In Language arts, we created an Ideal World.

Here it is!

Thank you all dear readers for a wonderful year of reading.

YAY FOR SUMMER BREAK

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On Friday, april 5 the Durham academy 6th grade traveled to the Morehead planetarium to participate in some science fun.

At the crack of dawn, we boarded a rickety old buss, bound for downtown chapel hill. The bus ride was horrific. We jounced along the road being bashed around in our seats like a blender, with the ancient shocks squealing in protest.  On top of this, everyone in the bus thinks the whole trip is a big joke. Everyone is cackling and scheming, also singing, screaming, playing games, gambling, and crying. (Please note that this story is massively exaggerated for yourself, reader, so deal with it. The bus was generally very new. It had a TV, but that ruins the vibe, so don’t tell anyone.) SOOO, everyone was trying to make me do this that and the other thing. When we finally reach the glorious air, I stagger out of the cranky, ready to collapse, bus, and inhaled the glory.

Side note:

I love to visit the planetarium, generally in a relatively comfortable transportation devise.

Pre-post note:

I forgot what I was going to say

Post-pre post note:

the bus was not a comfortable transportation devise

Once we got there, the planetarium was great, besides the fact that there were approximately 70 kids rampaging around the place. First, we explored the environmental exhibits, and spent like half an hour on the throw the bean bag at the virus on the projector, hope the virus disappears, hope it stops spreading its orangish horror across the screen, and repeat. See how long it takes you to die. Next, I went around telling people the best way to conduct experiments so you get the highest score on your first time doing it. (I have been to the planetarium a lot, as aforementioned) Then, we did an activity to stop the spread of malaria, in which I aced everything on my first try(technically, it was probably my 50th, but we don’t talk about that.)

Later, we finally got into the cool, dark, peaceful, COUGH COUGH, ok, I guess not. Evidently, there was some sort of bug going around that made everyone cough their lungs out. YAY. Nobody heard ANYTHING. It was still nice to sit in a recliner in a massive domed movie theatre that made you think you were there rather than sitting in classes. It described the space accessories needed to get a person to mars. No biggie, it only takes 10 months. To get there. I might be joking about a lot of this, but, This is true. I repeat: THIS IS TRUE. Get it now? Ok good. So we watched this fascinating coughing filled movie, and then we stepped out of the theatre and got our eyes melted. I had never appreciated how bright the sun was. But then, we got back in the buses, and endured the same excruciating slog back to school. So there you go, the treacherous tale of the 6th grade of Durham Academy’s visit to the planetarium.

He’s a pretty cool guy.

In fact, we were lucky enough for him to come to our school! I mean, he’s no Stuart Gibbs, but he’s a cool guy. He just released a new book called Max in the House of Spies it’s about two immortal creatures that live on the shoulder of a boy named max. Cool. I haven’t actually finished the book, I’m only on chapter two. Ive got no clue what it’s about. Thats why I’m going to tell you about the visit, not the book, however good it probably is.

Imagen it’s 9:30 am in the morning out side of the arts and world language building. The wind is rustling the seagrass planted out in the nearby rain garden(just let your imagination fill in the details, cause I’m not.) Suddenly, this relaxing sound is interrupted by the grinding screeching sound of 3 buses driving in. Invaders! Your mind jumps to a far off city in which aliens glide down from their spaceships, attacking suburbia, but thats another rabbit hole. Your mind jumps back to the situation at hand, where REAL invaders are  REALLY invading. Oh wait, thats only duke school.

We file into the Durham Academy auditorium, Horton Hall to see…

THE AUTHOR

He started by introducing himself in extravagant tones, My name is Adam Gidwitz, which our teachers had already explained approximately 57.94 times, and then he explained his inspiration for writing the book. The basic gist was that my uncle’s second cousin’s friend’s dad’s brother’s step bro was in the world war II British intelligence agency. So, he decided to write a story about espionage and counterespionage in world war II. Must have been running out of ideas.

I think the idea was that the main character Max was a Jewish person in Nazi Germany, and his parents sent him to England to live with his uncle. Lion the witch and the wardrobe?? Anyway, he has a run in with a bunch of spies, including his uncle, and becomes one. Spy School????? ANYWAY, It sounded like a really cool book, so I bought it. I am at chapter two. It is pretty good, so far…

Well dear readers, thank you for listening to me advertise Adam Gidwitz’s books.

Until next time,

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Oh, P.S., yours truly is going on summer break.

If you do, great! If you don’t, well… I guess I’ll just stop that sentence there. It seems like a pretty good way to stop???

The durham Academy sixth grade did some volunteer work for a non-profit organization called make durham beautiful. Most unfortunately, we did not get payed, but, it is what it is. We were planting trees for a local community in durham. We planted all sorts of specimens like  spruce trees and pine trees and deciduous trees, and delicious trees and dollar trees and maple trees, and lots of other types of trees.

First, we were forcibly forced into a torture chamber on wheels, otherwise known as a school bus, and shipped of to a patch of mud in the middle of durham, where we were forcibly extricated and taught how to correctly plant a tree.(its not as easy as people think, and most people do it wrong. You’d be surprised.)

then, we were taught how to use a shovel.(kids these days, am I right?) then, we were taught how to put on gloves. Ok, at this point you probably think I’m crazy, but these were some seriously complicated gloves. They were like five demential, with laces screws, and washer machines on every level!

Shovels!!

Finally, we started planting. I chose a nice, delicious, deciduous(try saying that five times fast)tree and started digging. It took us about 40 minutes per tree, because the people we were planting trees for, not only chose the muddiest spot, but the hardest most clay rich patch of mud in durham. After we planted, we left the baby tree-filled mud pit, and were forcibly returned to school in a forcible school bus, still unpaid, but feeling somewhat ok for making the world a better place

Our world-class mud-pit:

Pictures taken by Mrs Williams, 6th grade LA and technology teacher

thanks for listening to my forcibly forcible ranting

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My dear reader, I am not very good at looking at stocks. When I first looked at them, On January 15 of 2021, I was like, Lets Invest in Peloton!!!!!!!! This, coincidentally was in the middle of the covid 19. Which is why it was so ironic that my LA teacher told us we were doing a simulated stocks game. But for more context, I shall transport you to those troublesome times.

Jeremy: cough cough

Everyone else in the state: AAAAAAHHHHHAHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHHHSPLORFHIFTWERALLGONNADIEEEEENOOOAHHHHHHCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDSPLORFCHUMBEAGGGGGAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!

Jeremy: Its just allergies

Everyone else in the state: AAAAAAHHHHHAHHHHAHHAHAHAHAHHHSPLORFHIFTWERALLGONNADIEEEEENOOOAHHHHHHCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDCOVIDSPLORFCHUMBEAGGGGGAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!

YEAH, so back to the topic at hand, Peloton prices fittingly dropped like 98% right after I proposed buying it. Hehehe.

Me and my partner Eshaan had to enlist in some help.(here is our logo)

Funny enough, my “help” poked me in the direction of investing in Peloton. I was thinking Ohhhhh, snap. Just my luck. But it just so happened that my “help” was very trustworthy. We invested 11,000 out of our 20,000 dollars of our fake money into 3,500 Peloton Stocks, each at 3.17 (Just about) TTTHHHHEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNN, it went down to 2.80 per share immediately after we bought it. I was like, no biggie, right? Only 37 cents. YES BIGGIE. We were (gulp) 1,2oo dollars in debt. No biggie??

But, Our source did not lie, the next day, it went up to 3.26, and the day after that, it was up to 3.58.  At the peak of our careers, each stock was selling at 4.67, and we were making 5,000 from just from peloton stocks. But, good times don’t last long. On may 17, we were at 3.92, which was making us 2, 500,  which is still ok, but im still hung up on the woulda coulda shoulda. More on stocks towards the end of May.

Foot note, DO NOT rely on a sixth grader’s judgement to possibly waste an enormous amount of money. Thank you!!😊

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In science, we were given the task of creating a building for “Cav Town”(cavaliers are the mascot of Durham Academy). But, there was a catch. We had to fully electrify the building with circuitry, buzzers, lightbulbs, and motors. So me and my good o’l pal Patrick(he has a great blog, you should read it. Here is a link: https://30patricks.edublogs.org/)I fully expect him to be a New York Times bestselling author with his first book. If he wants to do that.

Any way, when we heard the words Cav Town, We did not want to be ANOTHER restaurant or apartment. So we were like, Cav town needs a ROCKET. And then Patrick came up with another Idea. ELEVATOR. And our project was born.

It was beautiful. At least, the elevator was. ITWASPRFECT. It even WORKED. The rocket was taped to the launchpad, but who was going to launch the rocket anyway. I mean come on, Seriously?? Why would anyone do that???!

It kinda fell apart right after we managed to get the whole thing together, but it was fun while it lasted.

Circuitry!!!

More circuitry!!!!!

The Inside!!!

Paper version of CIRCUITRY!!!!

Pictures taken by me

And last but best, our fabulous logo, created by Patrick

Welp, There you go. My least favorite project. So many learning moments and good memories though. Like when we realized that there was a short circuit and Elliot the electron was going to burn down the school!! ( :<

There you go!!

Have a wonderful life and good luck on whatever bananas you might encounter.

Peace

The Odyssey, the root of modern literature, full of stories, life lessons, and warnings, Full of mystery, fantasy, and wisdom, told by the poet Homer, who we don’t even know existed.

This book is completely shrouded in mystery!!!!!!

This is going to be a hard review to write.

I guess we’ll start from the beginning.

Odysseus had just won the Trojan war with the most famous trickery in the history of war. Concealing himself and several other soldiers inside it. When the Trojans brought it inside their walls, the men slipped out and unlocked the unconquerable gates of Troy. While sailing back home, they angered Poseidon,  who promised vengeance. Over ten years, the men battled the sea to get home. But will they make it back alive?

this is a thrilling tale of mythology and monsters, courage and cowardice, and a fight to return home that I recommend to anyone who is up for it.

In Language arts, we received an assignment to create a comic based off a Wisdom Tale.  We created these comics through comic life, a platform that allows you to design comics. I based my comic off “Feeding His Clothes” by Mulla Nasrudin.

Being brave doesn’t mean not being scared.

It means overcoming your fears

to do what you have to do.

-Alan Gratz

Frank McCoy lives Oxford island in Pearl Harbor while his dad is stationed there flying aircraft for the Navy. His best friend, Stanley Summers lives next to him, his dad also stationed there for the navy. On December 7th of 1941 while touring the battleship Utah, there lives changed forever and things get very bad for Stanley. Will their friendship survive it?