ZOO DAY!!!

So today I went to the zoo with Aunt Bethy and John-boat.  We went to the Portland Zoo.  It's on the top of this hill so it was extra cold and windy there.  There was nobody there though so it was great, we got to run around and see all the animals without have to wait for people to move.

My favorite animal this time was the cheetah.  It was patrolling its cage and came up to the window to see what I was.  I stuck my hand out and it jumped against the window and tried to bite my hand off.  It was GREAT!!!  It was way better than the lazy lions who were freezing their tales off.  They were all on this heated rock in the middle of their enclosure.

I was sad because we didn't get to go see the tigers.  I don't know if they would have even been out in their enclosures though.  They were too far away and Maddy and John-boat were getting tired and cranky.  This is why I put up a picture of a tiger.

I liked going with Bethy and John-boat.  They're lots of fun.

Benjamin Franklin

So today in Famous American we studied Benjamin Franklin.  We studied all the different things he invented and all the thing he did in his life.  I think him inventing glasses is pretty cool.  So is the lightning-rod! This makes me wonder how much electricity is in a lightning bolt.  He also invented a new type of fire place and chimney.  He's so cool that he has a couple of scientific institutions named after him!

What's also cool is that he was home-schooled. His father could only afford two years of school for him, so after that he taught himself everything he needed to know.

Finally he's cool because he pretty much invented the way we do the post office.  They had mail before him, but he created a system and a governmental department to take care of it.  I wonder how many stamps the Post Office has for Benjamin Franklin?

My Trip downtown

So today I had a field trip downtown to the shops.  We were looking for sewing materials for my projects for sewing and PE.  Sewing is going to substitute for some of the other art projects.  I want to learn how to sew so I can make things and can sew things like my cub scout patches and fix my jeans.

PE hasn't been working out for me, so mom and Dad have bought me a book for home-school PE games and sports.  Lots of these take a bean-bag.  My first sewing project is going to be to sew the bean bags for PE.  This is going to be GREAT, because I get to make something that I can use.  Then every time I play games with my bean bags I'll know that I made them.

So back to about the field trip.  We went to the thrift stores downtown to get material the bean bags.  We did this because they always have great bits of fabric for cheaper than Joann's.  We also don't need tons of fabric or really nice fabric since I'm just making it into bean bags.  Finally we finished our field trip with a trip to Bob's.  They have a big store full of hunting and camping stuff, but they also have a small store full of kitchen stuff and toys.  We got some Hula Hoops for the PE games too.  I wish we would have had time to look at all the camping stuff, but I had to get back home to do some more homework.

Oh this picture of Longview is a picture from the 60's or 70's but the downtown looks the same except the cars and some of the signs have changed.

Charles Darwin

Today we started studying Charles Darwin in Biology.  He was born in England.  The year was 1809.  He went to college at the University of Edinburg to study medicine, but he didn't like it.  After two years he dropped out.  His family sent him to Cambridge to become a pastor.  He did not want to do that either. After Cambridge, he went aboard the HMS Beagle and was a naturalist.  Darwin published a book call On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle For Life.  However, he was not the first person who came up with the hypothesis in his book.  His book was the one that got people talking about it, though.  It still causes lots and lots of arguments today.  I will be learning more details about Darwin's work and the theory of evolutionary change in the next few weeks.

Suburban Communities

Today for Social Studies we learned about suburban communities.  The town we studied was Levittown, NY.  It was once a potato farm.  The Levitt family bought the land and started construction.  They included schools, parks and churches in their plans.  When they were done, there were more than 17,000 homes in Levittown, which was originally called Island Trees.  I learned that highways were one of the primary reasons that suburban communities grew.  People would not move there if they could not get to and from their jobs in the city quickly.  They were designed around people owning cars so sometimes suburban communities are not very good for getting around in if you don't own a car.  This picture is an aerial photograph of a part of Levittown.  It kind of looks like a circuit board to me.

Dreams

So today in Phonics we had to read a dumb poem out of the Phonics book about Dreams.  It wanted us to learn that the word Dreams has more than one meaning.  Sometimes it means what your brain does when you're asleep.  But other times you can use it to mean what you hope to see happen...like I dream of having a wii.

Dad and Mom thought I should hear a good example of the word dream being used as a synonym for hope.  I got to hear the whole I have a dream speech from Martin Luther King Jr.  I think that he certainly had a point and that he was giving this speech to help black people like him have true freedom. I liked that he quoted Thomas Jefferson and said all men are created equal.

Dad explained again about the Jim Crow laws.  They made it so that if you were black you couldn't go to school with white people, or use their drinking fountains, or ride on the  buses with them.  I looked at the date this speech was given and noticed that my Grandparents were alive when this happened.  I don't know if any of them remember it because Old Guy was only like 6 when it happened.

My Adinkra Cloth

Today I decided to post about my own Adinkra cloth.  I have one symbol so far.  The symbol is two crescents forming a circle with three lines: one going down, one going across to the right and one going across to the left.  They all lead out from a star in the center.  This symbol represents bacon.  I chose bacon to be in my Adinkra cloth because I love it.  I am working on some more symbols.  My goal is to reach ten symbols.  Once I have ten, we will go to the fabric store and pick out some fabric to work on.  I'm not sure yet if we will actually dye anything or if maybe we will just use fabric pens or paint to make the cloth.