Assignment #26: Where Children Eat and Sleep

     For this assignment we had to look at two different slide shows and/or blogs. They were about where children all over the world slept and what they ate. I was really surprised by everything I saw in the slide shows. To sum up everything we learned in our geography unit about demography, we were asked to make up a country of our own. In this assignment you will learn about the lifestyle of families, specifically children, in my country. Before I start I would like you to know that I have not yet named it . I would also like you to know that the text below is from the point of view of a fourteen years old female living in my country.

      I have read about many different lifestyles around the world, but I know that I still have a lot more to discover. I got inspired to write about all the interesting things about my life after reading various articles about other people's lives. Maybe a lot of people haven't heard about my culture and the country that I live in, which is why I have started a blog.

      I'll start out by introducing myself. My name is Grace Batts, I'm fourteen years old and I love to write and when I get older I would love to visit all the places that I have read about.

      I live in a house with two floors, and a basement. The cool thing about where I live is that every house is solar powered, they all have solar panels. It kind of looks like this: 

 It has four large bedrooms and four bathrooms. I have a bedroom all to myself. The walls are filled with posters of my favourite bands, my favourite books, quotes that I find inspiring and beautiful landscapes from all over the world. In my room there is a desk that has a bunch of papers and my laptop on it, there's a bookshelf which holds my favourite books, a closet filled with my clothes and a bed.

     I go to school from nine o'clock in the morning to three o'clock in the afternoon. Where I come from French is the national language and English is the second language, but I've learned to speak fluently in both. I have just graduated from high school and I'm going to university soon. Most people here live far from the city. There aren't a lot of people here, it's a very sparsely populated country. 

     My family's recipe includes Kerguelen cabbage soup, it's very delicious. We also eat rabbit meat and we have a neighbour that raises flocks of sheep, which we eat too. There are many different fish that we get from the market such as the Mackerel Icefish. Sometimes before a special holiday the fish markets sell parrot fish. If you like fish, then you must try parrot fish, they are the delicious type of fish that I have ever tasted! 

Assignment #25: My Childhood Top Ten

For this assignment we had to choose ten of our favourite books, toys or games, and other things that were, or are still special to us from our childhood.

1) How the Grinch Stole Christmas By: Theodor Seuss Geisel (also known as Dr.Seuss)

I absolutely loved every single book made by Dr.Seuss when I was younger and I still do today! When I was around four years old I had a backpack that had some of the characters from his books on it. There were a lot of Dr.Seuss books that came with the backpack and I would read them all day. This book was one of my favourites and was one of the first Dr.Seuss books I read. I now read Dr.Seuss books to my little sister, even though she can read and it always ends with a competition to see who can read any Dr.Seuss book the fastest.






2) Where's Spot? By: Eric Hill

  This was one of my favourite books when I was in grade one. I thought this book was amazing because you had to find Spot (the puppy). There were so many flaps to flip and "pull here" things that revealed whether he was there or not if you pulled them. I never really paid attention to the words in any Spot book because I was distracted by all those flaps. I really loved those kind of books when I was younger. If I were to read a book like that or a pop-up book I would definitely still find it amusing. I think because those pieces of paper that slide are really fun to pull.




3) The Girl Who Hated Books By Manjusha Pawagi

I just remember this as one of the first books I read that had more than one sentence on each page. It was during grade one and I felt so amazing when I was able to read it without any mistakes. I don't remember exactly why I liked this books so much, it was just a book that really stood out to me when I went back and thought of all the books I read when I was younger. It's probably one of the weirdest books I've ever read.





4) W.I.T.C.H. Volume 3 By: Unknown

   This was probably the first graphic novel I have read and used to be one of my favourite series too. I think it was when I was in grade three or grade four. When I found out the series had a television show I was so happy and I watched it like every Saturday morning. That was like my comic book phase. I just went straight to the comic book section every time I went to the library. I read comic books from time to time, but I'm not as in to them as I used to be.









5) Haunted Trails Theme Park

I used to live in an apartment in Chicago, Illinois when I was three to four years of age. This theme park was literally right in front of my apartment and so was Taco Bell. Almost every weekend my sister and I would beg our mom to take us there and she always said yes. I have so many memories of this fantastic place. After we got bored or when our mom dragged us out, we went to Taco Bell and had tacos or whatever else they served. I used to think it was the best place ever, but when I started going to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibit), I changed my mind. I don't know what happened to it because I don't live there anymore, but if I were to go to Haunted Trails I don't think I would find it as amusing as I used to.

6) Candyland

I think this was the first board game I have played. I think I was around four years of age. My favourite character was the Ice Princess. I played it so much when I first got it, but then after a while I kind of got bored of it. When my little sister turned four years old I bought her this board game because by that time I lost the old one. When I played it with my little sister I realized how boring it was and asked myself why I used to think it was so awesome, so I'm sure I would not find it amusing if I played it today.

7) Baby Dolls

 I had so many baby dolls when I was little. I had all these different barbie dolls too. I had houses, washing machines, bicycles, roller blades and so many clothes for all of my barbie dolls. I would always put my baby doll in it's mini stroller and walk all around my house. I have no idea how I was able to play with dolls all day long and never got bored of it. I would definitely not be able to play with them nowadays.






8) My favourite shirt

I had a lot of favourite shirts and sweaters when I was younger, but one that stuck out to me was a sweater I had with Barbie stuff on it. It actually looks nothing like this picture, but it does have Barbie written on it somewhere. I don't have it anymore, but I do have a lot of pictures of me wearing it, so I guess it was my favourite sweater. This sweater shows how obsessed I was with barbie dolls.


9) Cross Country

I started my love for cross country in grade two and ended it in grade five. I went to my first tryouts in grade two and I came first out of everyone that tried out. I really liked it and I got to miss school and go to all these different schools and compete. It was so much fun because all of my friends joined it too. In grade three I tried out for the team, but my name wasn't on the list, I was really sad, but then our coach called me and some of my other friends down to her room and said that she wanted us to join the fifth grade team.






10) Scooby-Doo

One of my many hobbies as a kid and even now is watching Scooby-Doo and eating snacks. My all time favourite Scooby-Doo movie was 'Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island'. I would always watch that and eat these delicious chips. I think there's even a family video of me eating chips and watching what I think is Scooby-Doo. My second favourite Scooby-Doo movie is 'Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase'. I still watch his adventures today with my sisters and I still think it's awesome.

Assignment #24: Canadian Political Parties

      For this assignment we had to read an article about the main political parties in Canada. We had to choose which one we would vote for if we were eighteen or older. I chose the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP):

      I want Canada to actually change, which is why I would vote for the New Democratic Party of Canada. I agree with all of their policies. They will raise taxes, but that money will go to social services that we all need. It will make health care more affordable. It will go to our education, making post secondary education more affordable. Public transit is another social service that it would go to. It has better environmental policies. Instead of reducing taxes for big corporations, who are also big polluters, they will have to pay environmental bills for the amount of pollution they create, which our environment will benefit from. The New Democratic Party of Canada will make sure that the food we're eating is safe by labeling whether they are genetically modified or not. They will make it more affordable for farmers to manage their farms. The New Democratic Party of Canada has great equality policies. They will make a new relationship with the First Nations and will make up for all the past wrongs the government has done to them, by allowing them to get more involved in our economy, help improve their housing, drinking water and etcetera. They also would support LGBTQ. It would be great to have a leader who will change Canada for the greater good and keep their promises.

Assignment #23: Canada and China

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For this assignment we had to research information about the people in China and Canada. Then we had to compare between the two. Canada and China have some human characteristics in common, but I also found some human characteristics that were different. I have three pieces of information for China and Canada.

1) The fertility rate in China is 1.54 children per woman and for Canada it's 1.58 children per woman. I know that China has a lot of people (like 1,336,718,015 people), so why is the fertility rate more than Canada's fertility rate? This information was recorded recently and recently the Chinese government made a law about how Chinese families are only allowed having one child. However, Canada does not have this law and families are allowed to have any amount of children. This is why Canada has a higher fertility rate.

2) The birth rate in China is 12.29 births for a population of 1,000 people and for Canada it's 10.28. Even though China has a lower fertility rate, it still has more people than Canada and more people equals more births. Therefore, it makes sense that China has a higher birth rate than Canada.

3) The life expectancy for China is 74.68 years and it's lower than Canada's, which is 81.38 years. Since China is so overpopulated there is probably a lot of pollution being created, resulting to a lot of sicknesses. In Canada we don't have that many people, so we don't have as much pollution as China. This makes Canada a healthier place to live, which is why Canadians live longer.

Assignment #22: Faces of the World

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Part A:

Here's a definition of the word "globalization" that I found on the internet:
Growth to a global or worldwide scale; "the globalization of the communication industry". To see where I found this definition click here.

Here's my own definition of the word "globalization":
Something internationally growing and developing.

Part B:

      The Face of Tomorrow is an awesome project, but how do they put it together? I have researched a bit and I think I have found out how they're doing it. It all started with a photographer named Mike Mike. It started to spread to other photographers from different places around the world like Germany, Japan and many other countries. I think that they ask to take pictures of random people in a certain city and then when they're done they put all the faces together to make one face, and that face is the face of tomorrow.

In real life, how do facial identities change over generations?
   Facial identities change over generations. I think in real life they change depending on the parents. It all depends on how your ancestors looked. It all depends on your parents or maybe even your grandparents. Most of the time you get physical characteristics from your family and relatives (uncles, aunts etc.). I'm not quite sure how to answer this question, so sorry if it doesn't make much sense.

 Part C:   
      While exploring the "Face of Tomorrow" I found a lot of interesting things. After they were done making the composite pictures for both male and female, the composite face did not look realistic. The more people you add to the composite, the more unrealistic it looks. I was looking at the composite pictures for Brazil and I noticed that the female composite picture was smiling and her teeth were showing. Later on I clicked the "Exhibitions" tab and read that Mike also noticed it and said that Brazil was like a "utopia". I found that interesting, so I kept on looking at composite pictures of different countries and found that Amsterdam, Netherlands had both female and male composites smiling with their teeth showing. Another thing I found interesting was how almost every city's composite pictures had brown hair and brown eyes.

 
Part D: 
      I think the face below that I have created best represents "the face of tomorrow". One of the reasons why my average face is the "face of tomorrow" is because I have put more Asian and brunette pictures than light hair and dark skinned people. This is because in two videos we have watched (two videos called 7 Billion and Are You Typical?) it said that most of the earth's population is going to be living in South Asia and we already have a lot of people living in China as well, so that's why the majority of my pictures are Asian looking people. I also put two photos of light skinned and haired people and two photos of dark skinned and dark haired people, which is another reason why my average face is the "face of tomorrow". People from Northern Asia, Southern Asia and other places in the Southern Hemisphere have higher birth rates and almost all of them are dark haired. Most countries in the Southern Hemisphere are developing countries, which means some of them would travel to countries where they could get a better education or more opportunities and most of the time they stay and get married there. A lot of people have brown hair already in these developed countries and brunettes plus brunettes equals more brunettes, and I think that's a kind of globalization. My person has brown hair and brown eyes, and since almost everyone will have these two physical features soon my average face is the "face of tomorrow".

Part E: 
     I think I do have a face that represents my nationality. My family is from Pakistan and the majority of Pakistanis have brown hair, brown eyes and have darker skin, but some Pakistanis have light skin too. I have brown hair and brown eyes, but I don't really have dark skin, my skin has more of an olive skin tone to it. I actually don't know where people think I came from if they only looked at my face. Maybe they would think I'm from South Asia, after all I do have all of the characteristics I listed.

Discussion #6 for Sketches

Welcome fellow bloggers and a warm welcome to my Digital Literature Circle buddies: Andrianna, Arianna, Haneen, Hannah, Karran, and Melissa! Sadly this is our last discussion, so let's make it as awesome as all the others! We have finally completed Sketches by Eric Walters and I think it was fantastic! It was disturbing at some points (like at the end of chapter seventeen when they found a rotting corpse without eyes), but I think it made it more interesting. I was dying to know what Dana's stepfather did to her and I finally found out. What did you guys think he did to Dana? It was a happy ending, but I have to admit, the ending was a blur. It all happened too fast. I liked the ending, but it felt like the author was in a hurry to finish the book. He should have made it longer. Remember when Brent said that he didn't believe in fairy tales because the endings were too happy to be true (if you don't it's on page 239)? Well, at the end of Sketches they all lived happily ever after and I hope he believes in happy endings now. I found it interesting when he said that. Why do you think he said that? 

   Here's the last discussion question...

   If you could change anything about the ending of the book what would you change? Imagine if you were supposed to make a sequel to Sketches, what kind of things would you do to all the main characters? Would they eventually split up and stop seeing each other? Or would they be best friends forever? Remember that this is the last discussion post, so put any questions or comments about the book that come to mind. Hope to hear from you guys soon! I'll be waiting.

History Fair Reflection

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4 - The four most interesting things that you learned about your topic in your researching.
1) I found out that the industrial revolution impacted artists. They showed their feelings towards the industrial revolution through their artwork.
2) The lost voices were the labourers and they were treated horribly. Some industries still treat their workers that way.
3) The first law that gave some rights to labourers was made by the ONTARIO Factory Act.
4) During the industrial revolution the richest men in Canada were railway industrialists.

3 - Three things that you felt proud of on the day of the Fair.1) I felt proud of how much information I knew about my topic. I was able to answer almost every single question they asked me.
2) My voice was louder and clearer than usual, so I'm proud of that.
3) I'm proud of how hard I worked to complete my project.

2 - Two specific researching or presentation techniques that were helpful to make your project so wonderful.
1) During my presentation I spaced out the lines so I didn't have to analyze my sheet for an hour. It helped a lot.
2) I wrote seperate topics to research to organize myself more. Organization really helps when it comes to researching.

1 - One suggestion to make the History Fair even better in the future.
1) I think we should have more judges so everyone is able to get judged at least three times.

Assignment #20: My Group's SOLE Presentation (Part 2)

Well, as I finished part one if this assignment I thought it was really easy. Then, the next day I thought it was too easy, so I went back to Miss Pollock's post about this assignment. After I read it I decided to make a part two for this assignment and type the things that I forgot to type in part one. 

   Here are three things that I want you guys to notice:
1) I really want you guys to notice how important it is to get enough sleep. There are a lot of bad things that can happen if you do not get enough sleep.
2) Notice all the amazing facts about sleep. I think sleep is one of the most interesting things our body does. Why do we dream when sleeping? What does it do to help our body? Does it help our body physically or emotionally? There are a lot questions, but not as many answers.
3) If you do not get enough sleep please notice all the helpful tips that we put in our slide show presentation.

Assignment #20: Here's My Group's Presentation!

Well, here is my group's presentation. We worked hard on it, so hope you enjoy it! I will gladly accept any comments or questions.

Assignment #19: If I Had $100

For this assignment we had one hundred (imaginary) dollars. We had to pick how and where we should spend our money. Click here for more information.

   The organizations that I chose to spend my one hundred dollars on are Oxfam, Plan, and Happy Factory. I chose Oxfam because they have great gifts with great prices. The Plan foundation donates money and gifts to children and they also have gifts with great prices. Happy Factory is a foundation that sends toys to children who have never held a toy before. Part of being a child is having fun and playing with toys and I think it's great that this foundation is trying to make sure every child has a toy.

   From Oxfam I chose to spend fifty dollars on a gift that helps girls go to school. In many developing countries (Ethiopia, India, Cambodia etc.) most families don't have enough money to send all their children to school, so they only send their sons to school. That's where this gift comes in. It gives those families the money to also send their daughters to school. Girls would also get married later since they're busy finishing their education.

   The gift I chose from Plan is "an endless harvest" for forty dollars. This gift helps a family grow crops and feed themselves. They could also sell the food from their crops. The best thing is that it will never stop giving. It will feed families for years.

   Happy Factory is where I'm going to spend the ten dollars I have left. Happy factory will make twenty toys with ten dollars. Which means twenty children will get the happiness they deserve. 

   I can't believe one hundred dollars could change so much!