February 1

Cell Phones

I think children should have cell phones. If children had cell phones they would be safer, could help when there are accidents, and keep in touch their with parents.  That’s why I think you should let young children have a cell phone.

Cell phones can help children to be safer. If a child got lost he could use his cell phone to call home. Also If you are on the bus and you do not know where the bus is going you would need to call your mom, or you are at your friends house and you guys are jumping on the bed and we fall of  the bed you would need to call your mom to tell her and if it is the first day of school and you were walking to school.

For example this is way you can have a phone for an accident if  you go to your friend’s house and if you guys have too much fun your head can hurt or if you eat too much you will not feel good and you will have to call your mom to say that you went to the hospital because your finger almost broke. You would need to call. Also if you are jumping in the bed you can hurt yourself.

Here is a reason you should have a phone so you can keep touch with your parents. If you go to the park and you say mom I will run left and you run right that way I can meet you at the park. When you do a mile and you got lost you would need to tell your mom or dad i’m lost. I don’t know where i’m at and they told you keep in touch with me. That would be another reason to.Here is another reason you should have a phone just to keep in touch.  If you go to six flags and you go on a ride and you got lost after you got of you would need to call your mom.

I think you should just have phones to keep in touch with your parents and also because they need to be safe and also if there is an accident. All those 3 reasons that i just gave you those are the reasons you should have a phone at school home if your with your friends and all those places you go.What do you think should we have phones for safety  accidents and keeping in touch with your parents?

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February 1

Better Lunch Choices

If schools add more choices on the menu then kids would buy hot and healthy lunches and I know I want more choices.

If schools added more varieties of fruits and vegetables that are yummy and organic, kids will choose healthier options. Healthy lunch choices will make kids eat well and if they’re yummy the kids won’t even know the difference. We can also have healthier and yummier drinks.

I think cafeterias should be like Soup Plantation where there is a bread table, soup table, dessert table, appetizers, salad bar,and a meat table. That would be awesome right? Schools would pay more money but they would get money but they would get money back because kids would buy lunch more and moms and dads would put more money in their child’s account.

Kids make their parents spend too much money on lunches and  sometimes the kids just waste what their parents spend money on. But if we add more items to our lunch menu then the kids won’t waste their food because they’ll like the food better and their parents won’t spend as much money buying food.

I bet me and those other kids would like that so please get some healthier and yummier lunch choices, and thank you for reading.

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February 1

Smoking is harmful

I think smoking should be illegal because smoking can be very harmful to you and your body too. It can also be harmful to other people who are around you when you are smoking.Around 5 million people die from smoking each year, and around 3,000 people die from second hand smoking each year.

Lots of people really hate smoking. About 5 million people die each year from smoking. Smoking is very bad for the user and also others too. I think smoking should be illegal and I don’t even know why it isn’t yet.

Smoking is not only bad for the user but for others too. If you are smoking next to another person, it creates second hand smoking. About 3,000 people die from second hand smoke. Second hand smoke is just like the other person is smoking. They can have the very harmful things happen to them too.

Smoking is mostly bad for the user. It can be fatal and shut down the brain. Did you know about 430,000 people die from smoking tobacco each year? There are about 7,000 bad chemicals in a cigarette, and at least 70 of the chemicals cause cancer.

A cigarette is just a stick filled with thousands of chemicals that causes lots of bad things to you, your body, and others too. What do you think, should we have a “smoking only place” for those who want it? Should smoking be illegal?

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February 1

A grass field for our school

I think it would be better to have a grass field we could play new games, have more soccer fields, and people won’t get hurt.

I would like a grass field so we can play football it will keep you from getting hurt I asked the nurse and she said that every day 5 people come in with a scratched knee or something.

Not only football will be better we can have multiple soccer fields. People fall down playing soccer. You only score one goal then it’s the next game. With more fields you can play a full game and you won’t get hurt.

We can also play new games like kick ball. We banned kick ball because people where getting hit with the ball then they fall and get hurt. Well in grass if you fall you usually don’t get hurt maybe they twist their wrist but that usually doesn’t hurt at all.

I hope that you think these reasons are good and that you will get a grass field instead of dirt so kids won’t get hurt.

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February 1

Curie Needs a Digital School Sign

Digital signs are much better than static signs.

I think that Curie Elementary should have a digital school sign. I believe that the sign Curie has now is harder to switch letters and make sentences. The current sign cannot be seen from far away. The size of the sign does not give much space for information.

With our old sign, you have to change it all the time. Every day the janitor has to take out the letters by hand and replace them with new ones. If the letters are missing, then you might not be able to spell an important word correctly. It can take a lot longer to write something on the sign. A digital sign has the information typed into a computer. This lets you make changes easily and quickly.

The current sign has letters that are very small and hard to read. With a digital sign you could make the letters as big as you want. The current sign can’t be seen at night. The new digital sign would be very bright.

The current sign does not have much room for information. New sign could list lots of details about events at school. You could tell people what time the school starts and details about the school. When it is summer break kids could look at the sign, and they might want go to Curie. You could put on the sign when it is science night, the play, astronomy night, craft fair, or PTA meetings.

I think that a digital sign in front of the school would be a great improvement for Curie. It would help all of the Curie families know what is going on at school. It would be a way to tell the community about all of the great things that are happening at our school. These signs are expensive but maybe we could raise money by having a fundraisers like a rummage sale.

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January 16

The Great Kindness Challenge

The Great Kindness ChallengeThe Great Kindness Challenge-School Edition is a week long kindness challenge for students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Students are using a check list with 50 acts of kindness. They even have awards for kids with the most acts of kindness checked off for every class. Students work independently checking off acts of kindness by themselves. An example is to make a bookmark for a friend, eat lunch with a new group of kids, bring a flower to an office helper, and entertain a friend with a happy dance.

I would say this program is great for kids to teach them the wonderful acts of kindness. Do you have this program at your school? What acts of kindness have you done already?

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March 30

Welcome Parents!

Dear Parents,
In March, our class has embarked on a new adventure. We are now blogging on this new blog. We are using this blog to connect with students all over the world. We are also participating in the Spring 2012, Edublog Student Blogging Challenge.

What is a blog you ask? In short, a blog is type of website that is full of journal articles. (Articles usually involve text, and/or video and photos.) The articles are typically organized in chronological order—meaning the most recent article appears first. Journal articles are referred to as “posts” on a blog. There are millions of blogs on the Internet. They are usually subject related, such as cooking, scrapbooking, baseball, education, photography…you get the idea. After you read a post you can comment on what you read, and carry on a conversation with people all over the world. And that’s just what we are doing.

As a class we are blogging and commenting about all sorts of things, and responding to each of the weekly Edublog challenges. Check out some of our posts below. So far we’ve posted links to our published work on other website such VoiceThread and Glogster. We’ve created our very own avatars and made a slideshow in VoiceThread explaining how and our avatars look the way we do, as a way to introduce ourselves. We’ve even produced a short video on what makes a great blog comment—which you should definitely check out because we want you to visit our blog and start commenting on our posts. And, the students are pretty picky about which comments appear on our blog. So be sure to follow the commenting format.

So here’s what we need you to do–read our posts, including the comments already posted, then respond to one or a few of our posts. Check out the post on “How do you use computers in your job?” and be sure to comment to on it.

Thanks for your support! Please let me know if you have any questions.

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March 29

Who is Johnny Appleseed?

Johnny Appleseed traveled through the midwest planting apple trees

Have you ever wondered who Johnny Appleseed was besides the fact that he planted apple trees? Well I’m here to tell you. Johnny helped settlers on their long journey by giving them apples so they could eat them. He was kind to animals and people. People said that he lived for others.

Johnny was born on September 26, 1774, in Leominster, Massachusetts. When Johnny was two, his father was called into war as a minute man on April 19, 1775. A year later in 1776 he was walking in George Washington’s army. The only one that could comfort Johnny at that time was his six-year-old sister named Elizabeth. At the same time his mother and new born brother died. Luckily Johnny’s dad survived the war and came back home. Then in the summer of 1780 Johnny’s dad got remarried to a woman named Lucy Cooley. After, they had ten more children and Johnny and his sister went to school. But he was often a dreamer in class and never listened. The only reason he liked school is that he could dream about all the animals he would meet in the woods after school and the new adventure he would read in the Bible.

When Johnny was older he worked at a cider mill. Back then they didn’t have refrigerators so they made a lot of products out of apples because they keep fresh for a long time. Most people that worked there threw out the excess seeds. But the Indians and the Bible told him not to waste anything, so he kept the seeds and planted them in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois, & Indiana. He planted them just so that other people could eat them. One day he was walking and telling the people around him stories because he was a really good story teller when, he stepped on a rattle snake. The rattle snake bit him and the people around him pointed their guns at it. But he said, “No don’t hurt it! It didn’t know what it was doing.” From then on he wouldn’t wear shoes so that he can punish his feet. He would never kill or eat an animal even if it was already dead. So he became a vegetarian. Sometimes in harsh winters he would live on nuts rather than hunt an animal. Ha carried around a sauce pan to cook with. When he wasn’t cooking he would wear it on his head as a hat.

When Johnny was 71 in 1845 while he was walking in a snowstorm in Fort Wayne, Indiana he caught pneumonia and died. He based his life on others and was always kind and helpful. He made people happy and never let them down. He inspirers me because he became famous just by being himself and people were happy to be in his presents and he was happy to see them as well. He was just an ordinary man with a big heart for others.

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March 11

Tricky Trickster Tales

In February we read a lot of folktales, including trickster tales. The protagonist of a trickster tale is a clever, devious animal whose trick or tricks usually cause trouble for another character. What makes them fun is a smaller animal, such as a tortoise or hare, usually plays a trick on a larger, more powerful animal, like a leopard or elephant. The trickster often gets away with the trick and goes away gloating. (Here are a few trickster tales you might enjoy.)

We enjoyed these trickster tales so much that we decided to write our very own. We’ve published them on our VoiceThread page. We had a great time coming up with our plots and adding lots of lively dialogue. Please let us know what you think. If you enjoyed the tales, which tale did you enjoy the most and why?

We look forward to hearing from you.

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March 6

Biography Glogster Reports

In February, students studied the genre biography. We all chose different people to read about and then we presented what we’d learned either in a Glogster report, PowerPoint report, or a puppet presentation. Check out Gayle’s, Helen Keller and Kyle’s, Martin Luther King Jr. Glogster projects.

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April 21

Attack of the Chocolate Sickness

Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith is about a boy named Henry Greens, Mac the candy delivery guy, Mr. Fargo the doctor, and Mr. Sugarcane. Henry Greens is a boy who couldn’t get enough chocolate he ate chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner he ate so much chocolate he got this disease that was called Chocolate Fever that looks like brown spots that smell like chocolate. For him to be cured he must learn a very important lesson. So if you’re looking for a hilarious, action packed book this is the book for you!

I personally think that this book is hilarious because it has so many hilarious parts that made me laugh. It was funny when Henry Greens ran away in his underwear from the  hospital. I thought it was so funny because Henry was running down the street in his under pants and getting chased by the police, Doctor Fargo, and the nurses. I think the most important events in this story are when Henry gets chocolate fever, hijacked, chased and more. The theme of the book is that you should never have too much of something you love. When Henry eats way too much chocolate and gets chocolate fever, he realizes he should not have so much chocolate or he will get it again.

By Tyler

 

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April 20

The Story of Rosa Parks

My name is Rosa Parks, and I am famous because I stood up for civil rights. Some call me the mother of civil rights movement. Back then people were segregated by skin color everywhere– in hotels, restaurants, schools, and playgrounds too.

I was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913. My mother was a teacher in Spring Hill. It was too far to walk to each day. So she stayed there all week and just saw us on the weekends.

I grew up on a farm in Montgomery. There once was a boy who threatened to hit me and I threatened to throw a brick at him. I could not defend myself because if I did I would probably get beaten because he was white. I thought I should be able to. To think people didn’t have the right to defend themselves was wrong–anyone should have that right.

I once moved to a new school and this time I moved with a new teacher that was white! It was my first time being taught by a white person. Her name was Miss White.

The worst thing that happened when I was little was when the Ku Klux Klan came. The Klan was a group of people who burned down houses and churches, and beat up and killed African Americans. The Klan also punished whites who treated African Americans fairly. They mostly came because they hated Miss White because she treated the children fairly and because segregation was supposed to keep white teachers for white children, and colored teachers for colored children. The Klan hated people of different races working together. They would never accept these people helping one another. Before I went there the Klan burned Miss White’s school down twice.

In 1929 I was in eleventh grade, I had to leave school to take care for my sick grandmother. Three years later I married Raymond Parks, who was a barber. Raymond helped me go back to school. I graduated from high school in 1934.

At that time no blacks could vote either. I tried once but I got no answer! So I tried again and this time I got an answer. The lady said I didn’t pass, I asked why but she didn’t say anything and at that time they didn’t need to give you an answer. So I tried again and I passed and I could vote any time I wanted!

When I was older I got arrested for not giving up my seat to a white man on the bus. The law said that African Americans had to give up their seat if there was a white person standing and go sit in the back of the bus. I didn’t think that  was fair and so I didn’t move. People started to get angry, so we walked instead of riding the buses or taxis in protest. The bus company lost a lot of money!

After that I began working for civil rights. I joined the NAACP club, and after a while we finally got our way and the buss laws were changed, but there was still segregation.

After that I lost my job, so I moved to Detroit. For a while I had to take in sewing to earn a living. But I did not stop working for everyone’s equal rights. In 1965, I began working for Congressman John Conyers who was a civil rights leader. In 1987 I founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, which helps young black people. Now I’m much happier that everyone gets their equal rights! I’m sure everyone is happy that the NAACP club and I changed the law, because now we can go to different places with different people! It was a sad day when my life ended on October 24, 2005.

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February 22

Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express

I’m doing a book review on Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express by Megan McDonald.  The characters in this story are Stink, Sophie, and Webster. They are trying to find new places for 101 guinea pigs. I like this story because it his hilarious. There are a lot of parts that made me tell the hilarious parts to people.

The Main Characters are Stink, Webster, Sophie, and Mrs. Bird Whistle. My favorite part is when Astro and 4 guinea pigs underwear’s from stinks closet. Settings are at the Squeals on the Wheels, Fur ’n fangs pet shop, and Stinks neighborhood.

The problem is that all 101 guinea pigs need homes. The most important events are when they need to find 3 guinea pigs in the backyard, when they take the guinea pigs too the pet shop; all the guinea pigs were running free and wild. They try to round them up, but they need to find homes for all 101 guinea pigs, and to make a van to hit the road and find homes for the guinea pigs as many as possible. The lesson Stink learned was that it was hard to be responsible and to be responsible to find homes for any pet or a guinea pig.

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February 16

Meet Alexander Graham Bell

My name is Alexander Graham Bell. You can all me Alec. I was born on March 3, 1847. I am famous because I invented the telephone.

I was interested in science and music at an early age. In college, I learned more about the speech and the vibrations of sound.  After college, I was a teacher of deaf students. One of my students was Marbel Hubbard.  Mabel lost her hearing at age 4.  Years later, I married her.

I had a lot of good ideas but I could not build them, so I asked Thomas Watson to help me on my inventions.  The harmonic telegraph was my first project.  We worked many late nights.  I worked upstairs, while Mr. Watson worked downstairs.  One evening, I spilled acid on myself.  The acid burned.  I screamed to Mr. Watson forgetting that he was far away to hear me.  Mr. Watson heard me over the wires and he ran into the room and said, “I heard every word!”  I danced and cheered and forgetting all about the burn.  We spent the night talking on our machine.  The date was March 10, 1876.

I went on to invent many other things.  I died on August 2, 1922 at age 75 years.

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February 16

Meet the Famous Albert Einstein

Hi! I am Albert Einstein I was the smartest person alive!  I changed people’s thoughts of relativity and made some inventions like the TV. I was born on March 14, 1879 in Germany. My parents freaked out because I was so quiet and shy. I didn’t speak until I was 5 years old. Then one day my father came in from work with a gift for me. It was a compass. I loved it. I had so many questions like, “Why did the needle all ways point north?” I asked him that. He told me the needle all ways pointed north is because the world is a giant magnet. I thought that was pretty hard to believe because it would be very weird that we live on a giant magnet.

Then I grew up I went to high school. I hated it. We had to act like soldiers. My Parents moved to Italy but they still wanted me to go to school in Germany but I didn’t want to so I moved to Italy I love the people and the school, it’s so much better than the high school in Germany. I know what I wanted to do as a job. I wanted to be a physics teacher but I didn’t get the job so I worked at the patent office.

Then as I got older the Germans hated me, they wanted to kill me then   World War 1 started. It started right before I wanted to get the pictures to show that space bent but some scientists had to go to Russia but that is where the war is.  They still went, so Scientists got their gear ready for the trip. The whole world wanted to know if I was right on the theory of space bending unfortunately the Russians destroyed the equipment and took the scientists. I wanted to do it again, this time we did it in different parts of the world, the scientists got the photos and I was right. Then World War 2 started, this time Germany joined forces with China, that’s because china was trying to make a destructive bomb called the atomic bomb. I had to do something so I wrote a note to the President of the United States on how to make an atomic bomb. They started straight away! “I did one wrong thing in my life that turned my whole world upside down, when I sent that note to President Roosevelt”. That’s when I started writing a will.  When I was in the hospital I wrote some physics problems and then I died. Everyone followed my will, it said take my brain and give it to the science university and burn me and put my ashes in a secret place.

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February 16

Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express, A Book Review

Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express

Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express

Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express by Megan McDonald is about Stink, Sophie, and Webster trying to find new homes for one hundred and one guinea pigs…but how. They think of a great idea to decorate the Squeals on Wheels van and go to different places so people can adopt the guinea pigs. Will they find homes for one hundred and one guinea pigs on the road? You can find out in Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express.

My favorite part is when one of the guinea pigs named Astro goes into Stink’s closet and ends up wearing his underwear. Astro starts running across the room. I loved this part so much because Stink chases the moving underwear. Then four other guinea pigs escape and run into Stink’s closet too. It was so funny I had to laugh out loud. Stink’s parents don’t know he has five guinea pigs hid under his bed including Astro. Stink realizes that if five are hard to take care of then one hundred and one will be even harder.

At the end of the story Stink learns that it is a big responsibility to have a pet because you have to feed it and clean its cage.  You don’t just do it whenever you want. You have to do it every day. To find out more read Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express.

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February 16

Meet Tom Brady

My Tom Brady Puppet

My Tom Brady Puppet

Tom Brady is my name and I was born on August 3, 1977 in San Mateo, California. I was named after my father. My parents are named Galynn and Tom Brady. I was known as Tom Brady Jr. As a kid I liked sports a lot. I was on a baseball team when I was about eight years old. I was the best player on the team. But one day I decided it was just not the right sport for me. Then, I started to like football.

If I wasn’t watching football I was playing football with my dad. I have three older sisters. Their names are Maureen, Julie and Nancy. My wish was to become a quarterback. My favorite player when I was a kid was a quarterback. His name was Joe Montana. He was on the San Francisco 49ers. When I went to high school I turned down playing baseball for good. I went to the University of Michigan for college. I made it to the team but I was the third string quarterback. The first year I didn’t play much and I wanted to play more because I was better than the second string quarterback. One day the first string quarterback got hurt. The next game the second string quarterback got hurt and then I was in as the third string quarterback.

I led my team to many wins and barely any losses. I beat some of the best teams in college football. I became the first string quarterback in the first month I played. I was named MVP of the team. I led my team to many awards. We won most of them and lost one or two.

The names of the tournaments were the Orange Bowl and the Citrus Bowl. I was their most valuable player but I had to graduate, because I wanted to go Pro. I was part of the 2000 NFL (National Football League) draft. I was not the first person chosen. I was number 199. I was drafted by the New England Patriots. My coach didn’t think I was all that good. But then when he put me in the practices he realized what a great player I was. In that year 2000, Drew Bledsoe was the first string quarterback. I was one of the many backup quarterbacks.

I half to admit Drew Bledsoe was very good. He was better than me at first. But then throughout the years I went to the gym a lot. I practiced at the park and I went to my real practices with my team. Soon, I became Drew Bledsoe’s number one backup quarterback for the New England Patriots. When I was moved up all the way to number one backup quarterback for the New England Patriots, my dad was so happy he jumped up and down and came to my very next game with a huge banner saying “Go Tom Brady”.

Then in the year 2001 the starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe was very badly hurt in a game. So then it was finally time for me to go in to the game. That season the New England Patriots didn’t make it to the playoffs. But in 2002, the next season, my team made it to the playoffs.

Then the next game we beat the Pittsburgh Steelers and went to the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is where the two best teams that make it to the playoffs face each other.  The Super Bowl was on February 3. My team played the St. Louis Rams. Most people thought my team was going to lose. But it would be a very close game. They were right about the very close game part. But with 5 seconds left in the game, our kicker scored the winning field goal.

The next years that I went to the Super Bowl were 2004, 2005 and 2008. In 2004, I was named Super Bowl MVP. My team and I won the Super Bowl in 2004 and 2005.This year 2011, I lost to the New York Jets in the playoffs. But I’m ready for next season. I always say to myself, “At first you don’t succeed, try again next time because practice makes perfect”.

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