Lately in our class we’ve been experiencing a phenomena of poetry. Poems have been popping up on my fellow classmate’s blogs. On Danny, Easton, Jaiden, Lizzie, Matteo, Payton, Priya, Riannah, Rosa, Savannah, Sierra, Solana, Tat and Tyler’s blog as well as my blog poems have been popping and flying up like popcorn. Without Ms. Smith telling us to write them, we independently wrote them ourselves. Aren’t we great students, starting poetry on our own? Now, I’d like to share a poem I wrote a few days ago. It might help inspire you to write your own fantastic poem(s).

Poems

Are like glimpses of miniature beauty
You read them not like language
But harness their lyrical meaning

Poems

Are much more than words
They are captured moments of true meaning and emotion
To inspire the reader

Poems

Are millions of little feelings
Made to be read with your eyes, brain, and heart

Poems

Aren’t meant to be explained
They are meant to be felt

Do you write poems? What kind of poems do you like to read? What is your definition of a poem? Please, share your poems. If you write one on your blog, please leave a link or a comment, and I promise to visit your blog and read them.

Poems are perfect for blogs, it seems. Your blog frames your poems, giving the words a place of honor. Poets paint sketches or full-blown masterpieces with their palette of words. They delight, inspire, and move us.

Here is a little gallery walk of three poems from Huzzah! These students wrote poems without being “told” to. They just picked up their brushes and painted these words:

Candy
by Easton

Candy is…
so sweet so soft
my treat to eat
so good so bad
I love it, so I eat and eat
till my feet can’t touch the ground,

Candy is …
my treat to eat
so I love to eat!

Clouds
by Tat

Laying under the tree where we sat
Staring at the clouds as they stare back
All the fun we had
The ups and the downs
You were there for me
Like the maple tree
Where I lay I know you will be there
I can look up and see you are protecting me
From the cold rain
So my heart stays the same.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Weird Robe
by Solana

The lion put on a hat–
The witch told him it made him look fat
So he put on a shirt–
The witch told him he looked like dirt.
The lion put on a robe–
The witch told him he looked weird.
So the lion quit playing dress-up
And grew a really long beard.

We would love your feedback on this poems–don’t all bloggers love feedback? And we hope this taste of poetry will inspire you to write your own. If you do, please leave a comment on this blog with the title and link to your poem so we can visit, read, and enjoy. Or link here and a pingback will leave a trail of crumbs for us to follow.

Image: Pincel by FranUUloa

Hello readers! I am going to write this post from the Roman women point of view. Life for Roman women was hard because they had so few rights and the men ruled their life. They were never allowed to rule the Romans and were never allowed in the army.

Although there were some women who were exceptionally powerful, like the wife of the emperor Augustus who was declared a goddess because she was so powerful. The emperors wives were really sometimes (although rarely) some of the most powerful rulers.

A lot of women in the Roman times were also sometimes married in their early teens. If they weren’t married by the age of 15-16 they were punished, so they would have to be married by about the age of 12-14. That would mean they would have to move away from their parents and would have to fend for themselves. Men in their teens would also be allowed to join the Roman army at this age as well.

Roman women were usually not allowed to choose whether they wanted to marry or not. The men were also the ones that decided if they had children. If a women tried to decide against a man’s judgment they would be punished cruelly.

Men could send women to court to be sentenced to death if they thought they weren’t faithful to them. And since it was usually the man who worked which meant that he kept the money, the woman probably wouldn’t be able to get a lawyer.

I guess the reason I wrote this post is because for one, I love history and second, if you think you had a hard life you could always remember that throughout some points of history women have had basically no rights.

I will provide some links for you so that you can learn more about the Roman women. I hope you enjoy them!

1. Ancient Roman Women
2. Women in Roman Society
3. BBC History/Roman Women
4. Roman Clothing
5. Roman Society
6. Roman Women

image: Pompeii by discopalace from the Creative Commons Content

This Tuesday is a very special day for people living in Australia.  It is a holiday for all Australians.  Many people head to the beach for the day, perhaps taking a barbecue and their surfboards.  Others stay at home and celebrate with family or neighbours.

Some towns run their own special events for people to take part in.  People living in New South Wales have over 5000 events to choose from.  Check out their web site here.

On this website you can put in your postcode to find out what events are being held in your area.

But why do we celebrate Australia Day on 26th January every year?

Check out the history of Australia Day here.  If you want some resources about Australia Day for a project, check it out here.

Not everyone, though, agrees with Australia Day. There are many of the indigenous aboriginals who call it ‘Invasion Day’ instead. This article in wikipedia will tell you about the reasons.

Do you have a special day to celebrate your country? Tell us about it and what you do on that day.

Are there any other special days we could add to the calendar here at ‘Bringing us Together’?

Attribution:   Original image: ‘Swaggy the swagman (self proclaimed)‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28442702@N00/395084015

by: Pierre Pouliquin   Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License

By Shania & Hannan

As you may know the Olympics are only a little under a month away! They are being held in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The Olympics start on February 12th, 2010 and go until the 28th of February. The Paralympic Winter Games start on March 12th and go to the 21st of March. There are over 80 countries and about 5000 athletes participating in February games and  more than 40 countries and about 1700 athletes participating in the Paralympic games.  The opening and the Closing ceremonies for the Olympics are in BC Place Stadium. I (Shania) have been there before for a concert, but not for anything this big.

We’d love to be able to go there, but the tickets are sold out and way too expensive. In order to get tickets, you had to put your name into a draw, like a lottery, and if you got chosen then you could buy them. Actually, you had to buy them because that’s what you agreed to when you put your name in.

There are also some Olympic hockey teams coming to the Comox Valley (where we live) from Sweden and China. These are two of the world’s top hockey teams! They are having an exhibition game in Courtenay as a warm-up for the Olympics.  On February 7th    at 12:30pm, the puck drops and the game starts.  

Since Vancouver Island also has one of the largest ski resorts in BC, there will be hundreds of other athletes coming here as well because the Comox Valley has been chosen to be one of the Olympic training sites. Teams from Canada, United States, Switzerland, Sweden, France, Germany, Australia, Finland, and Russia will be training here for sports such as Ski Cross, Snowboarding, Snowboard Cross, Biathlon, Cross Country, and Freestyle Skiing.

We think that it’s really cool that some of the athletes will be coming to the Comox Valley. We wonder if we’ll notice any of them around town because we live in a smaller community after all. We might not get to see them in the actual Olympic games, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll see some here.

Thank you for reading! Will you be watching the 2010 Olympics from where you are? What are you looking forward to seeing the most?

CC Flickr Image: Ilanaaq, the inukshuk – 2010 snow sculpture by Tim in Sydney