During Winter Break I am going to my Grandparent's house on Chrismas Eve to eat a big feast and open presents with all of my family. Then I am going home to either my house or my cousins house and spend the night. Then, in the morning my whole family is coming over to my house for a big breakfast feast. Then we exchange gifts with each other. Later, we will go over to my Grandparent's house again for a lunch and dinner feast. Also, for new years, I may go over to my friend Kassidy's house for her party.

Latvia

Latvia has many different interesting traditions such as making gralands from apple, pine cones, and cranberry.

In Latvia, their Christmas greeting is " Prieci 'gus Ziemsve 'tkus un Laimi 'gu Juano Gadul".  Their greeting isn't really a Christmas greeting to the because the people in Latvia call it winter festival or Ziemassvetki.

     They hang straw ornaments of various shapes such as crosses and many other difficult geometric shapes all made from the materials people find in fields.

     A few of Latvia's traditional foods are whole grains, beans, pig's snout, pork, pig's feet, a great variety of rolls and breads, and peas.A few very interetsing facts are if you eat a pea you will cry one day less, if you eat a dumpling there will be many sunny days, eat a pigs snout you will write a great deal, eat a bean one day you will mature, and many others.

    Some of the traditional activities are drinking beer and burning a log at night and during the day drag the log around the house. Another tradition is o nChristmas Eve all of the family gets around the tree and sings traditional Christmas Carols. Soon after that all the children pray that Father of Christmas will pay them a visit. He is a stern looking man with a white beard dressed in gray. He leaves stick switches for the naughty kids and gifts for all the good kids.

Location: Eastern Europe Baltic

Tree Type: Traditional

The biome I am reading about in core connections is the tropical rain forest. One of the many organisms in the tropical rain forest is a big, wild cat that is a predator. Jaguar are kind of a gold color that have black or dark brown spots, simiular to a cheetahs print. Their fur is their cauflage for sneeking up on their prey kill it with its big, sharp teeth. Another organism found in my biome is a three toed sloth. Of course it has three toes on each foot or paw, its has a brown fur coat that may look greenish, and this sloth is very protective of its babies for example; the three toed sloth will not even let rain or water toush its baby and if their baby is sleeping on their stomach, the sloth will not move under any circumstances. The last organism I am going talk about is the begonia, a type of flower. It is pinkish red and when it grows it sneaks up the sides of wood, trees, and other objects such as a building or house.

  If I had a choice to visit my biome I would. I would visit my biome because I think it would be pretty cool and neet to see all the animals that live in a tropical rain forest, and I would love to see all the plants and flowers or maybe other organisms.

I have learned a few things from the monster project and construction.One thing I have learned about was critical friends. Critical friends really helps your understanding of a project, letter, or assignment . Your friends are nice to you but at the same time they are helping you get better at what you are doing. Critical friends are related to warm and cool comments. A warm comment is telling your friend what you thought they did really good on or what you really liked about the project they were doing. A cool comment is not being mean, but you are telling your friend what they could do better on and other things about what your friend is doing. 

For my second monster part i got the friendship ring. It was Submitted by Nathalie Roy- Grades five , Kanata, Ontario, Canada. The ring is going to be gold with dreen slimy dots, too big for the fingers, symbols and letters engraved: 'eye' luv Monsterella. 1 precious stone, and 4 dangling charms: 1 skull, 1 bone, 1 heart, and 1 bell. I think my second part will connect to a finger and a hand.

For my part of the monster I got the legs.  The person whom has submitted this description is Mrs. O'Brien and Mr. Dickinson's 4th grade class at Westerview Elementary, Canton, IL. There will be four legs and each leg will be four feet long  and one foot wide. Leg one has bloody armor, leg two is infested and slimy, leg  three is sparkly zebra print, and leg four is orange with black spikes. I think the legs will connect to body, knees, stomach and hips.

Is Taffy Really Made With Salt water?-- Wonder # 325

How did salt water taffy get its name?

Well no one really knows!

One story is thats Bradley's candy store bacme flooded during a major storm in 1883. His entire stock of of taffy became soaked with seawater  from the Atlantic Ocean, so he began to call it " salt water taffy' as a joke.

Candy makers would pull taffy with a "simple hook attached to the wall" before special taffy-pulling machines were invented.Taffy would be very hard without being pulled. Air bubbles are caught inside that taffy and that actually makes the taffy Softer and chewier.

"Simple hook on the wall" were my "vocabulary words" from the selection. The hook is a big metal curved object attached to the wall. to me it looks like half an anchor.

Hey y'all! M name is Emily and I am 10 years old. I have a sister in seventh grade. I have two dogs and one cat. I am a competitive gymnast and dancer.  My favorite colors are teal, lime green, and purple. That is a little about me!

Hey y'all! My name is Emily and I am ten years old. I have one older sibling in seventh grade. I have two dogs and one cat. I am a competitive gymnast and dancer. My favorite colors are teal, lime green, and purple and that is a little about me!