Hi! It's Zoe. These days, keeping the Earth a clean, healthy planet is important because of the huge amount of pollution we are releasing into our atmosphere, land, and waters. All this pollution is harmful to our planet and it is up to us to fix what we've started.
   One of the worst type of pollution is the plastic bag. This is found every time you go to the store and huge amounts of them are used every day. Here are some facts we should all remember the next time we go to buy something.

• 1 billion seabirds and mammals die every year because of plastic bags
  
• Sea turtles and other marine animals can mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and accidentally digest them. This can hurt and even kill the animals.
• Plastic bags can take over 1,000 years to decompose which make it hard to get rid of them easily.

  These facts are only a few of many and it is up to us to change it. All we need to do is Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Have you ever dreamed of being a superhero and saving the world? Well, if you Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, you can! Even when you  recycle one piece of paper, you are still making an impact on the world. Lets learn how to help our planet.
   To reuse plastic bags, we can use them again and again for different purposes to help prevent throwing them away. Things like needing a bag for your wet clothes when you go swimming and and a temporary lunch bag are all ways to reuse plastic bags. You can also get a bit more creative and make some really neat stuff with plastic bags. Here's a cool idea:
                                                                Plastic Bag Wallets
                                         Materials:

• 3 plastic bags
• iron/ ironing board
• piece of 4x4 wax paper
• scissors
• tape (optional)

                                 Directions:
     1. Align the 3 plastic bags and cover them with the 4x4 wax paper.Use iron to melt the bags together ( ask for parent help because this is extremely dangerous). Make sure not to go over 4x4 wax paper because plastic will melt and make a big mess.       2. After melting bags, take off wax paper. Ask your parent to cut a 3x4 piece of melted plastic. Fold this plastic hot dog style. Then ask your parent to melt the sides together using the iron ( use wax paper again) or tape the sides.
      3. Fold the wallet hamburger style and you're done! If you would like, add a pocket or two and decorate your new wallet. Enjoy!
     So there's reusing, an easy and fun thing to do while saving the planet.
  
  Reducing is easy, too. When we reduce, we use less of something, so if we want to reduce the amount of plastic bags we use, we should consider if we really need a plastic bag. Here's an example: if I go with my mommy to the store and buy some milk, do I need a bag for it or could I just carry it by the handle? We can also use reusable bags instead of plastic bags. These little things make big differences.
   Lastly,Recycling. Check to see if your local recycling center takes plastic bags or even your local general store. Like the facts I showed earlier say, it takes a long time to get rid of plastic bags so recycling helps a lot. Recycling uses both reusing and reducing as well. Its everything tied into one, a great way to help our planet.
   So there you have it. Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling. Three amazing superheroes to fight back the super villain that is plastic bag pollution. And you can be a superhero as well! You can start right now by spreading the word! Bye!
                                                    

Hi! It's Zoe. How was your holiday? Mine was great! We opened presents as a family after a nice breakfast, and I felt so lucky to have my Mimi by my side! She came all the way from California to spend the holidays with us. After presents and a fun day, we had dinner with my Grandma, Grandpa, and Great Aunt Penny, who was always ready to tell a story or show us a neat trick. It was an awesome Christmas.

I realize how fortunate I am, and I know there are children less fortunate than me. I worked hard to donate to the school's canned food drive, coat drive, and toy drive to make their Christmas better. Volunteering and donating to these causes are important to me, and I do my best to get involved with each one because I know how lucky I am to have a happy Christmas.

My greatest Christmas present was a n amazing sewing machine! It is digital so you can program a stitch and it would do it automatically for you. Even better was the fact my mommy has studied tailoring, so she knows how to sew. The machine is key to having lots and lots of fun. It also gave us great mommy-daughter quality time! With my sewing machine, I got other things to help me get started, like project books and lots of colorful thread. After deciding on my first project from one of the books, my Mimi, Mommy, and I went to Hobby Lobby to buy fabric and few other needed tools. Sadly, my Mimi returned home before we started on the project, but I promised to send her something I made.

Mommy and I began our project. It took lots of time to measure the fabric. Did you know that sewing is great for math because you have add and subtract fractions. I learned to, "measure twice, cut once." After cutting the pieces, I started learning how to work the sewing machine.  I was a bit shaky at first, but slowly I got better. Finally our finished product was ready! We made a reversible, over-the-shoulder, messenger bag!

After that, my mommy and I made a penny purse and a cute skirt. We plan on making so much more! And to think, a great and practical skill for life started out as a Christmas present.  Bye!

Hi! It's Zoe. The holidays have been very busy for me and I've celebrated them in so many ways. First was my birthday party.

At my birthday party, I invited my friends over to my house where we decorated stockings that became their party bags to take home filled with goodies. Then we played basketball and sang Karaoke. I love to sing.  And finally we made cupcakes at "cupcake station" in the kitchen. Mommy made un-iced cupcakes that we were able to decorate ourselves. We had three different designs to pick from; a shoe, a purse, and a fish. They came from a book I have on fun food designs. Everyone enjoyed it, though some might not have turned out exactly like the book, we enjoyed each other's work. I think it was my best birthday party ever. 

Another interesting holiday celebration was my 5th Grade Christmas play! And guess what? After trying out and waiting for a few days for the teachers to make their decisions, I got the part of Santa Clause! or as he was known, White Beard, for A Pirates Christmas.It was really challenging because I needed to memorize so many lines and sing and dance. It was a great experience.  It was so much fun and people thought I did a wonderful job. Yeah! 

I have two clips of the performance. A short outtake of a funny bit where I have to walk real fast behind the sleigh pushing it. My family laughed at this because I'm moving quickly and waving funny. The other clip is almost the entire play. It starts where I come in. Hope you enjoy the videos. 

One last thing for this holiday special blog, I want to share my district choir performance with you. We performed for the Night of Lights celebration. I was a little disappointed by how short our performance was, but we made the most out of the small portion of time we were given. We sang four songs. The one below (video - I'm in the green elf hat) was my favorite. We did a great job in my eyes, and I am glad I was a part of it. 

We also had a choir field trip. We went caroling to different places such as hospitals, district central office, and schools. I have to say that it felt good to cheer people up. We ended the trip at Peter Piper Pizza to have fun after a long day. 

So there you have it, my holiday celebrations this year! I hope you had a happy holiday. This wraps up my first year blogging. I will be writing in the new year. I hope 2014 is a great one!

Hi! It's Zoe. First, I want to give a little recap of things I've done since my last blog. For Halloween, I dressed up as a man-woman and went as a "couple". My school had a costume competition based on the book Miss Ataineus, where a child picked a vocabulary word from one of their subjects and makes a costume out of it. I picked the word "couple" and my mommy and I made a creative costume for it. In the end, I won the prize for best costume! 

Most recently, I spent the month of November participating in my fifth year of NaNoWriMo writing challenge. In fact, NaNoWriMo is the reason I have been doing the blog this year. I've been doing NaNoWriMo since I was six years old. In the month November each year, people all over the world set their writing goals for National Novel Writing Month. This year I had to reach 10,000 words. 

At first thought, it didn't seem too big since many authors write hundreds of thousands of words in one book.But, if you think about it and experience it, you might change your mind. That's what happened to me. After calculating the average words I needed to write per day to meet my goal, I found out I needed 333 words per day to accomplish my goal. To me, that was not too bad. But, trying to write after school, doing all my homework and chores, I realized it was hard to keep up with my goal, and I started to fall behind. In the last few days of November, I was writing 800-1000 words trying to catch up. After a lot of struggle, I was able to reach my goal, and I got a certificate of achievement! My novel is called, Under the Surface. NaNoWriMo provides five free hard copies to the kids who meet their writing goals. I can't wait to get mine. 

So, that's it. This was my summary of all the exciting things I've been doing since my last blog. If you want to become a writer, NanoWriMo is a great way to practice. It's easy to sign-up. Have your mommy or daddy help you. It helped me. Bye!

Hi! It's Zoe. I have a quick update I'd like to share with you. In my last blog, I wrote about running for Student Council President. I didn't win, but I am happy with the person that did get it, and I know that our school will have a successful year. I'm going to be very busy this year. One of the things I did get chosen to participate in is called D.I. or Destination Imagination. 

DI is a group of kids that are handed a problem that has to be solved with creativity and teamwork. You are scored on these things and the top team will go on to State and then to Globals. My school won global once, and this year, I'd like to lead my team to another one. 

The DI tryouts were held on a Saturday. Although, the teachers were expecting 100 or more kids to tryout, less than 25 showed up! I think just having the tryouts on a weekend was a good choice because it meant only the serious kids would show up.  One of the rules for DI is this, if you drop out or get kicked off the team, they can't replace you, so the team would suffer by being a person short.

DI has another rule too. The team cannot receive any help from a teacher or parent or anyone not part of the team. It's about pure teamwork. Teachers are there only to supervise. Sometimes, they will work around the rule, and get ideas to you craftily. Though most kids don't like this rule, I like it because it can test how creative the teams are coming up with their own ideas. 

With two years of experience, I know what can happen in DI. Two years ago my team placed second in a local tournament. We had lost by six points out of 340. But by pure luck, a raffle was held for an alternate team and my team was picked! We went to state and sadly placed 3rd out of 12 in the rankings. I believe we can blame our lack of teamwork that day. This showed us how things could go from good to bad. This year I'm hoping we show great teamwork and go on to win.

If your school has a DI or Rising Stars group, don't be afraid to join. Never stop the creativity! Bye!

Hi! It's Zoe. This past week I have been campaigning for my school's student council. I have been running for President, the most important position. I had to work hard, even getting into debating, and I'm happy with the way things have gone so far. 

First, to even get accepted as a candidate, I had to write an essay on what I would do for the school as President. I put a lot of thought into this, and I decided on a couple of things as my campaign promises. Here's my essay I wrote to run as a candidate:

                                                                     My Presidential Candidate Statement

                                                                                           By Zoe Benham

Fellow Canterbury students:

          If I were voted president, I would aim to make Canterbury a better place. One of my biggest interests would be to change the bullying situation that has started here in our school. Even if it's a little bullying problem, I want everyone to know it's okay to tell a teacher or adult. I also want to emphasize the importance of  telling a teacher or adult about witnessing bullying. This is a problem everywhere and I think we should stop it here and now at Canterbury. We should stop the bullying  before it starts.

          My next interest would be to involve everyone in charity service. Many of my classmates and I have been introduced to a math program called Think Through Math,here you go through lessons and do math tests. During these lessons and tests you earn points and are ranked top 20 in class, school, and state. With these points you can make an avatar or donate to a charity. I think that we should take advantage of this ability to donate. If you vote for me to be your next school president, I promise to push for a fund raising program in which the class that raises the most money will get a pizza party or popcorn and pickle with a movie during class. After a lot of studying the math website and a few calls to their help desk, I have found how we can calculate the money donated so this would be a fair contest. I want Canterbury to be involved in helping those in need.

          I hope you will consider my campaigning platforms, in which I fully support  a “No Bullying Program” and a “Charity Service Contest”. Please, cast your vote for Zoe Benham for President.



After I wrote this, I made some posters to put up around the school to remind people I was running for President and encourage them to vote for me. I was excited because earlier, my mommy and I bought some really pretty things to put on them that made my posters pop! Then we made some flyers, a piece of paper with my name and picture on it, to hand out to people. My daddy came up with the idea to put a optical allusion on them to make them appear to be moving and make them unique in the hope people would keep them and show them to their friends.  And last, but not least, we made some cute stickers that everyone wanted. 

Though there is a lot of tough competition, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best. I know I tried my best and that's what counts. Wish me luck! Bye!

 Hi! It's Zoe. Last weekend I made a dinner all by myself! Like the cookfest I wrote about in a previous blog, I chopped, stirred, and cooked dinner, but this time I was the cook. I cooked for the family all by myself except with the draining of hot liquids, my mommy did that. I was very excited to see what the outcome would be. 

When I asked my Mommy to make a dinner plan she suggested spaghetti and meatballs. I was a little hesitant because I wanted to do an ethnic meal and I thought spaghetti and meatballs was too easy. I decided to do it because I thought it might be harder to make than I think. I was right. 

The recipe I got from my Mommy was supposed to be an "easy" version. It was harder than I thought. A few times I didn't know what the recipe was saying to do, like sauteing, which is a way of cooking food. I started to get the hang of it. I had to saute onions and bell pepper and garlic together in a pan with olive oil.  I felt like I was the boss of the kitchen.

I had to mix stuff like eggs, breadcrumbs, the sauteed vegetables, and spices together with the ground beef. We made jumbo cheesy meatballs (the sizes of small oranges) that were stuffed with mozzarella cheese inside them and we baked them in the oven until they were done. When I was done making them, I started on the sauce. It was much easier than I thought it would be. We make our sauce from scratch mixing ingredients together and letting it simmer a long time. 

Soon it was time for dinner and I was nervous to see how the family liked my food. To my relief, it was a success and everybody liked it! I was ready to make another meal. I like cooking because I've been helping my Mommy in the kitchen since I was very young. Though your parents might not want you to do that much in the kitchen right now, ask them if you can help out when they are cooking. There might be a stirring, mixing, or washing vegetables job you can do. And always remember two of the most important rules when cooking: keep good hygiene (wash your hands and don't put them near your face), and clean as you go so there's not a big mess at the end! Thanks for reading. Bye!

P.S. Here's the link to the recipe for Jumbo Cheesy Meatballs.

Hi! It's Zoe. The past several weeks it has been raining where I live. Did you know every minute one billion tons of rain falls to Earth! Anyway, this rainfall has caused me to stay indoors a lot and be even more creative. So, for the past few weeks I have been making and selling duck tape wallets. I have learned how to figure out my profits, after costs, and to sell my product to people convincing them it wasn't a run-of-the-mill wallet. 

When I first made a duck tape wallet I did it because I thought it would be a cool thing to have. My first one didn't turn out so good, so I decided to look up, on the Internet, a way to make them. I found a great tutorial and I started making them in a flash. But, I only had four types of duck tape, and it was getting boring. I asked my Daddy if he would take me to buy some more tape, and he said yes, though, I would have to pay him back. we bought some of the more popular patterns, like, bacon, mustaches, and camouflage. The total costs for materials was about $15 dollars. I think that's a lot of money just for materials, but I believed I could pay it back with my profits. What I learned was that my total sales minus the costs of supplies would equal my profits. I was so excited to start my small business! 

Even though I would probably make some profit, I mostly did this to practice being an entrepreneur. Some business rules I created for myself are, I always stick to my rate, and I never give my product to a person without them paying for it first. 

Over time, I made my wallets more desirable by adding pockets inside them and different color interiors. I also created a business card with reasonable promises for my buyers, like repairing the wallets for free and giving commissions to people who refer customers to me. Sometimes, I get special requests. With all these promises and requests, my business is skyrocketing, and it was all thanks to great management! 

This great business was created one rainy day. I can't wait to see where it leads. Bye!

Hi! It's Zoe. Last Friday it rained while I was at school, and when we went outside to get picked up it had stopped raining. One of the teachers asked some of us if we wanted a kitten. First, I thought he was joking, but then he lead us to a small, wet kitten that he had found and had put in a dry place to shelter it from the rain. When my parents arrived to pick me up I asked them if we could take it home and care for it. They said yes! I was so happy! 

When we got home, my daddy and I came up with the perfect name for the kitten, Raindrop, because she is small and she was found shortly after it had rained. We put Raindrop in my mommy's bathroom because it is the safest place to keep her. With this done, we went to the closest pet store and got her a tiny baby bottle made for kittens and kitten baby formula to feed her.

At the pet store, we learned how to take care of her. She has to be fed eight times a day or every three hours! This included during the night. When they told us this I knew it was going to take more work than I expected to take care of Raindrop. 
When we got home from the pet store, I fed Raindrop the kitten formula. She was so hungry. After she had enough milk, we had to burp her just like a baby. It was so cute. She fell asleep on my daddy's shoulder. (see the picture below)

Soon after we fed her, we made her a little bed with a heating blanket underneath a towel, to keep her warm, she feel asleep immediately, while my mommy sang "Raindrops Are Falling On My Head" to her.

Later, I made her a play house with cardboard and hot glue, making improvements here and there, until I had a finished product that she loves! (watch the video below with her in the playhouse)

I have fun playing with Raindrop, and I've learned many interesting things with this experience. But most importantly, we hope to find Raindrop a nice and loving home soon. Bye!