The End of My Sixth Week at Feinberg Fisher

A picture of me and my Mom after school today.

It is finally Friday. Well actually this week we only had 4 days of school so it was a pretty short and easy week. On Thursday we had the day off because it was Rosh Hashanah. Do you know what this is? I didn't know until this week myself.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Years. It marks the beginning of the year of the Jewish calendar and the words literally mean "head of the year" or "first of the year" in Hebrew. There is no work done on Rosh Hashanah (or school) and one of the customs during this two day holiday is to eat apples dipped in honey to make sure that you have a sweet year ahead.

Because there is a large Jewish population here in Miami Beach they close the schools knowing that many of the kids would not come to school anyway.

The rest of the week was pretty good. I worked on my science fair project, spelling, some math pages and a small essay for my PE class. They also introduced an online reading program called "Ticket to Read". This is a fun reading program where whenever you read a passage and answer some questions about what you read you will get tickets. With these tickets you can customize your online clubhouse. I like it quite a lot.

Today after school they were selling ices (like slushes) and my Dad bought me a watermelon flavoured one. After that my Dad had to go to work and so my Mom and I went to Sushi Samba for our weekly afternoon snack.

After that we went to an art gallery where artists also had their studios. Some of the artists were in their studios working and if the door was open you were allowed to go in. We saw some really great art. Here are a few of my favourite pieces:


On Sunday we are thinking that we might go to see the Everglades. It is about 30 minutes in the car from where we are. I will give you a full report on Monday with my Florida Facts blog section about our trip.

Cheers,

M

Florida Facts #3

Hi, I'm back with my weekly Florida Fact. Today we are going to be learning about Manatees. I had never heard about this mammal before I came to Florida. Then, a couple of weeks ago I saw a Mum and a baby in the water near our apartment.

The Manatee is a fascinating creature. Well, at least I am fascinated by them.

Here are 10 top facts about the Florida Manatees.

1. The Manatee is the state mammal of Florida.

2. Manatees are a large aquatic relative to the elephant.

3. They are herbivores that eat marine and freshwater plants.

4. They are 10 to 12 feet long and weigh 1,500 to 1,800 pounds.

5. Manatees live for 50 to 60 years in the wild.

6. The largest population of Manatees is in Florida where there are about 3000 of them.

7. They are an endangered species.

8. Some of the biggest threats that face them are climate change and boat strikes.

9. They are known for their gentle and slow moving nature.

10. Manatees communicate by squealing underwater to express excitement or fear.

 A couple of weeks ago I was with my Dad and we saw these two manatees in the water and they were adorable. My Dad took a video with his phone. Here is the video:

Hope you enjoyed this Florida Fact post about the amazing Manatee.

See you soon!

M.

The Best Day of School EVER!

This morning I was totally nervous about going to school. I was feeling nervous because we were going on a field trip to the Adrienne Arsht Center to see a musical play called Rock Odyssey. To be truthful I don't really know why I was feeling nervous but I was.

My Mom told me that it was all going to be okay and that I would probably have a really great time.

She was so right. Not only was the play really awesome but so was the whole day.

The play was about a mortal who went to war and on his way back after the war his ship sank and he had a great adventure trying to return to his home. We got to sit and watch the play from the balcony and we had the best view.

When we got back to school we ate our lunch with the other 5th grade class in our classroom instead of the cafeteria and that was really fun. We got to horse around after we had eaten and it was a blast.

After we finished we only had time for 1 class which was music, with Mr. Irwin who can be very strict. Except today there was a SUBSTITUTE! Yah! This substitute not only let us eat the Tootsie Pops that Ms. Llorca (our homeroom teacher) gave us but also let us use the hour to get our weekend homework done and out of the way.

But the best part of the day was yet to come.

Well, you might not know this but, on Wednesday it was International Peace Day. Today was our school's "Give Peace a Chance Dance". It happened after school from 3pm until 5 pm. It was held in our school cafeteria. It was the very first dance that I have ever been to and it was epic! I didn't know exactly what to expect but I had a total blast. I loved the music and it turns out that I really love to dance. I noticed that a lot of the girls in my class were awesome at dancing. Some of the boys were pretty okay dancers but most of them were not. It was interesting that the girls tended to dance in a pack but the boys were like lone wolves.

I danced on my own for a bit but then towards the end a girl from my class who sits beside me, named Andrea, asked me to join the group of girls that she was dancing with. So, I got to dance with the best dancers there.

Then the next thing you know it was 5 pm and the dance was over. I am totally looking forward to Halloween as they have another dance then!

Have a great weekend!

M.

Florida Facts

My Mom and I dug up some interesting Florida Facts this time about the geography of Florida.

*We are using imperial measurements because we are in the US right now. If you need to do the conversions, here is the link.

Now, here are some good Florida geography facts:

1. Longitude: 79° 48' W to 87° 38' W and Latitude: 24° 30' N to 31° N


2. Florida is 500 miles long and 160 miles wide


3. On the west Florida is bordered by Alabama and Gulf of Mexico.


4. On the north Florida is bordered by Alabama and Georgia.


5. To the south and to the east it is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean.


6. Florida is the 22nd largest of the 50 states.


7. Florida is the 3rd wettest state after Alaska and Michigan with 11, 769 square miles covered by water.


I hope that you have learned a little about the geography of where I am currently living. I will be back with some new Florida Facts soon.


xo M.

The Fastest Thing I Did This Weekend

Today was a pretty fun Sunday. See that picture above? That is a photo of me and my Dad on a Jet Ski. We were showing my Mom a bit of a trick and she managed to capture it on the camera. Pretty cool hey!

When we got back from lunch my Dad and I headed down to the Miami Beach Marina, aka MBM. This is the place where you can rent jet skis by the hour. Once we arrived we were fitted for life jackets and then we were sent to a blue jet ski. We went straight to the bay in front of our apartment to see if my Mom was on our balcony. When we first arrived she wasn't there so we did a loop of the bay.

We went around Star Island. This is a man-made island that we can see from our apartment. This is where a bunch of celebrities live, such as Gloria Estefan, Sean Combs and Shaq.

When we came back around we spotted her on our balcony and she was looking for us with the binoculars. Once she saw us she went and fetched her camera and she took a bunch of photos of us.

I liked being on the jet ski because I like going fast. When we hit the big waves though I got a bit scared and it made me feel pretty sea sick.

Just wanted to update you guys on my Sunday and I will be back here tomorrow with my weekly Florida Fact.

Happy weekend!

M.

Florida Facts

Sorry that I haven't written in a while. I have been really busy around the house and at school and I have been fighting a bad cough as well. But I am back!

I want to introduce something that I'm going to do every Monday or Tuesday here on my blog. It is going to be called Florida Facts.

Florida Facts will be a bit of interesting information about Florida and its culture. Something that I have learned in the past week about the state that I am currently living in.

This past week in school we learned about the Kennedy Space Center. It is located just east of Orlando Florida and right next to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It is about a 4 hour drive from where we are in Miami Beach but even though I get car sick I totally want to drive there and see it.  They are no longer launching any space ships from there (the last one was earlier this year, I think in April or May) they still have a tour you can take around the Nasa Space Center.

In school we talked about some of the different buildings there and what they are/were used for. One of the buildings called OFP was used for removing left-over fuel tanks from the shuttles and fixing any damage that was done to the shuttles during flights, and other maintenance stuff.

My favourite part was when we learned about was the crawler transporter. This is the the machine that transports the spacecrafts from Nasa's VAB (vehicle assembly building) building to the launch pad.

It has a top speed of 2 miles per hour and it measures 131 x 114 feet. It takes a team of nearly 30 engineers, technicians and drivers to operate it! If I get to go and see it I will take some photos and post them here.

I promise to be back in a few days with more fun things about life in Miami.

Talk soon,

M.

A Fun Labour Day Weekend

Choosing a book at Books and Books

Labour Day weekend was super fun. On Saturday we went out for sushi again, this time with my Dad! Before we went out for our sushi dinner we had the most relaxing day.  We stayed home, in our pyjamas, and I got to play some video games, do some reading  and then later we went to the pool here at our apartment.

On Sunday we spent the day at the beach. Miami Beach is really quite an interesting place. Lots of very unique looking people! I spent most of my time in the water with my scuba mask looking for shells. My Dad and I also played paddle ball in the water. The only bad thing was that I got bitten or stung by what we think might have been a jellyfish. When you are out in the ocean sometimes there are tons of them. They don't really freak me out but it doesn't feel very good to get stung by one!

On Monday morning when I woke up I was worried that I had overslept for school. I got up and went into the kitchen to check if my parents were up and then it hit me it was Labour Day and I had the day off. I went back to my room and fell asleep. I woke up later and after breakfast my Dad helped me start building a new Mega Blocks set. The set is a UNSC Falcon which is sort of like a plane with two propellors on the wings. It took two hours to build it but it was worth it. When my Dad had to go out my Mom took over helping me and we had a really good time building together.

After that I staged a huge battle with the Falcon and some of my other sets.

School was good today and I was thinking about all of the kids at my old school who were just starting back to school today.

After school my Mom took me to go shopping and we stopped in to buy a book at our favourite bookstore which is called "Books and Books".  If it was my store I would want to call it "Books, Books and More Books." I love the store because they have kids books all the way from Tin Tin to the Hunger Games.

I talked to my friend Charlie on the phone on Sunday and he recommended  the Huger Games to me. We also talked about another book that I am reading now called Hoot. We talked about it because Charlie, our Maceo and I watched it at Maceo's house a few years ago. I can't wait to start the Hunger Games which we bought today.

Bye for now.

M.

Labour Day at Last

Sushi at Samba Sushi to Celebrate the End of My Second Week of School

Right now I am just eating my dinner, but here is an overview of today. 

After school today, as you can see from the picture  above, my Mom took me to Samba Sushi to celebrate another week of school completed. We shared some green bean tempura and then a spicy, crispy tuna roll, a yellow tale roll and a piece of Ikura sushi and a piece of Tobiko sushi. It was a great way to end the school week.

In school today, the best part of the day was surprisingly... lunch! The lunch ladies were totally calm and so was the security guard. That made it pretty easy to relax. I shared some of the extra two-bite brownies my Mom packed in my lunch with the rest of my friends from class who were sitting with me at my lunch table.

After lunch we finished our math and then did some science work until it was time to go to music class. The music teacher, Mr. Irwin, gave me a brand new recorder and a recorder book so that I could practise for class. I had to write my name on the side of the recorder case and inside the book as well.

This evening I went to Flamingo Park which is a big park near our apartment. Actually, it is half way in between our apartment and my school. It has a baseball diamond, a basketball court, a big soccer field, outdoor and indoor squash courts, an outdoor swimming pool and a big playground. I went there to hang out with my friend Atman who was there for a friend's birthday.  We ran around and played, climbed on a gigantic tree, had some chips, drank some juice and had a really good time.

Now I have got a three day weekend ahead of me and a lot of fun stuff planned to do.

Hope you have something fun planned for this long weekend.

M.