Category Archives: Reading

The 2023 Donnelly Stock Simulator

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In Language Arts this year, we had a stock simulator. We did this simulation because of one of the characters in the book we were reading, The Westing Game. We spent up to $20,000 on publicly traded stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. I invested in Visa, JP Morgan Chase, Berkshire class B stock, IBM, General Electric, and Amazon. Visa was by far the worst stock I invested in. I calculated that if I had invested in the other stock I was considering for that slot, investing the same amount of money, I would be at about $2,300 dollars profit. I instead ended up at $-85.76. This project did open my eyes though to how volatile and luck-based the stock market is and why.

Some Major 6th Grade Projects

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In Mrs.Donnelly’s 6th grade class this year, we did activities. A few of which I will talk about today.The first task I will talk about is the book The Last Cuentista and the importance of stories and sharing. In the book, Earth is no longer habitable, and the agency that brought the main character’s ship to a new planet wiped all memory of culture, stories, and anything not of us scientifically. 

Except, they failed to do so with Petra, the main character, and she tries to keep stories going. While not being caught by the memory-wipers with a misguided view of humanity. This book tries to give the message that stories bring us together. That is a precious thing.

Another activity we did in class this year, was writing about our ideal world, you can see mine in a previous blog post:   https://29cyruspo.edublogs.org/2023/02/23/my-ideal-world/

My ideal world tried to get the maximum pleasure out of life, by taking out anything that would take away from pleasure. It involved robot servants, customizable houses, and a lack of violence, or firearms. I think this was a good way for some to see how they could change the world for the better. I was one of those people, even though my ideal world included a lot of ideas that are impossible.

The third thing I will talk about is book-making with Peg Gignoux. Ms.Gignoux is an artist who came into DA and helped us 6th graders make books to fit with our Ideal world projects. To be honest this was not my favorite LA project, but it seemed to be delightful to many, so I would recommend the experience. The first step in book-making was to print colors onto old scraps of paper with a leaf in between the ink and the paper. This caused some crazy designs! Next, we folded some paper  so it would be in a book format. We then collaged the inside of the book a lot,  And got a great book, once we glued our covers onto the book.

From all of these projects, the conclusion I got was that stories, art, ideas are precious components of human civilization, and using them, we can get a better understanding of the world, us, and everything in between.

Window or Mirror?

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My book, The Hate U Give is a window. A window is a book that exposes you to a perspective, experience, or setting different from anything you have ever done or seen before. Unlike mirror books which you can relate to on some basic to large level. It is a window as not only are the events things I have never experienced, but the setting is also not close to my experiences. For example, Starr’s friend, Khalil gets shot for talking back to a cop. I have never experienced anything close to this event, and that happened in the 2000s, when this book is based, an era that I have not seen, heard, or felt. I like window books more, as they both expose me to things I seldom do, and really make fiction more educational and imaginative from my point of view.

I started reading this book because Cayden was reading it, and I thought it sounded good when we went around saying the title of our book in Language Arts. The genre is fiction. The author is Angie Thomas.

Antlers

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The wisdom tale that I chose was called Antlers.

Antlers is one of Aesop’s fables. Antlers is a story displaying that nothing is useless. The main character is a deer that loves his beautiful antlers. But those antlers end up almost getting him killed, but his ugly legs save him. Showing him that truly nothing is useless. While I could have chose many stories that show this message, I chose Antlers as it has the most fun, concise and interesting way of displaying that message. The way that I made a project out of this story, is I made drawings in Sketchbook, I then put them in ComicLife3 to make a comic out of the story.

My Backpack

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In the book Finding Someplace, Reesie, the main character, must stow her things in a backpack to avoid Hurricane Katrina. This raises the question, did she bring the best tangible objects possible? She brought many technologies, Including a phone and a Document of insurance information. I would say she brought some good resources. Here is what I would have brought if I were in this situation.

As far as food, I would mostly use packaged food like instant oatmeal or cereal. They are both calorie-heavy, and can survive a while without going bad. Next, I would pack a few survival objects, such as a hand-crank flashlight to see where I am going without necessarily needing electricity. Also, a knife and blanket in case of disaster, like a tree falling near me. These are the necessary resources to bring.

I would fill up the rest with items not essential for survival. For example, insurance papers in case something happens to any non-packed belongings of mine, and a phone or radio for communication after I have (hopefully) reached safety.This is what I would bring, but this differs extremely from situation to situation.In conclusion, I would only really bring what I need, not want.