Zan vs. Nim

We are finally done reading Half Brother, written by Kenneth Oppel. It took us 32 readings. Half Brother, I thought, was a pretty good book. I think that chimps and monkeys are so cute, so this book interested me. I would defiantly recommend this book to a friend, especially if they love chimps!

After reading the book Half Brother, we watched a documentary called Project Nim. Both of these were very similar but had some differences.

Both Half Brother and Project Nim were about an experiment of teaching chimps sign language. In both the book and documentary, both chimps learned a lot of signs, which I think is fascinating! In Project Nim, I found that a lot of the characters were similar. In Half Brother Peter is defiantly Bill in the documentary. In both, the chimps started off in a home with a family and bit people. Both Zan and Nim learned a lot of signs and they both had to go learn is some kind of room or chair that they did not like at all. Zan had to learn in a learning chair, which he hated. Nim had to learn in a room that had no windows or anything and he always wanted to get out. They both were taught to be like a human at the beginning and then were taught to be a chimp again. But there were a lot do differences.

In Project Nim, Nim liked to smoke and drink alcohol with the humans, in Half Brother Zan did not do any of those things. In Project Nim he lived with a mom, dad and many siblings. In Half Brother Zan had a mom, dad, but only one sibling. In Project Nim, Nim was a lot more mean to everyone; he bit a lot of people, even the people he really cared about. Although Zan did bit, he didn’t seem as mean as Nim did. Zan usually only bit the people he didn’t like. In the documentary they showed everything, including Nim going throught puberty. But in the book, the author didn’t tell us about any of that stuff.

Overall the book and the documentary were really interesting. I think the experiment that they did was really cool. I did not think of this experiment to be animal cruelty at all. But I would defiantly recommend the book and documentary  to my friends and family.

Thoughts on Meats and Leather

In our class and Mrs. Durnin’s class we have been reading a book called Half Brother, written by Kenneth Oppel. It is about a chimp learning sign language as an experiment. On the Idea Hive site Mrs. Dunin and Mr. Fisher wrote some questions about animal testing and stuff. They had us choose one question and do some thinking about it. I chose to answer, “Do you feel guilty about eating animals or wearing leather goods? Why or why not?”

I do not feel guilty for eating animals, mostly because I do not think about my meat being animals while I eat it. But if I do think about it being an animal, I do feel a little guilty. I do not ever go hunting because I don’t think I could do it. I would feel way to bad for hurting or killing an animal! But I am not against hunting, quite a few of my friend go hunting and I don’t really care if they do; unless I see the fur or something from the animals. I also feel really bad for all those animals killed in animal testing. But also I’m not so much against animal testing. Animal testing does help the health of us humans.

I am against wearing leather goods and fur. I think that there are other things to wear, that do not involve killing animals. Plus they are expensive, so why wear expensive leathers and furs that took an animals life? There are plenty of other types of clothing that you can wear, that do not involve animals. But if I ever see my friends wearing animal fur or leather, I would not say anything because if they like it then that’s alright. Everyone has their own opinion.

But there are  people that are the opposite as me, who feel that eating animals is completely bad and we should not do it. I know some people that are vegetarians and will not eat meat or even watch other people eat meat. Meat gives us protein, so it’s a little harder to get protein if you are  a vegetarian. Vegetarians eat nuts, soy, beans, tofu, and dairy products to get protein. But I can see how some people wouldn’t want to hurt animals, they are so cute!

On a scale of one to ten, I am a 5 on this issue. I can eat meat but I do feel a little guilty at times. I sometimes wear fur mukluk’s, but that is all the animal skins I wear. I do feel really bad for wearing animal furs but I do not wear a lot. What are your thoughts about eating animals and wearing animal furs? Comment below.

Finally Half Way

We just finished mid-terms, which means we are half way through the year. Then it will finally be summer. I can’t wait to go tubing, golfing and cruising in the Camaro. I also can’t wait to see my friends from out-of-town! It seems like it took forever to get here, compared to last year. Last year the entire year seemed to fly. On our first day back, of the half way point, Mr. Fisher had us to do some thinking about our exam and about goals and stuff.

At the beginning of the year Mr. Fisher had everyone write a letter to ourselves, that we would open in June. In that letter we set goals for ourselves for the school year, out of school and in our life. We did the same thing last year, and it was a lot of fun to see what we each wrote to ourselves.

One of my goals was to get over 80% on all my midterms. I think I did a good job at achieving my goal. I tried to study hard, and I think it paid off. On my math exam I got a 93%, 89% on my science, 91% on my social studies and 95% on my ELA. I was very pleased with my exam marks! What I did to achieve my goal of getting over 80%, is I started with organizing all my stuff, then I would read it all over. I made worksheets for myself, so I could quiz myself. My best friend Syd always makes little card with information that we need to know, and I also studied off those. I also studied with her a lot; we would go through our reviews and ask each other questions. I asked Mr. Fisher for some maps and blank worksheets that I could re-do to help me study. But there are a few things that I wish I would have done, and will try to do in future years.

I wish I would have started studying a little earlier. When I get into high school and take exams, I think this will help me learn more. I also want to try to study without getting distracted. Maybe I should try to study more by myself, and maybe I won’t get as distracted. I also made a mistake this year while studying. I looked at my review and saw one thing that I was positive wasn’t going to be on the exam, so I didn’t study it. But it was on the exam, so I lost 3 marks on that. So I want to make sure I study everything in future years. But hopefully I don’t have to start this until next year.

I don’t want to start this until next year because I’m hoping I don’t have to write finals. I’m hoping that I get full exemptions! If I don’t have to write my finals I will be sleeping in, go swimming, chill with my other friends that got exemptions and more. I can’t wait until June, last month of school!

Mr. Fisher had us write a six word story about the year so far, since we are at the half way point. I wrote, “The school year should hurry up!” I wrote this because this school  year seems to drag on. I think it is because last year I was in a class with most of my friends, and it was really fun. So this year should hurry up, then I will be in high school finally!

Chimps Chimps Chimps

My class, and the class from Wingham have been working together in small groups. We all had a topic to research about the book Half Brother. Half Brother is a book written by Kenneth Oppel. Which we will be starting to read real soon. My group had to research chimps.

I liked learning about chimps, I learned a lot of interesting facts about chimps that I never knew before. One of the most interesting fact was that there are only about 12 000 chimps left in the world. The population of chimps has increased by 4 000 very recently! Also that chimps were created about  4-8 million years ago! Now chimps are located mostly around the central part of Africa.

Chimps mostly eat plant foods, like fruit, seeds, nuts, leaves and flowers. When they eat it is really messy, they shove food in their mouth, and only about half will actually go in. Did you know that chimps are the closest relatives to us humans? This is true, and I thought that was pretty interesting.

I found chimps a very interesting subject to research. I found some pretty interesting facts about them. Now that we have finished giving our presentations, I can’t wait to start the book. I don’t really have any predictions on what is going to happen in the book, Half Brother. But I can’t wait to start it!

 

Working with Wingham

We have been working with Wingham over the past weeks. We have been put into groups of four to complete a task. We are going to be reading the book Half Brother soon. So we are researching some of the thing that are going to be in it. Like poaching, chimps, life in the 70’s, animal research, animal cruelty evolution and sign language. My group had to research chimps, what they are like and anything about them.

We started with working on Google Docs. Google Docs is very cool because no matter how far away you are, its just like working together in one classroom. There is a chat room, plus the doc itself. When we were working in the doc, it was very organized and easy to do. We made questions about chimps in the document, then turned them into headlines after we answered them. My group worked really well in the doc, we all got along with no arguments. Once we were done finding information, it was off to Google Presentations.

Google Presentations was updated while we were working on our presentations. But since my groups was almost done all of our slides, we did not update ours. The old version (which we used) did not have a chat room in the presentation. So we just used the chat room in our doc. Working on the presentation was a little more difficult. My group members and I all had a tough time deciding how to organize the slides, and who was doing what. At first the kids in Wingham did not like the picture to fill up the full slide. But near the end, we all agreed that making the picture the full slide looked the best. Now that we are done making our presentation, we are ready to give the presentation.

I am kind of nervous to give our presentation, I’m not a big fan of getting up in front of two big classes. But since Kassie will be getting up to give it with me, makes me feel not so nervous. I think my group will do a great job on giving the presentation, we have nice slides and good information. Good job Shelby, Preston and Kassie, we did a fabulous job!

Finding Similarities and Differences

All the kids in the idea hive classroom took a survey. The survey was about us, so that we could all get to know each other better. Now that we have finished the survey, we have all looked at the results and now we have to answer some questions about it.

One thing that we all have in common is, we all brush our teeth. There wasn’t an answer that we all answered the same.

Something I have in common with most is, most of the people have there favourite website as Facebook. The people who’s favourite website is Facebook are Savannah, Karidrap, CassAdam, Melimast, Logaheme, DylanW, AlysHuff, Isaac, Tannmcar, Tannlewi, Dylasche, Justschi, Tegagric, Cassidy, Syd, Juli, Katelyn, Kassie, Logan, Mercedes, Madisyn and Chantal.

Something I have in common with only a few people is, having a family guy as my favourite t.v. show. The people I have this in common with are Willpark, Tannmcar, Kelly, Jordan and Lyndon.

Something that is unique about me is, I’m the only one who has a nickname as Joannie. I am also the only one who wants to be a helicopter pilot.

The person that I think is the most like me is AlysHuff  because we both have dogs, we both like pretty little liars (sorry forgot to put it down as my favourite show!) , we both want to go to Mexico, we both like watching hockey, we both brush our teeth at least twice a day, and love Facebook.

My question that I still wonder is, do you guys go snowmobiling in Wingham a lot?

Summer Fun!

My passion would have to be anything to do in the summer. I love to tube, which I did a lot of this summer. I went tubing a lot with my friends and sister. My sister bought a Nikon D3100 this summer, so we took a lot of amazing pictures of tubing. Some of the pictures we  took look crazy! Tubing is so much fun, because it’s scary.

Another thing I like to do, which is in the summer is swim. I love to go swimming with my friends and cousins. I went swimming a lot when my cousins were here from Newfoundland. I also did a lot of swimming when my friends from out of town were in. I like swimming because it is refreshing, and it’s exercise. I especially like swimming in my backyard. My backyard, is the lake, its pretty cool! So when I get cold from the lake, I just run up the small hill, and go into my hot tub. My hot tub is outside, just off the deck. 

Another thing I like to do in the summer is go fishing at Burntwood. Burntwood is my families lodge. My sister, Jamie, went out there this summer and worked there. So while she was out there my cousins and I went out there and visited her. It takes about 20 minutes to get out there by plane or helicopter.

I also like to play sports in the summer, like volleyball. This summer I played volleyball with my friends in my backyard, which was lots of fun. We also jumped on the trampoline a lot! I also went in our paddle boat with Shelby, Brady, Nicholas, Logan and my sister a lot! It was so much fun swimming off of it.

I love summer, and all the thing to do in the summer. I also like winter, but I like summer is better!  

Hello Again

     Hello again, it’s my second year of writing on my blog.  As you already know, my name is Joan. I live in a little town in Manitoba Canada. Now I’m in grade eight, and it is a lot different because we are in a different classroom, and a different hallway. This year it going to be interesting, but I can’t wait till next year!

     After school I like to go golfing with my friends, and triple on Syd’s bike. By triple on Syd’s bike I mean, my sister, Syd and me all ride on  Syd’s bike. It’s lots of fun! I love playing Call of Duty, I can’t wait for MW3! My favourite colour is purple and lime green. My favourite book is The Last Song. My two favourite sports are golfing and hockey. My favourite t.v shows are Pretty Little Liars, Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, Degrassi, American Dad and The Ellen Degeneres Show. My friends that I hang out with are Syd, Brady, Austin, Logan, Cole, Kade, Riley and Jordan. I love summer and winter, but I’m not a fan of fall or spring!

     Looking forward to another exciting year in Mr. Fisher’s class. I am also looking forward to working with the class in Wingham again!

The End of The Wave

These chapters are very interesting, more action than any other chapters. As I said last time, the chapters just keep getting better.

At the beginning of these chapters, Laurie went to the football game. She wanted to go up, higher in the stands. But she had to give The Wave salute or she wasn’t allowed to go up. Brad was the one who won’t let her go by. But Laurie wouldn’t give the salute.

Laurie had the meeting at her house, and of course, not  all of the members of the paper came. They wrote about The Wave, and how it was bad to be a member. Laurie showed Amy the paper, and she didn’t like it at all. Never have the school paper been scooped up so fast. Amy thinks that Laurie doesn’t like The Wave because she is not the only smart, popular one.

A bunch of Wave members from Mr. Ross’s class were talking and they want Laurie to stop writing bad things about The Wave. So Brian told David to go and talk to Laurie after school.

When Christy got home from school, she had to talk to Ben. She really wanted Ben to stop The Wave. Ben told Christy he will, but he needs them to learn a lesson first, so he needs some time. Back at the school, The Grapevine staff was having a party to celebrate the successful issue about The Wave. Laurie was the one who had to clean up after. When she was done, she went to her locker and one it was the word enemy, she turned around and started for the door. She her footsteps getting faster so she ran out the doors and as far as she could.

David and Brian were waiting for her to walk by, so David could talk to her. Laurie didn’t want to talk to him, which was making him mad. So he threw Laurie to the ground, but with the intention of The Wave. He was sorry the second he did it.

Laurie and David then showed up (late) at Ben’s house. They too told him he needed to stop The Wave. Mr. Ross wanted to know 2 students that were never part of The Wave, with that, Mr. Ross told them that no one could know that they were here. Then the students left.

The next day at school, Laurie and David interrupted the class, so they had to go to the office. Mr. Ross told the class, there would be a rally for Wave members only. Laurie and David both didn’t want to go. So they left school to go to the park, but when they were there, Laurie realized that they needed to go back.

At first Laurie and David couldn’t get in, but finally they got in. Just in time to hear what Mr. Ross had to say. Mr. Ross said the leader was Hitler. The lesson was that bad history can happen again, it was close to happening. Mr. Ross said he was sorry that it went so far, but he hopes it was a well learned lesson. Everyone left, but there was still Robert there, and he was sad. Mr. Ross then asked Robert to go get a bite to eat. Robert was changed from The Wave, and for the good.

There was one good thing about The Wave. It changed Robert and that was a good thing. He had a social life before, that he didn’t have before. The Wave was a terrible place, it was bad to be a member (in the end). But not for Robert, that is where he made friends, he felt like someone when he was in The Wave. Mr. Ross always seemed to have faith in Robert, even when he was weird. Like at the beginning of the book, Mr. Ross told Robert that no one expected him to be like his brother. It just seemed that throughout the book, Mr. Ross’s favourite student was Robert, even if he didn’t do good in his class.

At the beginning of the book, I thought it was going to be about the Nazis. But then in the middle I thought it wasn’t going to be about the Nazis. In the end, my prediction was right! But that was pretty much the only prediction that came true out of all of my predictions. I thought that Mr. Ross would lose his job, he didn’t, but he was sure close to it. Principal Owens was pretty mad at Mr. Ross about all of the complaints. I was pretty surprised that he didn’t lose his job.

It was very interesting how Mr. Ross ended The Wave. I thought Mr. Ross was just going to tell all of the students on the intercom, that The Wave is over. Throughout the book, I didn’t think Mr. Ross knew what he was doing. But he did in the end, it was a well learned lesson for the students. I thought he was like the bad guy in the book, but he turned out to be prettygood. When Mr. Ross told the members that the leader was Hitler. I wonder what they thought at that moment? I think they would seem very confused. 

This was a very interesting book. One of the most interesting part of this book, is that it was based on a true story. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a short and interesting book.

The Wave- The Experiment That Went Too Far

In this set of reading, it really shows the classroom experiment that went too far (like on the cover).

In these chapters, Ben thought about expansion of The Wave. The Wave is not only in the senior history class, it has expanded around the school. Ben thinks it is interesting that his experiment could help the football team to win.

Mrs. Saunders is worried about Laurie taking The Wave too seriously. But Laurie keeps on tell her mom that she isn’t, but her mom is still worried.

In these chapters we meet the principal of the school, Principal Owens. He wanted to talk to Ben about The Wave. When Ben was walking to the principal’s office, there was students putting up posters and saluting to him. Owens doesn’t really know if The Wave is such a good idea. But mostly, he just doesn’t want any complaints.  On his way back, Robert was following him. Robert wanted to make sure that ‘the leader’ of The Wave was safe. Robert is now Ben’s bodyguard.

While Laurie was sitting in the publications office, a white envelope was on the floor. She opened it and inside was a note from a junior. There wasn’t a name on it anywhere. Laurie read the note, it was about a junior who wasn’t a member of The Wave. A senior tried to pressure him/her into joining like the rest of his friends. On the note he/she said, that the senior said to him, if he doesn’t join then he would be too late. The person wanted to know, “Too late for what?”

At the end of these chapters Laurie seen Brian and another boy fighting, they were punching each other. David told Laurie that he was Deutsch. He wasn’t a member of The Wave and he wanted to take Brian’s position as the quarterback. Laurie and David then started fighting about The Wave and David told Laurie to go find a new boyfriend.

Laurie, Alex and Carl are going to have a non Wave member meeting at Laurie’s house on Sunday at two o’clock. When Laurie went home her dad came into her room and told her that some kids were beating up a Jewish kid. Laurie told her dad that The Wave was not ment to be like the Nazis.

Last week my prediction was that Laurie and David would break up, and they did. I thought that they would break up because David it taking The Wave way more serious than it should be taking. Laurie told her mom that she doesn’t take The Wave seriously, which I think, is a good thing. The hint that made me wonder if they would stay together was, David didn’t come over to study like he usually does. I think it is a good thing that Laurie and David broke up because it seems that David always seemed more into football and The Wave than into her.

My predictions for the next set of chapters are that Mr. Ross will lose his job. I think that there will be a bunch of parent that come and complain about The Wave. In this set of chapters, Principal Owens made it clear that he didn’t want any complaints. So if parents come to complain about The Wave, Owens will get mad and Mr. Ross will lose his job.

I also predict that the junior who wrote Laurie that not in the envelope will show up at Laurie’s house for the meeting. During the time that Laurie, Alex and Carl were making the plans for the meeting, the Wave-rally (pep-rally) was going on. Since this junior isn’t a member, he/she probably didn’t go. So he could have been listening to them talk. It’s a book, anything can happen.

As we read each set of chapters, they just keep getting more and more interesting.