at words and people were forcing me to read, so that also added on to why I really hated reading. But at the start of 4th grade I started to like reading. Now I am in 6th grade and like reading most of the time. My favorite authors are Rick Rordan, Raina Telmenger and Ann Martin.  

First Rick Rordan, he wrote one of my favorite book series. The book collection is called Percy Jackson. This book collection is 5 books long. These books are The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titans Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian. All of these books come in chapters or graphic novels. Recently I just started The Titans Curse. 

Second Raina Telmenger, Raina Telmenger wrote one of my first graphic novel series I read. In the collection are the books Smile, Sisters and Guts. This collection is a graphic novel series. It has chapters but it’s shown with pictures. This is a short series but the books are long so I like that.

The final author is Ann Martin, Ann Martin wrote the all amazing series The babysitters Club. This series is a 15 book collection that is still being added on to. I have read all of these books and I can definitely say that this series is my all time favorite graphic novel series and it even has a Netflix show. This may look like a long series and it is but it’s worth the reading because the collection is so good. There are so many books I am not going to try and list them.

All of these series are amazing. They help me do so much. They help me learn and relax next to a comfy cozy fire. I like to read when I want to. I read in a comfy spot to make me relaxed. All of these things are affected by books. Books are amazing.

Window or Mirror

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                                                 The lightning thief 

                                   

Image from Sora

One of my favorite books is The Lightning Thief. It’s thrilling with a plot twist. I have no connections with this book but this book is exciting. For me this book is a window. 

This book is The lightning Thief by Rick Riordan and this book is a fantasy. I chose this book because I wanted to go out of my comfort zone since I have only been reading graphic novels. I heard everyone talking about the Percy Jackson series so I tried it. 

This is a window for me because I don’t have a dad that is a god, I don’t have a stepdad, I don’t have failing grades, I don’t go to a camp called Camp Half Blood for Demigods also I am not a boy. I often choose window books because I like to see things from different perspectives. Also I like non fiction as well so those are window books. Sometimes I will find a book that is a mirror but that’s rare for me.

My Trip to Australia

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For Christmas my family went to Australia. We left to go to the airport at 5:30 am to catch our flight to Los Angeles then go to Australia. The airport was cold and we were racing to the gate where we barely made it. The flight was eight hours and the flight took off at 6:30 am and in California it’s three hours back so when we will arrive at the airport it will be three pm including departing off the plane. Eight hours later we arrived at L.A with our next flight in mind, which I might add is a fifteen hour flight.


 

Fifteen hours later we landed in the place I always wanted to go, Australia! When I first stepped out of the airport in Sydney my jaw dropped about how beautiful it was. I had never seen such a beautiful place. But alas we rented a car to drive to our Airbnb. We arrived at the Airbnb. There was a beautiful bridge crossing with a beautiful view with all of these rainbow flags. After we arrived at the Airbnb we walked around Sydney, Australia. We saw the Sydney opera house and walked on Bondi beach. But that day was a tiring Thursday in Australia but Wednesday in America.


                                 

On our ninth day in Sydney we hopped on a plane to Port Lincoln, the very bottom of Australia. We are going for one reason SHARK CAGE DIVING! Now you may or may not be thinking that’s crazy. This girl is only in 6th grade which you would know if you read my blog post all about me which you should read after this. Anyways yes my favorite animal is sharks. I have loved them since I was four years old. Before this trip I shark caged in Hawaii which I will make a blog post about soon. This shark cage is crazy because I am shark cage diving with GREAT WHITE SHARKS! So at 10:30 am we hopped on a 5 hour boat ride to the spot and the water was 58 F or 14 C. 5 hrs later we arrived at the spot with the chum chummed up and how you breathed underwater if you had a regulator which you can breathe out of. I stepped in the cage excited to go in. I hopped in SPLOOSH. I saw at least 3 great whites. We had 30 minutes in the cage. 15 minutes went by and this shark slammed into the cage mouth wide open. It felt so ecstatic in the cage but the rest of the time the sharks were chill. We headed back to the hotel at about 10:30 pm because of all of the people there.


                                                                                                             

On the eleventh day we went on a plane to Port Douglas which is above Sydney. When I arrived at the Airbnb it was like a jungle and with a beautiful view. We were just going to spend Christmas at Port Douglas which was the twelfth day. In Port Douglas we went on fun hikes and found cool creatures. On the twelfth day we were going to do a barbecue on the grill but we couldn’t because there was a huge spider on the grill. We learned that the spider was called a huntsman spider.


                                 

On the sixteenth day we were heading to one of the most famous zoos in the world, Australia zoo! We got to pet wombats, feed kangaroos and see a crocodile show. It was amazing. I saw so many new animals at the huge zoo. I also got to pet a koala there.

 

On the seventeenth day we went to this sanctuary called Lone Pine sanctuary. There we got to hold a snake pet, a dingo and hold a very cute koala and also feed some platypuses. Of course we fed some more kangaroos and so much more.


                                     

Our final day was New Year’s Eve. We had a great spot to watch the fireworks above the Sydney opera house. We had a spot in the botanical gardens. The fireworks were amazing. I would recommend visiting Australia.




My Trip to Camp Kirkwood

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                                  Camp Kirkwood

For our first 6th grade school trip we went to Camp Kirkwood. We were on 3 buses headed on a 2 hour bus ride well a hurricane might hit. The first day we got there it was raining all day but we did some things when it stopped raining, like a low ropes course, trampoline/ Kanga jump and going in a pool. We had lunch when we first got there and that lunch was not what I would usually eat. After all of those activities we had our first dinner at camp and it was spaghetti bolognese and it was okay. After that we got to shower and hang out in the cabin. The cabin had two showers with hot water and two toilets with locking doors and two sinks with seven bunk beds = 14 people. After we got to choose if we wanted to watch a movie or play battle ball and I chose battle ball. Battle ball is dodge ball but there is this one pink ball that if you make a half court shot your team automatically wins. By the way we played battle ball on a basketball court and if you got hit with a ball you sit down until someone on your team hits the backboard of the basketball hoop. At one point in the game, if you hit the backboard you could get a sno cone. I hit it on the first try so I got a sno cone. It was delicious but after all of that it was 9:00 pm at night. We had one hour in our cabin to get ready for bed at 10:00 pm with 12 6th graders and two teachers in one cabin.

                 

Our second day we were supposed to wake up at 7:15 am but the teacher’s iphone was 1 hour early and woke up 12 kids at 6:15 am instead of 7:15 am so we went back to bed for 1 hour until it was 7:15 am. After that one hour of sleep it was time to wake up and get ready for breakfast at 8:15 am. For breakfast we had scrambled eggs and bacon with a cereal bar in the back. I don’t like scrambled eggs so I had some bacon and a bowl of cereal with two cups of juice. Before you know it it’s time to go to activities. Our first activity was orienteering. Orienteering is using a compass and trying to find your way. We were trying to find our way from our cabins to the cafeteria with a partner and a compass and we all eventually found our way because he gave me the coordinates to the cafeteria so we made it. Our next activity was V swing. Now here is what gets interesting. You are on a harness on a rope with the rest of your group pulling you to the top just for you to pull one cord and swing like a monkey side to side. Everyone in the group had a blast even our adults in our group did. That was probably the most fun thing at camp and you only got to do it once. Once again after the V swing we went to the pool. The pool was a blast that day doing a cannonball in the deep end well splashing your friends with pool water. Before you knew it one hour had gone by and it was one hour of free time and I took that time to shower right before dinner. Dinner that day was hot dogs which were decent and for dessert we had cake because there were five birthdays well we were at camp. After dinner we had a chance to talk to our advisors about how camp was going. After the talk we had a night hike to a huge campfire where everyone had a s’more and got to roast marshmallows. Before we knew it it’s time to go back to the cabins to go to bed.

                             

Our last day we woke up at 7:15 am this morning to get ready for our last breakfast which was waffles and syrup. For our final activities, we rotated through canoeing, zip line and Gaga ball. My group started canoeing. In my canoe we had five people including me with two people rowing and our canoe was flooding so we had to squat for one hour with five big spiders in the canoe in the middle of a lake for one hour. After canoeing we got to go on the big zip line over the lake. I was strapped to the 50 ft high zip line over a lake. There were two of the same zip lines next to each other so I got to ride next to my friend Anna. After the zip line, our final activity was Gaga ball. Gaga ball is a game where you have to hit the other people with a ball, knees and below to get them out. We walked to the Gaga pit but they surprised us with their camp pet Bubbles, the pig we got to pet here and she was so nice. After we met Bubbles, we played Gaga ball for some time before it was time to leave camp. We went to our cabins to pack up and put our belongings on the buses and head home. We were on the bus for two hours before finally getting to school where my parents picked me up. Overall the trip is a trip I will never forget.