Monday, November 19, 2012

Lost

By: Erin and Austin

One day, an orphan boy named Ethan was wandering around the dark caves of Honga. Then he saw a fire breathing dragon and it tried to shoot him with his deadly flames! He ran to a tiny crease in the wall hoping he was alone at last, but he was wrong. He saw a sorcerer with a staff that had blue sparkling gem on top. The sorcerer jumped down from a high ledge and said, “You boy. Come closer towards my light. My eyes aren’t as good as yours you know.”

Then Ethan came closer to the sorcerer, and the sorcerer said, “What are you doing out here boy you are trespassing.”

“Well um... I’m looking for someone who I can live with.” said Ethan in reply.

“You can live with me boy if you’d like, but you must prove yourself worthy.” said the sorcerer.

“Oh thank you so much. Um... I still don’t know your name.” said Ethan.

“My name is Ember, I am a sorcerer of good magic.” said Ethan’s new guardian. “Ethan lets go back to my house for some crumpets and tea.” said Ember.

The two of them were walking along a nice long narrow path, when Ethan heard a voice, a beautiful voice singing a song of love and peace. Then out of nowhere a lovely young girl, with long blonde hair with cherry red lips said, “Hello Ethan. Come to my hut and we can have some soup.”

So then Ethan went to the hut with Melody. Melody locked the door behind her, and Ethan took a seat. Then Melody walked into the kitchen telling Ethan she was going to get the main meal of their dinner, soup. So Melody walked into the kitchen and drank her daily potion, the potion turned her into her true self. After she drank it she walked out as an evil demon of death. She had black wings, a red pitchfork tail, and bronze, metal legs. Then all of the sudden Ember smashed through the door coming to save Ethan!

“Get back you evil demon! Ethan get behind me.”

“Well, well, well. What have we here. Ember the famous sorcerer and his new apprentice.” said the demon.

“Medusa, Ethan has nothing to do with you. So you should leave him alone.” said Ember.

“I need his powers to take over the world!” she said slyly.

“Um... Ember what is she talking about. I don’t have any powers. I’m just a regular stable boy.”

“That is not true my dear boy. When you were very young, your parents got into some dangerous magic. They tried doing some of it at home not thinking it would harm you, but they were wrong. You crawled in front of them as they did a spell that would give someone powers to live forever.” explained Ember, as he looked at Ethan’s blank expression on his face.

“I thought you would do that.” said Ember. “But this is no time for games. I have to get you out of here before Medusa drains your powers. We have to leave right now.”

Ethan didn’t have to be told twice. He was running towards the door right as Medusa jumped in front of him, and kicked him to the ground. ”No one is leaving until I am more powerful than everyone in the entire universe.” said Medusa as she quickly walked to where Ethan was laying as limp as a twig.

Then Ember shot her with a ball of plasma and he grabbed hold of Ethan and transported them both back to the village. When they arrived they found out that the word had spread about Ethan’s powers. The townspeople started to surround Ethan and Ember. They started chanting that Ethan should be executed so that he wouldn’t use his powers against them. One of the townspeople got a hold of Ethan and started to drag him into the crowd of people.

“Help! Ember help me!” Ethan was crying. The people put him into the dungeon and were going to execute him the next day!

“No worries boy I’ll be right...” Suddenly a loud hissing noise filled the air.

“No Ember, you aren’t going to save the day as you always have. You will be put into a special cell that will drain your powers, just like the cell that Ethan is in, you know that little apprentice of yours.” She said with a hiss.

“You keep your bloody hands off him. You hear me don’t touch him.” Ember said as he was being locked into his cell.

“Oh don’t worry Dearest, I’ll keep him nice and weak once I drain his powers.” she said slyly. A sudden whirring sound started when Ember was locked into the super cell.

“Ahhh... Perfect the draining process works.” Medusa said as she was walking away from him.

Then one of her minions pressed a button that shot Ember up into the air while he was still in his cell. “Now everyone can see you as you grow so weak.” said Medusa with a smirk.

“Why do those people obey you? Aren’t they afraid that if they do something wrong you will execute them like you are going to do to Ethan.” Ember asked.

“No, those silly people have taken a potion that lets them only see me in my human form. That’s why when I ran for their dumb election on who would rule the land, they thought: Well she’s just a poor innocent girl. Of course I’ll vote for her, and that is how I became their leader.” she explained.

“Well Medusa you know I’m jealous of those people.”

“Why, because they’re free?” she said with a loud cackle.

“No, because they don’t have to see you like this. You are hideously ugly.” said Ember with a wide grin when he saw Medusa’s furious expression.

“Don’t you know two can play at this game she said as she hit a button. Then, a giant screen popped up out of the desk. On the screen was a cell similar to the one that Ember was currently in, but instead Ethan was inside of it with his arms and legs chained to the cell walls. He was moaning something and he looked straight at Medusa and Ember and mouthed the words: Goodbye Ember.

Ember looked at Ethan’s pale face and found himself crying for Ethan. Medusa noticed this and said, “Well, since you have feelings for him lets watch him slowly ever so slowly perish.” she said with an evil laugh. She pulled a green lever that brought Ember a chair and tightly buckled him into it. Then, she hit a red button that chained Ember in so that he couldn’t move an inch except for maybe breathing. From thence forth Ember had to watch Ethan as he slowly lost his power, but when Ethan looked like he was ready to die at that very moment a blue light exploded from the cage.

Ember was released from the chair and the chains, and he cast a spell and the glass surrounding him shattered. He searched the room, but he didn’t see a sign of Medusa she must of taken off towards the explosion. Ember soon caught up to her and beat her to the broken cell. Ethan was standing in mid-air and had some kind of force-field around him. He was still there when Medusa cast a dark spell at the hovering boy. The spell bounced off the force-field and aimed itself at Medusa. With amazing aim it hit Medusa and she was frozen right then and there. Ethan slowly came down to the ground. When he hit the ground he fell, and Ember rushed over to where Ethan was lying.

“Did we win?” asked Ethan in a soft voice almost a whisper.

“Yes we won and you unlocked a new power. You triggered a energy bomb when you were weak.” Ember said with a grin.

“Is Medusa gone, is she... dead?” Ethan said with a worried expression.

“Yes boy. She is dead. She sent a spell at your force-field and it came back and hit her and she was petrified and is now frozen in time.” said Ember. At this Ethan smiled and was surprised that he had done such a thing.

“Promise me Ember, when I die that you’ll bring my body back to my old home. Just promise me.” Ethan said feebly.

“Don’t worry Ethan you aren’t going to die. Just stay with me, you hear me stay alive.” Ember said with a hint of anger in his voice.

“Don’t be mad Ember. Everyone dies sometime. Please don’t be mad that I might leave Earth, but it doesn’t mean I’ll be gone forever. I’ll be right in here.” he said as he pointed to Ember’s heart.

“Don’t leave Ethan, please don’t leave.” he said with sorrow. It was too late, Ethan had already left Ember. That day was a day of sorrow and mourning, Ember as promised brought Ethan’s body back to his old home. He had put together a funeral the next day in memory of Ethan. Ember was the only one there at this mourning funeral.

That very day a burst of life came from the tomb. Inside the tomb was a boy, a boy that once had explored the caves of Honga, seen a fire-breathing dragon, and had fought an evil demon. This boy’s name was Ethan and he became one of the most powerful sorcerer’s in the world just because of one very powerful thing, and that thing my friend is the love that Ethan had for Ember.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Some Great Writing

Recently, our fifth grade writers collaborated on pair-and-share stories during our computer classes. Our task was to learn Google Docs together. We decided to work in pairs to create original stories. The way we did it was very simple. Each student picked a partner. One member of each pair began the story, then shared the writing document with the other. "Partner A" wrote the first sentence, "Partner B" then wrote the second; "Partner A" wrote sentence #3, and so on through the writing process. The second partner also shared the writing document with me so I could follow along on their progress.

I began this project with some fear and worry. Would the back and forth writing really work? Would the partners really come up with anything worthwhile? They wrote a few back and forth sentences in class the first day, then were given the assignment of writing a few more during the intervening days until our next class. 

What happened next took me by surprise! The following morning, students reported to me, "We wrote several paragraphs last night!" They took this assignment way beyond the required few sentences I had hoped to squeeze out of them. When we came to our final class and the students were told to wrap up their stories, several asked, "Can we keep working on these stories on our own?" I was shocked and pleasantly surprised. The students were really engaged in this process!

What follows are some samples of this work. Some students are still editing their stories, so their contributions will come later. I hope you'll take the time to comment on each of the students' stories. Real, positive, feedback from online readers is powerful in its ability to motivate young writers to write some more. There's nothing more thrilling than having someone read your work and say something nice about it.

You'll find plenty of small mistakes in this writing. It represents the work of 10-year-olds in the first quarter of their fifth grade year. However, I am very proud of this work and amazed at how well the teams worked together to create original stories in this way. This is hard enough to do on your own, but to write in pairs and create a coherent, smooth-flowing story is amazing. Please, add your positive feedback at the end of every story you read. These comments are "moderated", so they'll appear as soon as I read and approve them. Please, keep me busy approving your comments!


Our Pair-and-Share Writing

by McKenna and Riley

by Brogan and Nicky

by Sean and Michael

by Rachel and Samantha

by Kaylee and Olivia

by Beth and Madison

by Analise and Carly 

by David and Matthew

by Jesse and Hannah

by Adam and Michael

Lost
by Erin and Austin


Sailing

by McKenna and Riley

Here are some things about sailing that you may not know. To be able to sail you need to have strong wind. But not too strong of a wind that you flip over. Most fifth graders would sail and opti, and when you flip and opti they fill up like a bathtub.

Opti are the slowest boats and the smallest boat. The idea is to catch the wind in the sail. When you point into the wind you want to have the sail pulled into the corner of the boat, you pull the sail in by a thing called the main sheet. Sailing takes concentration and skill. There are little ribbons on your sail and you need to concentrate on them to have maximum boat speed.

When you are going upwind (into the wind) you want to have your ribbons going back not forward. When you go downwind (when you go downwind you are not going upwind.) You want to have your boat heeling over (tipped over a little bit). The less drag you have going downwind the faster you will go. Downwind is faster than upwind because you don't need to have your sail pulled in really tight.

When you go downwind you can not sit too far forward in your boat because the bow (the front) of your boat will dig down into the water and make you flip, and you go really slow when you sail is in the water. To get your boat to flop back up you swim around the other side of the boat and pull down on the daggerboard (the thing that sticks out into the water so that you do not drift) and the weight of you pulling on it will make your boat flip back over. After you flip it back over you bail and bail and bail, bailing is when you scoop water out of your boat.

Sailing is a very unique sport, and I hope this project encourages you to sail. This is McKenna and Riley signing off. Have a great day!!!

My First Magic Trick

By: Brogan & Nicky

Magic is a subject that still fascinates me today. There are many cool magic tricks to learn. I am very interested in magic and I would like to learn it. One trick I would like to learn is how to make a rabbit appear out of a hat. So I got one of those do it yourself magic books and decided to try it. When I opened the book I saw many other tricks that were cool. Then I said to myself, ”Focus on the rabbit trick first.” So then I went and found a top hat and I borrowed my friends white rabbit. I stuck the rabbit in the hat and then I covered it with a black blanket to make it look like there was nothing in the hat. After I had practiced the trick I went downstairs to show my mom and dad.

I was showing them and then I got to the part when I was about to take the rabbit out of the hat and something weird happened. All of a sudden there was a fly on my shoulder so I tried to swat at it but when I tried I dropped the hat and the rabbit got lost in the house. I was about to go after it and I accidentally tripped and fell into my hat. I was embarrassed but then my mom and dad started to laugh. I started laughing too when the rabbit started hopping towards me. So I picked it up and then I put it back in its cage and fed it. My parents said “Hey that was one good magic show you put on for us.”

Africa Run


by Sean and Michael

There was a tiger in the tree eating a snake. It’s a tiger, watch out, it is ferocious. We carefully walked toward it through the trees. We crouched behind a bush while preparing my camera. Quickly we both snapped a photo of him and we ran, he started to chase us. The tiger was soon at our heels as we ran for the car where our friend John was waiting. So we jumped in the orange Honda Fit and drove away at a speed of 110 MPH. We looked back and saw the tiger stop in its tracks. “It must have seen a antilope,” said Eddie! We all laughed at Eddie’s joke as we took a look at the photo.

Then we saw a log blocking our path and John said, “Oh no”. We closely examined the blocked path until we found we would have to walk back to the village and come back for the car later.

“We're at the part where the tiger stopped”, John said. “Look out”! The tiger was racing towards us at full speed!  

“It’s so scary that I think I wet myself,”  I said, pointed towards a small opening in the forest.

“Let’s go that way ,” said John. “Look there is a village right there”. We ran towards the forest but the tiger jumped right in our path roaring.   

“Were trapped!” I  cried. We heard a gunshot and a voice said “No you're not!”. Some tribal warriors with shotguns stepped out of the brush firing another warning shot before the tiger pounced on one of them, slashing its claws at him and roaring. We all said,  “Thank you a million times”. They took us back to their tribe while some of the warriors battled the tiger. At the village we found a man named Tok to escort us back to our car.

          Tok escorted us to our car where we drove to the docks to sail back to America. “So we're back at the boat,” said Eddie. We scrambled onto the boat called the Drifter walking across the bow.

“Finally, it is nice to be on the water again, is isn’t it?” When we left the bay the motor in full throttle when suddenly the engine stopped. “We are stranded” yelled John. Then I heard a helicopter. We got picked up and went home.

The Dumbest Spies


by Rachel and Samantha


There were 2 spies and there names were Rachel and Samantha and together they were the dumbest spies in the country. One day they were asked to do a job for the world which was to stop the suspect from robbing the most secret bank in America. 

We accepted and grabbed two green cucumbers and some rotten bananas and were off to stop the crime. As soon as we were there, we took out our green cucumbers. “Whiplash! I went. Oh! Its my cucumber! Chomp!” 

I don’t know why Rachel used her green cucumber instead of her rotten banana. I saw Sammy with the rotten banana and ate her rotten banana. It tasted gross, but I did it so she could use my leftover smushed green cucumber and “feel the power of the mighty green smashed cucumber!” 

So when Sammy and I went to do our job we ran into the possible suspect and we said put your hands in the air. We pointed our squishy green cucumbers at the possible suspect. It turned out that it was not the right suspect. So we continued to do our job. 

We went down the next block and saw a man wearing black clothing took a lady’s purse and we went after him, but we found out that he was her husband and we got the penalty of him eating Sammy’s cucumber. 

I think Sammy wanted to hit him with a heavy butter sock because she was so mad. Rachel took over and hit him with his wife’s fancy purse, then we walked crazily and all psyched up we went to search at a nearby cafe for the crazy robber. We were walking to the cafe, when we found a crazy drunk dude. We finally realised that the crazy drunk dude was the real suspect. We took the drunk dude and made him put his hands in the air and we took him to the most heavily guarded jail. That was “the hardest work!” for both of us and at that very moment we found out that the crazy robber dude was actually a woman that looked like a man! I never suspected that! 

Now we know that using the yummy delicious fruit as our “yummy, delicious weapons” is not making us any cooler than we are. We were the “dumbest spies” in the whole country! 

Chloe the Singer


By: Kaylee and Olivia

Once upon a time there was a girl. She was only 10 and her name was Chloe. Chloe loved to sing, and she was great at it. Her mom  was a professional singer. Chloe did not have a dad because her dad had died in the army. One day Chloe decided to give up school and join a punk rock band. She loved playing in the rock band so much that she moved to sunny Jamaica with her band. Her mom was so mad, but Chloe loved Jamaica and her rock band so she wasn’t coming back. One evening while Chloe was playing in her rock band at a concert a famous person started yelling at her about how good she was. When Chloe got off the stage she realized the famous person yelling at her was Selena Gomez! She was so happy to see that it was Selena Gomez! Selena Gomez loved her so much they exchanged numbers and became great best friends.

Two years later Chloe received a call from Selena Gomez asking to make a huge record with her. Chloe forgot about the record with Selena Gomez. By the time Chloe was 80 she was very famous, wrinkly, and old. When she was cooking in the kitchen someone came in her house with a big black gun but Chloe was too old to hear them so she just kept cooking. By the time the guy hurt her the yummy banana bread was done. Before the robber left he sat down and ate banana bread. Everyone was so sad Chloe had gotten hurt and Selena Gomez was the most sad that she wrote a beautiful song for her and sang it at the MTV awards. Her mom was watching the MTV awards. After the song Selena Gomez wrote was over Chloe’s mom was mad and sad that Chloe had gone to Jamaica. So Chloe’s mom was so sad that she cryed all day and night. After Chloe’s mom cried all day and all night she never stopped crying.  Everyone who was mad cried. There was only one person who was not crying in the whole world and that one person was Bob. It turned out that Bob was the person who hurt Chloe and who ate her banana bread.

The Lazy Town

Beth & Madison

The story begins in a town called Whatchamacallit. The people who named this town obviously were very, very lazy. Everybody was a couch potato. The town Mayor thought this was such a problem, that he made a plan to ban all the electronics like T.V.s, video games, tablets, and fancy phones and replaced the time people spent on them with work and classes. They even replaced all the drinking fountains so they had to go to the well and get their own water everyday. So lets get into this story a little further.

“This is too hard” cried Augustus Gloop. 

“Well then why don’t you just go complain to the Mayor then? I bet he would just love that.” said his sister. You may not know this, but Augustus has a sister that loves to be sarcastic. 

“Okay, well just put a sock in it, okay? jeez.” Augustus was getting a little too hyped up. But Augustus thought to himself it might be a good idea to see the Mayor. But it would definitely be a risk, since the Mayor is very strict when it comes to the new work system. 

While Augustus was walking to the Mayor’s Mansion something very strange happened to him. It started in his ears as a strange buzzing sound and kept going through and landed in his head as a searing headache. When he finally reached the mansion he had to wait a long time until the Mayor let him in. When he finally got to see him, this is what happened: “Well hello Augustus! I hope this isn’t another complaint about the big Work Law.” The Mayor said. The conversation always started this way. Augustus’ conversations with the Mayor were always either about the new Work Law or about why he couldn’t have a break.

About an hour ago, the local candy store was robbed! The burglary was not surprising, and the identity of the robber was not either since he had an obsession with sweets and his own name was Jo Lley Rancher. The Mayor found out during the visit from Augustus and it got him thinking.........

Anyway, back at the ranch, the Mayor had noticed that Augustus was not nearly as slim as everyone else, so he did the worst thing that could ever have happened to Augustus at that moment... he banned all the candy in Whatchamacallit! It happened like this. “Hmmm.” The Mayor thought to himself. Augustus was very fat....

“I have an idea!” exclaimed the Mayor. “You know Augustus, you seem like you could use a little weight loss. Why don’t I just ban all the candy? It would be for your own good!”

“Noooo! exclaimed Augustus. “You can’t do that! Why don’t you ban vegetables instead?”

“Because banning that wouldn’t let you get all your nutrition.” the Mayor said matter of factly. That was the last we heard of Augustus since he moved to a different town in Germany and his mother spoiled him rotten until there was a Golden Ticket contest involved. But that’s a different story.

The Spazzing 4th Graders


by Analise and Carly


This is a story about two girls from a world called reality being forced to meet with these creatures from a whole other spaztastic world! This world is called fourth grade. This world is not only a spaz filled chaotic mess but the teachers and other faculty aren’t great either.The faculty don’t try to calm down the people that spaz. Well I shouldn’t say that because they do stop the people that are crazy or many that we like. We have so many people that spaz in fourth grade. Well so many is really an understatement because it’s more like everyone. A common fourth grade spaz is if you jump out of your chair and scream in the middle of class. If you are wondering yes that has happened. Fourth graders are super crazy like that. Well enough of that now lets take a deeper look into this “spaztastic” world.

One day the two girls were at school just being normal. Then out of the blue they were  attacked. The two girls were swinging on the swings like normal girls, then someone had a spaz attack and was running toward them! What these two girls were witnessing was a major spaz attack! The girls didn’t know what to do because they have never encountered someone having a major spaz attack, but they had a pretty good idea. They got off the swings as fast as they could, and started spazzing with that person. Thus began these girls’s spazzing career. The girls became so popular at school because they were known to spaz. This super sense of spazzing displayed had rubbed off on these poor little normal girls. These girls were spazzing with everyone. Ever since then these girls have been major spazzes, they were spazzing everywhere. These girls had friends everywhere. Spazzing seemed to be a big hit with everyone. Soon spazzing became the new word in fourth grade. Everyone said it and everyone knew about it. All the kids would say for example, “Fred stop spazzing”! Some kids like Mitch did not like it. Mitch would yell, “I am not spazzing”! What made it funny was his face. Mitch’s face would turn bright red. He would crinkle it up like a pug and yell at you. But then of course he would get in trouble for screaming. Then he would just yell at the teacher behind his back. Well that’s some examples of fourth graders and their thorough spazzing.

Jaws Returns

By David and Matthew

Once upon a time there was mega jaws. He was swimming in the ocean. Someone was swimming and all of a sudden someone yelled “shark”! “shark”! Everyone was running and screaming and trying to get out of the water. Then all of a sudden help th!! Jaws had just took someone under the water and seriously injured them, but a bullet hit jaws. And the person was saved and recovered. His blood pressure went from 70/40-normal blood pressure in 1 day. 

But that was not the last of the 35 foot long shark, he is still out there. Then, Jaws attacked a boat that was fastly swimming in the ocean, and flipped it over. Everybody fell out of the boat and started scrambling to get away from jaws, but jaws came and started to go around eating everybody, he got everybody but 1 person. Then he put a liquid helium tank in Jaws mouth and fired at it. On the 9th shot they blew him up and that was the end of Jaws. 

Jaws was finally dead. He will not be coming back for a while. The end so they thought, that was just jaws son, the real problem was his Dad, the biggest great white shark on the planet. He was 60 feet long. Then he fed Jaws dad a big fish, but jaws jumped at the man and ate two men. Then jaws dad swam off. He was very mad. Then they blew jaws dad up. They had used a huge gun that shot giant bullets, and jaws had blown in half and out popped a baby shark that swam away. Someone yelled “Shoot” Then they took the gun and shot the baby fish and it exploded. The end. That was the last of jaws for a long time.


Epilouge

It was 5 years later and there had been no more big sharks like jaws, but there were a bunch of divers swimming in the ocean, having a peaceful day, then a big pack of bull sharks came. One was 40 feet long. They came and started to attack the people. One of the people was the man who killed the last shark. He survived because a dolphin came and he got on it and rode it back to shore. He knew that there was a big pack of mean bull sharks out there, and he had to destroy them. He told his friends “Lets get some weapons and kill the bull sharks” So then they went to a weapon shop. 

They chose the strongest guns they had. Then they went out and got a moter boat. So the man and his friends got on the boat and went out to sea. They went out to the spot where he found the bull sharks. Before they got there they loaded up the guns with 25 bullets. Then they found the bull sharks. The man who killed the last great white sharks name was Ronald Parker. He aimed his gun at a bull shark and fired the gun 2 times. It killed the shark, but the other sharks were now aware of their presence. 

The bull sharks started to attack the boat, so the men shot rapidly. At the end of all the shooting there were still 3 bull sharks left and only 2 men left, and the boat was not in good condition. 

Ronald only had 3 bullets left, but his friend had 5 bullets left. One of the sharks jumped on the boat and ate his friend. But he did not get the gun. Ronald was the only one left. He took his friends gun and shot at the sharks. 2 more sharks died and he only had 2 bullets left. He shot at the shark. He missed the first time, but he hit him the 2nd time. 

The shark was not quite dead, and he was out of bullets so he started to hit the shark with his gun, and he hit it enough times that the bull shark died. It was the end of the killer sharks.

The Story of The Girls and Their Pets

By: Jesse and Hannah

Once there were twins, and they wanted a cute puppy and kitty. But their mom wouldn’t let them. They kept asking, but the answer was always “no girls you are not responsible yet”. But one day the mom finally said “maybe”. In that family maybe always meant no, but she took them to the pet super store.

They had all sorts of puppies and they did not know which one they wanted. There were cute chawawas, and big boxers.There were beagles and a baby german shepherd, but then they saw the cutest golden retriever. A lady said his name was Marley. The girls thought the dog was so adorable. The mom liked it too. So they got the puppy and they bought all the other supplies like food, doggie toys, and stuff like that. 

But when they got home they noticed that he was a naughty puppy. What he did was he jumped on the couch and tore up all the pillows, and he destroyed all of the pillows in the house, and mom got really angry. One of the girls said “He ate my iPhone 5, it was new!” The other girl said “He ate my favorite necklace, it was really pretty with real diamonds. So they took him back to the pet store and got a labradoodle named Hope. 

She was so cute and a lady told them Hope was no trouble at all. So they went back to Pet Supermarket and got all stuff for a girl dog instead of a boy. So when they got home again they played with Hope for 2 whole hours! Hope looked like she needed a friend so they went to a cat store and got a male kitten named Max. He was so cute he was a domestic short hair and he was black and white. Good thing Hope was a puppy, because they grew up together as BFF’s. They played together every single day. They loved each others company. It was funny to watch Hope chase Max’s tail and Max chaise Hope’s tail round and round all day. When they both got to be 1 year old they played more fiercely together. Hope sometimes nipped at Max, and he sometimes scratched Hope, but they were still friends.

When they were both 2 years old they didn't play as fiercely with each other but they still played a lot. But later in the girls life they had to go to college, one got to bring Max and one got to bring Hope. The twins had a little fight when they were moving out about who get’s Max and who get’s Hope. “Well good news” the mom said they were roommates at the same collage! 

By now Max and Hope were 5 years old but as before they still played together, but not as much as they used to. Well the next day was a big tragedy, Hope passed away. Max seemed really sad, but a month or two later it seemed like he didn't even remember Hope, and the girls missed Hope too just as Max did. Well they both graduated from college, and by that time Max also passed away, but he saw Hope for the first time in a long time. The girls were very sad but in a couple more years they got a new cat and dog. 

The girls got married and had children, and in their families they remembered Max and Hope, telling their children stories of funny times. While the twins were telling their children about their first dog and cat the children were holding on to their own pets. And The girls remembered that Hope and Max were watching over them in pet heaven.

FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY

by adam and michael

Last summer, Michael and I went to Africa, headed back to Florida to explore the Keys and the Everglades, visited Antarctica where we settled war, Australia, and finally, Italy. When we first got to Kenya, we settled in a hotel and went on a safari in Kenya. What an amazing time we had!! We got up close to rhinos, lions and zebras. We even rode on an elephant!! That was uncomfortable!! Sleeping in our tents at night was a little scary, especially when we heard crocodiles and snakes hissing nearby. I never saw so many stars in the sky at one time. One star looked like it was moving really fast and our guide told us that it was a space station. How cool is that? 

The next morning Adam and I opened our eyes and the sun was shining, and I said, “Today’s the day we go on a trip to Egypt!!” So, we went on a wild trip to Egypt!! It was awesome!! There were tons of snakes. We went on a tour in some of the most ancient pyramids, and we actually saw King Tut, and a mummy of Potipher!! It was creepy!! When we walked near the Nile River, a Saltwater Crocodile lunged at us!! Fortunately, nobody got hurt, which was good. Later on, we toured around the Pharaoh’s house. It was big, but it was illegal to trespass, so we weren’t aloud to go in. I had a plan to try to sneak in, which ended up to be a really bad idea. When I tried it, guards with big muscles started to chase us!! They were threatening us, but we didn’t know what they were saying because they were speaking Egyptian. They finally caught us. They were about to locked us up when the Pharaoh spoke up. “Why did you trespass into my house?” Pharaoh asked firmly. “We just wanted to see what your house looked like on the inside”, we said. Adam and I were frightened, but I was grateful that he actually spoke a little English. “ You know what? I’ll let you stay at my house for the night, and you can have dinner and dessert. You can stay in my complex back bedroom. Pharaoh then told his guards (in the Egyptian language, of course) that we could be free. It sounded like they were questioning him. Then he said something that made them look scared, so they immediately let us go. So, we spent the night with the Pharaoh and his family and had dinner. We had a rattlesnake sandwich for dinner, and for dessert we had rattlesnake pie, which was good and filling. A Rattlesnake sandwich has honey wheat bread with chunky chocolate pudding. A rattlesnake pie is a crape with real blueberries, strawberries, and coconut shreddings, with caramel syrup and vanilla ice cream. They both are traditional foods from Egypt. We also had hamburgers. (Just a little hint: you never want to have an Egyptian hamburger!!! Not to be offensive, but it tastes like mud!!!) We thought that the Rattlesnake sandwich and Rattlesnake pie would be an actual rattlesnake, but it tasted awesome!!! We asked if we could stay for the night because it was getting dark out. The Pharaoh was nice enough to say yes. We stayed in the guest room, and it was SO BIG it seemed as big as the whole country of Egypt!! There was an indoor pool with a hot tub in it, and a waterslide that was three stories high!!! It was fun staying at his house, but we had to leave to explore more of Africa. We felt sad to leave. Pharaoh sent us with some leftover pie. He and his family told us to have a fun rest of our visit in Africa. 

When we left Egypt, we went to Madagascar. It was so awesome!! I think that there were more monkeys than people on that island!! They are really cool. The guide was holding a monkey and it was making noise because they make a lot of noise. We also saw lemurs, lions, crocodiles, gazelles, wildebeests, tons of species of snakes, and people that spoke French and Malagasy. That’s right!! Some people in Madagascar speak french!! Isn’t that weird? I also found out that Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world!! So it’s actually cooler than you think!!! The problem, though, was that it is very hot there. It was 113 degrees on the first day we got their!!! Can you believe that? When we went on our first tour in Madagascar, we saw a leopard chasing a gazelle. The gazelle barely got away, but the leopard was too fast for the gazelle. It was awesome, but I felt bad for the gazelle. Afterwards, a rattlesnake was playing dead, and a toddler went to see what it was. Luckily, she didn’t get hurt, but she was really scared and she cried. Once we saw a hippo fighting a crocodile!!! Both animals surprisingly did not died, but they badly wounded themselves. I never knew that Africa was so violent. After our visit to Madagascar, when we were on our way to the Keys in Florida, where we live, we visited the Everglades. We saw tons of crocodiles, panthers, gators, snakes like Diamondbacks, Water Moccasins, and Cottonmouths, sharks, bears, deer, otters, turtles, and hawks, Whooping Cranes, Great Blue Herons, Wood Storks, raccoons, and manatees. That’s a lot of animals!!! 

After that spectacular trip, which I wished would never end, we headed to the Keys. We went snorkeling after we checked into our hotel. While we were snorkeling, we saw a tiger shark!! It was scary but awesome at the same time. We went fishing and Adam caught a saltwater bass and I caught a gropper. We ate the fish and it was good. It was way better than that cheeseburger the Pharaoh cooked back in Egypt!! While we were there, we were in a boat out in the water when a huge squid swam at full speed to our boat!! It was so horrifying!!! I couldn’t bear to watch!!! Just as the big beast was about to knock our boat over, the squid spotted a really big fish, and went charging at it. We were so lucky!!! It was a sight not to miss!!! Anyways, we kept on riding our boat in the deep Atlantic Ocean. I did something really dumb and put my hand in the water, and I didn’t even know that there were millions of families of water snakes coming toward my hand!!! Luckily, somehow, not one snake bit me!!! It was a miracle!!!

Then, we headed to Antarctica, and it was so awesome!!! It was super cold, though. Since it was still summer, it was warmer than usual there, but it was still cold. It was cold to us because we lived in Southwest Florida. Along the way, we met this guy who said there were minion penguins who were out in the cold, who were out to destroy everybody’s homes, and the only way to survive was to hide with the Wisdom Polar Bears!!! At first we thought that he was crazy, but we were wrong!!! We found that out when we saw a woman being cornered by cute, chubby penguins with bulging red eyes. After we traveled for miles, we finally found the Wisdom Polar Bear’s homes, but they weren’t home, so we had to find them again. 

Finally, we found them!!! They were tough-looking animals, but they were kind and they had soft eyes, just the opposite of the minion penguins. They could talk and they were extremely strong, but the penguins were even stronger, so it would be very hard!!! When they heard about this, the Samurai Salmon united with the penguins, and the Super Japanese Spider Crabs joined forces with the Wisdom Polar Bears. The Super Japanese Spider Crabs came all the way from Japan to Antarctica!!! That’s a long trip!!! They said that they were going to fight for justice and freedom from trouble in Antarctica( by the way, the Super Japanese Spider Crabs were the strongest army in all of Japan, and they have always been allies of the Wisdom Polar Bears.) The penguins were the strongest in all of Antarctica, the Wisdom Polar Bears were second, the Samurai Salmon were third, and last was the Spectacular Shrimp, who used to be spectacular, but they have been around for so long they have become weak. 

Finally, the war started!!! There was no killing, but the animals were badly wounded. It was a tough battle to fight, even though the battle only lasted for 10 days. At first everything was going wrong for the Wisdom Polar Bears and the Super Japanese Spider Crabs, but in the end, they barely won the hard, short battle. We played just a tiny part in the battle. We made sure that enemies stayed out of our territory. The penguins surrendered and wrote an official apology. 

Next stop, Australia!!! We stayed in a nice and comfortable hotel. When we rode up to the second floor, we ran into Cody Simpson!!! We asked him what he was doing in Australia (he was born there), and he said that he was going to have a concert at the Sydney Opera House. He asked us if we wanted tickets, but we said no because we weren’t going to be here on the day of the concert. Then he asked us, “Aren’t you too young to be traveling the world by yourselves?” “Yes, yes we are”, I said. Cody was so excited when he found out that I was a Baltimore Ravens fan, just like him. He hung out with us for the whole trip. We also found out that his room is right across from ours!!! It was fun, but that epic week flew by fast. I felt sad to leave, but we knew that our final trip to Italy would be as fun as all the other trips we took. 

We loved the delicious food there. We were going to stay there for at least 2 weeks. I enjoyed seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa and having dinner with the Pope, but our last day was my favorite day, when a volcano erupted!!!! The lava flooded Venice, where we were staying. It was awesome but scary at the same time. People rushed out of their homes so that they wouldn’t be flooded by the lava coming their way. Buildings were wiped out. Luckily, no one got hurt, but now they lost their homes. Everyone was trying to run away from the hot lava, including us. We were lucky to escape just like everyone else. I had never seen an actual volcano before until that experience. That was my favorite part of visiting Italy. 

Next stop, home!!! That was the end of our trip!!! When we counted the days that we were gone, we found out we were gone for 5 months!!! That was the time we traveled from country to country.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

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