I love Rubik’s Cubes. I have been solving Rubik’s Cube for a long time but I only recently learned that Rubik’s Cubes have benefits besides being difficult and a challenge.
1. Rubik’s Cubes can improve your memory.
2. Rubik’s Cubes can improve your patience.
3. Rubik’s Cubes can improve your problem solving skills.
4. Rubik’s Cubes can keep your mind active.
5. Rubik’s Cubes can improve your speed.
These are only a couple of examples of how a Rubik’s Cube can improve your everyday life. To learn more, visit https://www.cubelelo.com/blogs/cubing/benefits-of-solving-rubiks-cube.
In LA, we read a book called The Westing Game. In The Westing Game, the characters have to solve a crime using clues. In LA we also learned about how evidence can be used to solve a crime. While learning about that types of evidence includes fingerprints. There are different types of fingerprints so we decided to record our fingerprints.
To take our fingerprints we rubbed on a index card really hard with pencil. Once the index card was full of graphite, we rubbed our finger on the graphite and put our finger print on a piece of tape. Then, we looked at different types of fingerprints and tried to classify what type of fingerprints we have.
Some facts about finger prints:
1. Mutated DNA causes a no fingerprint disease. To learn more visit https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/110809-fingerprints-skin-disease-health-science-weird
2. No two fingerprints are alike, not even for identical twins.
3. Fingerprints don’t change as you get older unless they are changed by plastic surgery or
4. Arch fingerprints are some of the rarest fingerprints.
5. Koalas have fingerprints similar to ours.
6. The FBI has about 56.8 million fingerprints.
7. The scientific name for fingerprints is dermatoglyph.
This month in class, we made a book about a perfect planet. This project was inspired by the book, The Last Cuentista. In the book, the main character Petra has to leave Earth to a new planet, Sagan. While we were reading the book, we wrote an essay about a planet we would go to if we had to leave Earth.
After we wrote our essay, we started on our book. Ms. Peg Gignoux came to help construct our books. To make the decoration of the book, we used wildlife and a jelly pad. We put Akua ink on the jelly pad, then we put down our wildlife and a paper. Then, we pressed down really hard with our roller and lifted up the paper. We got really cool designs from that.
After that, we folded a big piece of construction and glued it together to make a shape for the book. We then used our wildlife designs to decorate the inside of our book. Next, we glued a cover on to our books and cut out our planets’ names and glued it on to the cover.
After a couple of weeks, we got our essays on a colorful piece of paper. We cut out paragraphs and glued them in to our book. Finally, we were done.
Want to learn more about Peg Gignoux? Check out her website, https://gignouxart.com/!
Last month, a traveling theater group called Chamber Theater visited our school and preformed two plays for us. We got to see The Monkey’s Paw and The Necklace. I liked the Monkey’s Paw the most because there was suspense and was dramatic, but The Necklace was also really good.
The Monkey’s Paw was about a family that wished for money and how their son died to get the money. After he died, they wished that their son would be brought back to life, but they realized that their son would not be at peace, so they wished for him to be at peace.
The Necklace is about a woman who is married to a poor shopkeeper and wants a fancy life. She and her husband are invited to a ball and she borrows a necklace, which she loses. She and her husband have to spend all their savings to buy back a replica but it turns out the real necklace was worth much less.
I thought the actors did a great job preforming and setting a story in a short amount of time. They also explained to us the origin of the plays, which was very helpful, and they told us the moral of the story. We also were allowed to ask them questions and I got to learn more about the Chamber Theater group in general.
In LA, we had to retell a story that was once told to us. I chose the story my mom told me about my great grandmother. This story is very special, important, and inspiring to me. I never got to meet my great grandmother so this is my only way I can connect with her. I hope you find it as inspiring as I do.
I first heard this story when my mom told me about my great grandmother in my house back in Michigan. I was reading a book about the Chinese civil war and I asked my mom about it. She told me about her great grandmother and what her life was like. The story made me feel grateful, proud and sad. My feelings were very different from each other, but I realized that I was lucky compared to some people in my family. This story is special to me because if my great grandmother never persevered through tough times, I would never be here today and be this lucky. I chose this story to write because in the Last Cuentista, Petra has to start a new life and face challenges. My great grandmother also had to start a new life and face challenges, so I thought this would be a story that connects to my life and Petra’s.
Can you imagine leaving your family behind and never seeing them again? Most people see their family everyday but the last time my great grandmother saw her family, was in 1936 when she was only 16 years old.
My great grandmother’s name was Tsang Lee-Man and was born in 1920 in the city of Meixian in the Guangdong province in China. My great grandmother came from a prosperous family and was the only girl. Some of her older brothers were officers in the Kuomintang army (Nationalists). Since my great grandmother’s family was prosperous, she got to go to school.
My great grandfather’s name was Sin Chan Ah-Kwon. He was born in 1910 in Mauritius. My great grandfather was the eldest of eleven children. This means he had a big responsibility to look out for his siblings. He decided to get an education to support his family. After high school in Mauritius, my great-grandfather went to China to study Chinese.
While at school, both of my great grandparents met each other and fell in love. I’m sure my great grandmother was a little bit unsure of my great grandfather when they first met. He was 10 years older than her! Nonetheless, they got married in 1936 and left for Mauritius soon after. When she arrived, my great grandmother didn’t know anyone. All of her family and friends were back in China. After a while, she started to build a life in Mauritius and her only contact with her family was through letters. My great grandmother kept in touch until the China civil war.
The China civil war started on August 1, 1927. The war was between the Nationalists and the Communists. The leader of the Kuomintang,finally reached a conclusion on December 7, 1949 after two decades of fighting, with the Communist taking control of China. After the war, most Nationalists fled to Taiwan or were killed.
My great-grandmother never heard from her family again. She never figured out what happened to her family, if they were killed, or if they fled. Sadly, we might never know what happened. Instead of being focused on her family back in China, my great-grandmother focused on her growing family in Mauritius.
With my great-grandfather, my great-grandmother had eight children. They had one big happy family. It may seem like a happy ever after but it wasn’t, the worst was still to come. In 1956, my great-grandfather died of a sudden heart attack. He left behind eight children with the youngest being only a few months old and my great-grandmother at the age of 36. With no source of income, her oldest children had to start working to support their mother and younger siblings. This included my grandmother, who as the eldest daughter, had quit school at the age of 16 and start working as a seamstress.
Her kids grew up and left the tiny island of Mauritius for bigger places. About two decades after my great-grandfather’s death, my great-grandmother moved to Canada in the 1970s to live with her kids and live a happy life. After twenty years she passed away in 1997.
Even though I never met my great-grandmother, I will always look up to her in bad times and tell myself it will get better. She experienced a lot of bad times in her life but never gave up and stopped working hard, and in the end things got better and she lived a happy life.
This year, in LA, we started the stock market game. In this game we invest a fake $20,000 into the stock market. The group/person with the most money or the least money lost, will win a prize.
We are playing the stock market game because in LA we are reading The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. In the Westing Game, one of the characters, Turtle Wexler (Tabatha Ruth Wexler), loves to invest in the stock market.
To keep track of our stocks, we made a spreadsheet with a teacher. She taught us how to add formulas to the boxes so we didn’t have to do the math every time we updated it.
My friends and I invested in six companies. First, we invested in Microsoft. Second, we invested in Walmart. Third, we invested in Disney. Fourth, we invested in Lululemon. Fifth, we invested in Starbucks. Finally, we invested in Nike.
We hope that each of the companies’ will make a lot of money. We think these stocks will make a lot of money because of the companies’ good history in the stock market.
We invested in Nike because Nike has a new movie coming out, we invested in Microsoft because everyone is buying new tech, we invested in Lululemon because everyone is buying Lululemon, we invested in Disney because they have a new movie coming out, we invested in Nike because they also have a new movie coming out, and we invested in Starbucks because everyone loves coffee and drinks from Starbucks.
Last month, Colonel Virts visited our school and talked about his adventures with NASA and in the International Space Station. He talked about his training and how he gained interest in space. We learned a lot about how you train to be an astronaut.
One thing I thought was interesting was how the Earth looks from space. Colonel Virts took a lot of pictures of Earth from space. We also got to see inside the spaceship, the takeoff, and the return of the spaceship.
If you would like to know more about his adventures and how to be an astronaut check out his website (link down below) and check out his book, The Astronaut’s Guide to Leaving the Planet.
https://www.terryvirts.com/ (Link to Terry Virts’ website.)
This week, my school had the privilege of seeing a play called Elsewhere by Don Zolidis. The 8th grade performed the play for the entire school. They even had voice overs, lighting, and music. In my opinion, the play was performed very well.
The play was about 4 friends going to an abandoned house and b ring transported to a world called Elsewhere. There, they face many difficulties physically and mentally. They learn secrets about each other’s past. They have to stay friends and conquer the evil antagonist.
One thing I think they could do better next time is make the microphone louder and move the scenes quicker. They could make the microphone a more even volume because sometimes it was to loud or to quiet. They could also move the scenes quicker because then the play becomes choppy.
Other than that I thought the play was really great and well preformed. I think they should put on this play again and they should cast the actors in this play in others.
This year, we did a budget project in math. The budget project teaches kids to be more responsible with their money, it teaches them how to save e for the future, and it teaches them to be financially prepared for any problems in the future.
The first thing we did to prepare to make our budget, we chose our jobs. Most people tried to chose jobs that they would actually be interested in instead of the salary. Next, we decided where we would live and our monthly salary. After that we decided what necessities we would need. For example, a gym membership or a dog. Finally, we put all of our information into a graph and submitted it.
Many people think chess is a very boring game or they play it for fun. Chess is more than that — it c an help your brain. Quite a lot of people play chess competitively to improve their skills or to help their brain. But chess can help your brain way more than how you think. Most people think chess only improves your IQ but it improves a lot more than that.
Chess can hep your brain countless ways. Account to chess.com, chess can help your brain 10 ways.
1. Chess can bring people together
2. Chess can help you focus
3. Chess teaches you to win and lose
4. Chess teaches children the consequences of their actions
5. Chess is a very educational and is a good tool for schools
6. Chess builds confidence
7. Chess helps develop creativity
8. Chess helps develop problem-solving skills
9. Chess exercises both sides of the brain
10. Chess helps you learn to be calm under pressure.
As you can see, chess helps you and your brain in many ways. To learn more about how chess helps your brain click on the link below.
