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During this year our class has been blogging. I think that blogging is a lot of fun because you can write about books that you wrote, book reviews of books that you like, and posts like the post I am writing right now and everyone can see it. Before I started this I don’t think that I even knew what a blog was. It was fun learning about how to write in a blog, and how they work. I am sad that this is my last blog post but, I think that I am going to do it next year. I’ll be able to write about all kinds of new things that I can’t this year like the projects that were going to do. So, since this is my last blog post for the year, bye!!!!

In school, we watched the Wizard of OZ, and read the book by L. Frank Baum. First, the entire class read the Wizard of OZ by themselves and we took notes in a little book lit that’s pages were green for the emerald city. Then, one day in class we watched the movie.
I think that the movie was a good adaptation of the book, but some parts were a little off. Like Dorothy was too old in the movie. In the book Dorothy was way younger.

Another example is in the movie Dorothy was dreaming. In the book it was real life. I actually like that it was a dream because I wonder how those kinds of things could be real, but in a dream I get it more.

It was good because you got the idea of the book, with extra parts. The extra parts made the movie exiting, interesting and different. A reason I liked the movie is, one part that was not in the book but in the movie was the beginning. In the beginning of the movie Dorothy runs away and meets a bad wizard, who becomes Oz. Another reason is then, when Dorothy gets to the Land of Oz, she already meets Galinda and the wicked witch. Also, in the book there was only three munchkins and in the movie there were many.

I liked the movie, and I thought that it was a good adaptation.

What Happened in Plimoth Plantation

I had a post on what I expected in Plimoth. Here is the real story.
When I said that the ground would be soily, I was half right. In Plimoth village the ground was soily in some places. On the paths and entering houses. But, outside of Plimoth village in some places
It was grass.
When I said the houses would be made out of wood, I was right. At least they were for Plimoth village. All of the houses were made out of wood there. The Pilgrims did not have anything else to make them out of. So, if it was a recreation of Plimoth village, they had to be made out of wood.
When I got there, the Native American site was close to the water, but in Plimoth village I did not see any water. Maybe there was some there. When I did see where they first settled there was water also.
The people dressed up did have on a lot of clothes. Just like the Pilgrims had.
The houses were very small. They looked like they could not even hold more than 10 people. They were all cramped up and really stuffy. I would not want to have to live in one.
There were no stores in Plimoth village. I don’t think that the pilgrims had any stores to go to to get food. They had to grow their own food.
It was open not like a country but it was definitely not like a city.
It was a small little village but if you were not In a house it was not cramped at all.

One thing that surprised me was how small the houses were. The were SO tiny. All they had room for was a bed mattress, a bed, a fire place, a table and a trunk. (and some things on the walls.)

The first place that we went was the Wampanoag site. It was so cool to actually see the customs and the houses. Some guys were burning wood. Other people were cooking a stew or something like that and other guys were building a house. We got to go into some of the already made houses. They were very smoky. It was hard to breath.

Earlier that day we actually did go somewhere. We went to see the Mayflower II and to see where Pilgrims had been buried. The Mayflower II was just like the real Mayflower and it was really tiny. There we saw some Pilgrims. The Mayflower II beds were in the walls of it. Even with about 40 kids it was not roomy. Imagine 102 people!

When we saw the grave yard a lot of the graves were made out of wood and had cracked and fell over. Some were still standing up though. We saw where cannons were and the grave yard was on a hill. The hill that the Pilgrims had once been on. We also saw Plimoth rock that day.

Later on, we had our evening activities. We wrote with quill pens, had a few people dress up as Pilgrim children, Mistresses, and Masters, played Pilgrim games and looked in some houses.
When we dressed up as Pilgrims, it was very funny. The baby wore a pudding on it’s head so it did not hurt when falling,
Some games we played were fox and geese and hoop and stick. You played hoop and stick by rolling the hoop and balancing it with a stick. Then CSI pilgrims where we were split into groups and we had to figure out about the Pilgrims who lived in them.

Finally to end that day we had a colonial dinner. There was Turkey pottage, fruit, cheese, pear tart, carrots, and bread. We had to eat like the Pilgrims did too. We had no forks so we could eat with our hands, as well as spoons and knives. The food was pretty good.
We did cheat though. We had cider which they did not have yet.
The next day we went to Plimoth village, We saw the dressed up Pilgrims and their houses. We talked to them and asked them questions. We also got to see their animals.

When we were done with that we had lunch and back on the bus to go home. It was an awesome trip!

This is how I expect how it will be:

• The ground will be soily. (not much grass)
• The houses will be made out of wood.
• It will be close to the water.
• The people there that are dressed up will have on TONS of clothes.
• The houses will not be huge.
• There won’t be any stores.
• It will be sort of open. (not city like)

It think that the ground will be soily because they farmed and grew their food and that means that it was like a garden. What I mean is on farms and in gardens they plowed the ground so that there was no grass. It would probably be hard to farm with grass.
The houses will be made out of wood .(trees) That is all the Pilgrims had. It will be on the ocean because when they came out of the ship they were coming off of the water.
The Pilgrims wore a lot of clothes so the people dressed up as pilgrims will have on a lot of clothes.
The houses that the pilgrims built were NOT big so the houses there will not be big.
There won’t be any stores because I do not think that the pilgrims had stores.
It will be open because it was not crowded AFTER they got off of the Mayflower.

“The bay is so round and circling that before we could come to anchor we went round all the points of the Compasse.” Mourt’s Relation

Once in the year of 2000 in New York City there lived an eight-year old girl named Kailey. had a normal life with a father and a mother. There was only one thing about her, she was a skater. Kailey’s mother would happily take her skating every day, and she skated and then went to school. People loved to watch her. She was exciting, graceful, everything. When she came home from school, she got dressed and skated. She loved it. Sometimes people would ask, “Don’t you ever get tired of it?” She always said, “Nope.”
One day she was waiting for her mother to pick her up from school to go skating, but her dad picked her up. Kailey thought, “Why did my dad pick me up? Where is my skating bag?” Her dad told her that her mom had disappeared and nobody knew what happened. “What?” Kailey sobbed. Being a sweet girl you would think by this time there was a wall on the right side of the bed and she had to get up on the wrong side.
Her father was always unhappy with the disappearance of Kailey’s mother. At a restaurant one day Kailey’s dad fell in love with a waiter and the waiter had a kid. Her father thought that Kailey would be happy with a sister and her dad wanted to marry the waitress. They talked for hours and hours. When Kailey’s father married the waiter he had made a big mistake. Kailey’s life was ruined.
Her stepfamily teased her about her name so much and said, “What kind of name is Kailey?” They made her do all the chores, and they would never let her skate. Her father could not do anything about it. They took away all of her skating dresses and she was left with one torn little black pair of pants and a shirt. They gave Kailey’s room to her younger stepsister and they let Kailey sleep on the floor with no blankets in the basement. Her stepsister got her dresses and when anybody ever asked or said “Is Kailey doing well skating?” or “Kailey is so good at skating”, her stepmother would say, “You mean my little girl.” And that happened with everything. Her stepsister got all the credit. Kailey got nothing.
One day an invitation arrived at their house. It was addressed:
HUGE SKATING PARTY/COMPETITION
PRIZE: MONEY AND A TROPHY
ROCKEFELLER CENTER
MARCH 1ST, 2OOO
Kailey thought in her mind, “I could go to that. It would be so much fun and I could compete too”, while her stepsister was jumping up and down screaming, “Go make me a beautiful skating dress, I’m going to win!”
Kailey asked, “I’m going too right?”
Her stepsister answered back, “Of course-NOT.”
“Why not?” Kailey asked.
“Because I’m going to get the money,” she replied.
Kailey stormed up to her room crying. She also was forced to make her stepsister a dress. She had to get to work as her stepmother made her as much as she did not want to.
The day of the party came. The dress was ready. Kailey gave the dress to her stepsister. She regretted not making it bad, but if she had done that she would be grounded. Kailey sighed. The dress was so pretty and Kailey wouldn’t get any credit. They would say that her stepsister made it. Kailey just wanted to go so much. She looked out her window watching her stepsister leave with her stepmother. Her father would have loved to have her go but he was not allowed to take her. If her stepmother found out if Kailey’s dad had taken her, things would be bad. Well, worse.
Kailey, though, was sneaky. When her father was not looking she ran out of the house alone. It was dark out. With her spare money that her dad gave her when she was younger (which Kailey hid in the attic) she ran to a store and bought a dress and ran and ran and finally got to the party. The dress was not nearly as pretty as her sisters’ but she thought it would do. After she tied her skates she got on the ice and she skated so well. She was the best one. Then they announced the competition. Thoughts started running in her head. She thought, “What will happen if there is someone better then me?”
But she had won. She thought, “But nobody competed yet. Did they?” Then she just said, “Oh well.” She received 2,000 dollars and a huge trophy. She could not believe it. When she was about to take them her stepfamily left.
With her skates on she started to run, but her skate came undone and fell off. She could not stop. She had forgotten what would happen if she did not clean the house or even if she was not there. Not even before she left. “What if they see me in my dress?” More bad thoughts started to spread. With only one skate on she ran home as fast as she could, undid her skate, changed, and started to clean. Her stepfamily arrived talking about the party.
Her stepsister was screaming, “Why didn’t they let me have the prize? I was very good.”
The stepmother now was yelling at Kailey for not cleaning the house. “You did a terrible job.”
She smacked Kailey. Kailey started to cry.
Days passed and somebody knocked on the door. Her stepmother answered it. A man came in the door with a skate dangling by the lace. Without thinking Kailey shouted, “That is not how you hold a skate.” Kailey covered her mouth and thought why she didn’t just shut up. The man also was not very nice. He demanded for her to put on the skate and of course it fit. Kailey was kind of confused by now. He rewarded her with the prize and her stepfamily instantly started storming around and screaming.
They NOW always were asking her, “Kailey, want to go to the mall?” Her response was always “No”. Her stepsister was never mean to her now.
Years passed and Kailey still lived in the same house. She went back to being a regular girl and she had a regular family. She got a letter one day from somebody that she did not know. She opened it up and it said:
DEAR KAILEY, (THE SKATER),
YOU ARE NOW WELL KNOWN. WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO SKATE IN PREFORMANCES.
WE HOPE THAT YOU CAN DO THEM.
IF YOU DECIDE TO, YOU HAVE TO MOVE TO CALIFORNIA.
FROM, ?
Kailey was puzzled by the ? but she decided to try to do it anyway. The only thing was who sent it? Was it someone bad? Kailey just said, “Whatever” to the thought. Her father said that it was fine and he and Kailey could live together in California, but even though that her stepmother and stepsister were nice to her now they threw a fit. “Why can’t I be a star?” complained her little stepsister. Kailey just smiled and went to pack her bags. Her father did the same.
The next morning Kailey and her father were off. Now of course her stepmother and stepsister were mad and they never got over it but Kailey and her father extremely happy with they’re new life and they got whatever they wanted and Kailey was known all over the world for “KAILEY THE AMAZING SKATER,” and whenever her stepmother or stepsister called asking to visit she just hung up. She never even thought about her old life and she didn’t even care about the other part of her family. Her skating shows worked for her. What happened to her life being ruined? That was changed and she liked things now. She was star, but she was still a normal girl that went to school and she had a dad. Now and then she would think about her old real mom but not often. She was satisfied.
Years and years passed and Kailey became an Olympic skater and was famous but she still remembered how she used to have a good life then a dreadful life and it changed and things were good again. Well, great.
One day when Kailey was 24 she recognized someone that she had not seen in a long time. She wondered who it was, but she figured it out. It was someone she had not seen since she was little - her mother. Kailey was very excited and ran over to her. Her mother did not recognize Kailey at first but of course figured it out. Kailey took her mother home and asked her the entire story. Her mother told her that she was kidnapped and brought all the way here. Many things happened, the family got back together, and Kailey finally had her own family back. Sadly, Kailey lived on her own now but still she had a real family after all.

The images throughout the book of Sarah Margru Kinson are all different and you could see how it looked and what was happening. There were maps of places, newspaper, photos and pictures. There are maps that explain where it was and photos of people. There are also newspapers about Margru that were actually of the time, which shows you about the people and what they said. The photos are real photos of Africa but not exactly of Margru but they still give you the picture of what it was like in Africa and what it looked like.

This is a report that my 3rd grade buddy wrote about her New Orleans buddy.

In New Orleans, there is a school called The Lusher School and we have buddies in the Lusher School. New Orleans is also famous for beignets. My buddy in New Orleans and the rest of my buddy’s class sent beignet mix to New York and we sent them bagels.

We went to an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art called “After the flood.” Our teacher went to New Orleans and she took pictures of the eggs that they decorated. They were made of porcelain. One egg was happy and cheerful while one looked like a devil. We saw how some kids felt about Hurricane Katrina too. We write to our buddies. We are similar to our buddies and a way that we are similar to our buddies in New Orleans is that we are both kids that go to school. They celebrate Marti Gras. That’s a difference though. We learn about New Orleans and it’s fun to have New Orleans buddies.