Book Review-The Diary of Laura’s Twin

by Aashi

Today, I am going to be reviewing a book called “The Diary of Laura’s Twin”. This book is about a mysterious diary that links 2 Jewish girls – Laura, a modern-day girl, and Sara, a young girl who fought to stay alive – together.

Laura had to start getting ready for her Jewish “coming of age” ceremony, called a Bat Mitzvah. She is assigned a special “twinning” project, in which she is to read about someone who is her age, and lived during the Holocaust. She chose to read the diary of Sara Gittler, a girl her age, who was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto. She never got to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah, so Laura is going to share it with her. Each page Laura turns, she gets caught up with the book more, and more.

I really liked this book because it was non-fiction and fiction at the same time. This is because some parts are written like a diary, which included facts and pictures of the time during WWII (World War 2).

Even though Sara, Laura and all the other characters aren’t real, the things Sara talks about are. The Warsaw Ghetto is also real, as well as some of the heroes, and the pictures.

Here is a picture of the front cover of the book:

au

Here is a picture of the author, Kathy Kacer:

au

The 4/5 concert

by Aashi

Yesterday, we had an amazing concert put on by the students of grade 4 and 5. We worked very hard, but in the final result, we thought it was worth all the effort. Each class put on a performance, and all of them referred to the quote, “Be the change you  want to see in the world” by Mahatma Gandhi. Our class paired up with another grade 5 class, and we recited the story of “The Great Kapok Tree”. Here is a picture of that book:

This is a book about all the animals of the Amazon rainforest sending a message to a man who was about to chop down the kapok tree. This book has a strong message, and I’m sure you will agree once you read it.

 

I felt that all the students did a great job, and there are thousands of words which you could describe it with. Here are a few:

  • Creative
  • Effective
  • Interesting
  • Strong Message
  • CHANGE

Earlier that day, we had a dress rehearsal in front of the rest of the students in the school.  After school, we had to come back for the presentation for our parents. Here is a collage I made of some “behind the scenes” pictures”:

concert

The first picture shows one of the props we used in the play. All the props had to be painted with fluorescent paint, so that they would glow in the black light.

The picture right beside it is a picture of the students who were supposed to be humans, so they had to pin body parts to their clothes.

The image on the bottom-left corner is a picture of all the students singing the final song, which is “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” with different words. The rest of the pictures features students waiting for their turn to perform.

Movie Review-Monsters VS Aliens

by Aashi

Monsters VS Aliens is a hilarious movie about 4 “monsters”; Susan/Ginormica, B.O.B (Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate), Dr. Cockroach Ph. D, The Missing Link, and Insectosoraus-which turns into “Butterfly-osauras” on a mission to help save the universe from an evil octopus named Gallaxhar. Here is a bit more information on these monsters:

–       Susan

Susan Murphy was just about to get married to Derek Dietl-who happened to care about himself more than her- when a meteor hit her, causing her to turn green and grow. Since she was so big, her monster name was “Ginormica”.

–       B.O.B

B.O.B is and indestructible substance created by scientists. He has the ability to swallow anything. He’s amazing, but the only bad part is, he doesn’t have a brain.

–       Dr. Cockroach

Dr. Cockroach is a mad scientist who was human, and when he was, he created machine to have the abilities of a cockroach. The only side effects were…it changed him INTO a cockroach. He also has a mad scientist laugh, which is disliked by Susan.

–       The Missing  Link

Link is an extremely old fish-ape hybrid, who was found frozen and thawed out. His favourite thing to do is to scare people, so he got put with the others. Also, he always complains that he is out of shape-TRUE!

–       Insectosoraus

Insecto was a regular sized insect, transformed into a VERY LARGE insect by nuclear radiation, much like Susan. The cool thing about him is that he can shoot silk out of his nose. Insecto doesn’t speak properly, but has a VERY close bond with Link, who can understand what he is saying. After he’s out of his cocoon, he turns into a butterfly, and fly’s everyone where they need to go.

Here is a picture of Susan beside Reese Witherspoon, who plays her voice:

Here is a picture of B.O.B with Seth Rogen, who is his voice:

Here is a picture of Dr. Cockroach with Hugh Laurie, his voice:

Here is a picture of The Missing Link with Will Arnett, who is his voice:

Here is a picture of Insectosoraus:

Here is a picture of Gallaxhar beside Rainn Wilson, who plays his voice:

Click on the following link to see the full list of Monsters VS Aliens characters with their voices:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=monsters+vs+aliens+characters+voices

I thought this movie was pretty funny, and I think you will too after you see it. Here is a really amusing clip from the movie:

Enjoy!

Book Review-The Longest Whale Song

by Aashi

I have just finished reading a book called, “The Longest Whale Song” by Jacqueline Wilson. It is a very sad and touching story.

It is about a girl named Ella who has lots of problems in her life: She has to deal with her stepfather, Jack, her best friend-Sally- seems to hang out with another girl more than her and worst of all…her mom fell into a coma when she was giving birth to a baby boy.When Ella started learning about whales, she was fascinated by them and loved them more and more every day. Every day when she would visit the hospital, she would read her mother a fact about whales. The most knowledgeable boy in the class also likes whales. His name is Joseph, and he is very kind. Ella and Joseph become friends and their adventure continues. At the end of the book, Ellas mum wakes up, tired of the whale music CD Mrs. Anderson (Joseph’s mom) lent her. Here are some of the other characters:

 

  • Liz (Ella’s mom’s best friend)
  • Dory (The girl who hangs out with Sally)
  • Martha (A very rude girl and originally Dory’s best friend)
  • Mike (Ella’s real dad)
  • Butterscotch (Ella’s guinea pig)

 

Here is what the cover looks like:

What I learned outside of school

by Aashi

What I learned outside of school is how to play badminton. Badminton is a fun sport, similar to tennis but is played differently and has different rules.

Here are some of the differences:

Badminton

-Net is low

-Played with a birdie (shuttle cock)

Tennis

-Net is low

-Played with a ball

I first started to play at badminton classes. Then, I practiced at home. Now, I go to practice at another place. I like to practice badminton in my spare time. My friend also joins me because she also likes to play.

Badminton is also an Olympic sport.

This is a picture of a badminton racket:

This is a picture of a birdie:

People playing badminton:

Winter is…

by Aashi

I made a poem that descibes what winter is:

 

 Winter is…

Winter is making snow angels and snowmen.

 win

Winter is celebrating holidays such as Christmas.

win

Winter is staying home and sleeping in during the winter break.

 win

Winter is not wearing shorts and t-shirts.

Winter is drinking hot chocolate.

win

Winter is a beautiful season.

By: Aashi S.

 

Blog Challenge-Week 10-Final Challenge

by Aashi

1. How many posts did you write?

I wrote 20 posts on my blog; all the student blog challenges (including this one), survey’s, and other posts that were various topics.

2. How many were school based, your own interests or set by the challenge?

School based: 16 (includes Student Blogging Challenges)
My own interests: 3

3. How many comments did you receive from classmates, teachers or overseas students?

I received 2 comments on my blog. They were both on the post I did about “Tap Water VS Bottled Water”, and by classmates.

4. Which post received the most comments? Why do you think that happened?

The “Tap Water VS Bottled Water” post received the most comments. I think this happened because the people who commented had not used Powtoon before, which was the program I used in that post.

5. Which post did you enjoy writing the most and why?

The post I enjoyed writing the most is blog challenge week 6. This was the most interesting because I chose to do activity 6, in which we had to write a post in my native language. This was fun because I got to do something on my blog that wasn’t in English.

6. Did you change blog themes at all and why?
I did change the blog theme. I did this because the first one that I had was “Borderline Chaos”. I changed the background image because I wanted it to be a design, and not just a solid colour. I also had to change the whole theme because my widgets were blocking my posts, so it was hard to read them.

7. How many widgets do you have? Do you think this is too many or not enough?

I have 10 widgets. I think that I have a good amount because my widgets don’t go too far down that they go even past all my posts. If I had a few extra animal widgets, then that would also be fine.

8. How many overseas students do you have on your blogroll?

I don’t have any oversea students on my blogroll, but I do have 2 of my classmates. I also have a link to our class blog.

Blog Challenge-Week 9-Part B

by Aashi

Here is what makes a great blog:

This week, we also had to nominate a blog for the Edublogs Awards. I chose to nominate a class blog. The blog that I chose is “Miss Taylor’s Class 2013-14”. Here are some good things about this blog:

  • They posted lots of things that they were doing in their class.
  • They had sites to every kid in their class’ blog
  • They had other sites that they might have used in their class
  • They had a few widgets that counted who visited their blog and where they were from

Here is the URL of this blog:

http://kidblog.org/Miss_Taylor/

You can visit this blog anytime you want.

It will be very interesting to find out who wins this year!

Enjoy!

 

 

Blog Challenge-Week 9-Narrative

by mrwoods

This week, I made a narrative as my best blog post. I have the whole story, and I have also put it into a comic. Hope you enjoy it!

My mom is a MONSTER!

Once there lived a woman whose name was Jane and was a mother to 3 kids-John, Sara and George.  She was very kind and helpful during the day, but when the sun set and the kids were sound asleep, she turned into an EVIL MONSTER!

Jane’s eyes turned from a peaceful blue to a spooky green. Her hair turned from a soft brown to a faded white. This was not normal for a human, but when she was young, one of the members from the CHC (Creepy Humans of Carsem) club had inserted a special device in her. She turned this way every night, but no one noticed. Jane would never talk about it because she never remembered what happened during the night.

One day, when the kids woke up, all the trees around them had fallen. Nobody knew how. There had been no notice of a storm, but that was the only possible answer, so everyone thought that, including Jane-but John still thought that there was something fishy about it.

That night, John had a bad dream so he went to his mother’s room-but strangely she wasn’t there. So he went to his sibling’s rooms. He woke them up-at least tried to! George wouldn’t wake up, so he just told his sister, Sara the story. After listening to it, Sara said, “You’re mistaken. It was probably just thunder.”John sighed, “What should I do now? Maybe Sara’s right. I should just go to sleep.” A little while later, John heard the sound again. This time, his sister had heard it too. She came in his room and told him, “We’re going to investigate,” and left him no time to think about it.

Soon, they were busy sneaking around outside. “I think the thing is gone,” said John. Just as he said that, they heard it again. “It’s coming from that way!” exclaimed Sara. “Now that way!” said the excited yet exhausted John. They kept doing that until they saw a quick glimpse of the creepy monster. Then they saw more of it. “Doesn’t that look a bit like mom?” questioned Sara. “It really does!” replied John. “No…wait…that can’t be…she has brown hair and blue eyes; not white hair and green eyes,” murmured Sara.

“What are you talking about?” asked John. “I really think that IS mom,” replied his sister, shocked. “Now that you think about it, you might be right; she wasn’t here when I woke up,” said John. His surprised sister replied, “Then why didn’t she tell us about it? That is the only question, though. Everything else makes sense. Let’s go back now. We can tell her tomorrow morning.”

Here is the comic….