Today in science class, we had rather an unusual science experiment; breathing through straws.   First, we tried the wider straw, which everybody found pretty easy, and then we tried the thin straw, which was practically IMPOSSIBLE!  The only activity we had to do with the thin straw was sit, because you can't breathe very well through a thin straw while sitting, just imagine the difficulty while running!  The activity where breathing through the wide straw was hardest was jumping jacks, where I panted a lot and took several breaks.  I think this is because I didn't have enough air to do the activity properly, so my lungs were kind of going "Hey, there's a little problem here?"  Either way, it was MUCH harder to breathe through the thin straw, and I think I took like 20 rest breaks because it was so hard, even sitting down.  I was glad we didn't do other activities other than that.  If we had, my lungs would have burst!  As I got more active, I noticed my breathing got faster and more difficult since I was breathing through a straw, which restricted the amount of air allowed in.  My lungs needed to fill up faster, but they couldn't because of the straw.

Today is our third mystery Skype!  Our greeters are going first.  "Hi, we're Kelsey and Joey." 
"Welcome to our class.  We're glad to be doing this with you.  We have some sharers." 
"Hi, We're Katie, Lily, and Ian."  The sharers told them about our fun fair, ice cream social, and science projects.  Then the other class told us they had Saturday School, which helped them get ready for the skate test.  Here come the questions!" They asked if our state bordered any oceans.  When the answer was no, it was our turn.  They took one more question, does your state border Virginia, and then our turn.  "Are you in the US?"  YES!  Our follow up. "Do you border an ocean?"  No.  Their turn.  "Is the temperature cold where you live right now?"  Yes.  Their follow up.  "Does your state border New York?"  No.  Our turn.  "Is your state east of the Mississippi River?"  Yes.  Our follow up.  "Are you in the southeast region?"  No.  Their turn.  "Are there any dangerous animals where you live?"  Not many, but some.  Our turn.  "Does it snow a lot when you're in winter?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you live in a famous city?"  No. "Do you live near a famous city?"  Yes.  Their followup.  "Do you guys border New York?"  Yes.  Our followup.  "Do you border east side of New York?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you have any rivers in your state?"  Yes.  Their followup.  "Do you border Colorado?"  No.  Our turn.  "Are you in Pennsylvania?"  Yes!  We guessed their state, plus we get a follow up.  "Does your county name start with the letters a through l?"  Yes.  Their turn.  "Does your state border any lakes?"  Yes.  Their followup.  "Does the name of your state begin with a vowel?"  Yes.  Our turn.  "Is your county on the east side of Pennsylvania?"  Yes.  Their turn.  "Is your state west of Louisiana?"  Yes.  Our turn.  "Are you in the Southeast area of Pennsylvania?"  Yes.  Our followup.  "Does your county start with the letters a through g?"  No.  Their turn.  "Is your state Illinois?"  Yes.  Their followup.  "Is it real windy where you live?"  Sometimes.  Our turn.  "Is the letter that your county start with j through l?"  Yes.  Our followup.  "Does your county start with the letter l?"  Yes.  Their turn.  "Does your city end with a vowel?"  No.  Our turn.  "Is the second letter in your county a v?"  No.  Now, since we're running out of time, we're taking a few more questions.  "Do you live in Lancaster County?"  Yes.  Now, the other class is going to say their county their way.  Laincister.  We told them about where we live, in Arlington Heights."

Today, we are doing our second EVER mystery Skype!  Their greeters are going first, and they say "Hi, my name is Katherine."  "And I'm Connor." They told us a few cool facts about their school, and then it was our turn.  "Hi, I'm Kelsie."  "And I'm Joey." "And we have a couple sharers to share some things about our school." 
"Hi, we're Katie, Lily, and Ian." They told the other class about our Ice Cream Social and other stuff and they asked "Do you live in the US?" Yes.  Their follow up. "Do you live near the Indian Ocean?"  "No." Our turn.  "Do you guys live in the US?"  Yes.  Follow up.  "Are you east of the Mississippi River?" Yes.  Their turn.  "Do you live in one of the first 13 colonies?"  No.  Our turn.  "Do you live in the Midwest Region?"  Yes.  Our follow up.  "Are you on a state that borders one of the Great Lakes?"  Yes.  Their turn.  "Do you live in the Midwest?"  Yes.  Their follow up.  "Do you live near a great lake?  Like close?"  Yes.  Our turn.  "Are you in Illinois?"  Yes.  Our follow up.  "Are you east of the Illinois River?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you live in Illinois?"  Yes.  Their follow up.  "Do you live near Springfield Illinois?"  No.  Our turn.  "Do you live north of Chicago?"  Yes.  Our follow up.  "Are you east of the Rock River?"  Long pause.  Then finally... YES!  Their turn.  "Do you live in Rockford?"  No.  Our turn.  "Do you live within a 65 mile radius of Chicago?"  Yes.  Our follow up.  "Are you in a 45 mile radius of Chicago?"  Yes.  Their turn.  "Are you within a 45 mile radius of the city of Chicago?" Yes.  Their follow up.  "Do you live in Evanston?"  No.  Our turn.  "Are you within a 30 mile radius of Chicago?"  Yes.  Our follow up.  "Are you within a 20 mile radius of Chicago?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you live within a 20 mile radius of Chicago?"  No.  Our turn.  "Does your city start with the letters A through L?"  Yes.  Our follow up.  "Does your city start with the letters A through G including G?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you live in a place that starts with the letter W?"  No!  Our turn.  "Do you live in Liberty ville?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you live north of Chicago?"  Yes.  Their follow up.  "Does the place you live in start with a G?"  No.  Our turn.  "Does your town start with the letters H through L?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you live in a place starting with the letters A through H?"  Yes.  Their follow up.  "Does your place start with the letter A?"  Yes.  Our turn.  "Do you live in Cook County?"  Yes.  Their turn.  "Do you live in Arlington Heights?"  Yes.  Their follow up.  "Do you go to a public school?"  Yes.  Our turn.  "Are you in Arlington Heights?"  No.  Their turn.  "Is your school Ivy Hill?"  No.  Our turn.  "Do you live in a city that starts with L?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you go to a middle school?"  No.  Our turn.  "Does your city start with an I?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you go to Forest View?"  No.  There, we have to stop for today.  Come back next time! 

In class, we have just started doing a period called Passion Time.  During passion time, you can do whatever your passion is.  This is my FAVORITE period, because nobody can accuse me of reading like crazy, although I often do.  Speaking of which, lately I have been reading a book called Fairest which is by Gail Carson Levine.  She has written several other books, and I read one called Ella Enchanted.  In the book I'm reading, I often get lost.  Not that it bothers me, I love getting lost in books.  Once when I was in second grade, I got so stuck that someone had to poke me before I paid heed to the world.  And then they laughed so loudly I was sure the whole world heard them.  If not the whole world, then the whole galaxy.  Either way, everybody says I'm a bookworm, and I'm kind of proud of it.  This book is the best ever!

Today in science class we tested how fast our heart beats were when doing a certain activity.  Everybody got to choose which ones they wanted to do and then test our heart beats.  I chose sitting still, standing, after running n place for 10 seconds, after jumping 10 seconds, and after doing 10 jumping jacks.  The activity that increased my heart beat the most was the jumping 10 seconds.  The one that increased my heart rate the least was the sitting still.  I was trying to line everything up from least to greatest heart beat per minute, but I kind of messed up because the activity that increased my heart rate the most was NOT at the end of the line.  I noticed that my heart rate went up and up as I kept doing the activities.  This is probably because I was working harder, so it makes sense that my heart would be working harder too.

We spent a lot of time in class learning about the causes of the Revolutionary War.  I think it's probably because in order to understand the Revolutionary War itself, you have to understand what started it.  There's no point in figuring out what happened after a battle or whatever if you don't know what happened during and before it.  Otherwise, you don't have much of an idea of what really happened.  We learned that some causes of the Revolutionary War had multiple effects, and some effects had multiple causes.  Like the Boston tea party was kind of started for two reasons, as you can see from my chart.  Also kind of like the Townshend acts, that began the Boston Massacre.  There were lots of different causes and effects, and sometimes they seem kind of tangled up in knots, but other times they come in crystal clear and you can see that one single cause had multiple effects, and you slap your forehead and go "Why didn't I THINK of that before?"  That is probably another reason we studied the start of the Revolutionary War and causes so long, it takes a while before you really, truly understand. 

Today during class my group made a model puzzle of a skeleton.  I didn't get an actual picture of the puzzle, but it looked a little like the skeleton at left.  We named the feet, the fibula, the tibia, the humerus, the ribcage, the pelvis, the skull, and the hands (of course).   Every group in our class (we pulled sticks to choose them so it was totally random) chose an activity out of a few buckets my teacher put on a table in our classroom and we chose the skeleton.  Well not me exactly.  My other group members chose it before I was selected to be in their group.  It didn't take us too long to put the skeleton together although I did get a bit confused when the arm bone wouldn't fit.  It turned out that the arm bone I was trying to fit in was the arm bone for the other side!  In other words, I was trying to put the left arm bone in the right arm socket.  Once we figured that out, however, the rest of the puzzle didn't take that long.


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Today, we are doing our first official mystery Skype!  The goal is to find out where our partner class is.  First, we say hello with our greeters.  This time, they greeted with "Hi, I'm Kelsie."
"And I'm Joey."
"And we're going to have a lot of fun doing this together." 
"We have some sharers."  The sharers told the other class about our variety show and fun fair.  The other class told us about their diet coke and mentos science project from this morning.  We told them about our energy debate stuff, and they said there was one more student to share some stuff.  She told us about when they would have THEIR fun fair.  Our first question was "Are you in the US?"  When the answer was "yes", we asked if they were east of the Mississippi River and they said yes to that also.  We asked them if they were in the Midwest region, and they said yes!  So we kept asking.  "Are you in a great lake state?" 
"Yes!"  This time our questioners consulted their notes before asking a question.  "Is your state on the border of Lake Michigan?"  Yet again, they said yes!  "Does their state start with the letter "i"?  Yes.  "Are you in Illinois?"  Yes.  "Are you in an urban area?"  No.  So it was their turn to ask a question.  "Hi I'm Joey.  And do you live in the US?"  Yes.  "Does your state border an ocean?"  No.  So it was our turn again!  "Are you east of the Illinois river?"  No.  Their turn.  "Are you in the Midwest region?"  Yes.  "Are you in Illinois?"  Yes.  "Are you east of the Illinois river?"  That one took awhile before we figured out the answer was no.  So it was our turn.  "Are you north of Chicago?"  Yes.  "Do you guys live in a rural area?"  No.  So it was their turn.  We were going back and forth like this when they asked "Do you live within a 50 mile radius of Chicago?"  We looked it up for a while and said yes.  For their next question, they asked "Are you in the 30 mile radius of Chicago?"  That time took just about as long, and we eventually said yes.  So they asked "Do you guys live in Chicago?"  No.  Yet again it was our turn and we asked "So are you guys in a suburb?"  Yes.  "Are you west of the Rock river?"  They weren't, and next they asked "Are you south of Chicago?"  I was pretty sure we were, but since my job is to type everything in, I didn't say anything.  The answer was no.  "Are you guys within a 50 mile radius of Rockford?"  We asked.  The answer was no.  Their question was "Are you in Lake County?"  No.  Then, it was our turn and we asked "Do you live in Lake County?" When they said yes, we were very ecxited and got to ask a followup question and it was "Does your city in Lake County start with any letters before "l" including "l"?" The answer was yes, but according to new rules, it was their question. "Do you live in Cook County?"  Yes.  Their turn again. "Do you live in Palatine?" No.  Our turn.  "Is your city a two word city?"  Yes.  Our follow up question. "Do you guys live in Lake Forest?"  No.  Their turn.  "Are you guys in Arlington Heights?"  Yes.  Their turn again.  "Does your school start with the letters from a through l?"  No.  Our turn.  "Do you guys live in Lake Zurich?"  Yes.  Follow up.  "Are you guys at Sarah Adams Elementary?"  Their turn.  "Are you guys in Olive Mary Stitt?"  No.  Our turn.  "Are you guys in School District 95?"  Yes!  Follow up.  "Does the first letter of your school's name start with an s?"  No.  Their turn.  "Do you guys go to Thomas Middle School?" No.  Our turn.  "Do you go to "Issac Fox?"  YES!  WE GOT IT!  They still hadn't figured us out, so they kept asking.  "Do you go to Patton?"  No.  "Are you north of Lake Arlington Park?" We looked it up, and the answer was no.  We broke the answer like this: Are you guys ready for the answer?  YES!  Okay, here it is: no.  Everybody laughed.  "Are you guys in Westgate School?"  YES!  Both classes had gotten it!