This is the last blog post of the year! I can’t believe it’s over already. I never had a blog before this so it was a new experience. It was really great but it was over so quickly! For once I wish the school year was longer. Well, I’d better say goodbye to my blog now. BYE BLOG!
In school we had a debate after watching the movie, weather The Wizard of Oz was a good adaptation of the book or a bad one. The class was divided into sides NOT dependent on what we thought. I was on the side that said the movie was a bad adaptation so here are my reasons: first, I think that MGM didn’t want to spend too much money so they cut out a lot of scenes and objects important to the book like: the golden cap which you can use three times to summon the winged monkeys who will obey your command without question. MGM also merged the two good witches into one because they didn’t want to spend the extra money having two actresses playing the two different parts. I think that’s bad because the witches have two totally different roles. The witch of the north is supposed to be short and stubby and protects Dorothy with her kiss. The witch of the south is the one that explains the power of the SILVER slippers as they are in the book and she doesn’t come to Dorothy as the merged witch does in the movie. The movie is also a bad adaptation because in the book, Dorothy is 6. In the movie, Dorothy is 16. MGM did that because it was easier to have a 16 memorize the lines than a 6 year old. My conclusion is that if your going to make a movie where all the details of the book that you’re basing it off are cut out to save money, don’t make a movie at all.
The capital of Indiana is Indianapolis. Indianapolis is famaus for a lot of things, one of them is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was built in 1909 by Carl Fisher and James Allison and is still in use. There is also a museum honoring the speedway and it gets the most tourists in May, the month of the famous 500 mile race. That’s why it’s called the Indianapolis 500. Don’t miss the big race on Sunday, May 24, 2009!
Indiana has cold winters, hot summers, and average rain per year. Some parts of Indiana can have over 44 inches (112 centimeters) of rain per year. The summer in Indiana are hot and humid and can get over 78 degrees fahreinheight (26 degrees celcius). I don’t want to be there in the winter. Tempurtures in the winter can get below 22 degrees fahreinheight! ( -6 degrees celcius.) Indiana is a place of extreme tempurtures and I reccomend for you to visit it.
Fact sheet
We read the book When You Reach Me in school. It is about a girl in 1979 who receives a series of letters from a mysterious source. Some of the main characters are the girl who’s name is Miranda, her friend Sal, A kid at her school named Marcus, and a homeless man who’s not as crazy as he looks! This book can get a little confusing but it’s a really good book. I’m not going to give anything away!
The Green Book is a different version of the Pilgrim’s story except it takes place in the future and the group of people are leaving Earth instead of England. I think a couple of similarities and differences are that first: the Pilgrims had it a little bit worse. Second: Since The Green book is fiction, it was more creative and I liked it more. Third: They both are stories about a group of people who leave their home, don’t really like their new home, but they still live there ignoring the conditions. I would tell you how The Green Book ends, but you should read it yourselves!
What we’ve done in our Alice unit so far is learned all about Lewis Carrol and that Alice was based off a real person. We learned that Lewis Carrol wasn’t his real name and that every poem in the book is a parody. We did all of the above as we read Alice in Wonderland always reading from different versions of the book. Then we watched these videos called 1900 house to get the feel of the time that Alice lived in. And now, finally we’re making comics about Alice. Each group gets one chapter and can twist the text to very far limits. I wonder what we’ll do next!
It says: And thus wee made our course South South West, purposing to goe to a river ten leagues to the South of the Cape.
At the Dalton school 4th graders have 3rd grade buddies. Our 3rd grade buddies have other buddies at a school in New Orleans. Our buddies picked up information through books, the internet, and their buddies. Then our buddies put together a paragraph of all the information they got about New Orleans. And here it is:
New Orleans is a lot like New York City. New York City is very busy Like New Orleans. There are a lot of parades in New York City. I think there are a lot of parades in New Orleans. Mardi Gras and Lundi Gras are very big in New Orleans. I also feel bad for New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ike. My buddy loves soccer, likes the Caribou and is born on November, Seven, Nineteen-ninety-nine. My class and I went to Isham Park to plant daffodils. The class planted about 600 daffodil bulbs. But before any of that happened. The students in house 43 pledged for money to send to Langston Hughes Academy for books in their library and for their reading groups.
The Ultimate Sniper
Jason sighed. It was February, 1917, during World War I. The British were planning a series of attacks on the German front. The rest of Jason’s squad had rifles. Jason was a British private and was privileged with only a pistol. He still couldn’t believe what he had done. During the last battle, he and the three others in his squad went on a mission to see where the Germans were camping. (The rest of Jason’s squad were mean and dumb. The meaner the person, the dumber. Jason didn’t actually know their names because they never told him, so he called them number one, number two, and number three.) His squad took the front of the group and he took the back. After a while, they said they found the German troops so Jason asked for a look. But when Jason went for a look, his bunkmates pushed him out into the open where the Germans saw him and his group had to retreat. Jason was stripped of the few privileges he had to begin with. The sergeants didn’t listen to his story.
One day news came in that the Germans had moved up, so the British troops were sent out to stop them. Jason knew he wasn’t allowed to fight without special permission. Plus he only had 3 bullets. Jason sighed again, sat down on his bed and dreaded the moment when his bragging bunkmates came back successful. But after an hour they hadn’t come back. After an hour and a half they hadn’t come back. Jason was getting restless. He was starting to hear little squeaks. The squeaks were getting louder, they seemed to be trying to get his attention. It was 21:30, no sign of his bunkmates. Finally, at 22:30, Jason had had enough of the squeaks. He looked at the side of his bed where a mouse was standing in a mouse hole on its hind legs. Then he heard that the squeaks the mouse was making weren’t squeaks at all. The mouse was actually saying “Hey!” in a tiny, squeaky voice.
“You can talk?” Jason asked, amazed.
“What do you think I’ve been doing for the last hour?” demanded the mouse.
“I thought you were squeaking,” said Jason truthfully.
“Well let’s just get down to business,” said the mouse.
“Mice have business?” asked Jason.
“I’m a magical mouse you dimwit!” yelled the mouse in his highest, squeakiest voice.
“More like a short tempered mouse,” said Jason. Luckily, the mouse didn’t hear him. It was busy dragging something big and black out of it’s hole. It was about four feet long and made a slight scratching noise as it was dragged across the floor by the mouse.
“What is that?” asked Jason.
“This,” said the mouse proudly, “is a sniper rifle, I made it myself.” BANG! The mouse had stepped back on to the trigger, and a hole had appeared in the wall at the other end of the room.
“I can see that,” muttered Jason.
“I’ve been watching you for the last few days. In fact I followed you on your mission to the German camp,” squeaked the mouse as though Jason had not made the sarcastic comment.
“You saw me make a fool of myself.”
“Not you making a fool of yourself,” interrupted the mouse, “your squad making a fool of you. That’s why I’m helping you!” The mouse swung tiny fists at what appeared to be invisible enemies.
“So what are you waiting for?” demanded the mouse, “take the sniper and go to the battle.”
“But I’m not allowed to,” sighed Jason
“You think I came all this way to let the rules stop me?” demanded the mouse. “Now take the sniper and go. It has magic ammo that will last until 24:00,” said the mouse. Not wanting to argue with the mouse anymore, Jason reluctantly took the sniper and left.
Getting to the battle was easier than Jason expected. The whole camp must have been at the battle so no one could see him sneaking around, and it was so loud that Jason could easily follow the sound. When Jason finally got to the battle, the sergeants were too busy firing at the Germans to notice him. So Jason just slipped into a free space in the trench, set up his sniper, and started shooting. The sniper was much more comfortable then Jason had expected, and it was exactly his size. Jason had not noticed that it was already 23:50.
Finally, at 23:58, a sergeant spotted Jason shooting down all the enemies and said,
“Hey there! How did you get that gun?” Jason was too frantic at the sound of the sergeant’s voice to listen to what he was saying.
Jason dropped the gun and made a brake for it. Jason made it back to his tent unseen by anyone else, but he had forgotten his sniper. “Oh-no!” thought Jason, “the mouse is going to kill me… Well actually, he couldn’t,” Jason reasoned with himself. Jason imagined the mouse squeaking his vocal cords out and couldn’t suppress a laugh.
Meanwhile, at the battle the British finished off the rest of the Germans thanks to a mystery solider who carried a sniper. The sergeant who saw Jason picked up the sniper and said, “ I must find the soldier who knows how to work this gun. I will know that is the soldier who saved the battle because this gun is so complicated that I can’t work it myself!”
The next day, a sergeant came around the camp carrying a sniper. He went all the way around the camp, but no one could shoot with the sniper. Finally, he got to Jason’s tent. When the sergeant got in, Jason’s three bunkmates rushed to the sniper. Number one found the scope and the trigger, but he couldn’t find the stand. Number two found the trigger and the stand, but he couldn’t find the scope. Number three found the stand and the scope, but he couldn’t find the trigger.
“There are four beds in here,” said the sergeant, “where’s the fourth member of this squad?”
“He’s in the corner,” replied Number three stupidly, “but you don’t need to test him, he wasn’t even at the battle.” Number three was on good terms with the sergeant, so he thought the sergeant would listen to him.
“Nevertheless,” said the sergeant grimly, “everyone needs to try,” as he pushed past a stunned looking Number three.
Jason took the sniper willingly, feeling a rush of excitement.
“Where should I shoot?” asked Jason.
“Try to shoot at that wall,” said the sergeant in a bored voice, “but since you probably won’t know how to shoot, it doesn’t matte- BANG! Jason shot the gun, and a hole appeared in the wall right next to the one the mouse had made the night before. Then the sergeant said in a voice quite unlike his own, “You’d better come with me.”
In the morning, at 7:30, Jason came in front of the head of the Camp. Jason still didn’t know exactly what was going to happen to him. The head of the camp said, “Come closer.”
Jason came closer. The head of camp cleared his throat and said, “For his skill and bravery under wrong accusation, Jason- Uh… I can’t pronounce your last name. Anyway, I promote you to a sergeant with full privileges.”
Jason was lost for words. He looked down at the sniper. It had spared him so much trouble. It truly was the ultimate sniper.
The End
