Five Reasons Why My Dog Is My Best Friend

I have a dog named Molly.  She is half Pomeranian and half chihuahua.  She has brown fur and black fur and it is short.  Molly is four years old and she likes me the best.  She fights with my cat Oreo all the time.

1. She never judges me when I make no sense.

2. She loves me no matter what I look like.

3. She is the first thing I see when I wake up and the last thing I see when I go to bed.  

4. She looks out for me when strange people come by, she protects me.  

5. She makes me smile when I have an awful day at school (she licks me).

Do you have a dog and what does it do to you? If you don’t have a dog what do you think it would do to you?

~candyapple

BLOGGER OF THE WEEK

Giving Up When Something Is Hard

Have you ever tried to do something that was really difficult but couldn't and then gave up?  Did you feel like a failure?  Did you go back and try it again or did you just stop entirely?

This year at our school for students in Grades 4, 5 and 6, we are looking at the idea of grit.  What is grit?  There are many aspects to grit that we are going to look at this year but the main point is to stick to something even though it's really hard to do.  For example, the other day during Phys. Ed. class, we were trying to throw and catch a football.  There were a couple of students that said they couldn't catch at all.  Although they wanted to give up, I made them continue to try catching the ball until they actually did.  You should have seen their faces light up when they caught that football.  You know who you are.

I know it's frustrating to keep trying at something when all you experience is failure.  With practice and perseverance however, you should start to get better at something.  Look at professional athletes such as hockey players.  How do you think they got to be that good?  It didn't just happen overnight.  They practiced and practiced and despite probably failing many times, continued to practice.

At our school this year, we are trying to teach our kids that failure is not necessarily a bad thing.  Instead of seeing it as something bad, we should grit our teeth and try it again.

Describe a time in your life where you showed grit and didn't give up.

~The Big HAM

I'm Smart, Are You?

If I asked you what you were good at you could probably list a couple of things immediately.  Some of us are really good at sports, others are very talented musically.  I am a math person which means I like dealing with numbers and I like things in an organized way.

Our class has been studying different kinds of smart and we have taken a "SMART" test which lets us know what kinds of smart each of us are.  Many of us already knew what kind of smart we were but a few of us discovered something different about ourselves.

We looked at eight types of "smart".  They are listed below in no particular order:

1.  Linguistic - strong at listening, speaking and reading

2.  Spatial - strong at imagining pictures and details

3.  Logical-Mathematical - strong at thinking with numbers or patterns

4.  Bodily-Kinesthetic - strong at hands-on tasks, building and athletics

5.  Musical - strong at songs, patterns and musical expression

6.  Interpersonal - people-oriented and outgoing, likes working with groups

7.  Intrapersonal - knows self very well, would rather be alone than with friends

8.  Naturalistic - loves outdoors, animals and nature

What kind of smart are you?

~The Big HAM

BLOGGER OF THE WEEK