Mrs. K's Blog

Have you ever wanted to keep track of how many books you read or are reading, online? Well, Shelfari is a perfect way to do that.  You can post your book on your Shelfari account and write a review about it. You rate the book and say  if you disliked, liked, or loved it. Also, you can add it as a favorite, if you thought the book was amazing. It is an incredible way to look back on what you read from earlier years instead of trying to remember, or writing it down. Technology, is getting more and more intense as the years pass by, so we should take advantage of it for education purposes;  it will be more fun for kids and easier for adults.

On Shelfari, you can join groups and add friends. When you make your account, you search for the book you read or are reading. Tell all about it (which is the review part) and tag it ( which is when you recommend the book for an  age group it is perfect for and the type of book it is.) The “tag part” is very helpful to other people to see if they might like it and think it is appropriate for them. It can also benefit you, because  on the home page there are the most popular books everybody is reading, and you could check it out.

What I Learned…

by Orly
I believe that Muslims and Jews have a lot in common because of what I saw today. My social studies class and I Skyped* with 7th grade Muslims in a transition school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The school is not an Islamic school, but most of the students who go there are Somalian Muslims. As we started talking with them, they asked us questions and and we asked them questions.
I learned that Muslims are very similar to Jews because they believe Moses is a prophet and so do we, but their definition of prophet is different from ours. Muslims are very intriguing, because they pray 5 times a day with prayer mats, which I think is cool. If they are in a mall they would have to go into a dressing room and pray on their mats. Muslim girls wear a head covering that starts from their head to their knees which is like Tzniut, a word in Hebrew which means modesty, and I think this is another similarity between us. One thing that is different is Muslims believe in the Saint and the Devil, which I thought was weird because Jews believe that people can choose between good and bad.
I learned a lot by having this conversation with them, because now I know that the Arab extremists from 9/11 are really different from the Muslims we chatted with; they believe in something totally different.
So all in all, I learned that some Muslims are very kind and compassionate. I think people should not be discriminated against for what they are or who they are; instead we can be friends and try to prevent terrorism. I can use the information I learned today by informing people that not all Muslims are bad, which should be a solution for world peace; to tell the good about people, not the bad. I want to write letters to the Somalian Muslim students that my class and I skyped with, like “Pen Pals”; and maybe, just maybe, we can become close friends – you never know.

*Skype is an application that you can download on your computer and it allows you to see another person and talk to them, like video chatting.