In language arts, we were reading a book called The Last Cuentista. The book was about this girl and her family having to leave Earth because humans destroyed it. They went in a space ship to a new planet. But when they got there, some of the people on the ship wanted to start a new life and forget the old one, so they executed the girls family because they couldn’t erase their memory. They turned the girl and some other kids into servants to experiment on. They thought that the girl’s memory had been released, but it hadn’t. So she tried to find her family, but they were dead, so she snuck away from the ship with the other kids. Finally she found the people from the other ship.
After we finished the book, we had to imagine a new world. We wrote a paragraph describing how the world looked and the economic systems that humans will put there. My planet was called Planet Party. Then we had to draw our planet. After that, we made 3D books and drew what our planet might look like inside a box. We cut holes in the side, so we could look into it. Then we chose a front and back cover for our books. Mine was made out of red canvas. Then we printed our paragraphs and glued them to our 3D books. This was a very creative and fun idea!
This year in language arts, we were given 20,000 fake dollars to invest up in up to six companies. The same time we were doing this, our class was reading The Westing Game. One of the characters in the book was named Turtle. All the characters were given 10,000 dollars. Turtle decided to invest her 10,000 dollars to get more money. We made a spread sheet and put in commands to calculate how much money we got. I started with 65 dollars because a lot of companies were not doing good. But later on, I got more and more, until I got 950 dollars! This was very fun and it taught me how real investors earned and lost money.
Have you ever watched a Ted Talk? One day in Language Arts, my teacher told me that we were going to do a Ted like Talk. I had to talk for five minuets! That meant that I had to add a lot of details. Our teacher said that we could do it on whatever we wanted, but there were so many things to choose from, so I thought for a few days.
One Friday, I was playing my favorite video game, War Thunder with my friends. Then I had an idea! I could talk about War Thunder for my Ted Talk! So when it was Monday, I told my teacher I wanted to talk about War Thunder.
War Thunder is a video game based on World War One and World War Two. You can play as tanks, airplanes, or battleships with other people all around the world! There are also many countries to choose from, each with different vehicles. You can battle with other people and earn research with which you can unlock better vehicles on a Tech Tree. The graphics and physics are very realistic. Every vehicle in the game was actually made in real life!
To prepare, our teacher showed us actual Ted Talks to show how to present. They looked very professional. One of my favorite parts about this assignment, was that I got an excuse to play War Thunder during school days to take pictures. I also realized that even though five minutes may sound long, War Thunder is such a complex game, that I decided to focus on tanks, which was my favorite part. I put all of my pictures in a slide show, and made notes for important things to talk about.
After practicing, I realized that my talk was only three and a half minutes, so I decided to add a little humor and a slide with tips on how to do good. Finally it was time to present! I talked slowly so maximize the time. My teacher liked my starting question, which was, “Can you imagine flying over the reefs of Australia, hiding in the ruins of Machu Picchu, or sailing the coasts in a dangerous boat?” I really enjoyed making this Ted like Talk, and also maybe you can try out War Thunder too.