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Unlocking the Power of Words—Keeping a Journal
Today we are diving into the world of journaling, where the blank pages become a canvas for your thoughts, dreams, hopes, fears, and experiences. Keeping a journal isn’t just about writing. It’s a magical portal that allows you to explore your innermost thoughts, express your emotions, and capture the important moments of your life. So, grab your favorite pen, find a cozy nook, and join us as we unveil the joys of journaling and how it can become your trusted companion in this exciting journey of self-discovery and personal growth. Let’s unlock the power of words and embrace the joy of keeping a journal!
First, what is a journal?
A journal is just a notebook or writing pad where you write about your inner thoughts, hopes, fears, concerns, worries, and excitement.
Journaling, quite simply, is a written record of your thoughts, feelings, or observations about the world. It can include short sentences, long paragraphs, or even single words. In a nutshell, a journal is whatever you want it to be.
The prospect of beginning a new journal for the first time can seem overwhelming. Luckily, the first rule of journal writing is that there’s no wrong way to do it. You can free write, jot down bullet points, or make a to-do list. It’s important to start and keep writing, whatever your style.
When things are going on in your life—write it down: Keeping a journal can be a productive way to cope with what is going on in your life.
Journaling helps you sleep, helps you understand yourself better, and helps you face what is going on in your life.
Writing all your anxious thoughts in your journal will really help you process those thoughts and help you prepare for the next day.
Journaling can help you figure out how to deal with conflict at school or home. And it helps you perform better on tests because you are not distracted by thinking or worrying about other things.
Keeping a journal allows you to understand your thoughts, become a better writer, and build better writing habits.
Here are five reasons you should keep a journal:
- Your journal has the potential to be a trusted friend who listens without judging or interrupting and is open 24 hours a day. You can tell your journal things you wouldn’t dare say to someone else. Writing it down lessens the impact of negative emotions and helps you figure out what your next steps should be.
- Reviewing your journals can help you reach your goals and respond to challenges. You’re also able to see the patterns that get in the way of personal growth, and healthy relationships with yourself and others. By becoming mindful of what you are discovering, you can move yourself from knowing into a doing state.
- 3. Journaling is easy and fun.
- Journals are creative portals. Because you’re in dialogue with your inner life when you write in a journal, you solve problems and get creative. Keeping a journal allows you to unleash your creativity and ideas.
- You give yourself permission to be your true self. Journals give voice to your dreams and aspirations but are also safe spaces to release negative feelings, hurts and disappointments that could get in the way of those dreams and aspirations being realized.
So, grab a pen or pencil and some paper—and start journaling!
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Unlegendary Dragon: The Magical Kids of Lore
Percy Jackson meets Wings of Fire in this hilarious, action-packed new series about a misfit kid who is destined to protect the world as a mighty, legendary dragon!
12-year-old Connor Pendridge is moving… again. This time, his mom thinks their lives will be better in Lore, a sleepy island town off the coast of New England. Connor doesn’t want to start over at yet another new school, especially in a place as boring as Lore. But as he quickly learns, Lore isn’t as boring as it seems.
That’s because fantastic creatures appear that only he can see—from fairies at school to goblins in his front yard. Connor thinks he’s going crazy until a mysterious woman reveals his true destiny and hands him a dragon amulet containing the magic of Excalibur, the legendary sword of King Arthur. Now Connor must use the amulet to transform into a mighty dragon in order to stop an ancient, evil sorceress from conquering the world! Connor doesn’t know the first thing about being a dragon. Luckily, he has the help of Merlin, his magical mentor, and his new friends, Gabby, who has a unicorn amulet, and Wade, who has a griffin amulet. Will Connor take flight as the legendary dragon of his destiny—or will he flame out as the most unlegendary dragon of all time?
From author R.L. Ullman for Readers 8-12.
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Tortilla Time—A Tasty Treat
Hola, young culinary artists and aspiring chefs! Today, we invite you to join us on a mouthwatering journey as we learn the age-old craft of making tortillas from scratch. We will roll up our sleeves, dust our hands with flour, and unlock the secrets to creating these delectable, versatile flatbreads that have been a staple in many cuisines for centuries.
Making tortillas isn’t just about mixing ingredients; it’s a delightful process that combines tradition, skill, and a pinch of love. So, grab your aprons, gather your ingredients, and let’s dive into the delightful world of tortillas.
Get ready to knead, press, and savor the satisfaction of creating homemade tortillas that will elevate your meals to new heights. Let’s embark on a culinary adventure as we learn the art of making tortillas together, one delicious batch at a time.
Tortillas (pronounced tor-tea-yas, tor-tea-ya sing.) are easy to make and they taste good. You can cook them in a dry skillet, bake them in the oven at 350⁰, or on an open flame. Whichever way you cook them, for safety reasons always make sure you have an adult, or other grown up, in the kitchen with you during the cooking stage.
When you are done, you want your tortilla to be soft and tender, with just a little bit of “chew.” You can make and serve them in under one hour. And the more you practice making them, the faster you will become getting them onto your plate and into your stomach.
If you want, you can make the dough the day before and allow it to rest in the fridge overnight. Just make sure you take it out of the refrigerator the next day to warm up some. The dough is easier to flatten when it isn’t ice cold.
You make tortillas with five simple ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, a fat (butter, lard, shortening, or vegetable oil), and hot water. Usually you just use unbleached, all-purpose flour. However, you can use half a mixture of white whole wheat flour and all-purpose white flour; or all gluten-free flour if you prefer. If you are a vegan, you will want to use the vegetable oil for your fat.
It only takes about fifteen minutes to prepare the dough and a few minutes to cook the flattened patties in the skillet. If you decide to bake them in the oven, then bake them for twenty to twenty-five minutes.
To make 8 tortillas, you need:
2 ½ cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup of fat (lard, shortening, or butter) [Note: if using oil, add the ¼ cup of oil to the hot water]
¾ cup of hot water (110⁰ – 120⁰)—add more water if needed
- Add the dry ingredients together and crumble the fat into the dry mixture.
- Add the liquid (hot water; or hot water and vegetable oil.)
- Use a fork, mixer with a dough hook, or a dough whisk to bring the dough together into a shaggy mass.
- Add additional water by the tablespoon until there are no dry powdery bits in the bottom of the bowl. The dough should hold together when squeezed.
- Knead gently. (Roll it gently into a ball until it looks smooth.)
- Let the dough rest for ½ hour.
- Divide into 8 balls and flatten with your hand or a tortilla press.
- Cook until done.
And there you have it! Eight delicious and tasty tortillas to enjoy!
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The Elyrian
Like everyone else, Ace believed witches were nothing more than a bedtime story myth . . .
On a family vacation in a strange new land, Grandpa pulls Ace aside and tells him a startling truth. Not only are witches real, but they’re also taking over the world, and Ace is the only one who can stop them.
Ace is the chosen keeper of a mythical gem housing an incredible, ancient power that makes the darkness tremble—unfortunately, that also makes him and his family the witches’ biggest target.
Then, after passing the gem down to him, Grandpa mysteriously disappears, leaving Ace to fend for himself.
To learn this new power, Ace must now escape the witches chasing him and his family, venture through treacherous lands filled with strange creatures to the headquarters of his grandfather’s underground rebellion, and somehow convince a group of elite warriors that he—a twelve-year-old boy and his grandfather’s youngest descendant—must assume leadership.
Can twelve-year-old Ace save the world and protect this family?
From author D.P. Rowell for Readers 9-12.
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The International Space Station—ISS
Welcome to space all you space explorers! The International Space Station (ISS), is a remarkable laboratory floating 250 miles above our planet. The ISS is an amazing feat of exploration where astronauts collaborate and conduct experiments. Let’s buckle up and explore the International Space Station!
Five space agencies from 15 countries run the International Space Station. The ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2000. An international crew of seven people live and work while traveling at a speed of five miles per second, orbiting Earth about every 90 minutes. Sometimes more are aboard the station during a crew handover. In 24 hours, the space station makes 16 orbits of Earth, traveling through 16 sunrises and sunsets. The acre of solar panels that power the station means sometimes you can look up in the sky at night and see the spaceship flying over your home, even if you live in a big city.
The living and working space in the station is larger than a six-bedroom house (and has six sleeping quarters, two bathrooms, a gym, and a 360-degree view bay window). Since there are six bedrooms, but seven crew members, that means that at least one crew member is awake and on duty while the others sleep. To mitigate the loss of muscle and bone mass in the human body in microgravity, the astronauts work out at least two hours a day.
Astronauts and cosmonauts regularly conduct spacewalks for space station construction, maintenance, and upgrades. The solar array wingspan (356 feet, 109 meters) is longer than the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380 (262 feet, 80 meters).
The large modules and other pieces of the station were delivered on 42 assembly flights, 37 on the U.S. space shuttles and five on Russian Proton/Soyuz rockets.
The space station is 356 feet (109 meters) end-to-end, one yard shy of the full length of an American football field, including the end zones. Eight miles of wire connects the electrical power system aboard the space station. On-orbit software monitors approximately 350,000 sensors, ensuring station and crew health and safety.
Eight spaceships can be connected to the space station at once. While it can host over 20 different research payloads outside the station at the same time. Plus, a spacecraft can arrive at the space station as soon as four hours after launching from Earth.
Four different cargo spacecraft deliver science, cargo, and supplies: Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus, SpaceX’s Dragon, JAXA’s HTV, and the Russian Progress. The microgravity laboratory has hosted nearly 3,000 research investigations from researchers in over 108 countries. The station’s orbital path takes it over 90 percent of the Earth’s population, with astronauts taking millions of images of the planet below. The space station travels an equivalent distance to the Moon and back in about a day.
Interestingly, the Station is scheduled to orbit Earth till 2024, though some of the NASA officials confirmed that orbit will be extended till 2028. Then it will be intentionally deorbited over a stretch of ocean and most of the components will be burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Some fun facts about the station begin with the fact that there is a gun placed in the International Space Station that belongs to the Russians. The purpose of the gun is to protect themselves against the bears in case the capsule lands off-target on reentry into the earth. Another fun fact is Pizza Hut made a delivery to the International Space Station in 2001. They paid the Russians $1 million to transport the Pizza. They made a commercial from it.
Another interesting fact about the Station is that it has a small memory device that contains the DNA of British physicist Stephen Hawking, late night TV host Stephen Colbert, and Playboy model Jo Garcia. It is known as the Immortality Drive. Plus, American astronauts can vote in elections from orbit by secure email. And some of the shooting stars in the atmosphere that you can see are actually astronauts poop burning up in the atmosphere.
NASA has a service where you can register your mobile number and they will text you the exact location of the International Space Station. Now wouldn’t that be a fun thing to show all of your friends if you have your own cell phone.
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Puzzled
Peter, an exceptionally clever junior high school kid, is pulled into an adventure where he and a few friends have to solve a series of very challenging riddles and puzzles in order to prevent a deadly disaster. Peter’s mind, which has an amazing talent for problem-solving, is needed to save the world.
This adventure sure is a big change from what Peter typically deals with in life: He gets called geek and nerd by everyone in the cool group. He tries to hide his love for learning, in a hope to stick out a little less. He fantasizes about a girl who is out of his league.
Peter and his friends must solve every confusing riddle and challenging puzzle they face. If they can’t, a powerful supernatural being will cause immense destruction and devastation.
From author P.J. Nichols for Readers 9-15.
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Pandas
What looks like a bear and acts like a bear, but isn’t a bear?
You guessed it—it is a panda. With their cute black eye patches and white faces, cuddly looking pandas are a fan favorite among zoo-goers and intrepid visitors to the China’s panda sanctuaries. For a long time, animal scientists could not decide on whether pandas were related to bears, or even possibly raccoons. But recent advances in science helped scientists realize pandas belong to an animal family all their own. It is known as Ailuridae. While bears belong to the Ursidae family and raccoons are from the Procyonidae family.
90-98% of a panda’s diet is bamboo. Unfortunately, in China, many of the bamboo forest were cut down to make room for humans to grow crops for food. As a result, the panda population almost disappeared. Scientists estimated that there were only about 1,000 pandas in all of China and they were in danger of extinction. But thankfully because they are so cute, people around the world united to help save them from extinction. Today, there are now over 1900 pandas in the wild. With a few more in select zoos around the world. They are on loan to the zoos—for a price. The money the zoos are charged goes to funding the panda sanctuaries in China and the research needed to protect them and help their population grow.
Pandas reproduce slowly and not very often. A baby panda lives with its mother until it is eighteen months old before it leaves home and goes out on its own. Then the mother is only fertile for 2-3 days in the entire year. Since pandas are solitary creatures, a female panda may not get pregnant again for many years. When they get pregnant, they may have twins. Unfortunately, many times, one twin is overlooked and dies.
To save the pandas, and increase their population, scientists came up with the idea to use the world’s zoos with their highly trained veterinarian staffs, to help the pandas with their slow reproduction problems. That is why China loans out their rare pandas to select zoos around the world. Thanks to that program, many new pandas have been born and returned to the panda sanctuaries in China.
Pandas were so rare that no European had observed a live one in the wild until Walter Stötzner’s expedition of 1913-15. The only other reported sighting before then was from a Catholic missionary named Armand David, who saw some panda furs in 1869.
China now has over 40 panda sanctuaries in the remote mountain regions of the Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. The sanctuaries protect the animals against poachers and help them breed so that their population will grow.
A baby panda only weighs about 4 ounces when it is born—that’s less than a candy bar. And it is only about as long as a pencil at birth. Its eyes are closed for the first 45 days after it is born, and it is virtually helpless. It depends entirely on its mother for warmth, nourishment, positioning at the breast, and stimulating the passage of wastes.
And speaking of poop—bamboo is not very nutritious. So, a panda has to eat a lot of it in order to stay alive. A panda eats 16-19 hours a day, and that is a lot of bamboo for the panda to digest. So, it has to poop over 50 times a day to make room for all the bamboo it has to eat.
When they aren’t foraging for food to eat. Pandas like to play. That’s why pandas like living in the zoos. There they don’t have to spend all their days searching for bamboo to eat. Instead, they get to spend their time playing and entertaining visitors. And they live longer, too. Captive pandas may live beyond 30 years in captivity, but their life span in the wild is estimated at about 20 years.
Although they are cute and cuddly looking, male pandas can grow to be six feet tall and weigh over two hundred pounds. Females are usually smaller. Although they are usually slow moving and clumsy, Pandas do climb high in a tree to reach the bamboo they need to eat.
Unlike most other bears, pandas do not hibernate. When winter approaches, they head lower down their mountain homes to warmer temperatures, where they continue to chomp away on bamboo! And thanks to conservation efforts panda bear numbers are increasing in the wild. Though there’s still lots of work to be done, the species is no longer considered endangered. Hooray!
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Fearless: A Dog Story
Eleven-year-old Jessie Nelson fears her soldier Mom won’t make it home from the War in Afghanistan. So, Jessie and her dad move in with Grandpa for the summer in small-town southern Minnesota where a historic tornado has made the townspeople fearful. With new friends in tow, Jessie and the boys stumble onto an old barn with terrified dogs inside. Jessie wants to save them all but knows she can’t. So, she saves one — the one dog cocking its head to the side and watching Jessie with its melty eyes. Soon Jessie learns the dog suffers from PTSD and needs TLC in order to trust again. Jessie hides the fearful dog in her bedroom until another tornado strikes and changes everything.
From author Kristin Johnson for Readers 8-12.
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Robots–A Kid’s New Best Friend
From science fiction tales to real-life applications, robots have captured our imaginations and are shaping the world we live in. They have been around since the middle of the last century and some of us even have them in our homes in the form of mobile vacuum cleaners. (If your family has one, I bet you didn’t know that it was a robot.)
What is a robot and what is robotics?
First, the modern term robot is derived from the Czech word robota, which means “forced labor” or “serf.” It was first used by Czech playwright Karel Čapek in his 1920 stage play R.U.R.
A robot is any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort. Robots come in many different shapes and sizes from very tiny to very large. One of the most famous robots that you know about is the Mars Rover. It is collecting and analyzing samples, along with data, from the Red Planet and transmitting the information back to us here on Earth.
The car industry is one of the biggest, and longest, users of robots in their assembly plants. In fact, robotic arms assembled most of your family’s car on the assembly line.
Robotics, on the other hand, is the engineering and research that deals with the design, construction, and operation of robots. Engineers, coders, designers, and even kids are involved in robotics today.
The first common robots were the mechanical assembly arms used in the manufacturing assembly line. But today we have far more human-like robots to help and entertain us. They range from droids, like C3PO in Star Wars, to combat drones being used in the war in Ukraine.
The word droid comes from the term android. A droid is a robot with some physical resemblance to a human, like C3PO. While an android is a robot designed to look and act like a human, like the Terminator. (Okay, the Terminator started out acting like a “evil human.” But eventually he turned out to be a “good” guy by helping the heroine.)
Thanks to the lightning-fast advances being made in computer processors today. Robot development is making great strides towards becoming more and more human-like. Especially when they are paired with artificial intelligence.
Like computers, robots are becoming so commonplace in our lives that we are learning about them in school where kids are learning about robotics. Because STEM literacy is so important nowadays in our lives, students are encouraged to start learning about robotics as early as possible.
Robotics can help you gain skills like coding, problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and creativity. It provides you with the skills needed for almost any kind of education or job that you might want to pursue when you get older.
Some people are afraid of robots because they fear that, along with A.I., they will some day take over the world and enslave humans. But, like A.I., it is our responsibility as their creators to teach them how to get along with us.
Besides being helpful, robots can entertain and amuse us as toys, TV shows, and movies. To get an idea of what is out there, all you have to do is a computer search for “robots.” It is interesting and fun to see what is out there already. And to imagine just what kind of new robots the experts are going to come up with in the future.
Who knows? Your robotics classes could lead to you inventing the next great robot.
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Secret Agent 6th Grader: Selfies Are Forever
The name’s Valentine, Brody Valentine, and I’m back with my fourth case. The sixth graders of Buchanan School are on a trip to the mall to watch our award winning show choir perform in the food court. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig, right? Not when there’s danger lurking in the background. Someone’s decided to use this trip to string along the last members of Glitch by forcing us on a wild selfie chase, but as it turns out, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Now, one of the best days of the school year is in danger of becoming one of the worst. If I want to keep Glitch alive, I’ve gotta try and solve this case before the show choir takes the stage, but in a case with more twists than a pretzel, things might knot work out for anyone… and they might feel a little salty… and these puns are kind of cinnamon crunchy… wait, that last one didn’t work.
From authors Marcus Emerson and Noah Child for Readers 8-12.
