The Light Bulb is Invented

My Famous American today was Thomas Edison.   The first invention of his that I heard about was the light bulb.  Edison was born in Ohio in on February 11, 1847.  He was always curious about machinery.  As a young kid he asked his teacher so many questions that she got impatient with him.  His mother took him out of school and home schooled him.  He learned by doing experiments.  That's kind of like me except my mom isn't cool and doesn't let me learn only from experiments.  When I was in kindergarten I only got to have 20 questions per day because they got fed up with me.  Edison had problems with his hearing and he said it was because he was running to catch a train and a conductor pulled him up onto the train by the ears.  I don't know if that's really true though.  Besides the light bulb, he invented the phonograph and combined the phonograph and cameras to make the first motion pictures.  Altogether Edison got more than 1,000 patents.  I think he might be the most awesome American ever.

La Citta Eterna

Today for reading I read about the city of Rome, which is sometimes called the Eternal City because it's so old.  It is the capital of Italy.  First we read about a little about the history of the city and then about things to do and see there.  The article was an interview of 12 and 13 year-olds so they talked about cool stuff for kids.  I thought the Mouth of Truth was the coolest thing in the article.  It said that if you put your hand in it, it would bite your arm is you lie.

Robert Fulton

So today in School I got to learn about Robert Fulton.  He was an inventor and made several things better.  They didn't really tell me much about what he did so Dad let me see on wikipedia a little more about what he did.  He worked building boats and invented the first Submarine, for Napoleon!  People say that he also was the first one to make a working torpedo. He also made sky rockets for his town celebration when he was only a little boy.  Now days we call these fireworks!

It talked mostly about his steam boat though.  He made the Clermont.  That was the first successful steam boat.  It traveled up the Hudson river from New York City to Albany. That was a trip of 150 miles in less than 30 hours which was really fast for back then.  Sometimes depending on the wind and currents that distance could take weeks.

A New Year and Back to School

Today is my first day back to school after Christmas break.  It was a great break.  Before I tell you about my break, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who read and commented on my blog in 2011.

For Christmas we got some great stuff.  It was fun to see Madelyn get things she loves.  From Grandma and Grandpa Zemke, she got some jewelry and fingernail polish.  I got a Hexbug Battle Bridge set from them.  It's so cool!  They also sent an animal to a hungry family through the Heifer Project in my name.  Thank you, Grandma and Old Guy.  From my parents, Maddy got a new book, a puzzle and a straw cup with Dora on it.  I got some Bendaroos and a chemistry t-shirt that spells bacon.  I love bacon.  Yum.  Grandma and Grandpa Pearson got me a Roku box and arts and crafts supplies for my sister.  We also got a playdough dentist set from them, and I got a Nightfinder Nerf gun.

Every Christmas we try to help somebody who has greater needs than I do.  Sometimes I think I don't have very much stuff, but I really am very lucky.  I have a nice play to live, parents who love me, good food and lots of ways to have fun.  This year since I've been doing school through CVA I have also learned about how lucky I am to have a good school, and choices for finding the ways that school is best for me.  Sometimes I think school is dumb, but really I'm glad I get to go.  I saw a video about kids in Africa who don't have desks in their classroom, and decided that this year I wanted our family to buy a desk for them.  It cost $48 to get a desk for a school in Malawi.  My mom says she also likes that the desks are made at a factory in Malawi, which means they are giving people jobs while getting desks into classrooms.

New Year's was kind of neat.  We didn't do a whole lot because my mom worked most of the night.  She has some really crazy people who call her at her job!  We did get to have some sparkling cider and watch fireworks from our balcony for a bit.  It was too cold to stay out long, though.  And now it's 2012!