Dear Belmont Park,

Hi my name is Dani, I’m an eighth grade student at Old Town Academy in San Diego. I go to your amusement park all the time. My favorite ride is the Octo Tron. I also like how the employees treat you.

We are having a Wine and Dine Gala, Saturday April 25th to raise money for our school supplies and our field trips. It is our biggest fundraiser that we have, so it’s necessary that we raise enough money to keep up with the school. I would appreciate it if you would make a donation to our school. If you would like to make a donation please contact the school at:

Thank You

Dani Redden
2120 San Diego Ave
San Diego CA, 92110
Phone: 619-574-6225
Fax: 619-683-2096

It’s been 80 years

Since that day in Jackson, Mississippi

It was a scorching hot day outside,

Mae Mobely was running a fever

Hilly was in the House with Elizabeth when suddenly,

Hilly said something from the corner of her mouth

What she said, I’ll never forget

She was going to tell Elizabeth about what I wrote about her

I wouldn’t let that happen

Unfortunately, Hilly accused me of helping in “The Help”

I guess she was right there

“I’ve been told I’ve been a pretty good writer myself.”

That’s the last thing I ever said to that stuck up woman

But I will never forget Mae Mobely

She was my favorite child

We told each the last things we were ever going to tell each other

“You is kind, you is smart, you is important.”

The iPad app I chose to review is a game called Plague Inc. which is about spreading viruses.

Plague Inc. is one of the creepiest games I’ve played.  The goal is to spread an infection throughout the world and destroy the human race. At first the game is easy, but then gradually it gets harder. To go to the next level you need to not have 100% cure. I think this game is fun even though sometimes you feel like you just want to break the iPad. It makes you realize that this could really happen and how easily viruses could spread.

We could use this game during science so we could learn about viruses and things of that nature.

18 year old Ryan Shapiro was attacked by a four foot shark, and it bit his arm leaving bite marks. The chances of a shark attack are extremely low, however later on, Ryan found himself back on the beach in Boca Raton. He was just grateful that the shark didn’t rip his arm off completely.

The author did not state his opinion in this article. My classmate Janel says, “It’s good that he wants to surf again.”I  think that even though he got bit by  a shark, I would still go surfing, but be a little bit more careful.

My father had always told me to there were three types of people in this world; the brave, the innocent, and the cowards. He told me that to be respected in life, you need to be brave. I wasn’t really a brave person, I was more of the innocent type of person. But in order to make my father understand me and make him accept me, I would have to become one of the brave.

Since my dad wanted me to become one of the brave people, he requested that we go skydiving. I really didn’t want to do this because I’m afraid of heights.  Either my dad didn’t care or he just didn’t know.Either way we went up on the plane and while up in the plane, I thought I would just jump and get it over with. Hopefully then, my dad would think I’m brave. When I was about to jump, something happened to the plane, some sort of malfunction. Suddenly the plane started falling from the sky, down, down. That was the moment I had to jump out.

To be continued…

The Vietnam War and Word War I had some similarities, however they did have some differences also, such as, how they lived and where they lived. The Vietnam soldiers lived in the jungle and their living conditions were hot and rainy. The soldiers during WWI lived in the trenches and tents, their living conditions were hectic. Sometimes they couldn’t even lite a fire or else their cover would be blown

During the Vietnam War and WWI they both ate similarly prepared food for military soldiers. They both ate from a can or package because there was no refrigeration. Their food had to be already made because sometimes they couldn’t lite a fire. They ate where ever they happened to be or stopped to camp.

In Vietnam, they had something called a Kent State rifle. They also had knives and grenades. The U.S. army sprayed this chemical called Agent Orange to kill the jungle plants and all the farm agriculture to make the farmers move. Napalm was used as a flamethrower and as bombs to kill people, it burned everything.  WWI soldiers had trench knives, grenades, rifle guns and machine guns.  During the Vietnam war, they had helmets that could protect them more against bullets and metal fragments. They also had flak jackets to protected them from shell fragments and shrapnel. WWI soldiers had basic gear and their helmets were not very protective and they had no flak jackets. The Agent Orange chemical would kill people on the spot or even give them cancer.

If the Vietnam war soldiers got wounded, medics in the field were the first to treat them. However, the WWI soldiers mostly died if wounded under the rain of artillery shells. Other soldiers just carried the dead, or their body parts back from the front lines. Everyone should appreciate their service and be thankful that something drastic hasnt happened yet.

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Genre: Historical Fiction

Rating: 5/5

In The Help, there are four main characters; Skeeter, Aibileen, Minny, and Hilly. The story takes place in small town Jackson, Mississippi, during the civil rights era. Aibileen and Minny are “the help” and they work for the white women in the county. Skeeter comes back to Jackson after finishing college and is offered a job at The Jackson Journal. After she takes that job, Skeeter wants to write about “the help” because she feels they are so much more than just maids. Skeeter wants write about what life is like from the maid’s perspective.

She asks Aibileen and Minny if they would tell their stories about working in their white employers’ houses, and they both say that they will help. Aibileen and Minny ask some of the other maids if they would tell their stories too, but many maids were afraid of helping because they thought they were either going to be shot, or they were going to go to jail for helping.

In the end, the book is published and it becomes very popular. One of the meanest women in town, Hilly, figures out that Aibileen and Minny helped. After writing the book, Skeeter gets a job in New York, and all the maids feel better about telling life from their side. Aibileen even thinks she might become a writer.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes history or stories about people. The author has a lot of imagery that really makes you feel for the way life was in the south during the time. It’s sad at some parts and funny at other parts. I would not recommend this book for children under 11 because there is some sexual content.

When I went to the Veterans Museum I was amazed by how many artifacts there were and how much history there was in just a little room. There were many different wars, arranged according to their time periods. I saw the Korean War, the bay of pigs invasion, World War II , and the Vietnam War. One interesting facts I learned was that during the World War II, soldiers would train in the Lily Pond in Balboa Park.

There were many great times in my family. For instance, one summer my family and I went to Las Vegas. We were having a good old time, going to restaurants, walking around, and hitting the pool. But one day, while I was sleeping, my father went out, and came back with my sister and her daughter. He had totally surprised us, “Look who I found wondering around the lobby.” I was really happy to see my sister, we have fun together. Later that day, we all went to the pool because it was scorching hot outside. My dad doesn’t really like to go to the pool, he says, “I’m already black. Why would I want to sit in the sun?”. But this time he did, and he even sat in the sun with us. The whole family sat out and had fun together with my dad sweating up a storm.

My favorite part of my sister being there was when she and I wrestled in the pool. We always tried to figure out who won, but we both ended up with water up our noses, so who wins? Sometimes I got jealous that she dressed cuter then me, but she is 17 years older. In the end it didn’t matter to me, we had a great time. That week in Las Vegas will never be a week I’ll forget.

Sleepy, Caley got out of bed and headed straight to the kitchen. While she ate her bowl of stale cereal, she thought about what she was going to do that week where she was in Alaska. Caley works for the National  Organization for Whales. She thought about maybe going to help whales that were trapped under the ice, or going on an Alaskan Safari. She decided to go help the whales trapped under the ice.

When she got to the site, there was a little hole that was cut out of the ice for the whales. Caley examined it because that was the only hole that the the whales could breathe through.  She wanted to cut another hole in the ice for the whales, but it was too thick.  If the whales could not be helped, they were going to die.  So as the days went on, the whales became more and more tired.

Caley was starting to get really scared that the whales might not survive.  One day, as she watched the whales, Caley heard some bulldozers. “What is that sound?”, she asked. The bulldozers came rumbling over the ice. They clashed and clunked their ton of ice cutting claws on to the freezing ice. After a few hours, enough ice was cut away and the whales were set free. Caley waved happily as the whales continued their journey.