There was a big problem!  The weather was getting hot and the water in the creek by our playground was evaporating!  We were worried because the water was going away and the tadpoles might die.  So we rescued tadpoles by getting cups and scooping the tadpoles into a pink bucket.  Then we carried them to Mr. H’s pond water in his garden.  We kept some in our classroom.  They grew their back legs and then we let them go in a bog in our courtyard at school.  I felt relieved because I thought they were just going to stay there and die but now they’re safe!  

This morning was a warm, sunny day.  We were appreciating the marvelous weather so we made three groups (I was in the first one) and went outside to find the answer to the question: Where are the most flying insects on our campus?  In my group the first two tries were not so good because we held the sheet too high off the ground.  The third time we did it good because we held it close to the flowering plants and got lots of bugs- even a crane fly.  It had great big wings.  I screamed because I thought it might be a stinging bug, but it wasn’t.  We also tried to see how many were in the wetland on our campus and in the woods.  We decided that most flying insects are in the sunlight where there are a lot of flowering plants because there’s sunlight and sunlight helps the flowering plants to grow.  I think the bugs like flowering plants for the nectar.  

Written by Oscar

One afternoon when the weather was nice, we went outside.  We walked down into the woods below our playground.  We collected objects and described them.  I described a branch from a pine tree with my partner Emmanuel.  My and Emmnuel said this would be a great thing to describe because it was pointy kind of like hair and we thought we would have lots of words for it. I found it under a big tree that was a pine tree.  Then we made a sketch carefully.  Next Emmanuel came up with a lot of great words like “wispy” and “rough” and “curved” and “like a flying broom.”  It was fun to look closely and imagine what it could be- like a mini skate board.  It was exciting because we got to describe it and we got to say brilliant words about it.  

Today we went outside with Miss Adams, the Duke student.  We measured things with three pieces of string.  One was 1 yard long.  One was 1 foot long and the other one was 2 inches long.  We went to the woods and we measured around a tree.  We measured sticks and trees.  We saw chickens!!  One tree was 1 yard around which is like a small tree.  It was a little rainy and a lot of awesome!     

Last week, we studied other cultures around the world like Morocco, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Guatemala.  We went to Japan first in Ms. R’s room.  We did origami and even though the shapes were challenging we did it!  We made a cup and a box.  Cool!  

Let me tell you about Morocco.  We interviewed Ms. A-R.  We asked her wonderful questions like “How are the U.S. and Morocco different?”  ”How are they the same?”  ”What do you like about Morocco?” “Why do you cover your head with the scarf?”   It was kind of hard when we tried to speak arabic.  It’s letters are different and the way they speak is totally different.  

Here are some things I learned about Morocco: 

-Morocco has big cities.  

-There are scorpions!  Children even play with them! 

-It’s flag looks like this: 

-In some cities, they paint the streets and houses blue or pink to keep the bugs away.  

-Most people in Morocco are Muslim, and the women were the hajab (scarf) to be polite in public.  

I liked traveling around the world.  I learned a lot!!!  

          Hi!  On Tuesday my mom came in and talked about a program we do called Meals on Wheels. Then she told us this joke,”What did the cat say when a mouse passed by on roller-skates?” ” ‘Meals on Wheels!’ ”.  Then she talked a little about what we do.  We go to a place where we get the food in insulated bags.  The red bags are hot meals and the blue bags, you guessed it, are the cold meals.  Then we go around to homes of seniors who can’t cook food for themselves and deliver them 1 hot and 1 cold meal.  Sometimes people need a * meal.  I don’t know what the * stands for but it is very, very interesting.  

        So Mrs. Ommen and my mom had talked about making the people on our route valentines cards.  Michael W. had this great idea of a pop-up-heart card.  Dakari made one black heart with a red heart on the inside of the black one, and Oscar made the opposite.  Dierdre made a card where there was one heart at the bottom and they got smaller as they sprung off on “paper springs”.  Tia made a really sweet card that said:

“Dear friend,

I am Tia, Ben’s friend, and I made this card.  It’s just for you.

GO MEALS ON WHEELS!!!!

Love,Tia.”

       I’ve learned that through Meals on Wheels, you sort of make a family through doing it.  At the start, they seem like strangers but after a while you get to know them better.  Giving is better than receiving.  

Sincerely, 

Ben 

Written by Deirdre

We made slime in science.  We made two batches.  One was green and the other was purple.  The green one didn’t turn out so good because it was so thick.  So then we made the purple one and changed the recipe a little.  It was too liquidy, but better at least.  My favorite part was when Mrs. Ommen called Mr. Scientist on the cell phone to see which part of the recipe we should change to make it runnier.  Most of us said, EWWWW and the rest said AHHHH when we stuck our fingers in it.   

A storyteller came to our class and told us a story that she wrote (she used to be a teacher at Forest View!). It was about a fairy that gave a woman a silver wish box. Some kids wrote wishes to go in the box. Here are our wishes:
I wish evre singl pice of paper wint in to the risicling.
I wish that there were 8,900,000,000 more trees than there are in every state.
I wish that I’m a Princess because I like Princesss.
I wish our classroom had 1,000,000,000 books.
I wish that there were no stealers in the world.
I wish for a PSP for every one in the hole world.
I wish I had a bunny that is white with black spots.
I wish that we had snow really high like about two feet.
I wish I was that frist black woman president!
I wish that when I grow up I can be an artist or an author and I would donate books to schools.
I wish I can always work hard in school even aftar second grade.
She also asked volunteers to act out parts of the story. Janisha got to be the character Menya. She said “memememememe” that’s the language of the menyans. One funny thing that happened was when Ms. Gulla was telling us about the magic wand Janisha would get to use she reached her hand into the golden sack and pulled it out. Janisha said “oooo it’s better than I thought!” and when Ms. Gulla went to Canada people in Canada wanted a stick for their wand. They didn’t like the glowing wand because it looked like a light saber from starwars. But I liked the wand Ms. Gulla pulled out because it glowed and had colorful strings hanging down and if you were a princess or a fairy you would like it.
by Emmanuel