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This year, my class took a field trip to plant trees in a low income neighborhood.

We started off the day by meeting our group, which was half of our class. My group watched a two hour documentary about trees, their importance, how they survive, and how they change throughout the different seasons. I learned t5hat trees can communicate and get help from other trees!

After that, we had a short snack break and then got on our bus. After an about 30 minute bus ride through Durham, we arrived at the neighborhood to be greeted by the welcoming residents, and a few people that volunteer a lot who taught us how not plant the trees.

I chose to plant my tree with my friend, and we chose a spot right by the road so it would look nice when it grows. It took us about 1 hour to dig the hole for the tree to go in because the soil was tough, and then we got the mulch.

The entire planting process took us about 1 ½ hours, and it was very rewarding to know that in a few years, the neighborhood will be entirely transformed. To me, this just shows that a little good can go a long way, and I definitely encourage you to do something like this.

This is an image of one of the groups being taught how to plan trees.

This Spring, I played with Bull City Field Hockey for the spring season!

If you haven’t seen my last hockey post, I recommend reading it now. Outdoor field hockey is much different from indoor. There are lifts, hits, sweeps, pops, and much bigger fields.

Lifts

lifting is an important skill in hockey because you can get around someone, over their stick, make a more successful shot, or pass to someone being defended. A lift is just where the ball is lifted up in the air by a stick. To perform a lift, you should get low with your arms out straight holding the stick like normal, and shift your weight to the back of the ball. From there, angle your stick like a ramp with the ball at the bottom, and punch the stick into the ball so that the ball gets on top of it. Try to shift your body weight and not just use your arms to do this. From there, just propel the ball from your stick in the direction you want it to go, like lacrosse players do.The flat side of your stick should be facing where you want the ball to go, so you would be sideways to where you want the ball to go.

Hits

hitting the ball is a very important skill because it gives the ball more momentum that a normal punch pass, can sometimes make the ball go into the air so it is harder to intercept, and is a great way to get through defenders or tree goalie. To accurately perform a hit, get sideways to where you want the ball to go, and put your stick at about the height of your knee ready to hit the ball. There are variations of hits, so depending on how hard you hit the ball your stick could be closer, but it can’t go above your shoulders, especially if other players are around.

Sweeps

Sweeps are almost the same as hits, accept your stick can only gather momentum on the ground, like sweeping with a broom. Sweeps are also more common on backhand, and you can also lunge forward to gain more momentum, using a C shaped motion. These can be useful to transfer the ball across the field, get past defenders, and shoot.

This is an image of a sweep being performed from https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdartmouthsports.com%2Fnews%2F2011%2F9%2F4%2F205266563.aspx&psig=AOvVaw1qGf7rikNop736wg57X2Pc&ust=1717106676711000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjhxqFwoTCODV74Pvs4YDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ

Pops

pops are where you hit the ball from an upward angle, making it pop up and slightly forward. These are useful to get over a defender’s stick. To perform a pop, lift your stick up to about your knees, and hit the middle/top of the ball on the direction you want it to go.

These are just some basic principles of outdoor field hockey, there are still many aspects that separate it from indoor.

Thank you!

This year, we made planet books for our LA ideal world project.

My class did books based off of the book “The Last Cuentista”, where we made collages for the drawings of the pages, then we typed a short story about our ideal worlds.

I highly recommend reading this book.

Image from https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FLast-Cuentista-Donna-Barba-Higuera%2Fdp%2F1646140893&psig=AOvVaw3S3licTawuLZrELWj7Zk1A&ust=1717118496787000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjhxqFwoTCMj_ooSbtIYDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

Pages

To make the pages, we made collages using different colors and patterns. But, instead of using pre-made patterns, we made our own. We learned how to turn a leaf and some paint into beautiful artwork. We put paint on the leaf, and put the pain side down on different papers. After that, we pressed the leaf and paper together and peeled off the leaf, leaving a beautiful imprint of the datalinks of a leaf. Since we used a variety of different colors to put on the leaves, we had a wide variety of colors to choose from for the pages.

Book

The books we used were thick, cardboard books that open up in the middle showing different layers of scenes. I used this to make a cliff area with caves, that opens to an ocean sunset.

Writing

For the writing of our books, we typed out a story of life on our ideal planets or worlds, printed it out, and used art scissors to give the edges a personalized look. We also got the chance to choose the color and arrangement of the text in our book.

This is a photo I took of the book I made

Overall, this project was very fun, and great way to make a school book project more creative.

This year, my class took a field trip to the planetarium.

We started off the day with our usual first two classes, then met up with our advisory to go to our bus. After that, we took a 30 minute bus ride that went through the UNC campus to the planetarium.

We walked around the UNC campus, looking at the gardens, statues, and buildings. After that, we went inside the planetarium building which had exhibits like a movie booth.

At lunch, our class was spilt into two groups. My group sat at a shaded bench area, and picked up our lunches, which we had handed in earlier. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with an apple.

After lunch, we went to a science classroom where a scientist demintarted how liquid nitrogen works, and he froze a flower. He also taught us about rockets by letting go of balloons, and we tried to catch them!

Finally, my group headed over to the dome, where we watched a 3d movie about space on the ceiling, and we also learned about how the planetarium works and was built.

Overall, I definitely recommend visiting the UNC planetarium. It has a lot to offer, and I learn a lot!

thank you to https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.visitnc.com%2Flisting%2FkW2k%2Fmorehead-planetarium-and-science-center&psig=AOvVaw0DZRr2ur5DEBiwdZp2WI_K&ust=1717089656270000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjhxqFwoTCNiQ8Mmvs4YDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

for the image.

This year, author Adam Gidwitz visited our school. Most well known for his Grim series, he explained how he started out as an author, why he loves writing, and the story of some of his bestselling books.

Adam found his passion for writing when he was just a kid, he explained his journey as an author, and told us that no matter how hard it may be, we should always follow our dreams.

Adam has always had a big imagination. He loves storytelling because it is a way to express emotions and show what he is thinking about.

We learned that there are important morals in most books, to follow our dreams, and to think creatively.

It’s only January and I already can’t wait for winter to end. Here in North Carolina, every day is either 63 degrees and windy, so pants are too warm and shorts are too cold. Or, it’s 37 degrees with a high of 42, so normal pants like leggings and casual sweatpants are too cold, but anything thermal is way too hot. All of this makes the worst part of my day even more miserable, picking out my outfit.

See links below for shopping!

Boxer Shorts

Sweatpants

Leggins

Normally, I’m ok with this as long as we get some snow. It’s like a deal with nature. Nature gets to punish us the entire season, as long as we get one snow day. But unfortunately, for the last year, nature has not held up its end of the deal. As January ends, my chance of getting any snow this winter seems more like a distant hope. 

This year in LA, we started reading Wisdom Tales. They are basically what they sound like, tales from hundreds of years ago that each have their own set of morals. After we read through around 30 tales, we all picked a tale we likes to turn in into a comic. I chose a tale called Feathers.

We used multiple apps to make our comics, but if you want to make your own all you need is a drawing app, (procreate, sketchbook, etc.) And comic life. Comic life is basically an app where you can put in your drawings, and there are many fonts and designs to choose from.

Thank you for reading, I hope you can make a comic of your own!

There are many sports to choose from, but my personal favorite is field hockey. I play for Bull City Field hockey, and my team just recently had a tournament in Virginia. My team has two hour practice sections on Tuesdays and Thursdays, where each practice we work on one skill, like wall passes, and then we scrimmage.

Field hockey takes a lot of different skills, and the skills can be different depending on what position you play. One of the most important skills for all positions are pulls. Pulls are when you pull the ball back and forth quickly. Pulls can help defenders stop attackers from getting the ball and scoring. Pulls can help midfielders pass to their teammates. Pulls can help forwards get around defenders and score. 

Thank you for reading, I hope you can try out field hockey soon!

Chinese is a very hard language to learn. But with our teacher Guo Lao Shi, it is a very amazing learning experience. During all of the hard work we’ve done we have lots of fun. We are very proud of all the work we have done this year!

One big part about the Chinese language is the characters. When learning characters, you have to follow a very specific stroke order. Characters are very specific and very challenging to master, but when we work hard it all pays off.  When writing Chinese characters in a traditional form, we use brushes and ink to make calligraphy. When doing calligraphy you have to be super careful by holding the brush right and getting the perfect amount of ink and water. This skill is very challenging to do because when you mess up a little bit the whole character is ruined and have to do the steps all over again perfectly.

One of my favorite things about Chinese class is that we don’t just learn they characters, we learn culture too. Last year, we did a dragon dance and we got to perform it in front of the school. This year we are doing a super fun surprise this year but we will not give it away. During Chinese class we made many delicious foods like dumplings, ice cream, and spicy Ramen. 

In our Chinese class we have tests and quizzes very frequently. At the beginning of this year we had a whole review lesion test with about 50-60 words. Then more in the middle of the year we started to have tests on characters and speaking. 我喜欢吃苹果。That means I like eating apples.

Thank you so much for reading our blog. We are very proud of all the work we have 

done this year!

• Sabrina 尹飒娜, Eloise 马爱璐, and Emma 林爱玛

Ever since my sister left for college, Thanksgiving has been more important to me than ever. It’s one of the only times I ever get to see my sister and spend time with my family. This has helped me not take even the basic things for granted, like having my family around. Another aspect of thanksgiving is the history around it. Did you know that thanksgiving originated from Europeans and the Wampanoags having a feast together, In 1621? Another fun fact about thanksgiving is that turkey wasn’t originally on the menu. This Thanksgiving, I had two weeks off of school. (A much needed break.) My sister flew down to North Carolina, where our family lives, on Wednesday with a lot of homework to do. On Thanksgiving day, we all shared what we were grateful for. Here are a few:

1. Food

2. A loving family

3. Education

4. Somewhere to live

5. Friends

6. Opportunities to play sports

7. Transportation

8. Clothes

9. Good health

10. Nature

And thank you for reading.