My Lemonade Stand

by Olivia—4th grade

I make lemonade stands every year in the summer. This year I started in the spring. The reason most kids make lemonade stands is to earn money. I'm trying to earn $100 to get a mermaid tail. Making a lemonade stand is really fun and a great way to spend your summer. I have a lot of experience running a lemonade stand and I make great lemonade.

Before you start you have to get supplies . First you have to get lemonade mix or make lemonade with sugar, lemon juice, and water. Get some cups. If you want different sizes get more than one size. You must have change to give to the customers. You need something that shows how much the lemonade costs. If you have different sizes show that too. You will always need a stand that says lemonade, put the lemonade and the thing that's holding your money on your stand. You may have other people working for you but you might want to give them free lemonade or pay them because they will probably get upset otherwise. Last of all you need a board of some kind that says something like, “Ice Cold Lemonade sold here”, so people know what you're selling. Here's a tip: try to have a goal for the day like $10 and when you get to that goal be done.

After you get your supplies you have to make the lemonade. If you got lemonade mix get a cup of water and put the amount of mix the container you got the lemonade in says you need in the cup. If you don't have lemonade mix all you really need is water, lemon juice, and sugar.

After you get your supplies you have to set up. Put up your sign and table. Put your money box and lemonade on your table. Put up your other sign that says how much the different sizes cost or just the one size. Maybe put up some paper signs around your neighborhood. Try putting them on posts.

When you start you might want to yell something like, “Lemonade for sale. Get your ice-cold lemonade.” When people come ask them what size they want or if you don't have different sizes give the lemonade to the customers and they will give you the money. Always accept tips. If someone drives up and just hands you money, ask if they want lemonade. If they say no, let that person drive away.

After a day of hard work, clean up and put the money you earned in a safe place. Take down your sign so people know you're done. Put the leftover lemonade in the fridge. Leave the signs on the posts unless it is going to rain. Bring the cups inside so they don't get dirty. Put away the sign that says how much it costs. Then you should count up your money.

Last year I earned $51. I spent some and I'm earning some back. You will have to pay for your lemonade so you might have less then what your earned. Lemonade stands are really fun for me but a lot of work. I hope you will like them too!

How to Draw Still Life

By Marcus—grade 5

Have you ever wanted to draw something that looks real? With the technique called still life it’s easy to draw things that look real. It’s not hard to do this if you follow these steps.

The first thing to do is to find what you are drawing. This can be an object or a person. The person should be standing or sitting still. If it’s your first time try something simple like a crayon. Crayons are great to draw when you want to make a still life.

You should always be close to your object because you want to get a lot of detail.

Also always use pencil. It makes nice lines that are thin. Put the pencil on the side to make shading a breeze. You can use markers and crayons too. They don’t work as well but you can use them if you have the skill.

Next you want to draw basic shapes without detail and shading. (Breaking down the shapes helps) For an example if you are drawing a crayon you would draw the long part that you hold first. To make this simple you would draw a rectangle. Then you would draw a triangle on the small side of the rectangle for the tip of the crayon. You can do this with other objects; just break the object down into simple shapes.

So now you want to add detail on the shapes by curving your lines and connecting your lines. On the crayon you would curve the short sides of the rectangle and if you haven’t yet connected the triangle to the rectangle you should do that.

Now you add on some details. These can be prints or markings on your model. On a crayon you would draw where the paper/label starts and ends (if there is paper/label) and you would draw the lines (if there is any) and write any words on the crayon. You might find more details on different objects. Just draw every detail you see.

It’s time for the hardest step, shading. You look where the light is hitting the object. Some parts will be bright and some darker. One tip is to always shade with pencil. Depending on the way you hold the pencil and press the pencil on the paper you will get different shades of gray that are perfect for shading. Just shade where you see lighter and darker tones.

You have drawn a still life. See, drawing something that looks real is not that hard. Now if you want to add more to the drawing you can add: color, background or even more still life objects. The possibilities are endless.

Coco Key Water Park

by Holden—grade 4

It was a good day so far. We were on our way to Coco Key water park in Boston Massachusetts. Mom had surprised us. We had no clue where we were going until yesterday afternoon. When we got there we changed at the bathroom and headed to look for a spot. It was really crowded but we eventually found a spot by the kiddy pool.

Dad, Charlotte, Lillie, and her friend Avery went to the slides first. The reason I didn't go was because I wanted to see if the slides were fun or too scary. Mom and I waited in the hot tub then the lifeguard came over and kicked out everyone who was under fifteen. Mom and I decided we were too bored to wait so we went on the slides without waiting for Dad or Lillie's opinion.

We did slide number four together in a double tube. It was pretty fun. We decided to go on again, so we did slide number three together. I didn't like slide number three because it was dark and made me dizzy. Mom didn't like it for the same reason.

Mom started talking to a friend from high school and then saw another friend from high school. I told mom I was going on a slide alone. I went on slide number four a couple dozen more times more times, then I decided to do a “body slide” where you do not need a tube. I did the body slide called Gator Gush which was like number four except you need a tube on number four. The body slides were really tight but still fun.

On the second run some kid asked if I wanted to race. I said yes and when the life guard gave us the signal I got into gator gush and pushed off at the same time as the kid. When we got to the pool at the bottom, the kid and I had tied. I did the slide a dozen more times until someone got on the intercom and announced that the water park was closed.

We were the last ones out of the building. We hopped into our car and roared away. I fell asleep on the ride home. Charlotte said she was awake the whole ride home but we knew she was lying because we could hear her snoring. All in all we had a fun time.

Trip to Wisconsin

By Oscar—Grade 5

Last summer my family and I went on vacation to Michigan and then to Wisconsin. We did lots of cool things in Michigan. We stayed for three days. We went across Lake Michigan and swam in it too. I think we we went across Lake Huron at one point but the real story was what happened in Wisconsin.

When we got to Wisconsin it was very hot. We learned that it hadn't rained in Wisconsin since school let out. It was about half-way or three-quarters of the way through summer vacation. That was a long time without rain.

The house we stayed in was very nice. It had huge queen sized beds and lots of other things. There was a room with tons of games like shuffleboard, foosball and air hockey. There were more board games than I had, like Monopoly, Clue, Sequence and Wheel of Fortune. They actually had 24 there. There were lots of toys too. The house was very big.

There was a huge prairie at the house but it was too hot to walk in it.

The owners of the house we were renting had chickens and the eggs that the chickens laid were very good. We could have them for breakfast. I didn't have any myself, because there was bacon. I thought it tasted good and I ate that instead. Everyone else said that the eggs were good.

My brother Jackie had broken his leg sometime in May and it was July. He had gotten out of his cast a while ago and he was just starting to walk again. It was that vacation that he finally ran once again.

We went to the beach one day. The sand burned our feet when we walked in it. My brothers Charlie, Georgie, and I were hopping up and down on the sand and had to take turns standing on the cooler before we laid our blankets on the sand. It was hard to take fair turns. I spent most of the time swimming and so did everybody else at the beach, (no sun tanning that day).

It was 97 degrees out in that part of Wisconsin. That was our coldest day in the state.

The next day we went to this place called Little Norway, or something like that. The temperature that day was about 99 degrees and we had a tour outside. We saw all sorts of stuff like horse snowshoes and little containers called tenas and old beds. We also had to see how many little dwarves we could find during the tour. It was very hot out but we enjoyed the tour because the tour guide was great.

On the way back from Little Norway we stopped at a small lake. The sand didn't burn our feet this time because we were in the shade and it was sunset. The water was cool after that very hot day. I think we went to that lake towards the end of the trip as well but I don't remember when.

I don't know how hot it was the next day but we went to Madison, the capital city of Wisconsin. The outside of the state house was beautiful. The inside was amazing too. We were in the state house for about an hour and after that we took a walk in Madison. There were a few cool buildings and a ton of restaurants. It was a good day.

It was 98 degrees the next day. We decided to stay at home. We took a walk in the prairie. There was just about every single kind of flower that you could think of. It was awesome.

I started to walk ahead of the rest of the family. Shortly after that I found Georgie walking around alone, so the two of us went off exploring. We had no water. We discovered several things that only we knew about. We weren't lost we could see the house and we knew the rest of the family was nearby and if we tried we could reach them but we liked it better by ourselves. It was like a maze. The prairie wasn't huge but I couldn't see my family. Then we heard Charlie and ran. This was a big mistake in 98 degree weather. I lay down on the grass. When I found Charlie I was so thirsty I drank half a bottle of disgusting tasting water.

When we got back inside it was so cool and refreshing that Georgie, who usually didn't care how hot it was, sighed. After that we played Monopoly.

It had been so hot on the trip that it was a little frustrating that there was a thunderstorm the morning we left and if we had stayed that day we would finally have a cool day. The grass had been literally the color of lemons.

On the way back we stopped at Niagara Falls. We saw two or three different huge and amazing waterfalls. It was awesome but when you see the big waterfalls you sometimes picture yourself falling over the edge.

Even though it was 98 degrees, Wisconsin was my favorite part of the trip and I looked forward to telling everybody back at home all about it.

Trip to Michigan

By Charlie—grade 4

About a year ago my family and I took a trip to Michigan. First there was the packing and that took about an hour. Then I got the books that I wanted and got into the car. Then my family and I drove there and that took two days. We were there for about two weeks. The AC did not work and I was very hot. The CD player did not work. I would have been bored but I had brought some books. In the car there were five kids and their names were Oscar, Charlie, Georgie, Jackie and Susanna.

When we got to Michigan we had to get the key and go to our room. There were beds and those kinds of things. I woke up and it was time to have breakfast so I threw on my clothes and put my shoes on and my family and I went to the breakfast room.

The breakfast room was a small building and if it was a sunny day the sun could shine through. I got some cereal and milk and began to eat it. Later on my family and I went to an island called Mackinac. There was a ferry close by. My family and I decided to walk there. Then we got on a ferry and I sat by the window next to my brother Georgie. On the way I saw a light house that was on a book that my dad had. When we got to the island I got off.

On that island there were no cars, just bikes or wagons pulled by horses. I went to a store with my mom and got a bag of cookies. Then we went to a park. At the park they had a fort. On the water fountain I had to push a foot lever to get the water out. There was also an old Indian church. I grabbed a cookie and went to go look at it. Then Oscar, Georgie, my dad and I went to the fort. At the fort there was a building that was a jail. You could go in the jail. I could lock myself in. At the very top of the fort I could see an enormous view of the town.

Afterwards we got ice cream, and we got back on the ferry and went back to the hotel. That night we went in a pool. There was a hot tub too and the pool was heated. It was 25 yards long. After we swam we went to bed. The trip was a lot of fun.

Hotel de Glace

by Brie—grade 5

When we drove up to the hotel, Nate, Amelia and I all said, “Where’s the hotel?” I mean, there was a building in front of us but it was certainly not made out of ice. When we got inside of the stone building I saw that to my left there was a gift shop and to my right there were bathrooms and a water fountain. My mom was rushing us to go to the counter to get our tickets and get to the last tour as I was looking around. When we walked to the out the back door of the stone building we walked down a wooden ramp. We saw an ice climbing place where you could climb ice on the weekend and then we saw a map of the ice hotel and then we walked to the outside of the ice hotel. We walked to the first entryway of the ice hotel that led us to the bar area. When I walked into the bar the first thing I saw was an ice sculpture of an animal skin and when I walked around the ice sculpture I saw colored lights on the ground and ice pillars. When we saw a tour we found out that it was a French tour. We walked outside and asked a lady where the English tour was. When we found the tour we only got to see the chapel where people can get married and there are real animal furs on the ice benches. After that we went to the bar and that’s where our tour ended.

We walked around the rooms and suites for a while. My favorite suite was an avalanche room. It had blocks of snow piled up into an entryway and there was an ice bed and an ice table and benches. Then we went to the ice slide and we went down on our knees and belly. We met a girl and her mom and dad at the ice slide. After that we walked to a building that was not made out of ice and ate dinner. Then we went to a meeting about how to take care of yourself in that kind of weather. The lady who was there told us how to wrap up in our sleeping bags. After that we went to look at suite one which was the only deluxe suite. I thought that the avalanche room was cooler than suite one but suite one did have its own hot tub. When it was about nine o’clock we went to our room to see room already set up with the sleeping bags. Then we went to the bar area because there were games and at ten fifteen there was going to be ice sculpting.

When we arrived at the bar area we saw the girl from the slide. When the game began we got paired with the girl and her mom and dad. The object of the game was to get the object that the score keeper shouts out. Of course we lost but we still got a pin. After that we got to carve ice sculptures. We got small blocks of ice. I carved a mountain range. After that we went to the warm room where you could get dressed for bed or for the hot tub and the sauna. In the warm room we found out that my dad had brought in the wrong bag so my dad had to run back out to the car and get the other bag with the swim suits. We got dressed and we ran out to the hot tubs. After the hot tubs we sat in the sauna for a few minutes then went back to the warm room to get changed into our long johns. Then we ran to our room, put on our socks and got into our sleeping bags.

My Day

By Olivia—Grade 4

When I woke up I was very tired. I called to my dad so he knew I was awake. When I was out of bed I waked to the kitchen and put in my English muffin. After I put it in I went to get out my highlights magazine in the dinning room. When my muffin popped my dad buttered it while I read a story in my magazine. When my dad finished buttering it I ate my English muffin while finishing my story. When I finished eating I got on my beautiful pink and purple dress. After I got my socks on I had some orange juice, then brushed my teeth. After I brushed, my dad put two pony tails in my hair. I loved my outfit for the day.

When my hair was done and my dad and I were ready we got my dog and climbed into my dad’s car. We brought my dog Dixon so he could go to work with my dad. Workers give him treats a lot. As we were driving to school we were listening to a playlist I made. It has some of my favorite songs on it. When my dad and I got to school we stopped the music and I got out of the car. The party’s over, I thought.