Out And About

Hey have you ever thought about your safety? I bet you have, but was it when you were on the Internet? That’s right February 8th is Safer Internet Day. So get out there and be safe!

My class and I have been learning about Internet saftey for pretty much the whole year. Mrs. Braidwood cares about our safety so she makes sure we know how to stay safe on the Internet. (She doesn’t really call it being safe she calls it being savvy.)

One thing I’ve learned and think you should know is that whatever you do online is scanned and saved by Internet search engines. It never goes away. So in facebook for example if you post or your friend posts a picture of you that you don’t like you may delete it, and your friend may delete it but it will still be there waiting in a cache and someone could find it later.

When you post comments online that you think are funny, it may not be funny to others. This could hurt someones feelings or your comments could be passed along by others and end up out of your control. So think before you put something on the web. A lot of people have been embarrassed by videos and pictures put on the Internet. Many people have been hurt online, especially on sites like YouTube because you post a video and they can go viral.

This is why you have to be so careful. You never know what will happen. I’m not saying stay away from the Internet. I’m just saying know what you are doing before you do it. When your writing something publicly make sure you read it before you post it. This way you can prevent hurting anyone or hurting yourself.

So remember. Be savvy and think before you post. Have fun being online!

CC flickr image: By AJ Cann released under a CC attribution| noncommercial license

Have you ever heard of PINK shirt day? This is a day to STOP bullying.

One day a young man in Nova Scotia, went to school…in a pink shirt. He thought nothing of it to wear a PINK shirt to school, but he got bullied  for wearing it – simply because it was PINK. Something he never thought would happen happened the next day. Some of the older kids did not like what they saw, so the next day they decided to try to get the whole school to wear PINK to say that the bullying wasn’t right. The school sent a message to both the bully and the student. The message they sent to the bullies was “Hey, you need to stop. We are not okay with this.” The message they sent to the student was “It’s OK. We are here. We care.” That’s how these bullies stopped mistreating this student. When the boy in grade 9 went to school he saw a sea of PINK. I think he was really surprised and he probably felt respected, happy and a whole lot safer.

That’s how PINK shirt day started and since then every year we pull on our PINK shirts and stand up to bullying. This year PINK shirt day is on February 23rd. This is one day to bring extra focus, but we need to focus our attention on bullying every day.

We need to stop bulling because it’s more than people’s feelings getting hurt. Some kids are scarred for life and even hurt themselves because they think it will never end. They can get hurt emotionally, physically and socially. I myself want to stop bullying, so if I ever see it, I will call for help to try to stop it.

CC flickr image: By StreetFly JZ attribution|noncommercial|no derivative works

This week our student teacher Ms.Rogerson is back! She is teaching us about what the elements of art are and who Jackson Pollock is.

Art is whatever you want it to be. The person who knows that probably the best was Jackson Pollock. My class and I have been learning about Jackson with Ms. Rogerson. He did not follow the rules of art, but what are the rules of art? He expressed his feelings and let them lose. Using all different tools like sticks, squirt bottles, string, and paintbrushes, he made his paintings different than most artists.

I know art is whatever you want it to be, but whatever you make they all have elements. There are seven elements, but they may not all be in one peice of art. These elements are:

• colour - the variety of colour used
• space – how the space is used
• texture – whatever you can feel by touch
• shape – what shapes you use
• line – can be thick or thin, straight or squiggly
• form – shapes bent together to make sculptures
• value – making colours darker or lighter so there are different tints

Jackson Pollock used colour, texture, and line in his art. Sometimes his paintings have lots of different colours and sometimes they don’t. If you were to feel his paintings they would have texture because of the tools he used, and because he often used sand and crushed glass in them as well. Lines can always be seen in his art because he slashes the paint onto the canvas. I don’t think Jackson has form in his art because his art doesn’t use 3D shapes.

I have had fun learning about the elements of art and Jackson Pollock, but some things I think are different about my picture at the top, and Jacksons art is that…. well first of all mine was made on the computer and his was made on a canvas. Also to make the picture above I used more colour than he would have. Using the computer to make this means I do not have the texture that Jackson would have. 

Hopefully I’ve helped you learn a little about Jackson Pollock and the elements of art.

Do you like art or know about the 7 elements? If you want to make a picture like the one above go to jacksonpollock.org

It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday and I’m stuck at my grandma’s. I love her but on my birthday my mom and dad made us stay at her house while they went “shopping”. I just turned nine it felt like the biggest birthday of my life and I’m at my grandmas don’t get me wrong I see her every day.

So finally we go home and I walk inside and my dad starts yelling at me your room is a mess go clean it up. All I’m thinking is “worst birthday ever” I go to clean my room…. I open the door….. Thank you, thank you, thank you! There’s a beuatiful little kitten starring up at me. She was so frightened so I picked her up and held her tight.

My parents sat me down and said this is a big responsibality you have to take care of her. “ok, ok”. My mom showed me how to clean her litter box and my dad came in and said I have to pick a name. I thought and I thought and finally I came up with the weirdest name that I could think of but it was perfect. Pretty-Princess!  My dad says That I’m crazy for calling her that but I like it. The sad thing with Princess is when she was a kitten somebody locked her siblings and her In a box outside of a bar. The SPCA came and saved tham but nobody would adopt her because she had a cut on her eye.

Thats my stroy of Pretty-Princess. Do you have any pets or crazy names?

CC flickr Image: Princess by Mo Louw Attribution|non commercial|share alike

First of all I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and I hope you all had a happy holiday!

Does your family have any traditions? My family has only one…. we all watch a movie called the Christmas Story. This movie is about a family and there crazy Christmas. My family and I did something different this year. We had a Christmas party!!! We invited our friends and family. At our Christmas party there was a dinner buffet. For dinner we had chicken wings, salad, bread and dip, carrots, cucumber, mushrooms, and strawberries. For dessert we had brownies, cookies, chips, and yule log.  A yule log  is a Christmas dessert that looks like a log.

Everybody’s gone….we all dread this moment….. bedtime! It’s the worst feeling waiting in bed knowing there will be presents for you in the morning but that’s not what I was worried about. I was worried about…. the heat. My sister, brother and I were all sleeping in one  room it was smoking hot in there. My brother fell asleep instantly my sister and I didn’t fall asleep until 12:30am. Then at 3:00am my brother and sister were staring at me…”can we get our stockings?” So there I was three hours of sleep and opening my stocking barely keeping my eyes open! We put our stockings away slowly drifting to sleep…. “Kids time to get up”. Our grandma comes in at 7:00am we go upstairs and open our presents.

That’s the story of our crazy Christmas! Did you have a crazy, sleepless Christmas?

CC flickr Images: oh christmas tree by momma attribution|non commercial|no deretitive works

Do you have any New Years resolutions? I know I have some  but what I didn’t know is that  New Year resolutions started in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia  is in Iraq. Their resolutions weren’t to lose weight or to get better at something. Their resolutions were to learn about farming. Mesopotamia is  between two rivers and  between those rivers is really good farm land where people of Mesopotamia like to farm.

Our goals may not be like the goals the  people have in Mesopotamia but we do have some. Here are some of my goals…..

Personal - I’m in figure skating so in figure skating I want to be able to do a camel spin. A camel spin is where you have one leg up in the air behind you. Your leg has to be straight and above your hip to be a camel spin.   I want to be able to do my Camel spin so that when I go to a competition it helps me get higher marks. To make this happen I will go to as many practices as possible, ask my coaches for help, and practice off the ice.

School - In school I want to work harder. I want to work harder  so that I can learn more and it will help me when I get older. I can do this by not sitting beside people I know I can’t work with, ask for help if I don’t understand something, and go to bed a bit earlier so that I’m not so tired.

Local - In my local community I want to go to a park and clean it up. That means picking up trash and cans. I want to do this because my family and I go on walks and always see trash.  When we are on our walks and see trash, we want to know that at that park we cleaned up now there’s a family walking in a clean environment. I can do this by asking my friends an family if they want to help me, finding a park that has trash, and find some spare time so that my family can help me.

Global- I want to imform 10 people about hunger around the world. I want to do this so that we can feed some people that go without food. Also I could not imagine being hungry. I can do this by writing a post on my blog, tell my friends and family, and phone people I know.

So those were my goals for 2011. Do you have any personal, school, local, or global resolutions for 2011?

CC flickr image: 2011by waltercolor waltercolor |no derivative works| attributtion

Did you know…. I love to dance! So to show that I’m glad that Christmas break is finally here I made a dance on pivot animation! Mrs. Braidwood’s whole class each made a Christmas video for the Dance Off. Enjoy!:D

Kyra’s Dance Off from Jaki Braidwood on Vimeo.

Do you like to dance? Or do you LOVE to dance?

Have a Merry Christmas!

This last week we learned about angles and measurement with our student teacher Ms. Rogerson. My class and I had crazy fun because we had a scavenger hunt and took digital pictures of angles around the school.

In class we do this game called Alien Angles. For this game you have to estimate what the angles are. I’m not very good at estimating but give me a protractor and I’m ready to go.

Ms. Rogerson tought us the straight angle, obtuse angle, and the reflex, acute, right, complimentary, supplementary angles.

The most fun “I”  had was when we did the scavenger hunt. What we did was we went around the school finding angles. At the end we all got timbits!!!

We also learned that there are angles in sports. I figure skate some of the angles in figure skating are…. well if you do a split jump it’s a 180Ëš! My split jump is an Acute angle that means it’s leass than 90Ëš! The other angles are Obtuse- more than 90Ëšand less than 180Ëš, Right- 90Ëš, Reflex- more than 180Ëš and less than 360Ëš.  Have you learned about angles? Do you think they’re fun?

CC Flickr Image: 128 Angle Protractorsby macattck Attribution Noncommercial Share Alike

 Have you ever had an exciting epic extravaganza?

Well you should! (extravaganza is a party)

See I had my 12th birthday party this saturday the 27th  through Sunday the 28th. We had crazy fun and played a bunch of games. I think one of the favorite games was the M&M game. What you did was you put a bunch of M&M’s  in a bowl, and then you sit in a circle with the bowl in the middle. Then you go around the circle where everyone looks away and picks up two M&M’s. If the M&M‘s are the same colour you get to eat them. If the M&M‘s are different  colours you have to hold them in your mouth until you get two of the same colour!

We also went to a movie! Everybody liked the movie and it was funny. Then we went back to my house and had a sleepover. That’s the end of my exciting epic extravaganza! Have you ever played “an” M&M game?

CC flickr images M&M’s FlyNutAA attribution

FUN! Sledding is exciting, scary, breath taking, and in one word FUN!

Have you ever been sledding? If you haven’t you should try too. It’s a neat, cool experience so I’m going to tell about sledding in my backyard.

See in my backyard my family has this huge hill. When it snows it freezes over and gets all icy. When this happens it’s fun for my friends and I because we get our sleds and down we go. My one friend and I go down in partners so she hangs on to the back of my sled and we push off. When we push off we usually end up going into the garden. That doesn’t really matter though because the garden is dead. It ‘s probably a good idea  if you want to try partner sledding to have a parent around. Have you ever gone down a big hill on a sled?

CC flickr images Sled teddy bear Snuggle Pup noncommercial attribution