Song of the lioness II

Retell
This story is about a young girl named Alanna who has wanted to be a knight all her life. In the forest, she found a Goddess Mother who told Alanna her three fears: The Ordeal of Knighthood, Love and Duke Roger of Conte. She survived the Ordeal of Knighthood and learned to love. She fought many battles to save her friends, though it risked her own life. She also, in the forest, found a mysterious cat named Faithful to whom she could speak. He guided her till her final battle with the Duke and Sorcerer of Conte. She must reveal who she really is to everybody, and defeats the Sorcerer.

Relate Text to Self
In this part of the book when the sneezes hot her, five at once, blinding her momentarily, is like when my friend Emily dared me to smell a dandelion, and I sneezed really badly. I think when Alanna said “I am not afraid!” is like me when I’m stubborn. It was when I was bored of piano, and though I didn’t say the same words, I felt the same way. That’s reason why I didn’t like piano. I really can relate in this book.

Reflect
I wonder in the last book will Alanna survive? Will she go back to Tortall and become a Princess Knight? This book is so interesting that it almost seems it will never end (with the expectation of two other books). Maybe she will survive and live in the kingdom. Now I understand her spirit and caring for others. My friends, particularly Emily, may say it describes me. What a great book!

P.S. You should read the whole series.

Doris

Day 1 - Our Hotel and more...

We just got here, to our hotel. I took a bath and now I am at the desk working. Our hotel is comfort enough, after all that riding in the clouds. The living room has a sofa, two lamps, a huge foot rest and a carpet. The bedroom had two beds, an alarm clock, lights, a night table, a telephone and two lamps. It also has a huge pretty view of Orlando - wait, I have to brush my teeth - OK, I am back - Outside Hyatt Place, or where we are staying, there is a few palm trees, some cars and all that.

It really took us long to fly here. When I got into the airplane, I kept asking how long it'd take us to get here. After I stopped, the staff handed out drinks and snacks. It took us a really long time to get here from Buffalo, around two hours and thirty minutes. I could barely walk to our rental car after that. Can't wait till tomorrow - We're going to Disney World!

Michael Wade visit our class

About Michael Wade

Today Michael Wade came to our school to talk about himself and his books. He asked us what we thought an author actually looked like. We answered: an old man with glasses, brown hair, weak etc. Then he showed us some words he had learned with his Grade 1 teacher, and even though his grades were really below average, he became a writer anyway. He is also a prison guard full time. He later told us about some funny happenings, and had 4 people came up to the front to answer funny questions about their “dog” (later he changed it to “dad”, which made it really funny.)

Favorite and Funny Stuff

It was really funny after he changed the “dog” to “dad”, he read the answers again, and the end part said that their dad’s favorite place to go to the bathroom was the living room carpet!!! Then he read us a rough copy of an unfinished story about Gordon. Gordon plays a prank on the teachers on April Fools day, by pretending to spill his lunch but fails, because the teachers heard him. On the day of his plan, they do “mouth-to-mouth” to him and call an ambulance. The other one was a draft, in which Gordon plays a prank on the parents and teachers on a field trip. He wants to block the washroom so they can’t get in. Unfortunately for him, he ruins his cloth and has to change. So he buys a pair of sweat pants and it turns out to be a T-shirt, which was real bad – he already threw away the dirty stuff. In case you want to know more about the funny happenings, they are when Michael put a “Women” sign on the Men’s, and “Men” on Women’s; and when he put a “Speaker Broke, Please Shout” sign on the speaker of a brand new drive-thru.

What I learned

Michael Wade inspired me to be a writer because he said that no one has to be special to be a writer. I used to like writing stories, but they weren’t really funny. Now I know that if I think harder, I’ll be able to make my writing better, like what Michael Wade did with the dog stories. This was such a great presentation!

Hoover Dam

The structure I chose was Hoover Dam. A group of people from Six Companies, Inc. built Hoover Dam (also known as Boulder Dam).



They started to build it in 1931 and finished in 1935. They built Hoover Dam to generate hydroelectricity power to people, factories and others in the USA. It generates more than 4 billion kilowatt-hours a year, which is enough to serve 1.3 million people! The material used to build it was concrete. I remembered that it was man-made and its shapes were arches because it created compressive forces that travel along its walls. Hoover Dam is located on the border between Nevada and Arizona, where you can still see it today. It is 48 kilometers south east of Las Vegas. Herbert Hoover, who was later the president of the US, encouraged people to build Hoover Dam.