Caleb’s Blog

I have three favorite memories from this school year. One of my favorite memories from this school year was actually when we had March Madness for our school which is an event where we made our own basketball teams and competed to win a small tournament against kids all ages at our school. We won all of our games until the championship game where we played a team full of 8th graders and unfortunately took the loss. It was a blast and extremely fun playing with my friends a sport I really enjoy playing. Another memory from this school year I will cherish is when we played football for PE with my friends and I never really played football but I ended up being really good at it and it became one of my hobbies and things I do for fun. My last memory I remember was the first day of school in seventh grade. I had a different feeling because it wasn’t like last year when I was the youngest coming into the school. I felt much better and it was nice seeing my friends after a long summer break. These are three memories I will remember for a long time.

This week I worked on my trifold and it was a little difficult and frustrating putting the trifold all together but I eventually got most of what I needed to get done. I had to make a few adjustments such as making my handwriting smaller to fit all the notes I took on each section of the page. I also used crayons instead of markers to get a good shading. I was able to finish organizing everything and even have some leftover space. I wasn’t really able to put any of my notes onto my poster but unfortunately, I had problems with the crayons and it wasn’t going as planned which delayed my class time to work on my project. I was able to color over the crayons with marker and add some information onto each section. Next time I work on my trifold I want to make a script and put all my notes onto my poster so I can teach people of what I’ve learned.

My mom is the most wonderful woman in my life. I appreciate her so much, she does everything for me. She raised me when I was little to be who I am today, without her I wouldn’t be here right now. She takes me to my practices and games even though they’re far and early in the morning. She makes sure I am always healthy and wants the best for me and my sibling’s. She washes all my clothes, does the dishes, makes the best food, and does this all even if she isn’t feeling well. My mom makes me happy and is there for me in my lowest moments and is always supportive of me. A memory of me and her that makes me smile is when she would always take me and my brother to the park when we were little and we would always have so much fun. I love my mom and I hope she has a great Mother’s Day.

This week for my project was a struggle, because there was not a lot of more information I could find about the football team. I made an adjustment and found different sources which included books, and articles. I was able to find more information than I thought I would and learned more. On top of this I had different successes as I realized I had more knowledge than most people. I took an online test on the history of UCLA football and I could say I have learned a lot of things about the franchise over these few weeks of work. Not only did I learn mostly everything about the 2023 team but I also learned about most history about the franchise and found facts about how the team started, their stars, and coaches over the years. Next week I will start working on my trifold and teach people about the franchise and what I worked on and my progress over the weeks of work.

In the month of April I read the book Diary of a Wimpy Kid Big Shot. This book is about a kid named Greg who is not the best at being an athlete. His mom forces him to tryout for the basketball team, although he didn’t really make the team he made a different team with all the players who got cut. He is disappointed because he did not want to be playing basketball with a bunch of weirdos. His parents were proud he made the team. Their team was not good and they didn’t do well at all.

I really enjoyed the book because it had good humor and lessons. The book talks about how sports can bring people together and is a good way to maker friends and have fun. I know this is true because I play different sports on different teams myself. The book is really funny just because of the fact of how bad Greg is at basketball and he somehow found his way to make a team. When the coach said it’s time for left hand, Greg just laughed.

My favorite character has got to be Greg. He is so funny and motivated in what he does. He hates sports but he didn’t want to give up. A quote in the book to prove this is, “So I’m not going to give up on sports just yet. Because who knows? Maybe I could be a person everyone looks up to.”

My favorite quote from the book is “The best thing about being an athlete is you can retire YOUNG.” I like this quote because it shows that Greg really cares about his own life. He wants to make a ton of money and retire young so he can enjoy the nice things in life rather than not making as much money and retiring older. He is motivated to become a professional athlete even though he doesn’t really have a talent in any sport.

This week for my project I was able to accomplish a few things. A few of the things I accomplished was figuring out when the team was founded, the first ever coach, their first game ever played, and their original team name. It took me a while to find and write down this information but I was able to get it done. Although I did this I had a few struggles as always. I had trouble finding sources that were trustworthy so it was time consuming checking over and making sure every single piece of information was correct. Another struggle was my time management, we didn’t have a lot of time in school and I had a busy Monday, so I had to find specific times to do my project. Luckily, I was able to make a quick adjustment to my schedule and I was able to find a good time to work on the project as we did not have the normal amount of time during class. Next week, I will find more information on the different times in history such as when did they win their first rose bowl? Or even learn more about my neighbor Corey Pause. A former quarterback for UCLA. I hope I can learn more new things.

This week was one of my more successful weeks, but I still had a couple of struggles. I was able to accomplish completing my research on the current UCLA football team. This week I learned about their special team and coaches. I took a lot of notes and while not in school I will memorize the star players names, and positions. Although I was able to accomplish a few things, I had some struggles. It had taken a lot of time and effort to put all the notes together and I am a little more behind than I thought I would be. Also, I had trouble finding a few players as they were maybe not as “famous”. I made a few adjustments and decided to not write down every single player on the specific topic but just do a few of their starters. This way I can memorize names better, and not be to confused. Another adjustment I made was using split screen. I didn’t know this but I could drag pictures from safari on to my google slide directly. This made it so much easier and less time consuming to complete my goal. Next week I will learn about how the ucla football organization started and who were there all time greats, are there any that ended up making the pros? I still have a lot to learn but I am ready for it!

My favorite room in my home is my bedroom. I have multiple reasons why I like my bedroom. First, I feel very comfortable and it is where I spend most of my day after school. I lay down and feel relaxed and it is what I do when I am stressed or tired. I do most of my homework and hang out with my friends in my room. The walls are plain and I have shelves filled with all my rings and trophies I have won in the past few years, and I have a closet with all my clothes. My bed is soft and warm, it is the best feeling just laying down and cuddling with my blanket. The floor is soft brown carpet and fluffy. When my friends come over, we play mini hoop attached to the door you enter and there is a lot of space to hang out. These are multiple reasons why I love my bedroom.

Hello, for my project this week I was able to find and take notes on the UCLA football defense for 2023. Some successes were I was able to memorize most players on the teams offense and finish wrapping up taking notes on the defensive side, I learned of few more of the teams coaches and star players. I didn’t accomplish my goal completely unfortunately. I was planning on being finished on finding facts about the team of 2023 by this week. I wasn’t capable of completing finding all of my facts. The reason for this was I was struggling with finding all the players on defense, and there were just way too many players and positions. I made a few adjustments such as limiting the amount of players I was writing down, and only doing a few positions rather than all 13. Fortunately at the end I was able to get as much done as possible. Next time I work on my project I am going to pick off where I left off and finish finding stats about the special teams, after that I will learn more about the history of the team. It is going well so far and I’m excited to learn more!

Recently, my baseball team traveled to Phoenix to play teams from different parts of the world. The drive was exhausting but we eventually arrived in Phoenix. The trip had just began but we had to hit the hay early because our very first game was an early one. After a good night of sleep, we all woke up and drove over to the fields, we dominated our first two games of the tournament. We won 20-1 and 9-1. Since we finished our first two games early we had the whole day to have some fun. We had these nice reserved seats to watch a professional Major League Baseball game. We had a blast! The food was great, we played whiffle ball, ran around, and had the best time we could’ve possibly had. The day was so fun, it went by so quick and we had another game the very next day. Once again we demolished the team we played, once we got to our rooms we all decided we wanted to go to the pool. We had the time of our lives, we played more whiffle ball, football, basketball, swam, went on the water slide, and even played volley ball in the pool. The next day we were in the championship game we had em by the throat. One out away from winning the big tournament. Ground ball to our shortstop, it goes right through his legs. We end up losing and are all very disappointed, it was a great run and we will be back next year.