Rachel C’s Blog

Today in L.A. we continued watching The Westing Game/ Get A Clue. We had no homework to turn in nor received homework. None of the classes finished the movie so all classes will be finishing it up in the begining of your next L.A. class on Monday.  This picture is from http://www.dixie.fcps.net/Book_Jackets/westinggamebookjacket.jpg

Today in L.A. we turned in our Westing Game packets and the books. We started the movie The Westing Game (It was actuelly called “Get A Clue”). All. The heirs from the book are not in the movie so the partners are different. We didn’t have time to finish so we were going to finish the next day. We did not have any homework. A good site to get a explanation of the book is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Westing_Game . This picture is from

http://services.windowsmedia.com/dvdcover/cov150/drt200/t289/t28981n5b74.jp

Today in L.A. we took a short D.R.P. paper about Mars and also shared our prefix monsters. For the prefix monster you should have drawn a picture of your creature, given it a name using at least 5 prefixes then written a paragraph telling us information worthy of a textbook about your creature.

During L.A. on Friday we talked about thesis and lead statements. A lead is an amazing or unusual fact, question, descriptive segment, bold opinion, quote, or statistic, and a thesis statement is when you briefly, but clearly, tell the reader what the piece of writing will be about. Also, we talked a little bit about detail generating questions to expand the paragraph, or to make the paragraph better detailed and interesting. Our homework was to write a closing paragraph from the old, boring paragraph, and sentence starters from the worksheet to make the closing more interesting and fun.

On Friday the 16th of February our class watched a movie about India. The main topics of the movie were Varanasi, the Ganges River, the Taj Mahal, Hindu Ceremonies, the Gift of Carma, Delhi-old and new-, and Corbet National Park. Varanasi is one of India’s holy cities, and even though it is not one of India’s most populated cities it is still extremely heavily populated. For more information on Varanasi the site http://www.sacred-destinations.com/india/varanasi.htm Also to get a better idea of India’s cities population you can go to http://finance.indiamart.com/india_business_information/indian.cities_population.htm The Ganges River is the holy river for Hindus but, its also one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Actually, the Taj Mahal has an interesting story behind it. The shahs wife died so, he ordered about 8 architects to design the Taj Mahal. His wife’s body and casket was put into a room in one of India’s most beautiful building, the Taj Mahal. Amazing, elegant gems were placed all over the domed building and today it is one of India’s holy buildings. After the shah himself died he was put into the tomb next to his beloved wife. One Hindu ceremonies, that is celebrated almost as thoroughly as Christmas in the United States, is the birthday of one of their many Gods Krishna, who was believed to be born at midnight. these followers at this ceremony bring fire for they believe it is a blessing from God. Also followers of that belief tend to believe in karma as well. Karma is the belief that, what you do today will affect what you do tomorrow and what you did yesterday will affect what you did today, your actions will have extreme input on what happens in your life. In the city of Delhi you must always check the seal on water bottle caps because kids may pick them up off the street, clean the bottle, fill it with water from the polluted Ganges River, then try to sell it to you off the street. Food off the streets isn’t a wise choice either. People trying to make a little money may take old or bad food from anywhere they can get it and water from the Ganges, which will definitely take a toll on your stomach. Oh, also if your looking for a fun time you can visit the Corbet National Park and see the preserves they’ve set up for animals and can also learn how to ride an elephant.

I hope you’ve learned as much as I did when I watched this movie. It was a fun, interesting, knowledge filled movie that I think all sixth graders would enjoy.

During L.A. today we were passed back our tests from the day before, on our assigned reading books. We talked about complex and simple sentences, and we talked about the subject and predicate of a sentence. A complex sentence is one that has two combined thoughts. For example the sentence I wrote just a couple lines back says “We talked about complex and simple sentences, and we talked about the subject and predicate of a sentence.”, that is a complex sentence because I am talking about complex and simple sentences but also I’m talking about the subject and predicate of a sentence. I combined to separate thoughts and made them into one complete sentence, but I also could have split them into two sentences and they both could have still made sense. Also some of the words to create a complex sentence are and, or, nor, and but. A simple sentence is a sentence that only expresses one idea. For example ” Billie Joe, Tre Cool, and Mike Dirnt are all members of the band Green Day.” This is a simple sentence even though I have more than one subject because I’m not expressing a thought about each of them I’m only saying one thought about all of them. The subject of a sentence is what the sentence is about , or the noun of the sentence. A predicate is the action word, or verb. These characteristics of a sentence are what we learned about in L.A.

During L.A. we divided into our literature circles for our book discussions. The homework we were suppose to be handing in was our role sheets for our groups, such as discussion leader, word wizard, illustrator and more. After having our discussions, that were on either The Giver or Mrs.Frisby and The Rats of Nimh, that were both suppose to be finished, we graded each others effort through out the class. Our homework was only to study for the book test of the book you just finished.

Are your comments giving you trouble? Do your comments turn off and you don’t know why? Well, I have the solution. Go to your blog after you’ve logged on and find the post with your comments turned off. Click “Edit” or “Edit This”. You will find yourself looking at a draft of that post. On the right side there are tabs with the names Categories, Discussion, Post Password, Post Slug, Post Status, Post Timestamp, and Post Author. Click on the plus symbol next to Discussion. Then click on the boxes next to the tabs that say Allow Comments and Allow Pings. The next step is the most important. YOU MUST MINIMIZE THE DISCUSSION TAB. After that you can save, then go back to your blog. I hope I solved your problem.

Most of the United States transportation and equipment has oil in it or uses oil to run. What are we going to do if we run out? Has the government thought about it? Yes, they have and are experimenting with other products that may possibly substitute oil. Government scientists estimate that there is about 2.6 trillion barrels still left in the ground and only about 1.7 trillion barrels are discovered, meaning geologists know about it but it hasn’t been pumped yet. the other 900 trillion barrels is undiscovered oil. There is also something called oil shales, which are found in the western part of the United States (we have 2/3 of the worlds oil shales), that are rock formations that must be heated to 900 degrees Fahrenheit for it to release its oil. Actually, its harder to get oil out of the shales so most oil pursuers stick to pumping it from oil bubbles in the ground. After almost half the oil has already been pumped it gets harder to pump the remaining half, so soon the site is abandoned, leaving possibly millions of barrels. Experts have predicted that production of oil will peak in 2015-2030, after it will decline. OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) controls most of the worlds oil and its prices around the world, so when none OPEC countries run out of oil, the U.S. is going to have to pay whatever they demand because oil provides 40% of the worlds energy. We, the United States of America, only fill a flimsy 4% of the worlds population, but we use about 25% of oil supplies.

This picture shows the oil peak and future use of oil. The site http://www.theoildrum.com/?gclid=CL_WsP7y94kCFQeHgQodlhL3PQ is a good site to explore and learn more about oil and alternatives. All the facts in this essay are from Current Science’s article Crude Awakening.

Dear Rachel H.,

Kemal Ataturk became a military hero of the Dardanelles in 1915. In 1920 he was known as a triumphant commander who terminated the invaders of his country. After many dazzling victories, against the odds he led us into full independence. He ended the Ottoman dynasty. Then in 1923 Ataturk created the Republic of Turkey establishing a new government representative of the nation’s will. Kemal has been our president for awhile now and I would be fine with it staying that way. I’ve heard that your country is working on something very advanced called the computer that is supposed to be coming somewhere around 1936. It tells facts about anything you want to research and I’ve already heard of 2 great “sites” (that’s what the pages of info. are going to be called). One is http://www.ataturk.com/. the other great one tells all about Turkey, Istanbul, Kemal Ataturk and much more, its going to be called http://www.allaboutturkey.com/ Then go to the history button on the side. Somebody also told me a way to get additional info on Kemal besides from a textbook is to go to http://www.turkishnews.com/DiscoverTurkey/who/ataturk/.
To tell you more about Ataturk, he wanted to modernize Turkey so he made a law against fezzes, which are felt circular Muslim hats with no brim. This law upset Turks because with brimmed hats men cannot touch their head to the ground in prayer. One man even put bandages around his head to pretend he had a physical injury so he could still pray properly. I didn’t like that law personally, but I do like some other laws he made. For example women no longer have to hide their faces with veils. Also daughters can go to public schools and women have almost every right men do. He did more things than just make laws. He introduced the Roman alphabet to the Turkish language. Kemal also told all Turks to choose family names and he was given the name Ataturk which means father of the Turks. I am proud to say that about him because he recently claimed “I look to the world with an open heart full of pure feelings and friendship.”

Sincerely,

Rachel C