A Fun Birthday Party

On February 28, 2009, I went to Harry the Potter for a birthday party. My friend was excited that we were there. I also was excited that my other friends from school were there, too. There were a lot of people there.

You could paint one piece of pottery. I chose a dog to put on my bedside table. The paint dried quickly.

The cup cakes were called "double deckers" with a regular sized cupcake on the bottom and a small cupcake on the top. I thought it was a cute idea.

In our treat bags, we got a flip-flop notepad, some Hersey's Kisses, two pencils, and a plastic back massager. We massaged each other in a line. It felt really good!

writing by Flower Power
photos by my mom

Writing and Pictures

I got a fold up easel for my 6th birthday. I love it a lot. I use it to draw pictures and practice my writing and spelling. I wrote a poem for my Mom and Dad last weekend, and I drew a picture of a giraffe. Mom added the baby giraffe. I am still learning how to spell, so my Mom will interpret the poem for you:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
But nobody is more specialer than you.

I also use and dry erase board to practice drawing and writing. I use this all the time. I have a lot of colored markers to use with the board. I can take it wherever I want. My teacher gave me a board for Christmas, but I left it at Nanny's house so Dad bought me one for our house to use until I get my first one back. It is so much fun. I drew a picture of Aerial, a giraffe, and wrote about my Mom. It says:

I love Mom.
Mom loves me.
Mom loves to read.
Mom cooks dinner.
Mom loves to play with Sorry Sliders.
Mom makes me smile.
Mom is special to me.

pictures were taken by my Mom

The Knitting Lesson

On Saturday afternoon, my mom invited some friends over for a knitting lesson. She helped them cast on. I taught them a poem on how to knit. It goes like this: "Under the fence, catch the sheep, back we come, off we leap." We had a fun time!

photos, writing, and collage by Flower Power

My Pets

This is Finn, my fish. This is the second fish I've had named Finn. He is a Beta fish. He lives in a small tank above the kitchen sink. These are other things that are around him.

Nellie likes to go outside. She does this most of the time. She runs away from people when they try to pet her.

Charlie likes to play. When he does, you have to be careful around him. He might scratch or bite, but he is fun. He was playing with one of my baby toys in this picture. He was fascinated by the balls rolling through the boat.

Baily likes to hang out. When he does, he puts his head on his paw. Sometimes, he doesn't stay when you pet him.

My mom took these snapshots, but I chose them for this post.

Our Blogging Covenant

Children:

• We will only use FIRST names when writing about other children. We will use our "blogging display name" when writing about ourselves. We may use last names for adults such as teachers, parents, coaches, etc. We should only use names when we think it is important to our story.
  

• We will only use SENSIBLE, KIND, and RESPECTFUL words in our posts and in our comments.
  

• We will not write any of our DETAILS - this includes phone numbers, address,or personal email address.

• We will be careful when putting PHOTOS on by only using nice photos of other people and by asking PERMISSION when putting on other people's photos.

• We will give CREDIT for other people's words, artwork, videos, ideas, or photos.

• If we are reading, writing, and spelling well, we will try our hardest to get our SPELLING right, and we will read over what we write before we post. We will ask our parents for help with posting.
  

• We will be RESPONSIBLE when using and writing on our blog.

• We will ask QUESTIONS when we need help or answers.

These guidelines are borrowed and slightly modified from Rachel Boyd's classroom blog rules seen here. Thank you, Ms. Boyd, for thinking through these issues, so clearly articulating them, and for your inspiring work with children in New Zealand.

Parents:

• I will HELP my child/children post to this blog, and I will MONITOR their posting and commenting activity. I will Be CAREFUL to make sure we are following the community guidelines.
  

• I will ENCOURAGE my child/children to read posts by other community members, to reflect, and to comment when appropriate. I will also make comments on posts when I am interested or have questions, thoughts, suggestions.
  

• I will STRIVE to help my child/children POST at least twice per month.

• I will READ and REVIEW these Blogging Safety Tips for Parents and Kids from Microsoft.
  

Administrator/moderator:

• As an author, you will be the only person who can edit your posts. Other people can only comment on posts you have written. I will not change or edit your posts unless you ask for my help. If I see something that needs to be changed for an important reason, I will contact the author to ask permission. I will delete a post if it is unkind or inappropriate for this blog (of course, I don't expect this to happen).
  

• I will read all comments before they are added to the blog. I will not post comments that are unkind or inappropriate (not that I expect this to happen, either). Comments by blog authors do not have to be reviewed by the moderator.
  

• I may add LABELS to your posts.

What are LABELS?

When we post, we can assign labels for the post. It is at the bottom of the text box on the "Posting screen." If you click on the "show all" link, you will see what labels have already been used by other members of the blog, and you may choose one of these if it applies. For example, Flower Power wrote about things that happened at school in her first post. If you write about school, you may want to use the label "at school" on your post, too, so that readers of the blog can easily find all posts about "at school" if they are interested in this topic. If you write about soccer, and you don't see a label for soccer, you may want to create a new label by just typing it into the "Label box." When we use labels, we create an index for our blog (or a keyword catalog). So, we want to identify our posts by their main content through labels.

We also want to identify posts by our "blogging display name." This way, readers of the blog can easily find all posts by a certain author. If your display name is "Light Saber," always put this label on your posts.

Now, I'm getting out of the way so that the real authors of this blog can do some posting!

If you have other suggestions for our community guidelines or questions about them, please comment!

Charlie the cat

Charlie likes to sleep on my mom and dad's bed. Sometimes he is funny.

Charlie also likes to sleep on the chair in the living room/dining room. He also likes to let me pet him, and he purrs.

Charlie also goes near blankets and acts funny, because he is a kid cat.

Charlie likes to sleep on my bed when I'm at school and rests the whole day. He waits for me. When I get home, he either goes away, or lets me pet him or play with him.

The above photos were taken by my mom.

A Fun Day at School

In my class on Friday, February 13, 2009, two artists came for a visit. Mr. Miles (brown jacket) and Mr. Shambé (gray shirt) talked about our art project for the future of Jackson.

Mr. Shambé passed around a photo album full of his creations he had made. It was fun to look at!

After the artist visit, we had our Valentine's Day party. My classmates and I passed out food, drinks, and our valentines.

My friends and I shared our valentines. We laughed at the funny ones!

The above photographs were taken by my mom.