Lower El Extra!
April 2016 - Edition 5
This Month's Contributors
Editor - Ben Agaipour
Photographer & Captions - Lyon Jones-Rutledge
Journalists - Emmanuel Atiyeh, Jake Doherty, Ella Edmonds, Ethan Garza, Alex Obadal, Carter Perry, Dylan Stickle, Gizelle Taylor
Thank you to Ben, this month's editor, for choosing the song for you to enjoy while you read!
March Events
Dr. Seuss Day
On Dr. Seuss Day, instead of doing math, language, and cultural work, Ms. Sinead handed us packets that had activities about Dr. Seuss. All morning until lunch we worked on activities all about Dr. Suess. Some of the activities included making hats, playing a syllable game, and reading Dr. Suess books.
During lunchtime we watched a movie by Dr. Seuss while we sat and ate in the classroom. This year we watched Horton Hears a Who. We also learned that Dr. Seuss was born on March 2, 1904, and died on September 24, 1991. Dr. Seuss is a lot of children's favorite author.
My Irish Dance Teacher
By Gizelle Taylor
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
I love Irish dance! I started taking dance when I was 6 years old. I am starting the second step of a dance called St. Patrick's Day!
My teacher's name is Ms. Lisa Hunt-Burgess. She has been teaching Irish dance for 12 years. Ms. Lisa started taking Irish dance lessons at the age of 31. Her teacher's name is Ms. Heather Mailey-Esposito, who is the Director of the An Cor Rud School. An Cor Rud means The Reel Thing in Gaelic.
Ms. Lisa started Irish dance because she loves Irish culture. There are two different styles of Irish dance, one is soft shoe and the other is hard shoe. She thinks soft shoe is easier than hard shoe because she has taken ballet for quite a few years. She danced with a group called Dancing on Common Ground and traveled to many different places.
She is married and has a young son. She has a younger sister named Margo. She is one of the best teachers ever!
Irish Dancing
We had a celebration on St. Patrick's Day. We celebrated by watching Irish dancing. Ms. Sinead, Gizelle, Anouk, and Charlotte each did a couple Irish dances. Anouk and Charlotte did their dances together. They were the Two Hand Reel, the Double Seven, and Hop One, Two, Threes. Ms. Sinead did King of Fairies, and she also did the St. Patrick's Day dance with Gizelle. Gizelle did the Reel, the Treble Jig, and St. Patrick's Day dances.
It was amazing that they memorized the foot work. It was very intricate and fun!
Retired Admiral Jim Loy
Admiral Jim Loy is my next-door neighbor and was an Officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. He served in the military for a total of 42 years and retired as a Full Admiral at the grade of 0-10. 41 of his 42 years was in service for others and only one of his years was on a combat mission in Vietnam.
During his career, he trained about a thousand people at the Coast Guard Academy where he taught History, Government, and International Affairs. He also trained lots of people when he was on ships. There were about 500 people on a ship. He worked closely with several Presidents, including Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. He met Dwight D. Eisenhower briefly.
Admiral Loy shared a very special experience in his career. While he was the Commander of a Coast Guard Cutter ship called The Valiant during a patrol in the Florida Straits, he helped save a woman's life. During that time, many immigrants were fleeing the country of Cuba to get to the United States for safety. The crew brought to his attention that there was a woman floating in the ocean holding on to only a piece of styrofoam. Commander Loy maneuvered the ship to where the woman was floating and had her pulled onto the flight deck for safety. They realized she was very pregnant, and she had her baby right there on the flight deck! Several days later, he went to visit her in the hospital in Key West where she was sent. The lady and the baby were fine, and she named her baby Valiant.
It is an honor to live next to a great Admiral like Jim Loy. I learned a lot about the military and the Coast Guard.
Poetry
This month we are studying poetry. We are learning how to write several different types of poems. LE2 will share our poems with our parents at our Poetry Tea on Friday, April 29th. LE1 will have their Poetry Tea on Friday, May 6th. I hope everyone can come to our celebrations.
I recently learned how to write a slotted poem, and I will share it with you now:
Platypus
If I were a platypus, I would constantly eat green grass.
I would quickly swim to blue water.
I would slowly sting a small fish.
If only I were a platypus.
*Illustration below was drawn by Ethan.
Ant
If I were an ant, I would quickly glide down a brown tree.
I would slowly eat green apples.
I would dangerously bite a tan person.
If only I were an ant.
Below is an example of Shape Poetry
Tuesday By David Weisner
For the last couple of weeks, we have been doing a writing project. We are doing it on a book called Tuesday by David Weisner. We are split into groups. The book is all pictures so what we are trying to do for each picture is make one good sentence with the five W's. These are who, what, when, where, and why. Each group gets one or two pictures. At the end of this writing project, we are going to make the sentences into a book! This project is helping us become better writers.
Below there is an example.
a turtle
looked curiously
into the dark, stormy sky
because he noticed something unusual.
Our Favorite Places to Go on Vacation!
As the weather gets nicer, we are all dreaming of spring break and even summer, so here is where we want to go . . .
LE1
Emmanuel - Newport News
Gabriel - Water Country
Jake - Wintergreen
Holly - Florida
Saylor - Hawaii
Harris - Ocracoke
Tyler - Shawnee Ski Resort, Pennsylvania
Anouk - Anderos les bains, France
Chris - France
Carter - Wintergreen
Chase - Florida
Cameron - Disney Land
Ashby - Myrtle Beach
Roman - Grand Cayman
Rishi - India
Sam - Mountains in New Mexico
Ms. Sinead - Austria
Ms. Anne - Cape Cod
LE2
Noah - Myrtle Beach
Ben - Baltimore, Maryland
Ava - Florida
Ella - Florida
Ethan - Florida
Lyon - Hawaii
Colin - India
Alex - France
Marshall - Russia
Porter - Nags Head, North Carolina
Lilly - Florida
Dylan - China
Gizelle - Pennsylvania
Connor - Ocean City
Harper - Florida
Charlotte - Steamboat, Colorado
Ms. Lauri - Belize
Ms. Nicole - St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands
Ms. Mary - North Conway, New Hampshire