c16rb

Yes. The last post. The last day of fourth grade is on Thursday, and after this year, we will not be able to use our blogs. This is a reflection on “blog-using.”

I think having a blog was really cool. We got to write about whatever we wanted (within reason) and reflect on major events in the school year. Also, we are the only class in our whole school to have individual blogs.

Again, I think that having blogs was really cool, and I’m sad that we won’t be able to use them anymore. Well, Bye! Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!

We’re off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Because, because, because, because, because of the wonderful things he does…   You know the song. It’s from the movie of The Wizard of Oz. We saw the movie in school after reading the book. It was one of the earliest color movies.  I do not think that the movie is a good adaption of the book, but that doesn’t change the fact that the songs are catchy.  Hence the beginning.  Here are three examples of the difference.

1. The Witch appears on top of the Tin Woodman’s hut in the woods and shoots a fireball  at Dorothy.  Definitely not in the book.

2. The Flying Monkeys in the book when attacking Dorothy completely destroy the Scarecrow and the Tin Man.  In the movie, only a small bit of straw is pulled out of the Scarecrow.

3.   In the book, the only troops other than plain old animals are the Flying Monkeys.  In the movie, she has battalions of them.

In my opinion, more that is from the book could be added to the movie.

Today, my buddy from House 43 interviewed me about how it felt coming from the little school to the big school. There are a lot of differences between them. Here is the recorded version of the interview:

 

 Buddy Interview: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the 4th book in the Harry Potter series.  The first book came out in 1999.  Harry Potter 4 is a great book.  It has lots of cool action scenes.  At the end of the book Lord Voldemort (Harry’s worst enemy) rises again.  Harry is chosen to be one of the champions for Hogwarts in the Triwizard Tournament.  He goes through 3 difficult tasks, and at the end of the third one, he is transported to a graveyard where Voldemort rises again.

Finally! We’ve started our comics. My partner, c16rb and I have finished four pages! We decided to use our whole script, but add in a few little side comments and thoughts to make it a bit more interesting. One example is, we made an earthquake in the middle of the trial. It will be very disruptive to the trial. One of the reasons we have been able to make our comic funny is that our pictures look extremely freaky. Our Alice is evil. She has red eyes and dreadlocks. Her shoes are almost as tall as she is. She’s freaky. That’s all folks, and we’ll see you next time on All About Alice….

On April 18, 2008, the fourth grade at the Dalton School left on a 6-hour bus ride to Plimoth, MA to learn about the Pilgrims. We did lots of activities including: A Pilgrim dinner, where we learned about manners and utensils, we went to a “Native American village”, we went to the recreated Plimoth village, and much, much more. Using the things that I learned on the trip I am going to pretend to be my historical fiction Pilgrim writing to “a friend back home”.

Dear John,
We have reached America safely, and hath built many dwelling places. Life is hard, but we all haveth our own land to plant and expand. We hath signed a peace treaty with the native peoples, and we now help each other in times of famine and war. They art the reason we hath survived in this place. They give us help with our harvest, and we defend them from their enemies. But this place is not all good things. Half of our number died during that first horrid winter. I dearly hope that thou art going to follow us to this new and mysterious land.
Sincerly,
Christopher Britteridge

Hello again!  c16tk and I have made a lot of progress since the last All About Alice post.  This is our new draft of our script for our comic.

1. “That’s the judge, because of his great wig.”  AT
“And that’s the jury-box, and those 12 creatures, I suppose are the jurors.” AT
2. KS “Herald, read the accusation!”  KS “Consider your verdict!” RS “Not yet, not yet!  There’s a great deal to come before that!” KS “Call the first witness.”  RS “First witness!” 3. HS “I beg pardon, your Majesty, for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when I was sent for.”  KS “You ought to have finished.  When did you begin?”  HS “Fourteenth of March, I think it was.”  MHS “Fifteenth.” DS “Sixteenth.” KS “Take off your hat.” HS “It isn’t mine.” KS “Stolen!” HS “I keep them to sell.  I’ve none of my own, I’m a hatter.”
4. GP1S “Yay!” (GP1 Suppressed) AT “I’m glad I’ve seen that done, I’ve so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, “There was some attempt at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court, and I never understood what it meant.”  KS  “If that’s all you know about it you may stand down.”  HS  “I can’t go no lower: I’m on the floor as it is.”  KS  “Then you may sit down.”  GP2S  “Yay!”  (GP2 Suppressed)  AT  “Come, that finishes the guinea-pigs!  Now we shall get on better.”
5. KS  “Call the next witness!”  (Cook comes to stand)  KS  “Give your evidence!”  CS  “Shan’t.”  RS  “Your majesty must cross-examine this witness.”  KS  “Well, if I must, I must.  What are tarts made of?”  CS  “Pepper, mostly.”  DS  “Treacle.”  QS  “Collar that Dormouse!  Behead that Dormouse!  Turn that Dormouse out of court!  Suppress him!  Pinch him!  Off with his whiskers!  (Cook disappears in confusion and Dormouse leaves.)
6. RS  “Alice!”  (Alice comes up to stand and knocks over jury box.)  KS  “The trial cannot proceed until all the jury men are back in their proper places.  All.”  (Alice puts all back in, Bill upside-down.)  KS  “What do you know about this business?”  AS  “Nothing” KS  “That’s very important.”  RS  “Unimportant, your Majesty means, of course.”  KS  “Unimportant, of course I meant.”                                                                                               7. KS  “Silence!  Rule 42:  All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.”  AS  “I’m not a mile high!”  KS  “You are.”  QS  “Nearly two miles high.”  AS “Well, I shan’t go, at any rate: besides, that’s not a regular rule; you invented it just now.”  KS  “It’s the oldest rule in the book.”  AS  “Then it ought to be No. 1.”  KS  “Consider your verdict!”  RS “There’s more evidence to come yet, please your majesty.  This paper has just been picked up.”  KS  “Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?  RS  “No.” KNS  “Please, your Majesty, I didn’t write it: and they can’t prove I did.  There’s no name signed at the end.”  KS  “If you didn’t sign it, you must have meant some mischief, or you would have signed it like an honest man.”  QS  “That proves his guilt.”
8. KS  “You never had fits, my dear, I think?  QS  “Never!”  (Queen throws inkbottle at Bill.)  KS “Then the words don’t fit you, my dear.  It’s a pun!  Let the jury consider their verdict!  QS  “No, no, sentence first!  Verdict afterwards!”  AS  “Stuff and nonsense!  The idea of having a sentence first!”  QS  “Hold your tongue!”  AS  “I won’t!”  QS  “Off with her head!”  AS  “Who cares for you?  You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”  (Pack attack and Alice wakes up)

We have also drawn the first few pictures for our comic but we haven’t scanned them in yet.  Our Queen of Hearts has such long hair that it goes off the page.  Our King of Hearts has spiky green hair.  And they both have huge crowns that go off the page.  Our White Rabbit is fat.  We plan to do other freaky things with our characters but we haven’t got around to it yet.  See you next time on All About Alice. 

We have started our Alice comics, the ones I mentioned in the last All About Alice post. My partner for the comic is c16tk. We are doing two chapters combined. We had to worry about not being too talky, not taking too long scenes, etc. etc..This is what we’ve done so far. It’s the first four of 11 scenes for our comic.

1. “That’s the judge, because of his great wig.” AT
“And that’s the jury-box, and those 12 creatures, I suppose are the jurors.” AT
2. KS “Herald, read the accusation!” KS “Consider your verdict!” RS “Not yet, not yet! There’s a great deal to come before that!” KS “Call the first witness.” RS “First witness!”
3. HS “I beg pardon, your Majesty, for bringing these in: but I hadn’t quite finished my tea when I was sent for.” KS “You ought to have finished. When did you begin?” HS “Fourteenth of March, I think it was.” MHS “Fifteenth.” DS “Sixteenth.” KS “Take off your hat.” HS “It isn’t mine.” KS “Stolen!” HS “I keep them to sell. I’ve none of my own, I’m a hatter.”
4. GP1S “Yay!” (GP1Suppressed) AT “I’m glad I’ve seen that done, I’ve so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, “There was some attempt at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court,” and I never understood what it meant.”

It’s hard to understand because we have it in a basic kind of “code”. That is the progress we have made so far. See you next time!

In January and February 2008, our class at The Dalton School learned about Forced Immigration.  We did this because our class is studying immigration as our main unit this year, and Forced Immigration is one of the kinds of immigration we are learning about.  We learned about how the slaves from Africa came to America, what the conditions were, and what they did when they got here. On board the slave ships, slaves were packed in like sardines, but the crew had individual cabins.   The unit was interesting, but some parts were disturbing.

In class, we have been studying Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carol. We started by Ms Edinger reading the book out loud to us while we read along using Ms Edinger’s many copies of the book, all of which are by different illustrators. Next, we watched movies about Alice in Wonderland and from it’s time (like Betty in Blunderland, 1900 House, and The Young Visiters.) Then, we learned about Lewis Carol himself. We then learned about Alice Liddel, the real Alice. He wrote the book for her. Yesterday, we chose chapters in the book to make into comics. After we finish this, we will have an Alice in Wonderland tea party.