A few weeks ago Claire asked me if I would help her play a game. I was confused why she needed me to help her play a game but she actually needed my help to figure out a game. Claire helps Oliver (her friend whos in grade 1) with a teacher named Ms p. They play games together and there were a few games they couldn’t figure out. At lunch Claire and I worked together to figure out how to play. We figured out both games and it was really fun. I enjoyed helping them out and Ms p and Claire really appreciated me helping out.

The other day we were making a bibliography in noodletools for our african books. Vedanshi had never used noodletools before and didn’t have an account. When they said we were gonna use noodletools I asked if she wanted me to show her how to work it. She said “sure” so I moved and sat next to her. We made her an account and I showed her how to use it. She really appreciated the help and I was glad I got to help a new friend out.

Morris is a little boy who has a wide imagination and always wore a tangerine dress everyday written by Christine Bald. The theme of the book was to be yourself and not to listen to bullies who may bring you down. Morris has a pet cat named “Moo” and they go on adventures together. He dreams about space adventures and loves to paint beautiful pictures with him and Moo. He likes to sing the loudest in circle time but most of all he likes his Tangerine Dress. Morris’s classmates don’t like how he wears a dress everyday and bully him for that, they don’t let him on their space ship at snack and say that astronauts don’t wear dresses. One day morris feels an aching feeling and skips school for the day. Morris reads about elephants and puts puzzles together. Morris paints a beautiful picture with him and Moo riding an elephant. He goes back to school with his painting and makes his own spaceship and puts his painting on the front. The other kids liked his imagination and asked if they could join him on his adventure. I think the message that the author wanted the reader to come back with was having courage and to always be yourself. I loved the dreamy illustrations and I personally loved how the main character had a companion (his cat Moo).  It’s sweet and cute and I love the way they showed having courage and being yourself.

The other day we had an assignment to colour a map if africa online. We had to colour the map then save it as a Jpeg, for some people the save button wasn’t working. Claire, Elena, and Lucy b’s didn’t work and they didn’t have their maps because it got deleted. So I made a doc with my map and added them all so they could all use it as well. I felt useful and it felt nice to help my friends. I could tell Elena was stressing about it because she called my at 10:30 hoping I could give it to her. Claire was also stressing about it because hers kept deleting and she had a lot of other things to do. She said she was grateful and that made me feel good.

My first act of kindness was helping my mom and dad move some stuff into our new house in squamish. My mom has a bad shoulder so I helped carry some of the heavy stuff with my dad. I helped move some of the glasses onto the shelves my mom couldn’t reach because of her shoulder and unboxed the boxes that we moved in. I think she felt grateful she has my help and can count on me to do extra stuff. I enjoyed helping and it was exciting to move stuff into a new house.

“One” was written by Kathryn Otoshi about anti-bullying and standing up for yourself. The book was about the colour blue who was bullied by the colour red. Blue liked to play in the water, look at the sky, and when he was daring play in the puddles. Blue used to be jealous of all the colours and they would tell blue that he was an amazing colour just not in front of red. But when red is around he doesn’t feel so happy. Red always says “Red is hot, blue is not” and that makes blue feel small. Red grows bigger and all the colours feel small. One day the number 1 came and stood up to red. Everyone was amazed at how brave 1 was. Everyone agreed and turned into numbers. Then blue stood up to red and became 6. Red felt left out but Red could count too, he became 7. I thought this book was super cute and the lesson of the book with such a simple illustrations made it appealing.

Ivan the Shopping Mall Gorilla is a sad and emotional story story Written by Katherine Applegate and illustrated by G. Brian Karas. Ivan  was a gorilla that was taken away from his family to live with humans. Poachers took him and another gorilla that was a girl to Tacoma, but sadly just after the girl gorilla died and it was just Ivan.  Ivan was treated like a human, he ate like a human, went to movies, dressed in human clothes, held babies and even rid motorcycles. Ones he was 5 years old he was too big to live with humans, so he was moved into a glass cage for humans to look at him. After 27 years of living in the cage people realized it wasn’t right. He was taken to an area made for gorilla’s and lived there for the rest of his life. After he died in 2012 they held a big ceremony for his death and a ton of people came. The theme of the book was lonely and sad. The books message was saying you should have empathy for animals and to not take them from their family. It’s wrong for them to keep a living animal captured inside a cage for it whole life and eventually they realized it.  I thought it book was really sad but it was made to show people what is happening to animals and to aware people about this problem. Even though this book was sad I really enjoyed it and I loved the cute illustrations.

“Nerdy Birdy Tweets” written by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by Matt Davies is about a nerdy bird and a vulture who are good friends but totally opposite. Nerdy bird likes playing video games but vulture likes eating dead animals. One day Nerdy bird finds an app called “Tweetster” but vulture doesn’t like this app. In a week Nerdy bird has 500 friends and finds them more interesting to talk to instead of vulture. The next day vulture get “Tweester” and they talk and play together. Nerdy bird and vulture put the game away and at lunch they made silly faces and made fun of each others lunches. Nerdy bird takes of a picture of vulture that he thinks is funny and tweets it on “Tweetster”. After they get back on “Tweetster” vulture sees the picture nerdy birds posted and gets mad at him. Vulture found this  embarrassing so she spread her wings and flew away. Nerdy bird tries waiting for her for hours but Vulture never showed up. Then nerdy bird realized he has 500 “Tweetster” friends he’ll ask them for help. Nerdy bird waits, finally they answer but with no help. Nerdy birdy went looking for Vulture. Nerdy bird found Vulture in a tree and he apologizes for posting the photo. Nerdy bird say “You are worth 1000 Tweetster friends”. This book has a great message about being responsible online and respecting your friends. This book is a great way to show kids who are getting phones to be respectful and think about what they are posting online.

The book “What Do You Do With An Idea” written by Kobi Yamada and illustrated by Mae Besom. This book is about a boy with an idea that followed him around and showed him a new perspective. The boy had an idea but didn’t know what to do with it, so at first he kept it to himself. He thought that if he shared it with people they would thinks it weird and never think it would work. He tried to tell people but they said exactly what he thought they would say, so he tried to forget about it. He ignored it until he realized that it didn’t matter what they said. He wanted to make his idea come to life, so that’s what he did. He soon realized that his idea isn’t an idea anymore but something that everyone can enjoy and be around. The message to this book is learning that any idea can come alive and you don’t have to keep it to yourself. I loved this book it had such dreamy illustrations that would be great for a bedtime story. This book had a lot of metaphors that I really enjoyed and made it more childish but meaningful. I really connected with this book how he went through anxiety of thinking people would think it was a bad idea. I’m not as confident with most of my ideas but I can reflect on this book and learn to be more outgoing and less reserved.

“ChopSticks” is a book about a pair of chopsticks that are inseparable. They do everything together and had never done anything without each other until now. One day one of the chopsticks brakes while trying new tricks and had to be put make together. The chopstick had to rest but wanted the other chopstick to go out and try new things. The chopstick played soccer, tested food, played pick up sticks, was the poll high jump, and learn instruments. He goes back to the other chopstick and tell him all the fun things he did.  Being apart made them even more stronger and they found great new things they could do together like, drawing, painting, playing the drums, and being stilts. Everyone cheered for chopsticks to standing on their own and sticking together. The message of the book is that sometimes you have to spend some time apart from the people that are closest to you, so you can become even closer. Sometimes spending time away from someone can bring you even closer. I really loved the how the illustrations went well with the book and the story of had such a meaning full message.