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Having a blog in fourth grade is a unique experience. It was lucky to be a part this experience. I wrote many posts and here I write my last post on this blog. This is a difficult post to write because having a blog is like having a diary. You write different things in them but it’s still your thoughts and comments. Having a blog is really memorable because it will be there forever.

I learned a lot from having a blog. I learn how to write without being to personal and how to right good reviews and put pictures and podcasts on blogs. I really like the posts we did and the format of our blogs. My favorite thing I did with my blogs was my Alice in Wonderland post series called My Adventures with Alice. I loved writing about the different stages of the project we did.

If you’re a teacher reading this blog I highly recommend doing individual blogs with your students. It’s something educational because you write about what you’re doing and every person gets to write each of his or her thoughts. It’s also fun because you get to share your thoughts with anyone who reads your blog. You have to learn the rules of a blog but then it’s really enjoyable.

So if you’re thinking of get a blog I’d definitely do it.

Because of our immigration unit this previous fall, our younger buddies from Little Dalton came to the upper school to interview us about our immigration from the little school to the big school. Our school is separated into two buildings K-3 (elementary school) in one building and 4-12 (middle and high school) in another. Because our first social studies unit this year was immigration, the teachers set it up so it’s like we are immigrants to the upper school. To support that idea, we had a citizenship celebration and were interviewed about our journey to the big school. Below is the interview we did:

Old Country

Can you tell me about something special to remind you of the First Program?

There are many things that remind me of First Program. I have old LDM issues, Native American Water Drum, etc. It’s really hard to single something out.

Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about your memories of the First Program?

I have very fond memories of my Kindergarten teacher. She retired 2006. I miss her tons!

Arrival

Where did you go when you first arrived and what was it like?

When we got there on our first day we went up to our classrooms and met our teacher. I already knew Ms. Edinger so it wasn’t that timid. Then we heard about our curriculum.

What did you think Big Dalton would be like? Was it what you expected? Why or why not?

It was pretty much what I expected, though I thought we’d see the high schoolers more than we do, which is good.

Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about your early days in Big Dalton? Especially things that might help me with my immigration to Big Dalton?

There’s nothing much to say except, at first it’s a bit overwhelming, but you get used to it.

New Country

What are the big differences between the First Program and Big Dalton?

The main difference is that everything is much bigger. The students and the facilities. We went back to visit your class at First Program and everything seemed mini.

What do you miss about Little Dalton?

The roofs. It’s a lot more confusing with Playstreet.

Is there anything else that you would like to tell me?

I miss First Program a lot but I’m enjoying my time at Big Dalton.

As one of the many interesting projects Ms. Edinger has done with us, we read a favorite book of mine. The Wizard of Oz! This classic story is about a little girl who goes to a magical land called The Land of Oz. The book entails her adventures with her friends, the Scarecrow, the Tin man, and the Cowardly Lion. Together they embark on a journey to the Great Emerald City to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

After we read this book we watch the MGM movie with Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, and Jack Haley. I enjoy the movie much as well so the rest of this post is going to be about my thoughts on the book vs. the movie.

I’ve enjoyed the movie throughly but if I had to adapt it from L. Frank Baum’s book I would have definitely done it differently. First, I would make the slippers silver instead of red. Second, I would have tried to make the witch look more like L. Frank Baum’s description. And third, I would have kept the Golden Cap used to call the monkeys in the story.

Although, I have my thoughts on changes to be made, I definetly still find the movie very interesting.

After many different stages, we are done with our Alice in Wonderland study. First, we read the book. Then, we created an abridged version of our chapter. To read more about that phase, click here. Then we began drawing the pictures of the characters in our chapter. To read more on that, click here. Then we drew our back rounds and our comic started coming together. To read more on that, click here.

Next we had the biggest part, we made the comics. We went on Comic Life and created our comics. To here more about that, click here. If you want to actually see our comic, click here.

What I took out of this experience was a lot of hard work really pays off. When I saw the comic I thought it was so cool to look at something we made that was now on the Internet for everyone to see. I hope you’ve enjoyed my post and comic.

I’ve recently finish a book called The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. If I had to rate this book on a scale from 1 to 10, I’d rate 10 out of the possible 10. I’ve quite enjoyed this book and I feel as though it appeals to a broad audience of young readers which is very important.

To summarize this story,

This book is about an orphan named Reynie who partakes in an adventure for a man by the name of Mr. Benedict. He and his friends Kate Wetherall, Sticky Washington, and Constance Contraire are sent on a mission for Mr. Benedict to a school called The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened. They go through interesting obstacles, such as making an enemy of Martina Crowe and getting past Jackson and Jillson, the executives. The children discover that Ledroptha Curtain, (the head of school), is sending dangerous messages in his machine called The Whisperer. Finally, as a team they destroy The Whisperer once and for all.

My favorite character in this book is Constance Contraire. I think her crankiness is one of the many things that kept the story interesting. If they made a movie out of this book I’d love to see what they made of her.

Out of all the books I’ve read, I’d definitely say this book is in my top 10. I can wait to read the second one. 

At this point c16km and I have:

1. edited the text to fit our drawings
2. done the drawings
3. scanned them in

Now it’s time for the final step, creating the comic. C16km and I have superb text and outstanding drawings, now all we need is to put them together. And our way to do that is to make a comic!

To create this comic we’re using a little help from a program called Comic Life. That’s to this program we can create comics of our own. With this we get to be very creative. Really the best fun begins now.

C16km and I have done 2 out of our 8 scenes. We’re enjoying every minute of this and when you see it I hope you enjoy it to!

To our beloved sister Mary Alice,

We miss you so greatly. `Tis quite strange in this new world. Work that be done by beasts now have to be done by man. But thou realizes that they’d rather do the work and stay alive than shrival away to nothingness. We’ve seen so many people go it’d be quite tradgic to see one go now, after all we made it through. Food is interesting but we can complain. It’s tough to get what we have. The houses are fine, we’ve gotten used to them by now. I hope that some day you will come to this new world too.

How’s little Issac? He miss us, nay? We hope he’s doing well, `twas a difficult parting between him and mother. How old is he now? He must be at least 4.

Send him and everyone our love,

Catherine and Henry

As c16km and I continue our work are comic is blossoming. We’ve drawn all our characters including the Duchess and the Queen of Hearts. We’ve done all of our back rounds and as soon as we finish scanning we’re on to the “lovely” concept of editing.

We have to fix little errors in our script and put our characters on our back rounds, but when you call it editing it takes a lot longer. C16km and I are the farthest in the class so we have nothing to worry about. This project is so much fun and I can’t wait to do more!

…by Gods prouidence vpon the ninth of Nouember following, by breake of the day we espied land which we deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved.…

Continuing our study of Alice, c16km and I are working on our comic as planned. C16km is an excellent artist and great at drawing creatures. The characters in our chapter are:

Alice

Griffin

The Mock Turtle

The lobsters

The duchess is not done yet, but I’m excited because I get to draw her.

Creating the script was really fun. We have 2 chapters so it was a lot of work. The script went from 16 pages to 3 and a half. Here’s some of it.

`I take it you have no idea what a lobster quadrille is? It’s a sort of dance.’ said the griffin.

`It must be a very pretty dance,’ said Alice timidly.

`Would you like to see a little of it?’ said the Mock Turtle.

`Very much indeed,’ said Alice.

Then they dance with the lobsters. What fun!

If you want to see more look at c16km’s blog or read my next post which will be soon. This post series is so much fun and I’ll definitely write more.