I can’t believe the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup! Last night I was at my friend’s house for a sleepover and we watched the game. I can tell you the whole story. The Blackhawks were down 2-1. Bryan Bickell was making a drive. He shot the puck and he scored against Tuukka Rask of the Bruins. Desperately, the Bruins tried to score another goal to make it 3-2 but Bolland scored a goal to make it 3-2 Blackhawks. Once Bolland scored my friend and I were screaming and hugging each other. And then there were 58 seconds left on the clock. Once there was 7 seconds left, my friend and I counted down to one.
I wrote a spelling story and I had to use six adverbs and eight spelling words. This story is realistic fiction.
A Trip to the Zoo
When Ben woke up the next morning he remembered how much fun he had going to the zoo. Yesterday, when Ben was handing in his math homework, his teacher announced that they would be going on a field trip to Lincoln Park Zoo.
After the announcement, everyone in the room went bezerkers. Anna Hallway started screaming at the top of her lungs, Jeremy Bonjo started dancing, and Julia Vero (well you get the point). Everyone except Ben. Ben thought it was a little over the top because all it is is just going to see animals (geez).
2 hours later, Ben stepped on the bus that smelled suspiciously like smoke, (blame the bus driver) and headed off to the zoo. Ben brought a notebook and pencils because his teacher told them they would be taking notes on the animals we saw.
But when they reached their final destination it was much larger than Ben had expected. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad he thought. The first animal they saw was the monkeys. They swung from branch to branch enthusiastically. Ben thought they were funny. The second animal they saw were the seals. His mom had given him 2 dollars to spend and he used those 2 dollars to buy fish for the seals. He threw the fish into the air and the seals caught the fish in their mouths and quickly ate them. Third they saw pandas. A sign told them that these were some of the only pandas on earth. One panda slowly lumbered over to some bamboo and gnawed on it.
Fourth, we saw some giraffes. Ben got to touch them. Two kids fought over whether or not they should feed a giraffe a sausage. The giraffe awkwardly walked over to a tree and munched on the leaves. Last, they saw a snake. He was a diamond back rattle snake. He could snatch up a rat so fast you would miss it if you blinked. You had to keep him inside his cage because he was poisonous.
So at breakfast Ben’s mom said, “What did you do yesterday?” And Ben told her about how he went on a field trip and all of that. Though he didn’t tell her about him not wanting to go to the zoo because she was zoologist.
I went to the art museum for a field trip last week. I saw one of my favorite paintings, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, by Georges Seurat. I also learned that one of the paintings was the biggest painting in the museum and it was also painted by one of the students that went to the Art Institute school, Georgia O’Keefe. It was called Sky Above Clouds IV. She had to paint it in her garage while laying down to get the bottom parts. I couldn’t show you the pictures because they are copyrighted but you can click on the links to see them. She must have had a really big garage because if I remember correctly the painting was 24 feet wide and 6 feet tall.
We had a tour at the Art Institute and the first painting we saw was of Hercules fighting the Hydra by Gustave Moreau. Click here to see the painting: Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra. I think you know what’s coming up – another Greek mythology story. Yeah I know they are boring to listen to but you might learn something so I’m going to tell you the story anyway. So one day Hercules was sent out to slay the Hydra. And on his way he was trying to think of a way to defeat him. But here’s the catch. Every time you slice off a Hydra head (he has seven) two new heads sprout from the old neck. So he couldn’t just slice off all the heads. If he did that he would have 14 heads to deal with. He thought he would shoot a head off with his arrow but then he would have the same result. But before he could think of his plan he got to the Hydra’s lair and he didn’t have time to think of the plan. But as he was fighting he noticed the sun coming up and the sun god, Apollo, was his cousin. So he asked his cousin to set each neck on fire every time he sliced a head off so no new heads could grow out of that neck. And his plan worked. And they all lived happily ever after.
See what I mean? It’s boring. But it teaches you a lesson. Always think before you act.
Field Trip #2
Tomorrow I am going on another field trip to the Adler Planetarium and I had two field trips two weeks in a row.
I’m going to tell you how that happened. So my teacher was planning to watch a show at the planetarium in November but then she was informed that you can go watch a free show at the planetarium in the winter months so she moved it to February. But then another teacher offered her to go on another field trip to the Art Institute but I don’t think she told her the date until the week before so she had already got everything organized and she couldn’t do anything about it so we just had two field trips in a row.
Questions for my readers
If you have ever been to the Art Institute please let me know what your favorite painting was (or statue or sculpture, etc.)
Who is your favorite artist? Answer the poll below:
I went to this awesome place called Brickworld for Father’s Day. It was in Wheaton, IL. We surprised my Dad for Father’s Day! The picture above shows one of my favorite creations.
You can see a guided tour here:
My dad knocked down some guys in the medieval castle. He tried to fix it but he couldn’t. So much for the lego master builder! My dad just said, “So much for your Minecraft privileges!” See my post about Minecraft for Dummies if you don’t know what Minecraft is.
We saw this lego creation that was a copy of Escher’s Relativity. I liked the Luke Skywalker with Darth Vader in the right hand corner.
My mom really liked the Alice in Wonderland creations.
The 2013 Brickworld Chicago Event will be held at the Renaissance Hotel & Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL on June 15 and 16. You can read more here: http://www.brickworld.us/
On December 8, 2012 I went to a performance for kids at Symphony Hall in downtown Chicago. The title of the performance was It’s Time to Play.
It was different from other concerts because Edwin Outwater, the conductor, talked to us about the music he was conducting instead of just playing the music.
My favorite piece was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Mvt. 1. I liked it because I’ve heard it before and the conductor said that you should picture a stormy night sky in your head because that is what Beethoven is intending to do. One of the things that the conductor talked to the audience about it that Beethoven wanted to make his music suspencful so that audience would be like, “I wonder what is going to happen next?”
You can listen to this piece here (this is a different orchestra playing the song):
Also, there were members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing the instruments and they had a lot of instruments. Some of the instruments were oboes, trombones, bassoons, timpani, violins, violas, cellos, french horns, tubas, and a computer. In the last piece called Mothership by Mason Bates there was a computer that made sound effects and each key had a different sound effect on the computer.
I think that they did this performance to entertain and inform. I think that they wrote this to inform because the conductor he told us what the composers meant for us to think while the music was playing in your head. Like in one of the pieces Beethoven wanted you to think of a thunder storm at night. Charles Ives wanted to make you laugh when you heard his Symphony No. 2, Mvt. 4. It was entertaining because in the piece that Charles Ives wrote he would take a wrong note and stick it at the end of the song and it wouldn’t sound right. Before the performance the conductor asked us to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat and then make the most obnoxious sound at the last note. It was really funny.
Some of the other pieces that they played that I didn’t tell you about in the other paragraphs were Symphony No. 6, Mvt. 1 by Franz Joseph Haydn and Symphony No. 94 (Surprise), Mvt. 2 by Franz Joseph Haydn also. There was also Symphony No. 4, Mvt. 4 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and also Symphony No. 9, Mvt. 3 by Antonin Dvorak. And the last one was Symphony No. 6, Mvt. 4 by Ludwig van Beethoven.
If you have a child I would recommend going to this next concert that they have on Friday, May 3, 2013 at 10:15am and 12:00pm. It is called Get Up and Dance. They also have another performance on March 15, 2013 at 10:15am and 12:00pm called Now Let’s Sing. I would recommend you take your child because the conductor talks to you instead of just playing the music. If he just played the music you wouldn’t know what was going on. This is the website to find out information http://cso.org/Institute/ChildrenAndFamilies/FamilyMatinee.aspx
IMHO...thoughts from a Windy City kid 
