Starch Art

“Art made from Starch?”  Last week Friday, My class and I had to make art with starch made from corn.  I know it sounds weird but I was very excited.  It was a new technique for me to make art.

To make the art, we had to draw a sketch of the New Zealand landscape.  I chose a picture with a mountain in it because I liked how the sun was behind the mountain.  We then had to go to the hall so the starch could be made.  The starch was made from corn powder and hot water.  

I then had to set up tables so everyone could take a seat and make their starch art.  When the starch was finished, everyone who had a sketch done was allowed to put starch on it.  When the starch was put on my art, it was still hot so I could see steam coming from it.  From the way the starch looked, I would say it looked like goo.  

I also had to put dye on my art so the teachers put dye on the starch to rub.  Rubbing my hands on the starch felt rather nice.  It was soft, gooey and also warm so my fingers were relaxed.  I had to rub my hands on the art where the starch was placed.  There also was a problem where if you leave the starch on your artwork for a long time, it would get cold and hard.  We had to put different colours on the art so what we had to do was wash our hands in a bin filled with water.  Imagine that!  It was cleaned so I didn’t worry.

With the art done and looking nice, we had to leave the artwork in our classrooms until Monday.  Before we did that, we had to carefully carry the art with newspaper to the classroom.  I was a little bit worried because the wind was trying to make my art fly away like someone was trying to steal it.  

When I went back on Monday to check on my artwork, it looked great.  I had to remove from the newspaper and that was quite hard.  The art got stuck on the newspaper like it was like glued on.  It was hard because the art ripped a tiny bit so I had to make sure there were no rips.

Speech

Cellphones.  Do they belong in class or not?  Cellphones belonging in class is a battle of good reasons and bad reasons.  Their are reasons why they are good and reasons why they are bad.  I am going to tell you the good reason and the bad reasons.  Here are the good reasons.

Agreements

My first reason why cell phones should be allowed in class because you don't know when disaster will strike.  If it does strike, they can call their parents or the police.  Also if the students are hurt or sick, they can call their parents to take them home.

My second reason is that using a cell phone may be helpful in class.  The students can research information on the topics they are learning to help them like the Pyramids of Egypt.  That is sounds like a hard topic to research.

Lastly, in some schools, many students don’t have Netbooks or Chromebooks so if they bring their own cell phones to school, it can help them learn and it should be just like using a Netbook.  Except for the size.

Finally, the reason why you are listening, the reasons for cellphones not belonging in class.

Disagreements

My first reason for not allowing cell phones in school is because they can be very distracting.  They can be holding the class up when everyone else is trying to listen and learn.  This can be bad for students because when they are listening, they are not learning.

My second reasons is if cell phones are allowed in class, students can be doing the sneaky move of cheating, searching google for answers on their basic fact tests or other tests important to their school work.  They might be having the phone in an invisible location in their desks, pretending to do something.

Finally, one of the reasons I think is the most important is that students may be talking to their friends by texting each other.  It doesn't sound bad but when they are texting, they are ignoring the face to face talk.  They could be right next to each other and instead of face to face talk, they might text each other.  

In my opinion, I think that cellphones do not belong in class because of the reasons above.  They can stop students from learning things.