by JOVAN

Do you celebrate the Fourth of July? I do! My favorite thing about it is watching the fireworks, eating, and family coming over to celebrate with us. I’d like to tell you a little bit about each thing.

BOOM BOOM BOOM! YAAAAAAA… That’s what you mostly hear at the fireworks: the sound of the fireworks being fired up into the air crackle crackle crackle. At the end they throw up colorful big ones. Then everyone claps and calls it a night

Oh the good tasting food. In my family we don’t each lunch on the Fourth of July, so when we eat dinner we are hungry! For dinner we grill cheeseburgers and hot dogs and steak and ribs, and we even eat chicken wings. Then we go to my grandma’s house and eat even more stuff like mashed potatoes and rice with pork. Sometimes we eat shrimp cocktail which I really hate because it’s not cooked, it’s like raw fish, like sushi, which is not very good.

Oh you look so big why don’t you give Aunty Sonia a kiss smoochy smoochy smooch. That’s what you do for the first couple of minutes when your family comes to celebrate with you: play outside, you pick on them, and you have a good time.

That’s how I spend the Fourth of July! If you don’t celebrate it you should encourage your family to do so because you get to watch fireworks, eat good food, and spend time with your family!

by JASMINE

My name is Jasmine. I’m here to tell you why it’s important to celebrate the Fourth of July—what’s fun about it, why we celebrate it and what we do when we do celebrate it.

The fun thing about the Fourth of July is the fireworks. It’s fun to watch stuff explode in the air, or watch the fireworks pop in your hand on a stick (Ed.—it may be fun but it’s dangerous. Avoid hand-held fireworks, kids!).

We celebrate the Fourth of July because the Army fought for America’s independence. Because of them we can have all the independence we can have. That’s why we have Independence Day.

What we do on the Fourth of July, and why we do it, comes down to three things. For some people it’s all about the fireworks. For others it’s more about the warriors who fought for independence. For many it’s a little bit of both, in addition to other ideas about America. If you ask me, I go for option #3!