After my class read the book The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera we wrote our own books that depicts our idea world. For this, my ideal world would have magic and peaceful and sustainable places. As you can see in the title the tile of my book is Ziron, I don’t remember why I chose Ziron but now I can’t think of a better name. Once we finished writing we made our books with a cover and all. To do this we made prints and glued the prints as a collage. We had the help from a local artist named Peg Gignoux, she was very fun at great at teaching.
Ziron
By Alice
Antlers comic by Alice
In my Language Arts class we focused on wisdom tales. Wisdom tales are short stories that tell a moral. Some wisdom tales you might know are Echo and Narcissus, Amazing Grace, and Paca and Beetle which is a story that is similar to The Tortoise and the Hare. At the end of this segment, we were assigned to make a comic about one of the stories we learned.
The story I chose to make into a comic was Antlers. This story’s moral is that there’s always a use for something to summarize the story a stag loved how beautiful his antlers were but hated how skinny his legs were. Moments later, a hunter’s arrow flew by causing the stag to get scared and suddenly get caught in tree branches. If it weren’t for the stag’s legs he would have not made it our alive. In the end, he states that in times of danger they serve him well (they = legs). I chose this story because I thought that the moral was really important and because it seemed easy to narrate.
Before this project started, an illustrator named Brittain Peck came to talk to the whole class of sixth graders. He taught us about tricks we can use in our comics to help as well as who he is and what he does. Brittain Peck is an amazing illustrator some tips he taught us was to:
- Be thoughtful of your background. You can use the background as another way to illustrate where the setting is.
- Use simple shapes to help draw objects.
- Placing!!! Placing is really important if you want your readers to feel like something that they’re looking at is really small or really big compared to something.
Now you might be asking what apps I used to draw the comics? Well, count yourself lucky because I’m going to tell you. The app I drew all the pictures on was Sketchbook. Sketchbook is a great app to illustrate pictures because there are are so many different materials the app imitates and you can get more by tapping on the figure above the “whatever material you’re using” on the top left hand side and then scrolling on the popup. The app I used to create the comic and put it together was Comics Life 3. This app has layouts already made for your illustrations, themes, onomatopoeia boxes for your narrating and texts for thoughts and speech bubbles. Two tips you can use for this app is pressing the paintbrush on the top right hand corner to get backgrounds and by pressing the + in the same corner you can add onomatopoeia, arrows/shapes, and pictures. I really recommend these great apps.
In conclusion I want you the readers to…
- Look at some of Brittain Peck’s work
- Read some Wisdom tales
- Check out Sketchbook and Comics Life 3
Picture of my habit tracker
Doing a daily challenge is good for your physical health and for your mindset. When I started doing one in my Language Arts class, we started on October 24, 2023 spending our time planking for 30 seconds each day. Every week we went up 15 seconds until the week of December 11th where we stopped at 2 minutes and 15 seconds but we could also go longer that day. I went up to 3 minutes which I thought would’ve been impossible for me. After I put down my time, I regretted going only for three minutes. I could’ve gone longer. All these thoughts were going through my head after. My ability to stick with the habit was hard because I either didn’t have time or I forgot. Something that usually helped me stick to this habit was the people around me who would do it with me and my boredom so it would give me something to do. My new habit will be to practice my instruments every day for 10 minutes. Overall, I think this is a great way to strengthen your mind and you should definitely try it.
Image from Unsplash
I like to read. I like to read because I can learn more words and my imagination can grow bigger for stories that I write. I like to read late at night. So when I get bored of the book I can fall asleep easier and because it’s quieter in my house too. I have never liked reading. This is because I was always being forced to read books that weren’t for me and to be honest I thought it was boring. I didn’t want to sit around all day looking at words. I wanted to play and have fun.
When I can’t stay in a book long enough because it’s too boring, I abandon it and then I’ll think about what made it so boring. Most of the time it’s the genre like for example you will most likely catch me reading a fantasy book or a mystery but never science fiction or maybe it’s an adventure fantasy. I like adventure fantasy but sometimes it’s not for me. One book that is adventure fantasy I have abandoned is Percy Jackson #2 I already love the series but right now I feel as if it’s not as good as the first. Though when I’m ready to read it again I will.
So what am I reading now? I’m reading two books but taking a break from one. The first one that I’m taking a break from is 100 Cats Who Changed Civilization by Sam Stall. It is about 100 cats and their stories. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes cats and humor. The second book I’m reading is Solitaire by Alice Oesman. The main character is named Tori and she and someone she just met are trying to unmask a mysterious blogger named Solitaire and trying to get through high school. This book is not really a mystery in my opinion, it is a book about life and also humor. This book is really good though I would inform you that it is meant for middle schoolers.
What book will I read next? After I finish Solitaire by Alice Oesman I will finish the book 100 Cats Who Changed Civilization by Sam Stall. What about after that? After I finish a book or multiple books I was reading I don’t know what to read. I’m clueless so maybe I’ll read a book that was recommended or finish a series I abandoned or took a break from. What should I read next?
picture taken form Sora
At the beginning of the school year I read a book called The 39 Clues: Unstoppable Book 2: Breakaway by Jeff Hirsch. For me the book is definitely a window instead of a mirror. A window book is a book you can look into and not relate to anything but if a book is a mirror you can relate to many things in the book and also see yourself as a character in the book. This book is in a series that is a sequel to The 39 Clues. I have been reading this series for a while and would definitely recommend it to people who like mystery, adventures, and action. One thing that definitely supports my theory of this book being a window is that the book is about two siblings Amy and Dan and in the first series their grandma died and this was in her will. They could they go around the world and uncover dangerous secretes about their family or take a lot of money and leave while doing this they would also be going against other family members that could definitely hurt them easily but anyway they chose to go on the adventure. Obviously this is crazy and I don’t really think my family has very dark secrets plus I would definitely be too scared to do the adventure.
Hi again this might be random but if you read my about Alice page you will know I dance ballet and tap. I have been doing ballet for about three years now and I know that may seem small but I feel like it was way longer. I learned so much in those small three years but to get straight to the point I want to say I’m in pre-pointe which means I start pointe this year but don’t perform on point until next year. I am really excited but about 60% of me is freaking out. I know I feel ready but I can’t be sure. I also auditioned for a ballet theater and got in. If you don’t know what a ballet theater is, I’ll explain. So a ballet theater is a bunch of dancers who get together to make one big performance or ballet play. Last year the theater performed Snow White and the Seven dwarfs (ballet version). I can’t wait to perform!
Pool
On August 30th we boarded the buses and headed to Camp Kirkwood and the ride we watched The Zookeeper. It was really good. When we arrived it was pouring rain but luckily we had lunch just after we got comfortable in our cabins. We ate lunch quickly because we had a long day ahead of us. My group did the low ropes course, board balance, kanga jump, and pool time with our instructor Matt. Afterwards, we took showers, ate dinner which was spaghetti, garlic bread, and meat sauce, and spent time in our cabins then we watched a movie at 8:00 to 9:30. Then Lights Out.
First Activity
August 31st Hurricane Idalia hit with a bunch of rain. My cabin, cabin 3, almost flooded in the back since we were right by the lake . We had more pool time and did a bunch of other activities like orienteering and forest ecology and the V swing. Matt taught us a new game during the teamwork activities and I won in a game called taps! For lunch we had hot dogs with beans and chili. We did a night hike and had s’mores.
On September 1st my group did canoeing first with group 3. It was wet and there were spiders but it was really fun. Our second activity was the zip line. Everyone had a lot of fun. Then we went to the Gaga pit and we met a pig named Bubbles. Then we headed back to eat lunch, pack up and off we went back to Durham Academy. Overall I think the trip to camp Kirkwood was fun and its was better than I thought it would be.
