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In school we are learning about the pilgrims. We read a document called Mourts relation. This is an illustration of mourts relation that I drew.

This is a blog post about pen-pals in New Orleans. I wrote this post with help from my third grade buddies. My buddies class is writing letters to a class in Langston Hughes Academy. Each student got a pen-pal to write to.

I learned that New Orleans has basically the same restaurants as New York City. I also learned that New Orleans is a huge party city and very famous. How badly New Orleans was damaged in hurricane Katrina. Our buddy’s school is called Langston Hughes academy. It will be built in 2010. In that school you learn fractions in 4^th grade. I feel good I have so much to do with my buddy and I am helping his school by donating books to there school.

The things I have learned about my New Orleans buddy are that he likes pizza, video games, and his favorite book is spider man. His school is called Langston Hughes Academy. I have also learned that New Orleans is a city much like ours. I have also learned that it was jazz’s birthplace. The people there also play blues music. I have also learned that there are (or used to be) many plantations outside of New Orleans. I also enjoyed helping clean up Isham Park and planting bulbs there. It was tiring but still enjoyable. I also learned that Lundi Gras is fat Monday and Mardi gras is fat Tuesday, which is also the Tuesday before lent starts. This relationship between my buddy and me makes me feel happy and proud that I am enjoying writing back and forth to my buddy,

Once in the buzzing city of New York, there lived a young boy named Joe who lived in a grand apartment with his mother and father. The boy was very happy with his life until one day his parents were killed. During the night, assassins had broken into the apartment and murdered the parents. It took Joe many months to recover from the fact that he had no more parents.

After his parents died Joe went to go live with his godmother and his god sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth was 5 years older than Joe so she was nasty to him. So was his godmother for that matter. Well they were nice to him for about two seconds. The made Joe do all the chores. He had to do the laundry, clean the toilets, and make the beds. They lashed at him with cruel comments and treated him like a pile of dirt. They gave him a thin blanket and made him sleep on the floor.

Joe was a kind boy and did not mind this, but the one thing that he really wanted to do was to go to the Super bowl. He was a huge football fan and he could not wait to see the GIANTS play the BENGALS!!! In his mind Joe knew that this was crazy and that it would never happen.

One day when he was walking back from school, he saw a lottery for 1 free super bowl ticket, back field pass and to get picked up by the team bus to go to the game. It cost fifty cents to buy one ticket for the lottery. Joe had fifty-cents left of pocket money from when his parents were still alive because his godmother made him use his own money for lunch money. So he bought one lottery ticket. The number on his ticket was 127598.

When he got home he turned on the radio. The voice on the radio said, “The winner of the lottery for the Super Bowl is number 127598.” Joe looked at his ticket. He won!!! He had won a ticket to go see the super bowl!!!

He was so excited that he ran to the phone [even though he was not allowed to] and called his friend Bob. Bob was so excited for Joe since Joe had won the super bowl lottery! When Joe’s godmother and god sister came home, Joe told them that he had won the super bowl lottery.

“No,” said the godmother. “You are not going to the super bowl.”

“Why not?” asked Joe.

“Because,” said the godmother, “you are too filthy and embarrassing!”

While Joe was doing the laundry he saw a cockroach. This cockroach was a magical cockroach and he said to Joe, “Do you want to get rid of your godmother and god sister so that you can go to the super bowl?”

“Yes!” Joe.

“ Well than you just ran into the right cockroach.,” said the cockroach.

“ You could really do that?” asked Joe.

“ Of course I can!” said the cockroach. “I’m magical, remember!”

“ Okay,” said Joe, “could you see me here tomorrow at four o’clock so that we can discus this, but right now my god mother is coming and you have to go!”

At four o’clock like he said the cockroach met Joe in the laundry room. “Are you excited that the super bowl is tomorrow?” asked the cockroach.

“ Of course!” said Joe.

“Well here’s the plan,” exclaimed the cockroach. “ I will make a distraction by jumping on the table. Then while you’re god mother is trying to kill me you will sneak out and get on the team bus.”

“That’s a great plan,” replied Joe.

The next day at ten o’clock the cockroach came out and made a distraction. The god mother freaked out and started swinging her arms in the air and was saying, “@#$@@#!@#!!**!@@#.”

Joe heard this commotion and zoomed out the door, knowing that he did not have much time to get out.

Outside of the house, the team bus was waiting. Joe scurried on and off they went. It took half an hour to get to Giants stadium. Joe was so excited! He talked and talked with the giant’s players. He also took a picture of him with the team with his phone [which the god mother did not know about]. Meanwhile the cockroach had escaped the godmother. When the godmother noticed that Joe was missing she knew that Joe was at the super bowl.

She ran, the wind was whistling hard. She knew that Joe was at the super bowl and she wanted to take him away from it.

Meanwhile Joe was having a great time at the super bowl. He was eating ice cream, soda, hamburgers, sweets and Gatorade. He was talking to the players and the coaches. He was enjoying his new helmet that fit him just right. Suddenly he froze. There, in front of him was his godmother. Joe ran. He ran for dear life. He scampered all the way home.

The godmother was furious! She beat Joe, she hit Joe, and she lashed him with a belt. And of course Joe didn’t eat anything but gruel for the rest of the month.

During this Joe had dropped his helmet when he ran. Eli Manning found it and gave it to Tom Coughlin. He said that they would go to every house in N.Y.C and find the owner of the helmet. The next day, Joe snuck out and went to Giants stadium. He went to the G.M’s office and asked, “Have you seen a small helmet that was singed?”

“Yes,” said the G.M.

“Would you happen to know where it is?” asked Joe.

“Coach Coughlin is taking it to every house in NYC to see if he can find the boy who it belonged to. ‘Why?” asked the G.M.

“Because it is my helmet,” said Joe.

“I will call Tom right away,” shouted the G.M.

While the G.M. was calling Coach, Joe wandered around the stadium. In about half an hour the G.M. called and said, “Young sir, Coach is here.”

Joe whizzed to the office. He got his helmet back but when he put it on it didn’t fit! The godmother had hit him so hard that it reformed his head. He sputtered and spurt but nothing came out. The G.M. was outraged. He was screaming and shouting at Joe. Joe almost broke down. Suddenly he remembered the photo. He took out his phone and showed the G.M. the picture. The GM gasped and practically threw the helmet back at Joe. When the GM had apologized Joe asked him for a huge favor. He said, “I have a horrible god family. Could you get the government to give me a new family?”

The G.M. answered, “I think I can do that.”

So the godmother was arrested for child abuse. Joe got a new family that he loved very much and lived happily ever after.

This is a poem about slavery that I wrote myself. I based it on poems that were written Elizabeth Alexander. I wrote several drafts before my final copy.

At the Dalton School Monica Edinger’s 4th class read works of historical fiction. I thought that my book, The Captive was a good work of historical fiction because it had real objects from that time a flute carved from wood and a gold weight. It also has real people such as Paul Cuffe. It also has real places like Sierra Leone. It includes stuff like the Ashanti empire, dialogue that helps make the story a bit more interesting. It tells a story of what it would be like to be a slave.

The story of Sarah Margru Kinson by Monica Edinger is an amazing story of a girl taken into slavery. She came to America on the Amistad. I felt that it was sad and wrong to take people away from there home just for them to work for you. They were mistreated and illegally captured. I thought that it must have been strange seeing all these white people. It was like a movie when they went for their daily exerise in the New Heaven Green. I feel like I would have been really scared if I had all these strange people looking at me. I think that Sarah Margru Kinson was very brave.

          On Friday February sixth, Elizabeth Alexander came to the Dalton school to talk about her poems. She first did a session with only the fourth graders. Then Professor Alexander did a session with the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. She talked about her poem’s in “Ms.Crandall’s School For Young Ladies And Little Misses Of Color” Ms.Crandall was a teacher that thought that women should be educated to since back then women were not educated. At first only white girls went to this school. Then a black girl who worked at the school asked Ms.Crandall if she could study with the other girls after she finished her work. Miss Crandall said,”Yes.”                                                                                                                                                                    When the parents heard about the black girl in the same class as their daughter’s they were furious and took their daughters out of that school immediately. After Miss Crandall saw what the parents did she made the school only black girls. Thats when the riot started. They killed the school cat and hung it up on the school gate. Then they poisoned the school’s well so that they could not drink. But Miss Crandall kept teaching. Then they threw rocks at the window and set the school house on fire. After that Miss Crandall left.                                                                                                                                                                             That story really made me felt angry inside. I think that everyone should have equal rights. I think that Elizabeth Alexander was very kind to take time out of her busy schedule to come to the dalton school and talk to us about her poetry.

       On Thursday January 29th, the Dalton middle school performed the musical OLIVER TWIST. It was an amazing performance considering that they were middle school students!!! In some parts the performers sung a bit off tune bit that made it sound a bit more realistic. Overall it was an incredible show and I am very impressed that the middle school students could perform like that! Oliver was a humble boy. Mr.Bumble was a very proper man. Fagin was a thief teacher and Bill Sykes was a violent young man. It made you really feel that you were in old time London because the costumes looked very realistic.

President Barack Obama’s inauguration was today. It was incredible how many people there were in the audience! I really liked when Aretha Franklin sang “My country tis of thee”. I noticed that Obama stumbled while reciting the oath of presidency. I think that he stumbled because he was trying to remember his speech.

I think that it was a very well put together ceremony. I really like the way Aretha Franklin sang “My country tis of thee”. I think that the speech by Obama was very touching. I can’t wait to see what Obama will do in office. I think that he will do a very good job with the war in Iraq. I hope that he will be able to save the economy of the U.S.A.

The blog I just looked at belonged to c16rc. It is an interesting series of blogs. It has blogs on many different school events, like Plymouth, Alice In Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz and many others. I learned that over the semester I will write many blog posts about school activities. It will be a very interesting experience. Hope you enjoy my blog.