Folktales

After reading Asian folktales the Barracudas wrote one of their own. Here are a few examples:

Carla’s Island

By A.A.

Think of others not just yourself.

Introduction

When I was very little my mom and dad lived in Chile which is next to the Pacific Ocean, even though they spoke English. One day my mother went out onto the ocean by herself. Once she was farther out she saw something move in the water, once she got closer she recognized it as the whale she had spent hours admiring when she was little. They stared eye to eye until my mother saw something, it looked like a ship. As the ship drew near she saw it was the Patriot Ship. As the Patriot Ship got closer it scared the whale. In the Whales hurry it ate my mother and our bout leaving only memories of my mother behind.

A New Life

Once I was two and a half years old my father and I went out to sea with everything we would need in search of a new life. After a week or so we found an island. No one had ever found this island before. This is our own island now it is also where our adventure begins.

I am eleven years old now and my name is Carla. You are probably wondering if I have any friends, the answer is yes. My best friends are Kiki the seal, Felix the lizard, Joey the rattle snake, and Leo the pelican. Even if Kiki, Felix, Joey, and Felix are my best friends all the animals on the island are my friends. Every month a ship comes three miles away from the island to bring us supplies that we can’t get or make on our island. The ship brings us food, clothes, and other stuff. Today I got some books and for seven hours I read nine out of fifty books. Gone Everything had been going well until my twelfth birthday.

When I was playing hide and go seek with Felix my dad was making a special dinner because it was my birthday. After ten games of hide and go seek I heard a loud boom. As I turned around I saw smoke and rocks flying, the volcano was erupting! As I ran for the water I remembered my dad and my friends! I turned and ran towards the house the ground shaking under my feet I could feel the air getting hotter and hotter as I ran. It seemed the forest went on and on forever. Finally our house came into view but I was too late lava was already destroying it. The lava was pouring out of the windows swirling, twisting, and turning it was almost magical for that one moment. Then I realized how close the lava was coming so I turned and ran for my life.

I made sure that all my friend where safe. After helping a duck and watching it fly away I felt the air getting hotter and hotter so I looked around and I saw the lava drawing near. I ran I ran for my life away from the lava. Soon after I saw the sand of the beach ahead it never felt better to be on the beach. As soon as I felt the water on my feet and the ocean spray in my face I dipped under the waves and swam as fast and as far away as I could from the island.

  Home Again

As I turned I saw a boat coming towards me, at was at first I was scared since it was moving fast. I swam away my clothes dragging me forcing me to go slower as I cut through the water. Then I heard someone call my name behind me. I spun around to see who called my name. The person calling me was my dad. He drove the boat closer and I pushed myself out of the water and onto the boat. Out of breath I flopped down on the boats floor and fell asleep. When I woke up I felt much better. I looked up and saw my dad gazing down at me. I slowly got out of bed and gave my dad a hug. When I looked around the room I saw I was in my old house in Chile. It looks like my future has been turned around in a good way. Life in Chile is nice but I will never forget the island because it will always be our island.

The Boy with the Magic Rock

By: M.Y.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Joseph Jacobson who lived in a Cabin on Mount Yeh. Joseph’s mother had died many years before, but his father had remarried to his wicked stepmother, Gladys. Gladys had always taunted him with many chores but there was nothing he could do about it, even Joseph’s father was deathly afraid of Gladys.

Everyday he would go back to Gladys and receive a new list of chores to do while Gladys would be watching his every move. One day while Joseph was wandering alone in the forest, he found a very unique rock, light blue on the top, green on the bottom and small colorful crytals of light moving in the middle. Joseph was told by Gladys never to have any fun or excitement while doing his chores but this was “Incredible,” Joseph thought. He had never seen anything this exciting in his life. Joseph thought to himself what this brilliant rock could be used for.

Joseph started thinking about the past when his mother was still alive and how they played games and had fun together. He thought about why Gladys was so mean and cruel and how she got to be like this. Then, Joseph got furious that this rock was the only excitement in life. He threw the rock down as hard as he could to get all of the madness and pain he had suffered away, he hated life! Suddenly a portal opened up. It was filled with bright colors and lights, Joseph looked down and he saw that it was the rock! Everything became frozen around him the portal was getting larger and larger, he could not see anything. The skys became filled with light, the animals disappeared and then everything was gone. Joseph’s mind went blank! The whole world was spinning around him. Joseph found himself lying down having fainted.

He stood up and found himself in a world filled with people everywhere was wearing great big dresses and suits. Then Joseph saw a very unusal guy; he had brown hair, blue eyes and was wearing a big crown and a long red robe. “It is time for a very important ceremony! I must now be crowning my daughter, Gladys, who is about to become our new queen of China!” Then Joseph realized that Gladys wasn’t ugly and evil at all, she was nice and calm. Joseph saw that the rock was lying on the ground; he realized that the rock was not just a common old rock; it was a magical time traveling stone.

Joseph saw that the king was crowning Gladys and some guys were hiding in the bushes with swords and maces waiting to attack. The guys came up and kidnapped the king. The knights came and grabbed Gladys to protect her. Gladys screamed and asked the knights if her father would be okay. Joseph realized why she was so cruel and evil; he had to save the king. Joseph ran up and followed them to the castle, he saw that the king was being asked to give his wealth to them. The king replied saying that if his family would be okay he would do it. The guys huddled up discussing it. Joseph came and untied the king and brought him back to safety leaving the guys locked up in the king’s palace.

 “We shall thank this young man for his bravery for saving the kingdom and all of China,” said King Jacobson. Joseph ran up to the king and was crowned ruler of Mount Yeh, and was promised to be treated respectfully from the king. Later that day Gladys was crowned queen of China. Meanwhile, Joseph found the rock gray and colorless with no use, knowing that he used it for the right thing. The

Story of Carnidous Island

By: B.S.

Once, on a jungle island called Carnidous Island in the middle of the ocean, there lived a few animals; tigers, chimpanzees, and various birds. Also, there was a very nice, strong, giant who lived in harmony with the animals; he patrolled the beach for dangers and sea life. He also played with the animals. They got along very well together.

However, there was a small stretch of land that appeared once a year on the first day of spring. This stretch of land led to another small island, the island of Suodinrac. On this island, there was a cave. In the cave, there lived a fire breathing dragon with flames coming out of every pore that wanted the world to end, and he wanted to cause it. His first victim, Carnidous Island. This brings us to the story.

One fine sunny day, on Carnidous Island, the animals were playing tag with the giant. “No way you’re catching me!” said one of the birds, “Oh, yeah? I got you anyways!” said one of the tigers, specifically the one who was “it.” “Good luck finding me!” said one of the chimpanzees. “Really? Thanks, but I don’t really need it. Tag!” said the bird. “Darn, how am I goi-“ said the chimpanzee, but he was interrupted by a loud noise. RUMBLE!!! The land bridge slowly rose out of the ocean, frightening all of the animals back into the jungle.

Slowly but surely, the dragon came out of the cave and started to cross the land bridge to Carnidous Island. Once he got there, he set fire to a little bit of the forest with the hottest flame he had ever breathed. This scared the animals back out of the forest, vulnerable to the monster’s attacks. The giant, who heard the rumbling, came to check that all the animals were ok, and doing so, saw the dragon.

The giant began to fight the dragon, to protect the animals, but the dragon was still attacking the animals. “Uh-oh,” thought the giant. But the animals had formed a plan. A tiger went and jumped into the shallow part of the ocean and said, “Nyah-Nyah! Bet you can’t hit me here!” The dragon, being stupid, changed to aiming at the tiger. He breathed one of his hottest, while the tiger dove underwater. Doing so, this evaporated some of the ocean and made salt. The tiger quickly swam to shore to hold the dragon away from the chimpanzees and the birds. A chimpanzee grabbed a large leaf and started to pile salt into it, and when he was done, handed it off to a bird. The bird grabbed the leaf by the top so it wouldn’t leak, and flew up as fast as he could, while the fire was spreading below. When he got to the clouds, he let go of the bag, and it flew up and released the salt into the clouds. This made it rain. The rain put the fire out, and also made the monsters flame breath useless. Now, the dragon was in a bad spot, because after that, the giant picked him up by the tail and threw him as far as he could into the ocean. This was the last time that Carnidous Island saw the dragon.

Awesome Field Trip!

Thanks to one of our moms the Barracudas got to spend the morning at a professional photo studio taking pictures, learning about lighting and how cameras work--oh and trying on costumes!
Then they went to the MS campus for lunch and a little visiting with their soon to be classmates.

Balloon Car Rally

The Barracudas tested out their knowledge of Newton's Laws of Motion with their own balloon car designs. While the cars didn't exactly set any land speed records they were a lot of fun and demonstrated what the Barracudas had learned.

Friction Experiments

The question is, how do different surfaces affect friction? The Barracudas were challenged to make a hypothesis then put together an experiment to test their hypothesis. Ask them about what they found out.

Physics Day I

What does shooting marbles have to do with physics? Ask your Barracuda about Newton's First Law of Motion.

Manifest Destiny

As their final project for our social studies unit on Westward Expansion, the Barracudas wrote an essay about Mainfest Destiny. Here are two of them:

Manifest Destiny
By: C.H.

Manifest Destiny was the spark that inspired the USA to move west and take over the continent from east coast to west. There was many other ways to accomplish spreading across the continent, Manifest Destiny was not necessary for America growth.

In 1811, John Quincy Adams the sixth president of the USA wrote: “The whole continent appears to be destined…to be peopled by one nation. The acquisition of a definite line of boundary to the pacific forms a great epoch in our history” Meaning America should spread throughout the continent from east coast to west.

34 years later John O’Sullivan, an editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review wrote: “Away, away with all these cobweb issues of rights of discovery, exploration, settlement, contiguity, etc. The American claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and posses the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federative self-government entrusted to us. It is a right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and the destiny of growth. It is in our future far more than in the past history of Spanish exploration or French colonial rights, that our true title to be found” meaning to forget the past and move west. The main idea of Manifest Destiny was god had sent a message saying they must move west and take over the entire continent.

After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, America was almost double the size it was before, that gave Americans a great chance to travel west and restart with a fresh new life. Many people were on a rush to get to the west because you could get lots of land cheap. Starting in 1862 the Homestead Act cut the price in half and gave Americans a very good reason to go west and get low priced land. Traveling west was a dangerous thing, going through thousands of miles of unknown land. Many people risked their lives to travel to the west and some of them like the Donnor Party lost more than half of their people.

In 1948, the California Gold Rush began and when the populous found out everyone wanted to travel to California to make their fortune. It all start May 1848 when a man named Sam Brannan, a cashier in Sutter’s Creek was cleaning the store after it closed and came across a bottle with gold dust in it and ran outside yelling “GOLD, GOLD, GOLD FROM AN AMERICAN RIVER!” the people in the city now had proof of gold and all rushed to San Francisco harbor and the rush for gold was on.

During this wonderful time for Americans they ran into a small but to become large problem with the Indians and they weren’t about to give up their land for some greedy American. To deal with this ‘Indian Problem’ the Americans took four steps; Sovereignty, Assimilation, Removal, and Elimination.

Sovereignty was the American government writing three policies one saying we would not take the Indian’s land, the second saying we would make friends and not fight with them, and the last allowing us to trade with them. The bottom line of this was to make friends with them. But since Americans still wanted the Indian land the policies of sovereignty were revoked.

Second would be assimilation; assimilation was the Americans removing the Indians from their home and making them become part of the American society by making them eat American food, wear American clothes, speak English, follow Christianity, follow American law etc. etc. etc. This would destroy Indian culture, and it utterly failed since the Indians did not want to give up their culture.

Third would be removal; around the early 1830’s President Andrew Jackson decided that a new policy would be necessary to remove the Indians from their land. He supported the Removal Act of 1830 which gave the U.S Government the right to go to the Indians, take them to reservations and take their home land against their will. One of the largest removal events of the Indians was The Trail of Tears; The Trail of Tears was the American army taking the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and the Seminole from Georgia to land in Oklahoma. Except there was one little problem the land we put them on was pretty nice land and some whites wanted it so the government took the land then put them somewhere else. This happened repeatedly until we finally put them on to reservations.

The Americans put the Indians on reservations which was land that no one wanted; it was arid, had no plants, and you couldn’t leave. This caused the Indians to rebel and leave the reservations. This is one of reasons that the Indian Wars started.

Last is elimination; the Americans finally came to the conclusion that the only way to get rid of the Indians was to kill all of them. The Indians hated the reservations so they left, and that made the government very unhappy so they hunted them down like dogs. For example at the Wounded Knee Massacre, December 29, 1890 an American group of soldiers surrounded an Indian camp at Wounded Knee and attacked it completely annihilating them and killing their chief Sitting Bull. By 1900 the Indian population went form 6-10 million to less than 250,000 Indians alive.

As you see the Indians were gravely harmed and almost went into extinction. America was stronger than ever but did a horrible thing to get there, Manifest Destiny was not necessary for Americas growth.


Manifest Destiny
By: E.M.

Inspiration is a powerful thing. It makes us do things we never thought we could do and gives us the power to move mountains. Everyone has their own idea of motivation; Manifest Destiny, for many people, was inspiring. Manifest Destiny hurt both sides but, in the process, made the American settlers stronger and was what inspired them.

There is so much land to discover! Spread out! It is our destiny given to us by God! In 1849 Manifest Destiny was big and booming, the Louisiana Purchase had defiantly made its difference, the air was buzzing with inspiration and determination to accept our destiny, no matter what may land in our way. What an adventure! In 1811 John Quincy Adam’s wrote: “The whole continent seems to be destined …to be peopled by one nation. The acquisition of a definite line of boundary to the Pacific forms a great epoch in our history.” In other words we are destined for greatness and to be the rulers of this continent. This gave people courage and strength.

Then they ran into the Native Americans. The Earth probably felt like it had introduced two nuclear bombs, ready to see which one exploded first. Fortunately the Indians welcomed them, thinking they would stay just a little while. It wasn’t long though, before the Indians began to notice things, things that they didn’t like. The Whites were taking land, saying that they owned it. The Native Americans thought the land was shared, not bought or owned. Then they moved on, while some of them stayed behind to protect the land they ‘owned.’ The Whites were ready to fight for their destiny.

Time went on. More and more Whites were coming that said they owned land. Indians were getting impatient. To deal with the new ‘Indian Problem’ the American government decided to make three polices to deal with them. First, The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 proclaimed that the Native Americans would be treated nicely and fairly, their land not taken from them without consent and not invaded or disturbed, unless Congress authorized it. Second, Congress would have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, Indian tribes and the several states. Third, The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790 placed all Indians under federal control, including the act of buying and selling land. It also settled the boundaries of Indian Territory, made trading with Indians under federal management and arranged that injuries against Indians was a federal crime. They could do anything they wanted on their land.

That didn’t work so well. Throughout the 19th century, the American legislative and legal system created a series of treaties and laws that applied only to Native Americans. Assimilation was what was expected of the Indians, the goal was to change the Indian ‘threat’ to ‘peaceful’ westward expansion of white settlers and destroy Indian culture, religious and political traditions by assimilating them into the American lifestyle.

Things were becoming less and less friendly between the Native Americans and Whites. Native Americans were very much into nature. They worshipped the Earth, believed in shared land and freedom. Americans thought of themselves as the first explorers and destined for greatness, similarity was what was expected and admired, if you weren’t part of the Christian community and ‘civilized’ you were savage and needed to be changed.

This ‘moving’ of the Indians was where government agents, missionaries and other White people functioning under federal management, would continue to try and ‘civilize’ Indians and prepare them for admittance into the United States. As Whites began to move westward they began to come onto more and more land, most of it was being held by American Indians. So, from 1830 to the rest of the 19th century, the federal government answered with four specific categories to open up Indian land the white settlement: allotment and assimilation, removal and reservations and then finally, elimination. (Not necessarily in that order.)

Americans didn’t like the fact that Native Americans weren’t assimilating. The amount of animosity between the two was building by the second. The Americans were mad, they had tried assimilation, they had tried working things out, it was time to take more drastic measures, they would start with removal. So, by the early 1830’s, about 80,000 members of the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole Nations lived on land that many Americans thought could be more beneficially settled by non-Indians. All five nations had signed the treaties with the federal government that guaranteed their right to live in their ancestral lands and carry on with their systems of tribal government. These tribes refused to give up any of their land or make any new treaties that would give away any of their territory.

President Andrew Jackson decided that a new federal policy would have to be made to in order to separate the Indians from their lands. And so, he supported the Removal Act of 1830 which gave the President the right to make ‘exchanges’ of land by forcibly removing the five tribes from their native lands, against their will. The President justified this to the Indians by saying that they were not losing any land; they were simply exchanging it for new land. The Removal Act was backed up by the 1834 Indian Intercourse Act which moved Indian Country westward above Mississippi and was set aside for all Indians once removed from their ancestral lands. Over the next several decades, more than 40 tribes were pushed into the new Indian Country, the land that now makes up Oklahoma.

From 1830 to 1840, between 70,000 and 100,000 American Indians living in the East were forced to resettle by the US Army. Many others were annihilated before they could be persuaded to leave, an unknown number died from disease, exposure and starvation suffered from the Trail of Tears, as well as on other enforced, long distance marches westward to the new Indian Territory.

The removal policy was working, people were happy, the Indians weren’t happy but Americans were happy, at least for a time. Though as more and more Americans moved westward, they found other Indian tribes living in peace and happiness throughout the continent, because these Indians prevented Americans from settling in many desirable areas, thus, the federal government had to do something about it. Many White settlers didn’t feel safe living around the ‘Indian danger’ and were probably afraid of the different things they did that Americans didn’t do. So the government thought…. and thought and thought. Finally, they came up with the idea of reservations. This idea was designed in the belief that if Indians were put in one specific place ‘reserved’ for them, they could be encouraged to work into a ‘civilized’ and assimilated American way of life. They thought that Native Americans could be encouraged to abandon their Indian ways and live like White men. These reservations goals were to make sure that the remaining tribes be converted to Christianity, taught English and above all else, to be Americanized.

After being relocated, Indians weren’t allowed to leave the reservations; they were subject to arrest if they left without permission and were ruled and governed by men from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. By the end of the 19th Century, 56 out of 162 had been established by executive order. But, after 1919, only an act of Congress could create a reservation. Even after the government’s enthusiasm for reservations the majority of Indians still did not adjust to the reservations, they didn’t even become like Whites a little bit or abandon their culture, and most even fought to protect their traditions and ways of life.

However, the reservation system continued to grow, resulting in nothing but more territory loss. It eventually became clear to even the dullest pencil in the box that not all Indians were going to be confined and the vast majority of them would not be changed or Americanized. By this time many Americans believed that Indians would never be Americanized as long as they celebrated their culture and spiritual beliefs on the reservations they were on. Furthermore, the reservation situation the Indians were in didn’t seem to give them any incentive to improve their situation. The frustration and anger clouded the minds of the government and left only a few choices, all of them extreme, the government chose the one they thought was the best at the time: allotment.

The federal governments’ idea was designed to break tribes apart and not have them so close together on reservations. This new policy was signed into law as the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. The Dawes Act gave the President the power to give bits and pieces of certain reservation land to individual Indians. Any land that Indians didn’t ‘claim’ would be given back to the federal government to give to Americans or non Indians to farm. Every head of the family would be given a final title to the land and American citizenship after a 25 year period of taking care of and taking responsibility over the land.

At the time where the Dawes Act was being thought over, American policy makers were thinking of a new assimilation policy, something that would make Native Americans let go of their culture and live like White men. Many people thought different things, one of them was that for Indians to truly become Americanized the Indian children would have to be taken from their tribal and spiritual environment and instead, be in an environment that would support American cultural, religious, political and economic traditions, therefore, forcing them into an American way of life. So, in 1879, that the former Indian fighter, Colonel Richard Pratt created the first large Indian ‘boarding school’ in the country. It was called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, talk about being humble. It was in Pennsylvania and dedicated to totally Americanizing Indian children.

As usual, the Dawes Act and the boarding schools policy were nothing less than catastrophic for American Indians; it ended up in huge land loss for them, making the 138 million acres of land they owned before the allotment idea into 90 million acres of land. It represented a result of 60% land loss after the Dawes Act was repealed. Indians, as expected, lost an enormous amount of their languages and culture and Indian family life was greatly disturbed. All these acts were created around the belief that Indians would transform and assimilate to imitate Whites but, in the end, just managed to make Indians poor, landless people that now depended on the American federal government for basic things.

So, again, the federal government had made a policy and it had failed, some Indian traditions and languages had been lost but ultimately, allotment and assimilation had finally failed. Toward the end of the 19th century a large number of Indians and Indian nations refused to be part of allotment or to live on reservations. Again, the anger and frustration built up in the heads of policy makers and the minds in government, resulting in only a few choices, it wasn’t the most reasonable and it certainly wasn’t the best but the federal government decided to go ahead with the policy they thought would surely work, elimination.

When all their other policies had failed, the federal government thought elimination would reach the goal of ‘Killing the ‘Savage’ Indian.’ It came out of and grew into the idea that Indian resistance was a declaration of war against the US. So it was that, in the late 1800s the US Army declared war upon several tribes and, with the idea of elimination, to annihilate any resisters and to completely control any survivors. The vast majority of the fighting happened from 1866 to 1891 and the US Army was involved in 1,470 official actions against Indians. In total, 948 soldiers were killed and another 1,058 were wounded while 4, 371 Indians were killed and another 1,279 were wounded. In 1890 when the federal ‘head count’ included American Indians for the first time less than 250,000 identified themselves as American Indians.

At the turn of the century, the first era of federal Indian policies came to a dramatic and sad end. The Indian population had 6-10 million people at the time of the US’s birth and only 250,000 people remained in 1900 and the majority of Indian tribes were at the brink of extinction. Most surviving Indians were on allotted lands or reservations and, once again, were expected to become civilized Americans. From the 1800s forward the Indians depended on the federal government for basic things. Between 1887 and 1934, Indian land went from 138 million acres of land to 48 million, 20 million of which were parched and arid or semi arid.

After over 100 years of these policies, treaties and agreements, fights and small skirmishes, the cultural and spiritual customs and traditions of many Indian nations still survived to live today. By the end of the 19th century, American Indians across the country refused to be like Americans, assimilate into the White life style, inherit the traits of Americans or be hurt by their historical experiences with the federal government. This survival style and life, with the movement of the 20th century, helped heal and help many Indian nations as they continued to fight assimilation and to celebrating their own spiritual, economical, cultural and political traditions that they fought so long to keep.

Inspiration is a powerful thing. It makes us do things we never thought we could do before. Manifest Destiny, for many people, was motivation, power and strength. Manifest Destiny hurt both sides but, in the process, made Whites stronger and what was inspired them.

School Store

The Barracudas have gotten into the swing of running the School Store and everyone has learned their jobs. Things are going smoothly and the Barracudas are earning money for their trip to Washington D.C. in May!

Spaghetti!

The Barracudas love to follow recipes and cook. They decided to use the garden tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce, and they also made bread sticks and apple crisp. Yummy stuff and a fun way to finish the week.

Happy Halloween

The Barracudas dressed in their finest and are ready to hit the streets in search of Halloween goodies!

Down on the Farm

The Barracudas got a beautiful day for their visit to Spooner Farms and the corn maze. And being the ingenious group that they are they whipped through the maze in record time, despite occasional dead ends and surprise attacks by other groups. It was a fun way to spend a morning and they each got a free pumpkin to take home and carve!

Christmas is here early

The Barracudas have turned into Santa's elves as they prepare items for the Meeker Craft Fair. All this hard work is just one of the many fundraisers they will be doing for their DC trip.

Goooooooaaaaaalllllllllll!!!!!!!!!

Soccer has become the game of choose for the Barracudas at recess. So many of them are playing on teams that the games get really competitive and except for the occasional kicked shin, a whole lot of fun to play and watch.

Middle School Visit

The Barracudas spent half the day visiting the middle school campus. First they sat in on the end of tech class and then joined the MS students for lunch at the Broadway Farmer's Market. Afterwards they helped with jobs then took a walk to the B-2 Gallery to see a student show from all around the world. And guess who had two pieces in the show? Our very own Maleah B.!