Jamaica!

 

JAMAICA!
 

As I sit here updating my blog, I can't help but think about my upcoming trip to Jamaica in April. I have never been before, but I am so excited to go. My sister has visited before with her friends so she will be a great tour guide. I can't wait to have a nice getaway. I am going to be going with my mom, dad and sister on this trip, and we all haven't taken a family vacation together in about two years. We are all excited to have a small but relaxing trip down in Jamaica. I have heard such wonderful things about the resort we get to stay at and even the country in itself. It is supposed to be SO beautiful and so calm. I cannot wait to swim in the pool and the ocean, also to sit out in the sun! I hope they have some activities on the resort too like kayaking or snorkeling.  I hope the trip comes fast! 

Vocabulary:

1. update: adding new information

2. upcoming: about to happen

3. tour: a journey in which several places are visited

4. guide: a person who shows the way to others

5. vacation: a period of time for fun, spent away from home

6. relax: rest or do an enjoyable activity

7. kayaking: a canoe type of boat with a small opening to sit in, you can do it alone or with a partner, and comes with paddles to get the boat moving in the water.

8. calm: not disturbed

9.  snorkeling: goggles for your eyes and a tube to breathe through while your head is underwater viewing fish and other sea creatures that may be around you.

10. resort: a place that is popular to go to for a vacation.

Vocabulary Exercise:

Using your vocabulary words above, think of somewhere that you would want to go on a vacation? Does anywhere come to mind? Or have you been somewhere already that you'd like to return to? Share with me! Write a small paragraph about it.

Grammar Point: 

CONJUCTIONS!

Conjunctions are small words that are used in a sentence to combine two thoughts or sentences into one.

For example, in the sentence, "I want to travel to either Italy or Greece" the word "or" is the conjunction.

Conjunctions are not always the word "or" though. Other conjunctions include "for", "yet", "and", "but" and "nor" 

Grammar Exercise:
Your turn! 

Find and underline the conjunctions in the sentence.

1. I started school doing well, but now I am having trouble.

2. I love to eat apples, oranges and pears.

3. My friends went without me on the trip, for I am very sick today.

4. The homework my teacher gives me is easy, yet I still am too lazy to complete it!
5. I don't like to eat bananas, nor do I like grapes.

Easter!

 

In the spirit of Easter coming up very soon, this post will be all about Easter!!

 Easter is not the same date every year, but it is the same day of the week! It will always fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the Spring Equinox. This year, it falls on April 1st. This holiday is a Christian holiday that is celebrated all around the world in many different countries. In the United States, over 81 percent of people celebrate Easter. Traditionally, this is always a fun holiday for children! Kids get a visit overnight from the Easter Bunny (kind of like Santa Claus!) and the bunny hides eggs and gifts all over the child's house for them to receive in the morning. It is so much fun because the bunny hides the eggs so well, you get to go on an Easter egg hunt for them! Besides this, it is a really great holiday for families to get together and celebrate their religion. Also, there are soooo many good foods to enjoy that come in accordance with the holiday, such as, ham, lamb, hot cross buns, carrot cake and Easter egg bread!

  

Vocabulary:

1. Spring Equinox: when the hours of night and day become equal, it brings us Spring and puts an end to Winter!!

2. percent: parts of something out of 100

3. overnight: during the whole of one night.

4. religion: the belief of a higher God or Gods, or a superhuman power.

5. hunt: to search for something

6. receive: to be given

7. besides: as well as

8. holiday: a day of celebration

9. celebrate: to observe a certain happy day/holiday

10. accordance: agreement

Vocabulary Exercise: 

Now your turn! Complete this fun Easter crossword puzzle.
Click on each picture to make them bigger and easier to see.

HINT: all the words used are your vocabulary words listed above!!

Grammar Point

Pronouns Nouns!

We've already learned about proper nouns and regular nouns, so now lets move on to PRONOUNS!

Pronouns are just used in place of a noun to avoid us from repeating ourselves too many times. Like in a sentence, "Judy likes dogs and Judy likes cats", there's no reason to repeat Judy twice.

With the using of a pronoun, here's the sentence that we should say: 

"Judy likes dogs and she likes cats".

So we simply just replaced Judy with the pronoun "she" just so our sentence sounds a little bit better. 

Grammar Exercise

Find and underline the pronoun in each sentence.

1. My friend Sabrina is such a great cook. Her lasagna is amazing!
2. I love to go to school. It is such a fun part of my day.

3. My teacher is such a good listener. She really takes time out of her day to help.

4. I love my dog. He is always there for me when I need him.

5. My name is Alexa. I love to write blogs.

6. My friends and I went to a concert a few weeks ago and we loved it!
7. The boys that are over there are way too loud. Can you say something to them? 

8. I sat with my friends all day but the teacher never stopped watching us.

9. Brianna needs to put away her clothes. Did Brianna ever do it? 

10. I love to watch the show Grey's Anatomy, I hope it starts to get better soon.

Foods From All Different Cultures!

Foods From All Different Cultures!

HI everyone! Thanks for following along with my posts.
In this blog, we will be talking about my favorite thing: FOOD!
But not just any type of food, ALL types of food!!!




In our country, lucky for us, we get to try all different types of foods from many unique cultures. There are foods around us that are Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Italian, American, Indian, Colombian and many, many more! Today, I am going to talk about my four personal favorites. First, I'll start with my top pick: Mexican food!  I could eat this type of cuisine every day if I could! Mexican food consists mainly of rice, tacos, burritos, beans, chicken/other meats, guacamole, sour cream, and nachos. Delicious! My favorite Mexican restaurant is Chipotle, but for a quick bite I'll settle for Taco Bell.



My second favorite type of food would have to be Italian. Being Italian myself, most of my family meals consist of foods from Italy such as pizza, pasta, fish, breads, meatballs, lasagna, raviolis and so many other things, too. Besides the savory foods, Italy has also provided us with many sweet treats too! My favorite Italian treat is a rainbow tri-color cookie. My aunt, sister and I even made our own attempt to make the famous cookie! It was great.

Third comes our own country's famous foods! American food is always a great treat to have. We have come up with things such as hot dogs, cheeseburgers, cheese fries, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, onion rings, mashed potatoes and so many more! Like the Italian food, we have also came up with some amazing sweet treats too such as peanut butter, pancakes, doughnuts and banana splits!



Finally, my final favorite, would have to be Chinese food. These foods are the ultimate comfort foods! There is such a huge variety, Chinese food in the United States has on menus things such as soups, egg rolls, chicken, many vegetables, noodles, and rice. My family and I get Chinese food all the time, it is most definitely our weekly treat. I have been eating this since I was little!

Vocabulary:
1. ultimate: the best of it's kind!
2. menu: a list of items that are available to order at a restaurant.
3. variety: a number of things
4. unique: only one of it's kind, special.
5. culture: the customs, arts, foods, etc. of a specific group of people.
6. cuisine: food that is cooked a certain way.
7. savory: salty or spicy foods
8. bite: a quick snack
9. provide: to present or supply
10. consist: be made up of

Vocabulary Exercise: 

Now its your turn!
Use the vocabulary words listed above to create your own paragraph about your own favorite type of food! It can be any type, not just the ones listed in my writing! Whatever is YOUR favorite! 


Grammar Point
ARTICLES!

In all of our writings we are ALWAYS using articles! 

Articles signal that a noun is going to follow.

For example, in the sentence: 

"I love the dog in the blue sweater" 

The word "the" is the article because it is placed before the noun "dog".

Articles do not always have to be the word "the", it can also be the words "a" or "an" too!!

Grammar Exercise
Now you give it a try!
Identify the articles in each sentence. 

 1. I am a student at Molloy College.
2. My favorite animal is a chubby pig. 
3. The group of friends went out for dinner.
4. My mom loves the smell of vanilla.
5. Ice cream is the best dessert.
6. My teacher is a great person.
7. I love to type on the computer.
8. The desk is broken.
9. We all got invited to a party, but we do not want to go. 
10. An animal from the zoo is not something you would want in the house!



 

Walt Disney World!

 

Walt Disney World 

Hi everyone!!! In today's blog I am going to talk about my 2017 visit to my favorite place on Earth, Walt Disney World!

In the summer of 2016, my best friend Toni and I decided to plan a week long trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. While I have been before with my family, I have not been back in years, so I wanted to go and experience the parks since I have gotten a lot older. We picked the month of January 2017 to go on our trip and it was the perfect time. The rides had almost no lines everywhere and there was not a lot of crowds at all! It was awesome! We got to meet every single Disney princess there is at the parks and also tons of other characters too. Disney World has 4 different parks that you can visit. There is Magic Kingdom (pictured in the photo above), Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. My personal favorite is Magic Kingdom. The castle is so beautiful and everywhere you walk is sooooo magical! There are a lot of rides to choose from too, there are roller coasters indoors and outdoors, fun shows to enjoy and even simple things to go on like a ferris wheel or spinning teacups. We also got to enjoy some of the yummy food Disney World offers. We started everyday off with an amazing plate of Mickey shaped waffles! My favorite thing I got was my Mickey ice cream sandwich. It was delicious! The other amazing thing about Disney World is the epic firework display that they put on every night. WOW! We were in awe every time we got to see them. Every part of the show is pure magic. We got up so early everyday and stayed out so late just to be able to do every ride we wanted to. I am so glad we were able to accomplish everything we wanted to do there! I can't wait to return to Disney World again!

Vocabulary
1. plan- decide or put together in advance.
2. experience- to do or see something new
3. visit- to go and see something/someone
4. delicious- a great taste
5. epic- something that is really big and/or impressive
6. display- a performance or showing for the public
7. pure- nothing else but
8. personal- something that belongs to someone or someone's feelings
9. accomplish- to complete something successfully
10. simple- easy or basic


Vocabulary Exercise

Fill in the blanks in the following story with the vocabulary terms listed above!

In the summer, my mom surprised my siblings and I with a awesome, ______ pool! We were so excited and so ready to put our new toy out on ________ for all of our friends. We needed to __________  a day for our friends to come over and _____________ our new pool. We got a pen and paper and took notes on how we thought we can make our friends' __________ to our pool even better. We decided on baking __________ cupcakes and cookies and even having a smoothie bar (with mom's permission!) We __________ our planning and then mom decides to take us to the store to buy new toys and floats for our pool. It was so much fun! I decided on a ___________ doughnut floatie while my brother's _____________ personal choice was a huge dinosaur on a rocketship. A few days later, our big day we planned for was finally here!! It was great. We had so many friends over and we had such a great time swimming and playing in the pool. It was ________ amazing-ness!!

Grammar Point

INTERJECTIONS!!

While we may not always use interjections in our writings, we definitely use them when we are talking to one another!

Interjections are words that are used to express a strong feeling or sudden emotion. These can be used in several ways of expression. You can use them for a happy emotion or even a disgusted emotion. Here are some examples and the interjections are bolded/italicized:

UGH! Why do my shoes smell so bad?
WOW! That birthday cake tastes so good!
Hey! That was my piece of paper!


Grammar Exercise

Now its your turn!

Add the correct interjection from the choices below into the correct sentence.

INTERJECTION CHOICES:
 -Hey!
-Wow!
-Oops!
-Ouch!
-Holy Cow!
-Yuck!
-Hooray!
-Congratulations!


SENTENCES: 

1. That plane looks like it is way too close to the ground! _______________!
2. I heard that you get to graduate early! ________________! Do you know where you want to go to college yet?
3. ___________! Someone left their dirty clothes on the table!
4. ____________! My grades are really great this semester!
5. I heard she broke her leg in an accident. __________!
6. I'm so sorry I spilled your milk. __________!
7. ________! Give that back please!
8. You are a great singer, everyone in the crowd was saying, "__________"!

New York Yankees!

 

New York Yankees

In today's blog, in the spirit of spring training going on, I'm going to be talking about my favorite baseball team: the Yankees!

Once the spring hits, every fan knows that it is time for some baseball! My family and I love to watch the Yankees play. Ever since I was little, I was pretty much brought into the Yankees tradition by my dad; I was never allowed to like another team! That's okay, though, because the Yankees are the best team! In the past, the Yankees were champions. Multiple players on the team such as the great Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Alex Rodriguez led the Yankees to many championships. In total, the Yankees have one 27 World Series Championships! That's a HUGE number! They have won more than any team in the entire league.  The team has always been exceptionally good at the game, but this year is now more important than ever, since they have now gotten a brand new manager and several new players to attribute to the team winning. One of the best new players the team has just debuted last year, Aaron Judge, has been playing SO great! He has really helped the team out big time, and even though they did not make it to the championships, they still made it pretty far in the season. Besides Aaron, Gary Sanchez also hits major home runs that assists the team as well! Besides being really big fans of the team, my family also likes to attend a game when we can. We usually don't mind where we sit, just being at the stadium is so much fun!


Vocabulary:

1. multiple- a larger number of things.
2. debuted- something or someone that premieres for the first time.
3. assist- to help
4. stadium- a big field or area where a sports team might play.
5. tradition- something that you and your family or a big group has been doing for years.
6. attend- to go to
7. exceptional- to be more excellent than a usual person/team
8. manager- someone who has the responsibility to control a company/organization
9. season- time of year
10. major- really big and successful

Vocabulary Exercise 

 Fill in the blanks in the paragraph with the correct words. Use the vocabulary words listed above!


1. My friend helped ________ with my project.
2. ___________ people saw the baseball game.
3. Aaron Judge ________ for the first time on the Yankees in 2017.
4. It took us a long time to get directions to the ___________.
5. My mom has a ___________ where she always cooks on Christmas.
6. You always have to ______ class so you are not marked absent.
7. When you start to work somewhere, you need to listen to your ___________.
8. The ______________ of spring is my favorite!!
9. The teacher was ______________ at her job.
10. I know so many people that have had a ___________ crush on Justin Bieber!!!

Grammar Point

VERBS!

In everyday writing, we are always using verbs. Especially in sports, daily life and even a regular school day; we use them in our conversations all the time too!

Verbs are words that are used to describe an action. They can end in -ING or can come in other forms as well.

For example, in the sentence, "I got so out of breath while I was running to class" and the sentence "I ran to class super fast", the underlined words are both examples of verbs!

Grammar Exercise

Now its your turn!

Underline or highlight the verbs in the story below.

During the night, I was sleeping ever so quietly, but all in one motion, I jolted awake. I heard a super loud noise, so I ran downstairs! I looked out the window to see a silly little racoon scampering away from my garbage can. I laughed and went back upstairs to my room. In the morning, my mom yelled at me to get up and my alarm clock was singing. I groaned and turned over, I did not want to go to school; that raccoon disrupted my sleep! I got up and put on my outfit and headed down the stairs to eat my breakfast. I was chewing my pancakes and sipping my orange juice when my mom broke the news: raccoons were invading my neighborhood! I spat out my juice and ran to the window. There were raccoons everywhere! There was one dancing, one running, two were holding hands and a group of four were playing a game. This was crazy! My mom was calling her friends on the phone to tell them of this absurd news when I heard a knock on our window. It was a raccoon! He smiled at me and waved. I of course SCREAMED! I ran up to my room and hid under my covers. Soon enough, I woke up and realized that all of this craziness was just a dream. 

:)

Cheerleading!

My team, the Molloy College Cheerleading Team! (I am on the left side, third person in).

Hi everyone! Thanks for following along with my posts. Today, I am going to post about the sport that I love the most, cheerleading! 

While in the past I took a break from cheerleading to pursue other activities, I have recently found my way back to the sport I enjoy the most. Cheerleading is a high pressure sport, it is all about balance, strength and teamwork.  My team is full of students that are all different age levels, but we all get along so well. My greatest friends on the team are Sam, Jayna and Ciara. They are all younger than me, but we still have so much in common! We have had many laughs together and so many inside jokes. Without them, I would not feel complete on the team! We practice as a team very late at night, from 9:30 to 11pm! But we only practice on Tuesday's and Thursday's. We put on fun performances during halftime of the men's and women's basketball games here at Molloy. It definitely is a lot of fun! We always perform really cool stunts and we always try not to fall! As a team, we definitely have made some mistakes and have fallen down too, but we always get back up and try again. While doing cheerleading makes my schedule super busy, it is worth it to me because I get to enjoy doing something I love to do! 

This is a liberty stunt. I am holding it up on the right!

Ciara, Me and Sam! 

Jayna, Me, and Sam!

Vocabulary

1. stunt: holding one person up in the air to create a pretty visual in the air!
2. teamwork: being a team, working together, not excluding anyone.
3. performance: putting on a show of a routine and/or something that you have worked on for an audience.
4. basketball: a game that can be played by either men or women, the goal is to get as many points as you can and shoot the ball in the opposing team's hoop.
5. halftime: a break during the game, usually at the half mark.
6. practice: to brush up or work on a skill.
7. schedule: a list of events/things that you need to do. 
8. pressure: a feeling of stress or nervousness during an activity.
9. balance: to stay straight or upright.
10. strength: to be able to do something or lift something that is very heavy.

Vocabulary Exercise 
Fill in the blanks with the correct vocabulary word.

1. When you are on a team, you have to expect that a lot of ___________ will be included!
2. Sometimes, teams can meet up to four or five times a week just to ________.
3. My __________ is always filled with tons of homework!
4. It takes a lot of ____________ to lift up other people into the air.
5. Do you have good _________ when you are walking down the stairs?
6. School sometimes puts ____________ on students.
7. My favorite sport is _______, it is so much fun to be out on the court!
8. I wrote a really great poem and was able to put on a _____________ for my class.
9. During ____________, we can go and get some snacks so we don't miss the game.
10. Did you see that _______? It was so cool!

Grammar Point
Proper Nouns!

Many proper nouns were used in my paragraph, but there is also many that are used in our daily lives.

Proper nouns are nouns that name a particular person, place, or thing. These nouns have a specific name/title and need to be capitalized.

For example, in the sentence, "I like Italy a lot more than Ireland." Both Italy and Ireland need to be capitalized, because they are specifically named places.


Grammar Exercise

Now you try! Go through each given sentence and correct/find the proper nouns.

1. My friends, alyssa and jenna are always with me.
2. I have went swimming in both the mediterranean sea and the atlantic ocean before.
3. I always go and visit my grandma joan in florida.
4. My favorite singer is shawn mendes.
5. My favorite place is the museum of modern art in new york city.
6. I really enjoy watching the show wheel of fortune.
7. My car is able to drive all the way to molloy college every day.
8. I have been to italy, puerto rico, dominican republic, and mexico.
9. I always fly on jetblue airways.
10. The newspaper had an article about the olympics that are taking place in south korea right now.

My Pets!

Baci

Shawn

Frankie

The first and one of the most important things to know about my life is about my pets. My pets are so special to me. I have two dogs and even a hamster! First, I will talk about my dogs. My dogs' names are Baci and Frankie. Frankie is a lively, loud, hungry and energetic 10 year old pug. He enjoys sitting on the couch with my mom, playing outside, but most of all, he has a great love for his bones. My other dog is named Baci. He is a 7 year old (soon to be 8-- his birthday is February 2nd!) and is not as energized as my pug. Baci loves to sleep, get groomed at the pet salon, and go for car rides with his sister (me!).  They are both boys, so they both get a little noisy and active with one another. Besides my dogs, my sister and I are proud owners to a Djungarian (say that 3 times fast!!) hamster. He is definitely energetic and loves to eat almost as much as Frankie does! His name is Shawn, and he is also a nocturnal animal. His favorite food is sunflower seeds and he enjoys running around in his cage. He is super quick, so we could never let him out unless he is running in his ball! All in all, I love every one of my pets. They all are full of joy that makes me feel the same!

Vocabulary

1. Important- having great value to someone and/or something.
2. Hamster- a rodent-like animal that is kept in a cage and gets very energized when nighttime hits!
3. Energetic- full of life and showing great activity.
4. Bones- not like the ones in your body, these are yummy treats that dogs love to snack on!
5. Groomed- to get your hair cut, blown dry, washed, and brushed; this feels great for dogs!
6. Noisy- to be loud and disruptive.
7. Active- full of energy and very lively. (relate this definition back to "energetic" above!)
8. Nocturnal- what an something is when they do not sleep during the day and are very active at night.
9. Enjoy- to like something or someone a lot.
10. Full- not a full stomach, in this case it means to have a lot of something (emotions, feelings, and more).

Vocabulary Exercise
Enjoy this cool word search that includes all 10 of the vocabulary words you just learned!

F G  J D  A S L O H A M S T E R A S F F S P O
L O P L F O E F A P R T D K L B O N E S P O
F A F F S S P P P O A F  D D D A F G H H K
U E N E R G E T I C F L O O F R A T D J L O
L G J O P A D F O A  L A A A L O P A F T O
L R I P F F G A T E R R T A L P Q A T K L O
A O F F D O P I A L D F Q R E W W A W O P
Q O T Y H G J O P A L O P L A W W T A L Q
U M U I O L O P O I A A F R W W E P O P A
A E N O I S Y F A S F G G J J K O P A W E A
O D F O P O F A L F A K J A O P O A L O P T
A C T I V E F U I L O A F R E T A R A L O P T
D S P O A F F F S F S A F A S F A  P O L O L
N O C T U R N A L F G D F P O L A P E L A
F U L L A F D DF G FG F O P O L E N J O Y

Grammar Point
Adjectives! 
Throughout my paragraph about my wonderful, amazing, and very cute pets, I used a lot of adjectives to describe them! Adjectives are words that are used to describe a noun or a pronoun.

For example, in the sentence, "New Year's Eve is a fun holiday that has a lot of loud, beautiful fireworks", the word fun is being used to describe the holiday in the sentence and the words loud and beautiful are being used to describe the noun "fireworks".

Now it is your turn! Fill in the blanks with words that describe the nouns shown in the sentences below.

1. The little girl had a ______ hat and a ________ pair of gloves.
2. I love to bake ______ desserts!
3. Summer is a ______, ________, and ______ season.
4. The ______ weather makes the day _____.
5. My favorite kind of cake is _______ and  ______.
6. Math is a very ______ subject.
7. School is ____ and ____!
8. My friends are ____ and _____ to be around.