Dianna's blog

On March 12,2009 the space station had been threatened by a piece of space junk that had been traveling at about 17,500 miles per hour.

Today we had an assembly at our school, and at the assembly, one of the players from the Harlem Globetrotters was here. His name is Dizzy Grant. He was given this nickname because people say that when he dribbles the basketball it tends to make some people dizzy, so that is why they call him Dizzy Grant!

At the assembly Dizzy talked to us about the word C.H.E.E.R, and each letter stands for a certain word.

C means cooperation, because when you cooperate things are much easier!

H stand for healthy mind and body. Dizzy was telling us how that it is important to have a healthy mind and body because if yo don't you could get very sick and you would not be able to do the thing that you like to do, so it is very important to have a healthy mind and body.

E stand for enthusiastic. When you are doing something important it is always important to try your best and give 100%!!!

The second E in C.H.E.E.R means effort. Dizzy said that you should always make an effort to do your best in anything that you do, because when you make an effort you will eventually succeed!

And last the R stand for responsibility. It is always important to be responsible because when you are responsible people are able to trust you and that gives you a lot more freedom!

Every day after lunchtime, the whole class get to read for 30 minutes. I really like this reading time because we are able to read a book of our choice!

At the beginning of the year I really did not like to read so much, but then I started to find books that were about things I like, and now I love to read :)! This year I really liked reading mysterious books. The reason I like mysterious books is because even if one part of the book is boring I will have to keep reading it because I would want to know what is going to happen.

The best book that I read this year was called "Night Hoops" by Carl Deuker. I really really liked this book because it always had a mystery that had to be solved. But it also involved my favorite sport, BASKETBALL :)!!!

I think that it is a good thing for you to be able to choose and read your own book, because if you really don't like a book, then you probably won't understand. Or you might not even read it. But if you pick a book that you like, then you will probably read it all the time and you will also enjoy it better! :)

About 3 weeks ago our class started making rockets. I was really excited because i always wanted to learn about how things fly! When Mr. Noon gave us the packet with all the stuff that we would need to make the rocket I thought that it would be really confusing, but it turned out to be actually really easy. He also told us that we would need to know every thing in the manual because once we were done with this project we would be given a test.

The first thing we did was take out a small plastic tube, which would be used to help us build our rocket and it was going to be really helpful when it was time to paint our rocket so we would not have to touch wet paint! Next that we each got a full piece of typing paper and with that we warped around the plastic tube. Then we toke a half sheet of white paper and warped that around the first sheet of white paper. After that it was time to put the gummed tape on which would be the outside of the rocket, first we cut a 45 degree angle at the end of the gummed tape, then we toke a damp sponge and made the back of it wet so it would stick, last we toke the gummed tape and rolled onto over the paper.

After I was done making the rocket body it was time to make my parachute that would fall out of the rocket when it come back down to the ground after I had launched it. When we had gotten the packet there was all already a parachute in there all we had to do was cut it out and attach the string. After I had did that I had to tie it to the the screw eye which is a little notch that is screwed into the the nose cone! I had to poke holes in each corner of the parachute an tided a 14 inch long string to each one. After that I took all the strings and tied them onto the screw eye. After that I stuffed the parachute into the rocket and attached the nose cone onto the top of the rocket.

After my rocket was made and my parachute was done it was time to paint my rocket . This was my favorite part of making the rocket because i love art :). My rocket has white and light pink stripes. And my fins are neon yellow and purple stripes! After my rocket and fins were painted it was time to attach my find to the rocket. This was kinda hard because the fins had to be spaced evenly. Mine ended up not be spaced evenly. But it was not that bad, it might not fly straight though. The last step that was probably the hardest was assembling the engine, and what you would do was have a small card board tube, two card board rings things and a small metal piece that would hold onto the engine. First you would glue the metal piece onto the card board tube then put one of the card board rings on one end of the tube and one on the other end . After you are done assembling the rocket engine you put it into the back end of the rocket and when you are ready to put in the engine that is what you will use! Those are all the steps I used to make my rocket! :)

About 3 weeks ago our class started making rockets. I was really excited because I always wanted to learn about how things fly! When Mr. Noon gave us the packet with all the stuff that we would need to make the rocket I thought that it would be really confusing, but it turned out to be actually really easy. He also told us that we would need to know everything in the manual because once we were done with this project we would be given a test.

The first thing we did was take out a small plastic tube, which would be used to help us build our rocket and it was going to be really helpful when it was time to paint our rocket so we would not have to touch wet paint! Next that we each got a full piece of typing paper and with that we warped around the plastic tube. Then we toke a half sheet of white paper and warped that around the first sheet of white paper. After that it was time to put the gummed tape on which would be the outside of the rocket, first we cut a 45 degree angle at the end of the gummed tape, then we toke a damp sponge and made the back of it wet so it would stick, last we toke the gummed tape and rolled onto over the paper.

Next it was the best part of the whole project.... getting to design my fin and my rocket!

After I was done making the rocket body it was time to make my parachute that would fall out of the rocket when it comes back down to the ground after I had launch it. When we had gotten the packet there was already a parachute in there all we had to do was cut it out and attach the string. After I had did that I had to tie it to the the screw eye which is a little notch that is screwed into the the nose cone! I had to poke holes in each corner of the parachute an tided a 14 inch long string to each one. After that I took all the strings and tied them onto the screw eye, last I took my parachute and stuffed it into the rocket. Another thing that will go inside my rocket is the shock cord, and that is to keep the nose cone attached to the rocket. And all I did to make that was take a small paper rectangle shaped piece of paper and glued the and of the piece of paper to the end of the shock cord.

I am reading a book called Night Hoops. It is by Carl Deuker. This book is about a boy named Nick, and he loves to play basketball. He has a brother named Scott, and he loves playing music, but Nick's dad is always pressuring Scott about basketball and how he is not going to get good or make it onto the varsity basketball team if that is all he ever does it play music. But Nick is a great basketball player,and has never gotten that type of attention from his dad. But when Nick's dad and mom get into a big fight and end up getting a divorce. Ans as for Nick he started getting more of his dads attention and he also makes it onto the school basketball varsity team.

Nick is really liking his new basketball team,the only problem is a kid named Trent who lives across the street from him. Trent has an older brother who is always getting himself and Trent into trouble. Nick never thought that Trent would make it because of his grades and behavior, but oneday Nick shows up to practice and Trent is there. At first Nick and Trent really hate each other ! One day Trents's dad comes over an asks since that they really have nowhere to practice at night if Trent and him could use the basketball court at night. Nick's mom thinks that would be fine,but Nick is not so happy about this. A couple of days later Trent's dad is back over at Nick's house saying that he is moving away but making sure it is still okay that Trent has full permission to still use the basketball court. But Nick still thinks that this is a really bad idea. But she still goes along with the idea.

The next day at practice once again Trent is there at practice, and as usual the coach is having them do all the running drills and plays. And at every practice the each go to seprate teams, and for some reason coach put Nick and Trent on the same team! At this practice Nick notices that him and Trent work really good t

Last Friday I had my first basketball game of the school year. I was really excited about it but also really scared at the same time. That day we were playing the Knicks. It was kind of a tiring game because we only had 5 player cause one of them was on a three day camping trip with their class and thee other could not make it too the game.So that meant that we had to play the whole 32 minutes of the game. Once I actually started to play the game I noticed that it was not really scary at all, it was really fun for the most part. When the 1st quarter was finally over I was not really tired at all. We were winning.

When the second quarter came I was ready to play again it was me, Karrisa,Rose,Clara, and Hannah. We had the league with at least 8 points. In that quarter I scored about 6 points. When that quarter was finally over it was half time, which was really good because it gave the team some time to breath. By then we had about 25 points. When the 3rd quarter started I knew there was going to be tough defense and offense because they had some of there best players in the game. In that quarter I scored 3 more points. But they were starting to catch up with a score of 10 to 29 . When that quarter ended I looked at my teamates and knew that they we tired. I was just hoping not to tired to play as hard as we had been because if would of let up all of are defense they might catch up

When the 4th quarter started It looked like most of us were ready to play. I was hoping hat the other would not catch up. But in the 4th quarter they were changing people in and out from time to time . And that would really confuse us because we were so used to guarding one person . But still in the 4th quarter we managed to keep our score up because we had won the game with a score of 27 to 14! After the game I had asked my dad how many points I had made and he said that I made 18 POINTS!!!! I was really surprised at myself :) ! That is basically what happen at the basketball game. :)

One day I was walking to school; it was a very snowy day and I noticed a little blue stick in the snow. I picked it up and thought it would be a cool thing to bring into school for my science projects since I was doing one on nature. While I was walking I started to see something light up in my back pack. But I figured it was just my phone so I left it alone.

Once I had gotten to school I showed it to my friends; they also thought it would be a really cool to put into my science project! Once I had gotten into class I had remembered that I had left my phone on. So I ran over to my bag. But the weird thing was that when I looked at my phone there was no "one new message" sign, or even "a missed call" sign. All through the day I had kept telling myself that it could not have been the the stick I found. Or maybe it was even my alarm. But then I remembered that I didn't even have my alarm on!

Later that day I checked my phone to find any explanation. My little sister thought it was a magical wand that lights up. I did not believe her for one second! After I got tired of searching everything in my bag and my phone I put it all away and was done for the night. While I was laying down I saw the same exact light that I saw come my back pack come from my closet this time. I ran over to there and once I had opened my closet door there was laying the same blue stick that I had found Yesterday morning! The weird thing was that I put the stick back into my back pack witch was out buy the front door. Then I thought what if my sister was right about this being a magic wand! I picked up the wand and pointed it toward the door, and the door shut instantly! The next morning when I woke up I knew that it was going to be a really fun day at school.

When I had first gotten into the classroom we had the regular boring social studies assignment. But I knew since I had a magical wand it did not have to be that way. So I slipped the wand out of my bag and pointed it to the board and all I did was tell myself what I wanted to happen and in three seconds the teacher said that we needed to put our books away because we were going to have a party.

Later that morning we were all running up and down the hall, but then the principal had come. He was yelling at everyone to get inside the classroom. Unfortunately I was the one that he had pulled to the side to talk to. He asked me where my teacher was. I don't know why he was asking me that, because I was wondering the same thing! While he was standing there talking forever I slipped the wand out of my pocket and told myself that I wanted the principal to turn into a ant! And within the next three seconds there was a little ant crawling next to me.

I decided to just walk right back into the class. Everyone was staring at me. One boy asked me what happen, and all I said was "nothing". About an hour later our teacher walked in. And told us to grab a computer. All we did was play math games until it was time for recess, which if I didn't have the wand would never happen one million years! After about 2 weeks of doing whatever we wanted was getting kind of boring. Plus all the straight A kids were now straight C kids. We no longer saw the principal around; the school district had hired a new one, which was surprisingly really nice!

One day I walked in and noticed that there was a social studies and a math assignment on the board. No one looked like they wanted to do it. So once again I reached in my bag for the wand, but I didn't fell any wand in my bag this time. That day we did everything that we normally did . That night when I had gotten home I looked every were for the wand but I was no were to be found. My mom had asked me what I was looking for and I told her it was a stick I was using for my science project, she told she did not know what it was for so she just threw it away. For the most part I was not really upset. I actually liked the thing the way the were. The next day at school things were perfectly normal.

Today in class we watched a video called Time Warp Trio. The video was about the ancient Greek Olympics. The Olympics was a time where Sparta and Athens could compete without having a big war. And one of the rules are that if you lose a round then you die. Another rule is that girls were not allowed to participate in the Olympics. In the video there were two boys; one is Sam, and the other is Fred. Also one girl named Samantha has a book that can take you through time travel.

One of the boys, named Sam, made Fred fall while taking a picture and ended up spraining his arm so he did not get to play in the baseball game. Now they are all eating lunch at the diner and Sam is bragging about how he made the winning goal. So when Samantha gets up to go and get a drink, they start messing around with the time traveling book, and they just keep pushing all the buttons until they end up in Ancient Greece! And when they get there they end up being part of the Greek Olympics. So then Sam gets sent to a diner place outside to time warp and meets a the guy who is really supposed to be in the Olympics instead of Sam and Samantha. His name is Glottis.

Now Samantha is about to fight this really big guy named Simplex. And his weakness is seeing his own blood, so Sam gives some ketchup to Samantha so that when she is out there fighting, she can squirt some on him, and he will get scared and fall. When you fall that means you give up and lose. But soon Achilles realizes that it is not blood on his arm and goes back to fighting. While they are fighting Samantha's hat comes off and reveals that she is a girl!

Meanwhile Fred is back at the diner and Glottis is telling him how if he goes back an hour in time then none of it would ever happen. But he realizes that he would be giving up the time he made the winning score in the game. But he does it anyway, and then before he knew it, Sam and Samantha were back in the diner talking about the big game, except this time Sam was also talking about how he made some scores!

In the movie I learned that the reason they ever had the Greek Olympics is because it was a time were Sparta and Athens could compete without having a big war. Another thing I learned is the rules and penalties of the Greek Olympics, like girls were not allowed to compete in the Olympics because they thought that boys were better than girls (which is not true!!!). And that's mostly what I learned about the video.

If I got a plane ticket to go anywhere I wanted, I think I would go to Florida. I think I would go to Florida because I really like the weather. Some days it can get up to 110 degrees, and the moisture in the air makes it feel even more hot. When it gets really hot, my family and I like to go to the beach.

It is really fun to go surfing and just play in that water, and some times crabs will even crawl out of the ground and chase you around. Surprisingly, they can run really fast.

Another thing that I really like about Florida is all the really big amusement parks and water parks; they are really fun because they have really big roller coasters and water slides! Some of them are kinda scary, but they are still really fun :). They are also really expensive, especially if you have lots of people with you.

And in Florida, things cost a lot more than they do here because they have sales tax. That is money that you have to pay to the government.

Also there are lots of random animals in Florida. Like sometimes frogs will get into your car, or if you leave your shoes outsidem they will just stay in there. Then when you put your shoes on, they will hop out.

This week my class went on a field trip to the Museum of the North. When we got there the class was divided up into 4 groups, in those groups we learned the different types of art besides just paintings,some of those different types of art were things like sound, real photograph,wood,an art can even be made out of and buildings! I think that the coolest kind of art that I experienced was sound! I had never thought of sound being art. People that make music are called composers.

The composer to the sound we were listening to was named John Luther Adams. We went into this room that is called "The place were you go to Listen" and they had us sit and listen to all these different sounds and when we talked about it they told us that they were coming from signals around the University campus that measure things that are happening in the environment like the amount of wind or sun light, and it even measures earthquakes. Then when they put all the sounds together it sounds like music.

This week in school we had a substitute for Thursday and Friday. His name was was Mr. Parente. The cool thing was that he used to be my gym teacher at my old school! He was really cool , and he also had this system were he had a teacher box and a student box and when ever we were being to loud he would give the teacher box a point and when ever we were being good or quiet he would give the students a point . Sometimes if we got enough points then he wold let us play a group game or have some free time on the computer.He was also really funny.

Another thing that happen this week was that it was really cold outside,it got about -40 !!!! There was indoor recess all week but all the kids in my class like it . We have choices on were we want to go for indoor recess, one of them were either the gym to go play soccer,the library,or you can go walk a-mile and that is were a group of kids get together and the walk around the school 10 times which equals 1 mile. In gym our gym teacher would divide all the kids up into 4 groups and every 5 minutes each 2 groups would go in. And for library we just read or play games on the computer.

For the past few weeks we have been reading a historical fiction book called Number the Stars. It is about a girl named Annemarie that has a sister named Kristi, an older sister that died, named Lise, and a friend named Ellen, and they discover that the soldiers are relocating all the Jewish people and any shops that are owned by Jews will be shut down. They know that Ellen and her family are Jewish so while Ellen's parents are away they must try to hide her from the soldiers at least til her parents get back... and then one night the soldiers come to Annemarie's house and start searching it and questioning them about who Ellen is. After that they knew it was not safe to stay there any longer.

They start staying out with Annemarie's uncle Henrik who really needs a wife because his house is always so dirty and messy! Then one day a casket comes to the house and uncle Henrik and mama tells Annemarie that her great aunt Bertie had died. And when Annemarie soon discovers that there is no real aunt Bertie, she is wondering why her uncle and mother would be lying to her. Then she understands that the less she knows the braver you can be!

In the morning I get up and get dressed. Then my mom or dad takes me to school (which would be Denali Elementary!!!) When the bell rings at 8:30 all the kids go to their classrooms, (I am in Mr. Noon's class.) Next at about 8:45 Mr. Doran (our principal) talks to the school about the announcements. After that we say the pledge of allegiance. Then we start our day out with math. At 9:45 some math students from another class come back to join us, and we start with free time where we have snack and use the bathroom.

Next we start on any work that we need to finish. Later it is time to grab our gear and head down to special!!! After 30 minutes it is time to go outside. When we come inside at 12:30 everyone in 5th - 6th grade gets their lunch. After lunch we all start reading our own book. After 30 minutes of that, we start on our unfinished work again for the rest of the day. At 3:00 the bell rings for dismissal. After that I go and pick up my sisters and we walk to different places where there are things for us to do. That is mostly how my day goes:)!!!!!!!

Today I read a story on a giant frog called the Beelzebufo. Also known as the "devil frog," the name “Beelzebufo” comes from the Greek word for devil (Beelzebub) and the Latin word for toad (bufo). This frog weighs up to 10 pounds and is 60 inches long! They think this frog might be one of the biggest frogs that ever existed.

The scientist thinks that at one point Madagascar, Antarctica, and South America were all connected in a way. They are wondering why they did not find this frog somewhere in South America.

Not only was the frog huge, it was powerful, had a protective shield, an extremely wide mouth and powerful jaws. These features made Beelzebufo capable of killing lizards and other small animals, perhaps even hatchling dinosaurs. These features made Beelzebufo capable of killing lizards and big animals.

The largest living frog today is the goliath frog of West Africa, which can be 12.5 inches long and weigh about 7.2 pounds.

If you ever see this frog please call animal control!!! That is most of the facts about this amazingly big frog!!!

If you want to learn more about this frog go to

According to "Frightful Animals" in National Geographic, the Gila Monster is very dangerous and aggressive. One of the things about this lizard is that when it bites, it does not let go, and shoots a painful injection of venom into your body. Another thing about this lizard is that it moves very slowly but when needed can sprint 15 meters [49 feet] in 1 minute!!! Last, the Gila Monster likes to feed off of small rodents, reptiles, eggs, and quail eggs.

This animal is very good at defending itself. It will rarely even attack humans, but if it ever has to, it will. What makes this surprising is that you would think that it attacks anything because it looks different and we usually like to mess with stuff and see what it reacts to. But remember that if it needs to defend itself, it will.

Well that's mostly the information I have about this animal!!! But if you ever see this animal you should probably not mess with it, and tell someone!!!