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We are finally done with our Biomes so that means that we can move forward with our science schedule. Now we are working on our science fair project which this year, is the hardest one (is what I’ve been told). We must write about any science person that is famous, like Beatrix Potter, Greta Thunberg, ETC. I chose to write about Jane Goodall. Now here is the thing, we not only have to write a five minute speech about this person, we have to act out this person and memorize what we have learned about them. Jane Goodall is a famous Primatologist who went to Africa to learn about  Chimpanzees, because no one really knew anything about them. This woman was only 26 when she went to Gombe. She lived with them for a very long time and even started naming them.

This week we also went on a snow shoe. It was a lot of fun because we got fresh air and it felt good to be outside. But when we were walking we came across “the crime scene”. There was blood and lot animal tracks and everything. So, of course, we followed the animal tracks. In the end, we couldn’t actually find what animals were fighting or anything. But this snow shoeing trip was a lot of fun.

What animals were fighting there?

Where did Wedgie the Porcupine go?

Where is the cat?

Okay, so this week we presented all of our hard work that we had done for the Renaissance! We showed what we have been doing for the past couple of weeks to all the other grades and teachers. I think that the other grades really liked the fair. I was very proud of the things that I had finished and I was also proud of all the other students for finishing the jobs, too.

The other thing my class had finished this week was our BIOMES!! FINALLY!!! I am really, really proud of the model I had made of the Temperate Deciduous Forest! I had worked on it one day over break (like the whole day) and I worked really hard. I especially like the smiling little goldfish in the middle of the little pond. I also am proud of my WIX website that I did, but I think that I should have read it over one more time before I presented it (ha ha). Now that we have finished our biomes, I am excited to see what we are going to learn about next in class.

Do dogs get cold in the winter?

How do you say “kayak” in sign language?

How do you say “snow day” in Italian?

 

 

 

The last 2 weeks of school have been a lot of fun. We were doing multi-age for 2 weeks which means that 5-8 grade kids got mixed up and was put into “virtual grades”. I was in virtual 8th grade, though on regular weeks, I am in 6th grade. This year the theme was the Renaissance, which was from the  1400s through the 1600s. In my virtual class I had Naomi, David, Maddie, Ellie, Brody, Lucy, Alex, and myself. I didn’t like that we had winter break in the middle of the multi-age unit because I missed the friends I didn’t get to see during break. I loved making the castle  in math class because we needed to think hard about the materials that we were going to use, and we had to measure lots of things to get it correct, my team had lots of fun. I also had fun making letters in French class. In French, we chose a person from a royal family and learned a lot about them. When we learned enough, we wrote a letter to whomever we wanted, and I chose to write to Lucy , who was Katherine Grey. I was Mary Grey and Lucy was my “sister”. Once we wrote the letter, we printed it out, stained it with tea, and then burned the edges of it to make it look really old. We also put a wax stamp on it and rolled it up with string.

Last week we took a field trip. We went to 3 Swords Fencing, which was a lot of fun. I thought it wasn’t going to be fun because it was first thing in the morning, but we played a game kind of like Fox-Tails and that woke me up. Learning about fencing was very interesting because I didn’t know so much history was behind it. Fencing is so much fun! I would do that field trip again. Thank you for bringing us there Shane and Coach!

-How many people in traverse City Fence?

-who created the word purple?

-Did Leonardo da Vinci like bananas?

 

This week we had the Winter Concert. Fourth through eighth grade goes on stage and performs two songs. One song is instrumental and one song has words. My class had a creepy lullaby called Cradle Hymn, which was instrumental, and I got to play the glockenspiel along with Alisha. We also had a song called Flying, which was the song with words. In the song Flying, Gus danced a beautiful solo, Alisha played  amazingly on the piano, Lars was really great on the key board, and Lizzie, Aidan and I sang perfectly (I think, but I couldn’t really hear us singing because I was singing along, and it is hard to tell how loud or quiet you are when you are singing through a microphone on stage).

I also performed in the orchestra, I play the cello. This year we played three songs. One of them was called Berleske, one was called Plaintive Melody (Ms. Ludwig always called it Shubert because that was what she called it when she played it in her orchestra, I think), and one was called Little Drummer Boy. My favorite out of all three is Plaintive Melody. I thought it was so pretty and I really liked the cello part.

Why did Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear?

What is Pablo Picasso’s favorite color?

Was Gandhi allergic to anything?

This is a picture of a glockenspiel.

Do you have cat allergies? I love cats, but I have allergic reactions when I’m around them. So when I saw this article on Science News for Students I had to read it with the hopes of being able to one day get a cat. While I was reading I found out that cats have a protein in their saliva and urine that 20% of humans are allergic to. The protein is called Fel d1. This protein is what leaves you with  a stuffed up nose and itchy, watery eyes. The magical product that will help us is actually a cat food that scientists invented. They use an antibody from eggs and put it in the cat food. This antibody neutralizes the protein in the cat food so that when the human pets the cat the person won’t have as much of an allergic reaction. Scientists say that because this will only help with mild allergies and the because the protein will stick in the house hold and continue to get worse. The protein will accumulate and so will your allergies.

Humans cannot ingest this antibody and have it work. Scientists are not yet selling this product, because it may not work all the way, as you can read in the paragraph above this one. The scientists plan to learn more and research more about this solution. I really hope that the scientists can find a way to have it so that I am not allergic (and everyone else who is) to cats any more.

When will I be able to get a cat?

When will I be able to get an awesome car?

Can cats eat bananas?

The cat in this picture is cute!!

In class we are learning about biomes. Biomes are the habitats and places animals and humans live in. I am doing the Temperate Forest Biome. The reason I wanted the Temperate Forest is because red pandas live in it and I really love red pandas. We get to make our biomes in a cardboard shoebox and use all different materials like styrofoam balls and such. We also have to make a Wix site, which is fun and hard at the same time, because I am not very familiar with. I usually only use Google Docs, but this is good because it spreads my ability to work with sites I am not familiar with.

I will be learning a lot about biomes this year and especially about red pandas. Aren’t they sooo cute? Here are some cool facts I thought I could share with you: Did you know that a red panda can eat around 20,000 bamboo leaves in one day? The second name they have for themselves is Fire Fox because of their size and color. At night, they can keep themselves warm by wrapping their tails around themselves.

Red pandas live in places like China, Nepal, Myanmar (Burma), and in central China. For my biome, I will be studying the Temperate forests of China.

How long do red pandas stay with their families before they leave their homes?

Can red pandas see color?

What is Aidan doing in the background of the picture?

This week we put on a play for the fourth graders about a fungus named Freddie on trial. It sounds funny, right? Well it was a lot of fun! There were six parts, so it was perfect for our class because we have six kids in our class. I was a flower named Vera Violet, and I got to wear a sparkly sequined purple dress, a hair ribbon, and a pink scarf. I thought being this character was a lot of fun because I had a funny line that I got to say twice in the skit; it was “Aren’t I beautiful?” Clearly my character was very full of herself and always thought that she was the best. Lizzie was the judge, Lars was Widow Sycamore (his costume was great!), Gus was Freddie the Fungus, Alisha was Woody Woodpecker, and  Aidan was the introducer. We are all part of the wilderness. The reason Freddie the Fungus was on trial was because Widow Sycamore thought that he killed her husband, Jeremiah Sycamore. Freddie says that he is just doing his job, but everyone there thinks it is his fault. Freddie gets asked questions by the judge and so does everyone else. At the end the Judge decides that they should figure it out.

I personally thought that this was a great idea/activity for the sixth graders and the fourth graders. I wonder what it was like to watch us?

On Friday this week, we had a snow day! My family went sledding and then we went inside and watched a movie. It was a cozy day. I also got sick on that snow day and so I watched another movie.

Did Shane come up with the Freddie Fungus story?

Do you think the snow will melt all the way?

Why is the sky blue?

This week we only had three days of school! This is because there was parent/teacher conferences. I think it was good we didn’t have school on Thursday or Friday because Thursday was Halloween and I think we would have been very tired if we had to go to school the next day. halloween for me was really fun. I thought that I was going to get around 60 pieces of candy, but then I changed my mind to think that I wanted at least 60 pieces of candy. Guess how many pieces I got? I got 112 pieces of candy!! Then I ate like 5 of them so now I have 107 pieces.

The picture that you see here is when we went down to the hoop house and planted lots of seeds. I planted spinach. Did you know that my dad helped put together the hoop house? The year the hoop house was put up, my brother graduated from Pathfinder. It was his class’s graduating gift.

On Tuesday, two men came in to tell us about bikes he makes out of bamboo! Bamboo!! One of them was from Uganda and the other had a daughter that went to Pathfinder. The man that was from Uganda’s accent was super cool. The other man told us about the Hospitals in Africa. The mothers or wives or friends had to take care of the sick person in the hospital because the doctors and nurses were so busy. That was really interesting to learn about.

This week my class discovered a game called Nitro type, and it is sooooo fun! I love to do games like that because it improves your typing skills and it it fun to race against your friends.

Who made up the game Nitro Type?

Who made up Volleyball?

Why are apples red?

This week in science class we got to play this awesome game! We got to steal each others cards and make a giant food web. Then we got to read an awesome story about cats parachuting into Borneo. So, what happened was that malaria was spreading in Borneo and the people there needed to do something about it. So, the National Health Organisation decided it was a good idea to put a chemical called DDT everywhere there. It did kill all the mosquitos that carried the malaria, but side effects were happening. Along with killing the mosquitos the DDT also killed a parasitic wasp that ate thatch-eating caterpillars. The thatch eating caterpillars ate the roofs of peoples houses, and since the wasps weren’t their to eat the thatch-eating caterpillars that population grew and roofs started to fall on peoples heads. Worse than that, the insects that died from the DDT were being eaten by the geckos that lived there and then the cats ate the geckos. So the cats started to die and  the rat population wen tip and the people that lived in Borneo got introduced to two new diseases the rats carried. So to stop the problem that the National Health Organisation created, they parachuted cats into Borneo to eat the rat. Pretty crazy story, right? I think it is kind of funny because I like the thought of parachuting cats into Borneo. We also got to go to Aidan’s parents winery and shop. That was cool to learn about and smell all the lavender and things. We also got to try this Chardonnay grape juice and it was really good! It tasted a lot like apple cider and it looked like gravy. I love the smell of lavender (we got to smell a lot of it).

– Do you think the cats would do that again if they got a chance?

– Do cats like apples?

– What did the cats look like as they were parachuting down to Borneo?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Mrs. Cuttatree,

PLEASE do not cut down my habitat! I live there with my 2 uncles, 3 aunts, 5 nanas, 4 grandpas, 8 cousins, 3 sisters, 2 brothers, and 1 mom and 1 dad. I am a barred owl, my name is MyLanda Ilovee.

My singing voice is quite beautiful if I do say so myself, but if you cut down my habitat I won’t be able to sing my famous song (who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?). Usually owls have yellow eyes, but I have  dark brown, like the rest of my barred owl family. Since I am a girl, I am larger than the boys. My wingspan is 19.89 inches, and I weigh around 1.76 pounds.  like to eat small mammals, rabbits, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and things like that. I also love to eat crayfish. I also look a lot like the spotted owl. I really don’t think it is a good idea to cut down my habitat because if the owl population went down the mice and rodent population would probably go up.  And you don’t want that to happen, now do you? By doing this you are ruining my food source and my beloved home. Not only will my family and friends suffer but the other creatures that live in this beautiful place will too. 

I hope that you take this letter into consideration and think about what you might do to my home. 

Thank you!

love, Mylanda Ilovee