Month: May 2023

Stock Market Project


Recently, in Language Arts we have been talking about and working with fake stocks. In early April, we started this process. At first, one of our math teachers came in to help us make our Google Sheets to help us organize our stocks. She taught us About what stocks were and how to and put formulas to track our earnings. After that, we each got given an imaginary budget of $20,000 to invest in our own stocks. There are a few obligations. Number one was that we could only invest in up to six different stocks. Number two was that we could not spend a single penny over our budget. Number three was that our stocks had to be part of the New York Stock Exchange. Lastly, number four was that all of her stocks had to produce actual items. That was only the first step in the process, organizing and learning about everything. In the next part of the project, we actually started to check our stocks!

Once our initial planning was done, we had check-ins of how our stocks were going. Each week we recorded our earnings or losses on a flashcard  to track our progress over a long period of time. By doing this, we were also able to compare our stocks with others and see how theirs were doing too. Everyone’s goal is to ultimately win the project by having earned the most money through the imaginary stocks you invested in. Both the people that earned the most and this imaginary stocks project  and lost the most in this project won a prize! Above you can see the stocks I invested in and how they were doing on 5/30/23. Some have done really well since the last time I checked, but some have also gotten progressively worse. Right now in particular Facebook and Apple are doing really well but Nike on the other hand isn’t. Hopefully, my stocks continue to improve over time event though I won’t be tracking them anymore. 

This project was inspired by The Westing Game. It is a book about 16 people who try and solve a murder mystery. One girl, Turtle thinks investing in and working with stocks in the solution to the riddles/clues everyone is given. We have been working with this book a lot lately, and this is one of my favorite things we did relating to the book because Turtle, the character so invested in stocks, is my favorite character! I love doing this as it gave me a chance to learn more about the stock market and how it works and because I loved investing in my own personal fake stocks to see how they did it over time. Thank you for reading this post!

6th Grade Language Arts has gone by so fast!

The Last Cuentista:

(Picture taken from my books app)


In around November our sixth started reading a book called The Last Cuentista by:  The Last Cuentista is a book about a girl and her family who get selected to travel to a new planet. This journey will take them hundreds of years and in the meantime they will lose all memories of their past. All but Petra, the main character, who goes on a mission to regain everyone’s memories. She does this using the power of words and I’m here to tell you the importance of why.  

Words are very powerful. Words get you out of sticky situations,  words determine whether someone is guilty or not, words keep a conversation going. Words are what ensure our place in the world today. The Last Cuentista is a great reminder of this message. When all hope is given up Petra relies on the familiar stories words created. She relies on the stories passed down to her through her family and shares them with others. By doing this she wanted them to remember some parts about their past. She was resilient; she went through stories and stories and stories until she found the right one. People started regaining their memories of the past. They started to gain back the familiar feeling of being at home while laying in your bed and having your parents read to you. The comfort that it gives. If Petra hadn’t remembered the stories many many people would have lost all All thoughts of their previous lives. 

Words create stories, the stories that are told to us about our family and how to live life. What would happen to us if we lost all these stories? We would lose everything, all of our knowledge. The Last Cuentista is a great reminder of this message. We need to remember words, because the stories that we tell create our future generations. Without them, we would know nothing about the past, we would not be able to create such an everlasting impact on earth. So thank you to those who take the time to spread these messages, who tell the stories of sadness,  happiness,  surprise, anger, suffering, and everything in between. 

Ideal World: 

After reading the story, we have to create our own ideal worlds. We had to envision everything that we would want, design it, draw it, and finally create a blog post about it. Scroll down to find what my ideal world would be like! some small hints: my ideal world was split into three major parts with different unique aspects. 1/3 of my word was completely dedicated to sports, specifically field hockey. One part was dedicated to all the business aspects, and the last was one just as if it was out of a magical fairy tale. This experience was truly so fun, and so different. it was like I was writing down everything out of my dreams and trying to make it a reality. Definitely one of my favorite things about 6th grade language arts!

Book Making:

The next major project in 6th language arts  was creating our own personal 3D books. A local artist, Peg Gignoux came in to help us. She told us how to collage and a special technique of ink printing called Akua. When that was done she helped us assemble our books, create the cover, pick color schemes, and put the final touches on our books. I made my book surrounding a nature theme. I tried to use a lot of plants, trees, foliage, bushes, and natural aspects of our world today. The final step in the process was adding our  Ideal World story and cuento to the book. Read on to find out more about my personal cuento (story)!  Once they were all done they were put up for the whole school to see. This was definitely my favorite thing we did this year!.

Cuento:

Keep it on the theme of stories. We were asked to write about our own. We chose one particular moment about us or someone else  and wrote about it. I wrote mine about cheese, no matter how crazy it is. You see, when I was younger I was obsessed with cheese and went through great lengths to obtain some for myself. so I thought it would be really fun and unique to write about it. I loved how my cuento turned out.

Sixth grade has truly gone by so fast, one moment we were learning about grammar and learning how to enhance our writing, The next we’re riding full on stories for our school for our school to see. Although some times we’re busier than others, we truly did so much. It was a year I will never forget and I made some great memories throughout it. Thank you for reading this blog post!