Charlie’s Blogs

I have three favorite memories from this school year. My first memory from this school year is when my core class at my middle school did a project called Knight at the Museum. It was a really fun project where we had to research an event that happened in the past and make a trifold and speech on the topic we picked. My second memory of the school year was March Madness. This was an event where all of my friends made a basketball team and competed against other school students at my middle school. My final memory of the school year was the 20% project where I got to learn something new and present it to my parents and other parents during a special event after school. These were my favorite memories of the school year.

As the final overall presentation of the 20% Project comes closer, I focused on my trifold to show all of the work I’ve done in these six weeks. During this week my accomplishments were that I worked on my trifold and I am ready for the presentation this week. My struggles were that I’m not going to have as much time as I would like to apply the final coat of finish on my bowls, but even without that final coat the bowls look pretty good. I also need to still get pictures and glue them on while I’m at school on Wednesday. As my goal comes to an end there’s really not much to change on my project so I’m not going to change my plan. After this week we are officially done with the 20% project so next week I will be presenting to the class what I have learned.

Somebody that has been influential in my life is my mom. One reason my mom is important in my life is she is always helping me. She helps me make sense of different homework assignments. She sacrifices a lot of her time to drive me to different practices for either basketball or football, and on top of that she has to work from home. A memory I have with my mom is when we went whale watching in Santa Barbara and we got to see a humpback whale breach right next to our boat! It was really cool because I had never seen one before that trip. Happy Mother’s Day!

This week I had little time to work, but during this time I had some accomplishments, and I had some struggles. This week my accomplishments were that I finished carving out my bowl and I am almost done with the outside of the bowl. During this time though there were some struggles. As I finished carving out the inside I flipped back over to get out the chipped wood but there was some problems with the clamp so I had to set it all up again which took forever! I still managed though and I got it all done. With that my adjustments for the week haven’t changed a lot so I’m sticking with my goal of making three bowls by the end of the year. I will pick up next week and start adding details to the bowl. I will hopefully be sanding and finishing by the end of next week.

This month I read the book Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. In this book the character Greg Heffley and his friend Rowley at middle school trying to get through the year, but they are confronted by the cheese touch. If you touch the moldy cheese you have the cheese touch and you have to tag someone else to get rid of it, but some bully’s made Rowley eat the cheese and they got in trouble. That was the end of the story. My favorite character was probably Rowley because he is always in a good mood. A quote to prove this is “come on Greg stop being such a downer, and enjoy the good thing this park has to offer.” (Pg. 94) this quote shows that Rowley is always in a good mood because he is telling Greg to focus on the good things instead of the bad things.

This week I worked on my second bowl. I couldn’t find a lot of time to work on this project this week though. Although I didn’t work on it a lot I still had some accomplishments and some struggles. My accomplishments for the week were that I finished turning the outside of the bowl and I got it down to the size I want it. My struggles for the week were that when I was turning the bowl a giant chip broke off the bottom of it so when I’m done carving the inside I’m going to have to go back and fix that which means my bowl isn’t going to be as big as I wanted it to be. With all of this being said I’m going to adjust my plan and I’m going to fix the bowl by next week. By week 5 I’m going to make it my goal to have a completed and hollowed out bowl, so that in week 6 I can sand and finish it.

This is blog number three of the 20% project and this week I made some progress and changes with my plan. This week I picked up on where I left on my plan. I finished my bowl and with that there were some accomplishments. This week I succeeded at applying a finish on the bowl I made in week two. It was a great overall product, but it took a while for the finish to dry. So while I waited for it to dry I started working on my second bowl. This week I did a lot but I didn’t have any struggles this week. This being the case I am going to make some changes to my plan and instead of finishing my second bowl by week five I want to change that and make it my goal to finish my second bowl by week four. Next week I’m and going to start turning the bowl on the lathe and I will see how far a get then.

The room in my home that is my favorite is my bedroom here are a few reasons why. My first reason my room is my favorite is because it’s where I watch T.V. I get to watch whatever I want whether it’s sports or another show. Another reason my room is awesome is I can just go to my bed and go to sleep. It’s quiet and peaceful so it is pretty easy to fall asleep. My final reason my room is my favorite is I have space to do stuff in it. Most of the time I do my homework in my room because it’s easy to relax and I’m able to get stuff done there. This is why my bedroom is my favorite room.

This is blog number two of the 20% project and I worked on my bowl throughout the week and weekend. My accomplishments for the week were that I finished my bowl! I am done with every thing including sanding. There were some highs and there were some lows though to. My struggles this week were that when I was turning the bowl I went and cut out more than the tool would allow and it made some tears in the wood. The tears are like little holes in the wood that you can’t get put sanding. Because of this I am going to adjust my goal and my new goal is I want to make three bowls instead of the one and I want to see my improvement. Next week I am going to start applying the finish, but first I’m going to need to go to the store and get a specific finish I want to put on the bowl I made.

This year during spring break my family went to Santa Barbara. This was a really fun trip and we did lots of things. The first day we got to are campsite, and we set up all of are stuff and made a fire. The next morning we went down to the beach and ate lunch there and then we got to go whale watching on a sail boat. We saw so many sea animals! On the way out of the harbor we saw seals sleeping on the docks. That was nothing though compared to what we saw next. As we go by we see a great white shark! It even swam under are boat! After that we didn’t see anything for a while and right before we start to head back we see the tail of a big humpback whale! As we followed it we could see the barnacles attached to its skin. Then out of nowhere like the whale was performing a finale to finish off a show, it breached! It was amazing and I even got in on video! Overall the was the highlight of my spring break.