Month: May 2021

💵 Stocks Project 💵

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My class and I invested $20,000 into 6 companies. Okay, so we imagined the $20,000, but I still got to experience the feeling of wondering if the stocks have gone up or down. I have never been interested in stocks before, so this project was a cool subject for me. 💰

Setting up the spreadsheet for my stocks was the very first thing we did. My class followed Mrs. Sprague, who led the process, and we typed the numbers and made the shortcuts in Google Sheets. After setting up the spreadsheet, we got to choose our companies. I chose Nike, Starbucks, The Cheesecake Factory, McDonalds, Disney, and Amazon because each one of these companies has a relation to me. I chose Starbucks and The Cheesecake Factory because my family eats there, I chose Nike and Amazon because I buy products from them, and I chose Disney because my family has visited Disney about five times before. Finally, I chose McDonalds as a random, well-known company. 🍔 🍟

I thought tracking the investment over three months was very exciting and fun. Obviously, we didn’t actually spend $20,000, so it was not a real risk. Seeing the numbers fly up at one point and spiral down made me think if I was actually investing the money, what would I do? My personal experience with this is my stocks pretty much starting off in a low point, then slowly climbing higher, and then going back down again to end the three months. It felt kind of like a mini-surprise each time I checked. 🎉

Like every project, I always try to think of the highlights from each. Whether it’s an opportunity to practice my skills (see blog below), or just enjoying it, I always find something to be grateful for. With that said, the highlights of this stocks project was learning about a new topic and having fun with it. 😁

My TED Talk 💭

27addisonp /

As you can probably tell from the title, I presented a TED talk. The process was very unique and I definitely am proud of myself for doing it. I have not really loved presentations in the past, just because of speaking in front of everyone, so this was an accomplishment for me. ⭐️

First, my class watched profesional TED talks on the TED website. We paid attention to the little things that the speakers did to engage the audience and speak from their perspective. My personal favorites were the topics that no one would really think to consider. Next, we choose an idea to share. This part was easy for me because I have always been passionate about taking care of animals, so I wanted to share my story along with some tips to my class. 🐹

After that, we researched and created our talks. I knew most of the facts I shared in my presentation, which meant I didn’t have to do much research. I used an example in my slides of a cage that is too small for a guinea pig, and one that is big enough for two. I also made an acronym to help the audience remember the key points (PETS= passion, expense, time, and shelter + food).

The most important part of making my talk was practice. My plan was to practice it all the way through three times for each day, and that’s what I did! Having this plan helped me to put forth my best effort and presenting it eventually became instinct. 👍

That brings me to my last step: presenting. Like I said before, presenting in front of several people has not always been my favorite. However, this time was slightly less nerve-wracking. Don’t get me wrong, I was still nervous to present it, but the fact that I had practiced my talk multiple times made me feel prepared. My presentation went smoothly and exactly how I wanted it to go. 👩‍🏫

At the end of my talk, I got to see the reactions from my peers. This was by far my favorite part. My classmates were very supportive of my and everyone else’s talk. The round of applause never died, even when it got to the last presentation in the last class of the day. I believe that support made me feel even more comfortable giving my talk. 🤗

I am very grateful to have had this experience to grow in my researching, planning, and presenting skills. 🧩

Bye! 👋

 

 

 

My Tree Book Experience 🌲

27addisonp /

Starting on March 15th, and ending on May 15th, my class made Tree Books. A Tree Book is a book with a collection of writings and stories. The process of making one took hard work, but seeing the end result and the reactions from my family made the two months of work worth it. 🏆

The first step to making a Tree Book is screen printing. Screen printing is where we took stencils and painted over them on to a separate painted cardboard. To make the stencils meaningful, we were asked to describe a tree we found. Then, local artist Peg Gignoux-a significant figure in our entire process-turned those words into stencils, which we then spread out over the cardboard. This will eventually become the base of our Tree Books. 📚

The next step is folding the paper that will make the Tree Book. The folding of a Tree Book is very interesting, and takes multiple steps to do. The paper ends up popping out of the book, making the soon-to-be forest scene come to life.

The third step, and my personal favorite, is akua inking. This step is similar to the screen printing, in which we painted over something to create an image. Instead of painting over the stencils, we painted over natural resources such as leaves and flowers. I got to be creative with this step, since there was so many choices between the paint colors, the types of paper, and the natural resources we could use. 🎨

After akua inking, we got to use our art to create a collage inside our book. This is the part where I felt like our books were really starting to come together. The scenes we created were very unique, but they all represented some kind of habitat within the Tree Books. I made a scene with hills, forests, and animals. 🌳 

The fifth step was making pockets for our individual pieces of writing to go in. We got 3 to put on our books. Using leftover akua paintings, the pockets were decorated to seem like a part of the scene and were glued on in spots of our choice. 🖌

To go with our Tree Books, we wrote different writings to make our books special. The first was a Salute to My Roots. This piece of writing was multiple paragraphs honoring one or many people in our family. I wrote about my sister, and her reaction to reading was priceless. The second writing was a Life List. This was a list of all the things we wanted to accomplish with our lives, with no limits or approval from anyone. This let our minds wander, since most of us have never really considered every single thing we want to do, especially with no limits. After that, we made a poem titled When This is Over. In this poem, we talked about the things we would never again take for granted, and the lessons we learned because of this pandemic. The last writing piece was a wish. This wish could be about ourselves, other people, pets, and really anything. It was inspired by Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, a book we as a class are currently reading. Our wish was written on a piece of paper and in some way attached to our Tree Book. I disguised mine as a flower pot in the scene, but can open up like a book. After deciding where these pieces of writing would go in our Tree Book, the project was completed. 🎉

Our Tree Books we’re displayed at the Frank Art Gallery. It was such an amazing experience to see my work of art standing in a real gallery! Like I said before, watching my Mom, Dad, and sister’s reactions made the two month process worth it. 😊

Would you do this project? 🌲

 

Here is the link to the Frank Art Gallery website:

https://www.frankisart.com/

Here is Peg Gignoux’s website:

https://gignouxart.com/

 

Thank you for reading! 👋