PJCH -- Blogmeister

Christopher Columbus is famous for trying to get to India but finding America instead. He brought the Europeans to America and that's how we are here now and that's why we celebrate Columbus Day. Columbus Day was first celebrated in New York in the year of 1792. It was later declared a federal holiday when school would close, and businesses would close for the day. Then people started to argue if we should still celebrate this holiday and if it should be a federal holiday. In recent years it has become a large debate and I believe that we should not celebrate this holiday or not have it as a federal holiday.

One of the biggest reason why we shouldn't celebrate this holiday is because when Christopher Columbus got here he was greeted by many natives offering him gifts and looked up to him as there white god and slaughtered around ten thousand of them. Christopher Columbus did not kill all of them personally but he allowed the Natives to be murdered by his men and himself. He also forced them to work in gold mines day and night until they died for there own profit. If they declined to work in gold mines or ran away they would either be hunted down and killed or they would be taken away from there family if there family isn't dead already and sell them as slaves. The natives had there own religion with there own god and there own myths and legends and believed in there land but the Europeans came and made them stop believing there religion and took down there land and forced them to believe in what they had to believe in. Also, Christopher Columbus never actually "discovered" America because the vikings had already came and went and there was already people living in America.

Christopher Columbus definitely does not deserve a holiday because of all the crimes that he committed. If people still want to celebrate the death and slavery of the natives then they should, but I don't think it's worthy of a federal holiday and we shouldn't have businesses and schools close. I believe a lot of kids don't know what there celebrating and we should be teaching them everything about Columbus day and not just about the discovery of America and all the good things about the situation. Christopher Columbus is not worthy of his own holiday.

Summer Reading List

The Lightning Thief Rick Riordan Teen Fiction
Freak The Mighty Rodman Philbrick Teen Fiction
Max The Mighty
Rodman Philbrick Teen Fiction
I, Freddy Dietlof Reiche Teen Fiction
Storm Breaker Anthony Horowitx Teen Fiction

Bridges

There are many types of bridges in our world. Some have more importance than others but there all related. Some are completely different like bridge jumping and making connections but one bridge that speaks to me would have to be a bridge on a guitar because I am a guitarist and without a bridge I wouldn't be a guitarist.

If you're looking at a guitar, the bridge would be right below of the pickups. The bridge holds the strings and the strings go from the tuning pegs down the neck and the body and connects to the bridge. It holds the strings tight to make it a high sound if you turn the tuning knobs. The bridge holds the string by going under the bridge and through a hole and kept in place by a little clamp that connects the bridge and the string. If you are playing guitar and it's too high pitched and you hit the string hard enough, the string will break and you have to take it out of the bridge and replace it for a new one. There's better bridges you can get that look better or have better quality.

Without a bridge there would be no guitar and no way to keep the strings in place. Without that, there would be no guitar in music which makes a large amount of the music in songs. I enjoy playing guitar and the bridge is a part of the guitar and the guitar is a part of music and music is my life.

The Higgins Armory Museum was founded by Mr.Higgins in the 1930's. It was his collection of ancient armor from the 1300's to the 1700's. The museum contains many interesting facts, armor, and weapons. Some types of armor was parade armor, tournament armor, and combat armor. The trip was a great experience and a great job put together by the staff. There was a lot of armor and a lot of important history to learn there.

Right when a visitor enters, there should be a man fully dressed in armor. You can notice how he can easily run, jog, and sit down. That was an advantage for armor but armor was also very heavy. Armor could get up to 90 pounds! He will show the viewer a sample of the three different armors I talked about earlier and teach you about how different weapons worked. As i said, there is combat armor which was used for combat. Sometimes they would use chain mail armor which was many small rings to help protect from slashing but not hitting with a sword. There was also full body armor to be used in battle. Then came tournament for jousting which was where two men charged at each other with lances. Then came parade armor which was not actually used to fight with but was used as decoration for the rich.

Then the visitor would make there way up the second floor which is a giant great hall. They have armor, weapons and some other cool artifacts in display cases. One weapon in particular is the lance. Sometimes they could get up to around eighteen feet. There is also a special weapon which is kind of like a lance with a hook to take down men on horses. It is also very sharp at the end to kill horses. The great hall has a lot of different weapons from different times and some of it is actually pretty interesting if you take time to read what they have to say in the small captions they have next to the case.

Another big thing in medieval times was fashion. There were many different fashions that came and went and the cycle still runs today. One fashion was that there shoes would be long and spiky. Even after armor kind of died, the rich would buy armor themselves to strut around in and make people know that they're rich. Sometimes the rich would even buy armor for there kids to make sure everyone knew they were rich. Another piece of clothing in fashion then was big, "poofy" pants for the men. That is basically what all the men were wearing then.

The Higgins Armory Museum is an amazing place for anyone who enjoys learning more about medieval times. The Higgins Armory Museum has a ton of old armor and weapons once used by medieval warriors. Many stories lie within the museum and it is a great experience to go in, and learn a lot about medieval times and all the armor and fashion and architecture and weapons. Hopefully the Higgins Armory Museum will grow to be more successful and to continue to teach many more people in the future about so long ago in the past.

Higgins Museum Essay

Evaluation

3 -- Outstanding 2 -- Ok, but could use some improvement 1-- Needed improvement 0 --- Missing

Introduction

2 Gave the reader background and general information about the museum --- set the scene.

3 Transitions to the body of the essay. (Three things that can be learned by a visit to the museum)

Body

3 Three topics were addressed, each with its own paragraph

2 Topics were clearly explained and used researched supporting details & vocabulary

Conclusion

3 Restated topic --- What can be learned at the museum?

3 Brought closure to essay (Summed up essay)

Structure

3 Essay format followed the directions for assignment

2 Spelling

2 Capitalization (Used correct capitalization)

Comments: Good overall effort on this piece of writing. The format of the essay is good, the information is well organized into paragraphs. You do lack research vocabulary and specific details to have good depth to the wrting. Your introduction and conclusion are solid,although the last sentence is off topic. You also use personal pronouns (I) which you were told not to in the directions.

In school, all of the 7th grade celebrated Earth Day. We are starting to be more green and to help earth become more green. We watched a bunch of different videos about the earth being polluted and evil corporations taking away natural resources and telling us not to buy anything because it's bad for the earth. They also told us about freegans and how we should eat our garbage and not waste. We also did a garbage activity where we had to seperate the compost from the garbage. We learned that alot of our garbage didn't have to go in the landfills and pollute our water. We also had a webcast informing alot of people to help out the earth. To me it was a very successful earth day.

Stock Spreadsheet Update

This is my wordle/collage of the graph we made.

I made this about the time I went to A taylor Guitar Road Show with DHJA, HHMA, and BJMA

Moguls are a very popular event in free style skiing. Some of the most popular skiers are involved. Germany currently have nine medals and USA have eight. In moguls the athlete has too raise and lift his or her knees in between each small bump of snow. There are two jumps in the course, which the first jump the athlete has to do a twist trick and then the second jump the athlete has to do a flip trick.

Mogul skiers have to train during the summer with there muscular strength and endurance. Some skiers practice there jumps onto tarp. They have to build up lower body strength so the skiers can lift and lower their legs as fast as they can. They also practice endurance which helps with moguls. They practice jumping by going up a chair lift during summer and going down a steep slide and at the end is a jump and they land on a long piece of tarp.

In the end, the mens moguls winner was Canada's Alexandre Bilodeau. For womens, world champion women mogul skier Hannah Kearney goes all out to bring home the gold for USA. We got amazing runs from all the athletes in the mogul skiing and some not so amazing runs from some of the athletes.

Mogul skiing got popular in 1971 and grew to be in the Olympics. Hopefully we will see many more talented skiers in the future take home the gold. Thank you for reading and hopefully learned a thing or two.