Informal Letter - A Surprising Situation

December, 20th, 2008

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Dear Linoy,

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Hi, how are you? I hope everything is fine with you. I'm fine, I'm sorry I haven't written for a long time, I was busy with my school tests. (You can't start telling your story so quickly, you need to relate it to something) I would like to tell you about a surprising situation, that has happened to me.

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It was last summer, when I went on a Hatzav youth movement seminar. The seminar was five days and during those five days we learned how to guide young children. On the fourth night, at 3 am, the guides woke us up and told us that someone had done a terrible thing and therefore, we had to be punished and return home. Everybody was scared. At first, we started asking each other who had done something which was against the rules. Then, the guides started to question us who had done it. We didn't understand what they wanted from us, however, we understood something wrong was done.

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Finally, the guides took us outside and we saw that they were laughing and we understood they played a trick on us and fooled us. We started laughing too and we felt both surprised and relieved that nothing serious had happened. Sometimes we remember this incident and we burst (out) laughing how easily the guides fooled us.

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Well, it's getting late and I have to finish my letter. I hope next time I will send you some pictures from this seminar.

I look forward to getting your letter soon.

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Miss you,

Noa.

Very good, Noa. However, please remember to leave a blank between your paragraphs.

Daphna.

Hibernation

Hibernation:

I work for a science museum and I have prepared an exhibition connected to Time. Therefore, my topic is hibernation.

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First, I would like to define hibernation and to explain how it is different from sleep. According to scientists and biologists hibernation is different from sleep. With normal sleep, the animal moves a little, has an active brain, and can wake up very quickly .A hibernator appears to be dead because the animal's heart rate slows down and the body temperature drops to almost the same temperature as the outside The animal's breathing also slows down. It takes a long time for the animal to wake up and to move about.

My two exhibits are:

The Ground Squirrel:
Near the end of June, adult males go back into hibernation. Adult females do the same in July. But the young are active all summer.

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In September, when there is less food to be found they go into hibernation. The ground squirrel storers(sp.) some food during hibernation, they wake up every 10 to 14 days and have a snack.

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When ground squirrels hibernate, they go into their dens to sleep through the cold of winter. They usually hibernate five to six months of the year. Their body temperatures drop so that they are only about one or two degrees higher than the temperature outside. In addition, their breathing and heart beats slow down. A ground squirrel’s heart will beat only a few times in a minute during hibernation. As I mentioned above, every week or two, the squirrels wake up for about 12-20 hours and then go into hibernation again. Some ground squirrels don't hibernate if they live in areas where the winters don't get too cold.

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Hibernation is the animal's way to adapt to things it can't change like weather or lack of food. When the weather gets warmer, the squirrels' body temperature rises just as fast as it went down in the beginning. Some squirrels have a summer hibernation called Estivation it happens when animals are too hot to deal with from the heat. For example, the ground squirrel has estivation in the Mojave Desert in California. It sleeps for about seven months a year when the air temperature gets above 98 degrees Fahrenheit. It goes to sleep from June to September and stays asleep until February. Older squirrels go to sleep before the younger ones because they are less active and don't need to store much food for hibernation. Males usually go into estivation first because they don't need to store as much food as the females do. Females need to feed their babies before their bodies store fat. After they come out of estivation, female ground squirrels have babies. There might be seven or eight babies .

To conclude, ground squirrels hibernate to adapt to the cold weather when food is scarces and when the weather is very hot.

Bats:
Some bats hibernate. For example, in the fall, large flocks of Big Brown Bats find shelter for the winter. The bats hang upside down and pull their wings and tails close to their bodies to keep warm. Their body temperature drops and they seem to be dead. Bats hibernate from October to April, they wake up once a month. Bats likes warm buildings to hibernate in and are able squeeze through a hole the size of a thumb.

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Bats are nocturnal, in addition,as I mentioned above, some bat species hibernate during the winter as well. Not all bats hibernate, but those that do, usually live at(in) high areas , where their food becomes scarce during cold months. During this period, they can often be found clustered on cave walls or ceilings, curled up like furry little balls.

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Hibernating can lst(sp.) over six months, however, these bats gain only a few grams of stored fat. They accomplish this by dropping their body temperature and slowing their metabolism to the point where heart rates slows to only 10 beats a minute. By the time spring comes, the bats lose about half of their body weight.
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Altough hibernation has some benefits, it has side effects.
During hibernation, metabolic wastes aren't cleared .so a few species will hibernate less during the winter if their fat stores are enlarged. Most tropical bat species have food all the year and generally never need to take time off.

sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation

Teacher's note:

Very good, Noa. Your work is well structured and well written, but your texts are too short. If you look in your textbook, p. 24, you'll find an example of how an appropriate text for your exhibits should look like. Please add some more information and don't forget to divide into, at least, 3 paragraphs.

Daphna.

Much much better, Noa. I think you did great and I loved your exhibits.

Daphna.

Writing Assignment Number 3 - Netherlands

Writing Assignment Number 3: The Netherlands

During my last summer vacation, my parents, my little sister and I traveled to the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. In my essay, I would like to describe our trip to the Netherlands.

The Netherlands, or Holland as it is called, is a very big and beautiful country in Europe. It has a lot of peaceful villages with beautiful views and Windmills. One of them was(is) Hithorn, where we visited on the first day. It is a very special village that is built on the bank of a big river, so you can visit it only by boat. We sailed this river, and enjoyed it very much.

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On the second day, we went to Amsterdam. Amsterdam is the capital city of Holland that(and it) is a very big and crowded. There are a lot of beggars in the streets that ask people for money and a lot of thieves. We visited Anne Frank's museum in Amsterdam. We were excited during this visit. After that, we went to "Madame Tussaud" museum, which is a wax museum where you can see a lot of famous people's figures made of wax.

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On the third day, we went to an amusment park named "Eftling". Eftling is an amusment park like DisneyWorld in the USA. It was an unforgettable adventure that everybody liked. On the 4th day, we went to Den Haag, where we saw the Government and the Queen's palace. After that, we visited Rotterdam, a very big city in Holland where we visited the miniature Madurodem, which is a small replica of Holland.

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To conclude, Holland is a very unique country that everyone should visit. All the views there are amazing, and you can't see them in other countries. All the small villiages and views are special. I enjoyed being there. I hope to go to there again.

Excellent work!

One word of advise, though, when your writing an account of a trip like, and describing what you did on each day, seperate the different eventful days into different paragraphs, inorder for your writing not to be to "crowded". Always think of the structure you would like to give your essay, to make it clearer for your readers, and divide into as many paragraphs as you need.

Daphna.

About my mother

Writing Assignment Number 2: About My Mother

In this essay, I want to describe a person that is very important and dear to me,

my mother. My mother's name is Aliza and she is 46 years old. She has three daughters and one son, named Hila, Nitzan, Linoy and I. She works as an English teacher at Herzog High School for many years. She studied to be a teacher four years and teaches 25 years. She is very smart and funny, and I am proud to be her daughter.

Her physical description is very simple: she is not short or tall or fat or thin. She has short-curly hair and deep-brown eyes. Her hobbies are to read books or watch old movies. In her spare time, she likes to talk on the phone or talk with her daughters.

In my essay I have chosen to write about my mother because I like her very much, and she is very dear to me. I think that she is the closest person to me. I like to talk with her very much, and I would like to keep our deeper connection in the future.

Well done, Noa. This was short but to the point. You give a concise description of your mother, but also a clear an accurate one. I liked it.

Daphna.

First Writing Assigment

First Writing Assigment

My name is Noa. I'm 15 years old. I study at Kugel High School. I study at the science class. I study biology, chemistry and computers. My favorite subjects is (are) biology and literature. This year is very difficult, because it's the first year of high school and we are under a lot of pressure and the teachers demand too much from us.

(I need to see a gap between the different paragraph. I tried to divide your work into seperate paragraphs, so you can see what I mean by "structure")

In my spare time, I like to surf on the Internet, talk with friends on the MSN messenger. Sometimes I read a book or write. In addition, I like to download and watch Japanese Animation, because I find it very interesting. I know Japanese a little and I like it.

I have a dog. Her name is Yuki, snow in Japanese. Her color is white, and that's why we named her "Yuki". Yuki is a Labrador and she is very friendly, cute and smart. I often take Yuki for walks and I enjoy playing with her. We adopted Yuki from the S.P.C.A (The society of protection of animals) a year ago, in September, and we don't regret it.

This year, I hope to get better grades in school and do my best. In addition, I want to improve my English and writing, and this blog is the beginning for this. I want to keep writing here in the future, and hope you will enjoy reading about me.

I really enjoyed reading your essay. It's very clear, well-organized and interesting.

Daphna.

(That's better, Noa)