My Ideal World: The Alter Ego

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This year in 6th grade Language Arts we made our ideal world books. We talked about what our dream world would be.  Another thing we did was make a book cover and images to bring our story to life.  Peg Gignoux was a local artist who helped us create our books. My ideal book story is written below.

The Alter Ego

By Belden B

What is a perfect ideal world? It does not exist, but this is my perspective on it. Every aspect of this world has places to calm you down or places just to be crazy. There are two lifestyles or two personalities, city or country. That’s why it is called the Alter Ego; an ego means a personality, and there are two different personalities.

In the countryside neighborhoods, there are six buildings or wings. In Wing One, there are the neighborhood’s gardens and farms where they can collect food. Wing Two has sports courts, adventure parks, and more. This wing is all about being adventurous. In Wing Three, there are chill-out areas where the neighbors can regroup and meet with others from their community. In Wing Four, there is a neighborhood thrift store where, when people don’t want things anymore, they just drop them off. At the thrift store, everything costs less than ten dollars. This helps people work on being kind. In Wing Five, there is a way to escape the normal world.

Trams move people into other neighborhoods or go to the city. In the middle of the circle, Wing Six is the neighborhood school. Every neighborhood has around 100 houses. The neighborhoods are built by age, so if the kid is younger, they and their family will be placed with other younger kid families. If the family has multiple kids, their neighborhood will be based on if each neighborhood has different kids ages. There are also neighborhoods with people who don’t have kids. This helps kids make friends more easily and helps parents meet other parents with kids the same age. Once people travel outside their neighborhood, they will enter the countryside and the rest of the neighborhoods. People can also keep going down a road until they get to the other type of life format, the city.

The city has apartments, and people have apartments in their family size. People pay for the apartment, but people will not get priority on a big apartment if people have a small family. If the family is bigger they have priority to get a bigger apartment. The city has many little shops all around, and the citizens’ cars are parked in their hotel’s parking decks. All of the cars are electric. Most people don’t even take their car because they ride the trams. The city has different opportunities, such as going to water parks and lots of shopping. The country does not have that many shops. Instead of a normal city, this city is smoke-free, and the city tries to keep most things eco-friendly. Even in this city, the air feels fresh, like the outdoors.

Everyone has a personal learning course no matter which ego people go to school in. There are millions of lessons, and kids will be placed in the course they need to be at. There are no grades; all of it is just designed for the kid. There are support groups where they place kids together who work at similar paces, not by how smart they are. At the school, there are outdoor and indoor classrooms. All the kids at each school learn about the old world “Earth” and how its gasses caused everyone to leave Earth.

If kids need brain breaks, they just tell their lesson adviser that they need to take a break. Then, the kid can have five minutes to regroup before continuing lessons. The school day only lasts from 9:00 to 2:00 and meets four days a week. The classroom adviser will meet with the student every other day. They will help make sure the student is learning on the right course. Kids don’t feel the pressure of school today but just want to learn new things.

My new world would be all about understanding life and having choices on how life will run.  Every job gets paid enough money to survive because, in my world, it is all about doing what makes people happy without putting others down. If people get into fights, they will talk it out. Everyone has a lifestyle choice and will always have a chance to try. That one word builds my world. People don’t feel pressured or have poverty. Try means that every person can try to do something. People enjoy different living styles, so they have that option in The Alter Ego. The point of this planet is that everyone has a choice and a chance to try.

Wisdom Tale Comics

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What is a wisdom tale? A wisdom tale is a lot of things. It’s a story, a book, a lesson, a guide. Wisdom tales are all very different but they all have a moral. Over the last three months, we read about 20 stories. Each story we would read and then write a summary and moral for each. I personally thought it was hard to write a short summary so I got better at keeping things short as time went on. During the first couple stories, we got to act them out in front of the class it was very fun to portray different characters.

Then we started a project we had to choose a wisdom tale to make a comic out of. At first I was so excited and then I could not decide which story to make a comic. First thing I was like the only thing I can draw really well is trees.  I was convinced to make an awesome comic. I was looking through all the stories and then I remembered The Useless Tree from China. I instantly knew that was what I would do. One reason was that I am good at drawing trees. Another reason is I liked the story line and it really stayed with me.  First, I started drawing and all my ideas poured out onto the page. The more I drew the more detailed my drawings would get by the end I had a comic I was proud of.

The moral of The Useless Tree is to show that everything has a purpose, sometimes it just takes time to discover it. I really tried to show that moral as clearly as possible in my drawings. I loved that the moral connects to present day life and global warming. I thought a comic about cutting down trees might help address that problem.

You might be thinking drawing is hard and it is but I learned lots of tips and tricks to make my drawings great. I have two major ways. The first one I learned from an artist named Brittan Peck. He taught me and my grade how to draw simple but stylish he told us just by using simple shapes you can have a story. We also learned that facial expression can tell a whole story by itself. Things like an open mouth or raised eyebrows looked cool. If you make the objects bigger than will look closer and if they are small they will look farther away. We learned a lot more tips but those were most helpful to my story in general. I definitely learned a lot from this artist.

My other major way to make my drawing better is Sketchbook. Sketchbook allows you to use different tools. First of all, there is almost always a paintbrush, pen or pencil you could need. That lets you have different looks on your photo. I used the water color brush to make the sky look cloudy and used the technical pen to outline. There are also tools on the app like layers and lasso. Layers allow you to save a background or a drawing if you draw the backdrop then add another layer whatever you draw on the old layer you can save and you can remove your first layer perfectly. This is my favorite drawing app and I hope you will try this app too.

I definitely learned a lot in this project and I can’t wait to do more projects like this soon. Some of you should try to make a comic with the app Sketchbook. Also, remember to look at simple drawing books. If you have any questions put them in comments.







Daily Habits

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Everyone has daily habits like brushing their teeth and making their bed but this one is interesting. How can you change your life for the better? At the beginning of the year in Language Arts class we started planking. You’re probably thinking, planking, Language Arts Class that does not go together. Well, it’s all about habits. Our goal was to show ourselves that by just doing a little of something every day and increasing we can improve on something. We started out at 30 seconds and then we added 15 seconds every week. We did this for 7 weeks and then we did a plank challenge. All of our improvement over the week has us doing a plank for a long time. During the plank challenge I reached 7 minutes which was way more than I thought I could do. For my new challenge, I am going to do a split each day and every two days I will stay in my split for 15 seconds longer until I can do it for a very long time. I am going to try to work harder to create more daily habits. You should try this too. If you think of a good daily habit, I would love to hear your suggestions in the comments.

 

Reading a Book

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Credit Unsplash for this photo

So let me just stop you there, you’re a reader. I am a reader, you are a reader, everyone’s a reader. Reading is not just about reading books, you read things in your everyday lives. Today I will talk about reading books, not just reading in life. Every year before 6th grade I would never want to pick up a book. Whenever I heard it was time to read, I was instantly tired. This year I have found more books that interest me. I would not consider myself an awesome reader to this day but I am definitely not a bad reader. For a long time reading would have been a time where I was daydreaming because I would not like my book. I would never be able to find a book I like. I would get distracted and think about other things like what I am doing after school.

This year someone recommended a book. This book was called The Selection. I started reading this book at first. I was timid and did not get that deep in the book. As soon as I got to the climax. I started power reading. I had 150 pages left of the book. That weekend I sat down and read the whole thing in one afternoon. When I finished that book I started reading more in the series. Currently I am reading The Heir, the fourth book in the series. 

Now when someone asks me how many books you read this month, I proudly say three. It used to be half a book or one book. I always read it at night, usually 15 to 45 minutes. Though sometimes it can reach up to two hours. Someone usually has to stop me. Almost like when the rain starts it takes the sun to stop them. Reading is the rain. Sometimes it’s very short and drizzles and you don’t let it get soaked, sometimes you’re soaking wet and the storm goes on for hours and you can’t escape it. Though it’s the flood that always gets the best of me. 

I like to read historical fiction. This is something I’ve always loved. If it is informational then it’s Z town for me, but then when I hear those stories of fiction. I get soaked in my book. My favorite Historical fiction book is probably Little House in The Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I also love realistic fiction. It’s very cool to see a normal life from someone else’s view. One series I especially like is The Selection Series. Part of the reason I like this book is that the author Kierra Cass writes different books on other people’s takes on events. This is cool because you can see the contestants’ view and the well “Judges” take.  

I think everyone in this world is someone who could grow to love to read. You just have to find the right book.

 

A Window Book The Heir

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Thank you to Unsplash for this photo.

I have recently started reading The Heir by Kiera Cass. I chose this book because I was looking for a book to read. I had recently finished The Stuart Gibbs Spy School Series. I was looking for a new series to get hooked on. One day one of my friends came up to me and asked, “Have you read the Selection Series? It’s sooo good.” Then I decided to read this series. I have read the first three books of this series and I am now reading the fourth book, The Heir. I completely recommend the Selection Series. It’s where I found my favorite book.

This book in my life is a window. Now I guess you’re probably thinking about what is a window and what is a mirror? A window is like a story in which you can not find any key ways the characters are similar to you or the events that have happened to you. These books are usually fantasy or nonfiction though they can also be realistic fiction. A mirror is pretty much the opposite; it’s something you can relate to or have connections with in some way.

I think this book is a window. It is a window because the main character in this story is the crown princess. Eadlyn has to figure out how to rule with the crown and figure out who she wants to rule beside her. Also she lives in a time where there used to be castes two years before she was alive. Castes are a way of pretty much measuring people on how rich or poor their family’s are. Ones like Eadlyn being the best and Seven’s like other people in this series are the most poor. She is figuring out how to completely dissolve the castes before brutal things happen. In my life I am not an heir to the throne. I do not have a waiter and a servant. I love this because I get to see what it’s like to be ruling a country and see different people’s views on the world. Also this book takes place in a time after the third World War so I get to see the future. I really hope some of you will consider reading this series.

 

Europe

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This summer I went to Europe for a week. I went to four destinations: France, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. My favorites were Switzerland and Austria. 

The first destination was France/ Paris. While we were in Paris we visited two famous museums, The Picasso Museum and The FIFA Museum. While we were there we walked around a lot and went shopping. My family and I also had a lot of delicious meals during our stay. We also went to a little fair in Paris and rode some rides. Though my favorite part was going up The Eiffel Tower, it was very scenic. It was very breathtaking. I will never forget this part of the trip. Then we hopped on a train and headed to Switzerland.

In Switzerland it was really beautiful and there were lots of mountains and hills. During our stay we took a gondola up to the top of a mountain called the Alps where there was still snow on the ground. Not to mention it was the middle of August. We got to go into a Glacier cave and walk over a very tall bridge. After that we also got to take a zipline at the top of the Alps. Overall, Switzerland was very scenic and beautiful.

Next stop Austria. This was my favorite stop because the first day we were there we went to the best water park in Europe. At the water park it started to rain so there were only about 50 people at the park including my family. They had water slides, a wibit center, a climbing wall, and free swimming. There were other attractions but those were the only ones I was old enough for. My favorite part was the Witbit section. After that we headed back to our hotel called the Aqua Dome. This was by far my favorite hotel. They had different temperature pools and two water slides. They had one pool that had built-in massagers and one pool where the water went in a circle where you can practice swimming. This hotel had about 20 different pools. We only stayed one night at the hotel but we spent about 6 hrs at the pools. 

Our last stop of this trip was Germany. During our stay there we went rock climbing and had fondue. Rock climbing was really fun because it was outdoors and very scenic. We had fondue after and they had lots of things to dip in the fondue. It was all very delicious. In Germany, we also visited some nice towns and did a couple of scenic adventures. 

                                                                                                                                            

I really loved my trip to Europe and hope to go again soon. There are some photos above from our trip.

Camp Kirkwood

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It was Wednesday, everyone was ready to ride through Hurricane Idalia and everyone was getting ready to get on the buses. You could hear bags getting thrown on the sidewalk, kids screaming, and teachers trying to calm us down. Eventually we loaded all the bags and hopped on the buses. On the bus I sat next to Ella and we played Hangman and watched a movie. After a two hour bus ride we finally arrived at Camp Kirkwood. When we got there it was pouring rain. We all did our best to get all of the bags under a covered space. Finally, it was time to go to the cabins we all unpacked and then went to lunch. We had ham and cheese sandwiches. They were not my favorite but the salad was good. After that we went out for a fun day of activities. My group did pool and forest ecology. Forest ecology was where you learned about how trees go and different types of trees. Forest Psychology was not my favorite but after I had an awesome time in the pool. I played with all my friends and had a lot of fun. Then we went back to the cabins we showered and changed into our clothes. It was raining so we were all in our rain jackets running to the mess hall. After the activities we settled down for dinner. Our first night we had spaghetti. Then we watched The Lorax and had some snow cones. All the girls were braiding each other’s hair. It was a fun movie night. We then went back to the cabins and got ready for bed. We talked and played games until it was 10:00. Finally, the teachers told us to go to bed.

The next day my teacher’s phone was not working so she was using a watch.One girl in my cabin gave her her watch to use for time. Somehow the time got an hour ahead so at 6:15 (7:15) so we woke up an hour too early. Then one girl in my cabin said my watch says it’s 6:15 another girl said that too. Then we realized that it was actually  6:15 so we went back to sleep untill 7:15 for real this time. Everyone got dressed and put on our raincoats before we left for breakfast. We played down by the river until it was time to go. Then me and all of the girls and me in my cabin ran down to the mess hall. Then we sat down to a warm breakfast of sausage cereal and eggs. During breakfast I got my hair braided for the day of activities. Then they told us some announcements and then we played games, did team building and forest ecology. We got to go indoors for these activities to escape the rain. We did these activities until it was time for lunch. For lunch we had hot dogs. I’m not a picky eater but I don’t like hot dogs. Instead I had a chili dog that’s basically a hot dog except the meat is chili. We ate and then heard some announcements about the afternoon group 1,2, and 3 were going to be in the pool and group 4, 5,6 started at V swing, Kanga jump and team building. My favorite activity was V-swing. We got to swim and do all of the activities before dinner.  The second night we had barbecue chicken and birthday cake because four people had their birthdays at Camp Kirkwood. After we went on a short night hike to a campfire. We sang songs and had s’mores. By the time we got back to the cabins it was almost pitch black outside. Then we all settled in our cabins then we had an hour to get ready for bed. My cabin played games and talked. We played this fun game called crocodile dentist. Until it was time for bed.

Today we woke up and had breakfast and did activities. The three activities were boating, zipline, and Bubbles. For boating we got to canoe across the lake. For the zipline well it was like a zipline over the lake but you did not get wet. Bubbles was a little pig who we got to play with and that was definitely one of the highlights. After all of that we ate lunch then did a final clean up of the cabin. We all boarded the buses and then we were home at DA. Overall, a really fun trip. I bet the 5th graders will have fun next year.

 

# Theatre Kid I love Musical Theatre

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