Room 229

I have some awesome study habits for middle school (we’re going there next year) and I would like to share them to the world!

1. Study buddy (sometimes it helps to have someone to motivate you)
2. Notes (take them in class on an assignment  and use them to help impress your teachers)
3. Brain food (popcorn,fruit,cereal)
4. Calender (write dates when things are due and when you think you should do them)
5. Day early (if you have a big assignment them make sure your done a day early to be prepared)
6. Post-its (in your text book put post-its where there is a key point or you have trouble remembering something)
7. Be organized (pencil case, backpack, and locker not too messy)
8. exercise (after half an hour of studying  go outside and stretch your legs)
9. communication (if your having trouble call a friend to ask what they think. or use number 1.)
10. Computer (have a computer handy to search on google about something you don’t understand)

I hope these will help you later in life.                

Image source

Brine Shrimp experiment

This experiment was my favorite because we actually got to raise Brine Shrimp! A lot of them died (I don’t think ANY survived at all!) So we only got to see baby brine shrimp. In this experiment we wanted to find out the tolerance that brine shrimp had for salt. We set up four cups with bottled water, one with no salt (0 spoons), one with 2 spoons of salt, 4 spoons and 6 spoons of salt. We waited a couple of days to see how many hatched in each container. Here are our results: None hatched in 0 spoons some hatched in 2 spoons, most hatched in 4 spoons and none hatched in 6 spoons. So we figured out that the tolerance that Brine Shrimp is 2 spoons of salt to 4 spoons of salt in a container with 50mls of water.

I hope that this post helps you to understand what we have been learning in science!!

BY Tasha

Click here to buy your own Brine shrimp also known as Sea Monkeys

Brine Shrimp eggs (magnified60x) Adult Brine Shrimp (magnified30x)

Ten things to do when it’s summer and you’re bored

1. Set up a camp in your house or backyard- Just get a tent and set it up. Don’t own a tent? No sweat. Just use a blanket and some chairs!

2. Make a board game. All you need is paper (and a brain!)

3. Try to teach yourself to do a handstand, Cartwheel, or round off.

4. Try to come up with your own evil laugh (mua-ha-ha)

5. Make a wish list e.g. what I want for my birthday/Christmas: Green Backpack, Nintendo DS, Laptop and new phone.

6. Design your dream house (just draw!)

7. READ OUR BLOG!

8. Try to teach yourself to do the splits (warm up first!)

9. Make up a dance to a song

10. make up a skit

Hope these come in handy!

All is fair when love is war

“What a terrible woman,” I said to myself that night when he came. I was reading “Cinderella”. It sounds babyish but the book is more advanced than the movie. Stepparents were something I never want. It’s just me and Sarah, Sarah and me. Sarah says she was young and careless and fell in love with a terrible man her life had been miserable since she started living with him, he hit her and made Sarah do all the work, Sarah left him after a few months deciding to never look back, but then nine months later something happened that made Sarah have to look back, she had me… Sarah had promised that we would have the perfect family with or without men. I didn’t want another dad he could be worse than the first one. Sarah was enough, but unfortunately Sarah was really pretty, she had long blonde straitened hair, blue sparkling eyes and she was fit and healthy, on top of all of that she was a beautiful fashionable girly-girl. I had normal brown shoulder-length hair and I was short and skinny, nothing special. I am a tomboy as in I play with boys and I play soccer all the time, and i usually wear t-shirt shorts and converse. BAM!! The door opened, Sarah and this man waltzed in to my room. “ Kate this is Jack he and I have been dating for 6 months now”. I looked at Jack he was wearing a light blue shirt with jeans and a white leather jacket, he had long (for a boy) hair that went to about the middle of his neck he had green eyes, he was tan but Sarah was tanner. I blinked back in to focus. “Bye Jack” Sarah said, had I really been looking at him and thinking for that long? He kissed Sarah and left. ”Oh Kate, I do love him isn’t he dreamy”. Then it hit me, he was gorgeous he had to have girls prettier that Sarah drooling all over him (though it was hard to imagine someone prettier than Sarah). He must be cheating on her! It was never gonna last. Or so I thought…

One week later… I made myself a PB and J then sat down to some Saturday night cartoons. The door creaked. Creepy. SURPRISE!” I screamed so loud that I went flying of the chair. My PB and J went flying and landed open on my face. “What?!” I said franticly. I thought my heart had stopped beating. “Jack and I are getting MARRIED!” Now I was sure my heart had stopped beating. I just sat there dazed not sure what to think, all I knew was that I needed a plan, a plan to BREAK UP JACK AND SARAH! That same night I sat at my desk in my bedroom scrunched up paper everywhere. They loved each other too much. I had to break them up but how? I wrote and wrote but nothing clicked. After like an hour of writing I gave up nothing would break them up then it came to me. But first I had to convince Daniel, he wasn’t very enthusiastic but after a payment of six packs of gummy worms and an agreement to clean his room I finally got him to crack.

“Daniel lets go!” I hollered at his door he rushed down stairs and said “ ok, ok I’m here so exactly what are we gonna do again?” “I told you like a gazillion times already lets go!” We started on our bikes. We arrive exactly on time. I rang the door bell (Daniel was to chicken) Jack answered the door like eight seconds after I rang it. Almost like he was expecting me.. “Why Hello Kate, my daughter to be!” He was crossing the line there, his voice was sickly sweet, it made me wanna hurl. “Hi I was just wanted to know if you wanted to go on a walk with me and Daniel?” “Daniel and I” he corrected me. I hated that. We walked to my house then around the corner. I walked slowly by the window until right on cue she hugged him and a kiss, EW! “Who is that?” asked Jack, “One of mums lowlifes” I said Jack just stood there his face as a mix of anger, jealousy, hurt and betrayal, that look killed me. My insides started to melt as the guilt train made it’s way through my stomach. What had I done? who had I become, a liar, a spoiled brat, a future destroyer. What could I do now?

“Um, Sarah” I said though it was almost a whisper “yeah” she said through sobs. “Jack isn’t a liar. “What do you mean, do you think I cheated on him?!” “No but I tricked him into thinking you did” “what I don’t understand, why would you do this? You were such a good kid” Sarah stumbled through tears, “I hated him, I wanted you all to myself, I was a terrible person not thinking about anyone else’s feelings, I’m so sorry” “I’m glad you owned up but I don’t know what to do know”. I had already called Jack and told him everything. “Jack is already on his way” I told her. “O.K” she said but she didn’t sound better then when I came in to the room. When he arrived they talked but I didn’t eavesdrop I felt too terrible to be a spy today. They talked I sat on my bed feeling awful, then Jack came into my room he said it was right of me tell the truth but what I did was wrong. But I wasn’t really listening I wanted to know how Sarah was, if they had gotten back together. “Jack” I said “is everything gonna be ok between you Sarah, is she ok?” “She’s mad at me for thinking the worst and wants to talk t you abut it”. I gulped. Poop. That’s not gonna be fun. Jack left and I knew had to go and talk to Sarah sooner or later.

I looked at him, my soon to be dad. It wasn’t just going to be Sarah and me anymore. It was going to be Sarah, Jack and Me, Kate Ellena Jones, (soon to be Kate Ellena Tyler). Yeah that was it my soon to be family. I can’t wait till I don’t have to say, “soon to be” anymore.

By Tasha Williams

When you’re reading historical fiction sometimes you get confused with what’s happening in the story .To help understand the book I have 2 historical fiction strategies (1) Think about what you already know about this time period to help you make sense of the story (2) examine the main character and think, at that time how would I feel.

For this strategy I am going to use a book called “A Single Shard” in the book a young boy called Tree-ear wants to become a potter but can’t because the potter trade goes from father to son (Tree-ear is an orphan). I tried to build the world around me by thinking about what life was like on ancient Korea (that is where the story was set) I knew that money was much more of an issue and people lived on poor conditions like no water no warm clothes and being forced to live in places like under a bridge, in old abandoned temples and sometimes garbage bins!! See what I mean, just think about what you already know about that time period and BAM!!! Now you know something to help you understand the book.

For this strategy I will use book called “Esperanza Rising” In this book a tragedy shatters her world and forces Esperanza to move from Mexico to America. If you were her what would you do? I said I would really hate the world and wonder why it hated me so much. Then I think what would I think now I would talk to someone about it so that I wouldn’t have to another place where I didn’t even speak English and that was the main language but now when I think about it I have no dead relatives but I do live in a country which does not have the same language as me.

I hope these strategies will help you. bye!

Hello everyone,

After some unfortunate delays, we now have the next two installments of Room 229’s Historical Fiction Podcast Series available on iTunes.

Tamara, Emma, Karis and Juliana refer to Goldstone, and teach about building the world of the story in your mind.

Tasha, Helen, and Sophie refer to Esperanza Rising, and teach about walking in the main character’s shoes.

Goldstone Source Esperanza Rising Source

A lot of people asked me questions about Doctor Who because i talk about him a lot in my posts!

It is about an alien called a Time Lord who’s name is the Doctor. The title is Doctor Who because, when people ask what his name is he says “the Doctor” so then the person says “Doctor Who?”. He looks like a human but has 2 hearts and can read peoples minds by touching their heads. He travels in a space ship called the TARDIS it looks like a police box because one day when he was traveling his camouflage tool got stuck when he was in the 1960’s and it was disguised as a police box. The TARDIS travels through time and space.

I hope I have answered some of your questions but if you have anymore ask me at school or comment to this post!

E6dJ7F5HNSEP7/dr_who.jpg and http://doctorwhocollector.com/images/Doctor-Who-Brochure.jpg

I finished this great book a while ago and absolutely loved it. I couldn’t stop reading it!!

(it is a loooooong book so read it over a school break or holiday!!!)

It takes place in China Han dynasty a young slave girl without a name struggles for survival. She meets a dragon named Long Danzi and must travel with him and his stone….. Read it to find out more!!

Dragonkeeper by Carole Wilkinson

https://www.novelaction.com/system/data/bookimages/8275/wilkinson.jpg

Captain Cook is an important explorer

I am an Australian girl who goes to an American school. At my school we always study Northern American discoveries but there are other continents like for example Australia. Beautiful beaches awesome city’s, none of this could be possible if I wasn’t for this guy… Captain James Cook. He is (to me) an extremely important explorer, because he never gave up, he made Australia what it is today, and gave us so much knowledge about that part of the world.

Captain James Cook never gave up for example he (as a child) had seen so many explorers go out and never come back but still he went out on 3 journeys knowing what he knew. On his first exploration he got very sick but he did not make the sailors go back to England instead he ate sea greens (starfish, seaweed and coral). One of the reasons he is one of the best Captains is because he did, ate and even said any thing that the crew had to.

Captain Cook gave us a lot of knowledge about the eastern bottom part of the world by mapping it. For example for his first journey he went from England around the cost of South America, straight through the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand around Australia and back to England. He mapped it all and it took him over 3 years to do so

Another reason Captain Cook is important (to me) is that he made Australia what it is today. If he hadn’t explored Australian people could be speaking French, Spanish or even Portages. Australia would not be multicultural country; Sydney could still be a forest instead of one of the nicest cities in the world. Captain Cook brought convicts to Australia and that’s why we are western looking not Asian or African. Captain Cook also decided a lot of names in Australia and New Zealand, for example Cook Bay could be called Balboa Bay, Magellan Bay or even Desoto Bay.

Captain Cook is my favorite explorer, because he never gave up, he made Australia what it is today and gave us a lot of knowledge about that part of the world.

By Tasha

Hi It’s Sophie, Tamara, and Tasha!

Here are our Strategies for reading non-fiction reading:

If I were you and you were reading a non-fiction picture book, I would read the text and look at the picture back and forth. You should do this strategy as soon as you see a picture on the page you are reading. If you forget what the picture is about, then you can use this strategy. Also, to help understand the text (or for example if your reading a book about animals and you don’t know or understand what the text is taking about) you may use this strategy.

Another strategy is to read a little, write down the main idea of that part and then scan over the main idea at the end. To use this strategy you can write the main idea on a sticky post-it or on any scrap piece of paper. You use this strategy after you read a page. This strategy is helpful because you can know what the page was all about.

The last strategy we have for you today is right after you flip the page look at the photograph and read the caption before reading the text to have an idea of what the topic is about. (Only if your photo has a caption.)

I hope you find these strategies are helpful !!

Bye!