Connor: Blog Of The Day

5/31/2011

Yesterday I found out I had powers most people only dream of.  I was up late last night playing Resident Evil when a zombie jumped out of my TV.  I can bring video games to life!  I met a hero today who can fly and has super strength.  He's called The Jock and has chosen me as his sidekick.  He decided that I will be known as The Nerd.  At the time I was fine with it, because it seemed to suit me.  I found out about a major villain in town called Dungeon Master.  Dungeon Master can summon dragons, kobolds, Orcs, werewolves, vampires and just about any other monster you can think of.  I was in my first ever super fight.  I summoned the Resident Evil characters and the Mario brothers, to help with the fight.  The fight was over in no time.  Well, Diary, that's how today went.

5/31/2012

Hey Diary,

It's been a year since I last told you anything.  Today The Jock turned evil.  Now he is The Bully, although his powers are the same.  I joined a brand new hero, Time Man, who has the power to control time however he wants.  I fought against The Bully for the first time today.  By the way I'm the Gamer now.  My powers have improved, now I can transform into video game characters.  During the fight I had turned into Nemesis and launched a rocket at The Bully.  He is now in jail, but I don't think he'll be there too long.  Knowing him, he'll probably escape before July.

6/1/2012

Dear Diary,

I was right.  He escaped last night.  We don't know where he is at the moment.  The Bully could be anywhere, even China.  I recently learned how to fly and have been flying all around town.  Time Man and I have been trying to find The Bully, but neither of us can fly very far.  It will probably be a month before you hear from me again.  I'll report back when we catch The Bully.  Signed, The Gamer

7/8/2012

Well it took a month and a week, but we locked The Bully up again.  People say the world will end on December twenty first of this year.  I hope they're wrong, but Time Man agrees with them.  This is terrible, because I am supposed to be promoted to super hero on December twenty second.  I fear I may never be a hero, that I will forever be a sidekick.  Is it bad that I am thinking that?  Signed, The Gamer

Mason: Blog Of The Day

May 31, 2011

Dear Diary, 
My name is Hydra Man. I work for the Incredible Hulk. My powers are fire breath, cloning, and to shoot lazers out of my eyes and to teleport. Today I was playing football with the Hulk when suddenly the Abomination broke the wall. Me and the Hulk fought the Abomination. I cloned myself and breathed fire. The Hulk smashed him into the ground. I teleported the Abomination to jail. Now I have to go to a meeting. Bye.  

Marney:Blog Of The Day

May 31, 2011
Dear Diary,
Today I woke up in a bad mood. So I had breakfast late and then I missed the school bus.  So I got dressed super quick and then I ran speedy fast to school and passed the school bus.  Then someone said "Hi Sooky." So I ran to the principal who is my boss who I work for and he said "What is wrong?"  I said "Someone said my secret name and they should get in big trouble."  So my boss shot a lightning bolt out of his head at the person.  It was an awesome day! I hope it will come some other day.

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

 8-5-2022

I work for Connie. She is so rude and all she wants to do is find guns from Resident Evil and then kill bad guys with them. So I never get to do anything, it sucks. She won't even let me touch the guns, or as she calls them, "her guns". The worst thing is that today she renamed me and now she calls me Pretty Princess Shooter even though I don't get to shoot the guns.

Avery: Blog Of The Day

5/31/2011

Well... how do I say this... I am a.... SUPER HERO!  Well a sidekick. I work with the Terminator! I'm not so sure if he's a good person but he seems cool! I don't even have to wear a stupid costume! He told me to wear a leather jacket. But as a girl I thought it was kinda stupid and all. Anyways, somhow somehow he gave me cool robot super powers or something. I can teleport, shoot lazers out of my hands, and fart flames! I know that one is kinda gross, but it is still funny! :) Last night I killed a rabid cat. It almost bit me so he told me to stab it with a nife knife. Anyways, I got to go now. It's time for my "4:00 meeting".
Later! :D

Daddio: 5/31/11 Blog of the Day

Remember a couple of years ago when Uncle Mike and I were going to start a second podcast called Diary of a Sidekick?  It was going to be about a superhero sidekick that keeps an audio diary about how crazy his life is as a sidekick.

For today's blog of the day, I want you to write a diary entry (or multiple diary entries) as though you were a superhero sidekick.  Give as much or as little information as you want about who you are, what your powers are, or who the superhero is that you work for.  But the post entry has to be in the form of a diary entry and it has to be about you being a sidekick.

Daddio: Nana Bit Her Tongue

Nana bit her tongue pretty bad last night.  She didn't think it was bad enough to have to go to the hospital, but I thought she might need stitches:

Mommio: New Kid

Mason finally decided his hair was too long.  Here he is this morning....

And here he is as a brand new kid this afternoon.  So handsome!

Mommio: Art Class- Turner

This week in art class we studied the English painter Joseph M.W. Turner (1775-1851).

Turner was a very well known painter during the Romanitc Period who worked in watercolors and oils painting landscapes and marine scenes. He is most well know for his use of shades of color to portray the sky at different times of the day and during different types of weather.  He had a special interest in painting sunsets everywhere he traveled.  We looked at two of his famous paintings and compared them by giving a weather report on what time of day and what the weather must have been like when he sketched these.

Snowstorm, 1842

  The Fighting Temeraire, Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up, 1838

 

The art project for this class involved making a background with shades of colors to mimic what Turner did with his skies.  First the kids picked colors of tissue paper, cut them in strips and placed them on watercolor paper to create their desired background.

 Then they took the strips off  and painted the paper with a mixture of glue and water.

 Next they applied the tissue paper strips to the sticky paper.

 The last step for the background was to paint over the top of the tissue paper with the diluted 

glue to give it a glossy look.

Here's what the completed backgrounds looked liked.

We had to wait overnight for these to dry before the kids could complete their art.  The finishing step was to use oil pastels to draw a pictures over their backgrounds.

 Here's how they turned out.  The colors are really beautiful!

Connor: Word Challenge

Mccune-Albright Syndrome is a congenital disease.
Max fooled Nana with his own conjecture.
Zeus conjured up a mighty storm that shook the heavens.

Connor: Blog Of The Day

The Mystical Camera

By: Connor M Jones

One day I was roaming around my home in the Grimm lands.  Suddenly, I spotted a strange artifact from the real world.  The item was a camera, a machine that humans use to take pictures and videos, which is very rare in this world.  I tested the camera pressing the power button and then taking a picture of a passing monster.  The picture showed Bigfoot terribly, you wouldn't be able to tell it was him, rather you would think it was just an ape.  I picked up the camera and took it with me, in order to sell it to the highest bidding monster, for, real world items fetch a high price here.  Before I so much as left, a group of three or four human children came near.  Knowing that children don't take kindly to thieves, I hid in a little hole in the tree.  The humans didn't spot me and went off toward the left searching for the camera.  With that done, I headed toward the shops in the biggest city in the lands.  I set up shop with the items I'd found, human children that I had hostage and was willing to sell as food to the highest bidder, an item of power that will grant anyone the ability of super strength, and the camera that I used to take a photo, for the high price of nine trillion bananas.  Bananas are the only currency I accept, seeing as I am a monkey,  because nothing is worth more than bananas to me.  Luckily the monsters started bidding for the camera at nine trillion and then it exceeded the known numbers and went up to nine trillion and as many bananas as it would take to fill Jupiter's center, the planet not the god, I accepted the bid and handed the camera over to the monsters that still appeared in the real world.  You see Bigfoot, Nessie, and El Chupacabra had each chipped in every banana that they had.  I got a report the following century that they had taken multiple bad pictures of themselves and gave each one to a human.  The humans they gave the pictures to are now blamed for the "hoax" as the humans call it.  Now I live in peace and quite with more than enough bananas to keep me alive for trillions of years.  The End 

Mason: Blog Of The Day

The Monkey Vacation

By Mason

One day in the Marble Falls zoo there was a family of monkeys. They decided to go on a vacation to the Grand Canyon. So they broke out of their cages and got on a big van heading to the canyon. When they got to the canyon they saw huge rocks. The rocks were stripes of tan and yellow.  They went to a camp site. I saw a camera on one of the trees and got it out of the tree and took a picture of my family. We had a lot of fun. I can't wait until next vacation. The End  

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

The Lemur's Paradise

By Gabe 

I was being tested on by stupid scientists and they were trying to make me a smart lemer even though I already am smart. So one day I got away from those stupid scientists. I decided to go live under someones car. I chose a silver Honda Odyssey. The person had a nice yard and some good pooping spots.  I saw a black cube shaped thing and it had buttons all over it and it had light. So I picked it up and I looked in the glass and there was a flash of light in my eyes and I got dizzy. I looked in a hole and it took a picture. I figured out it takes pictures. So then I was in paradise. There was a car, pooping spots and a camera, so I stayed there.

 THE END

Marney: Blog Of The Day

Monkey Almost Got Lost

By Marney 

One day I was sitting in a tree and I climbed down to go and play.  So I went and sat in the tall, green grass. At that point someone said "Hi! I am your new owner." The person had blonde hair and was super tall.  She grabbed me and I wanted to get away but she just kept on walking.  I was so sacred that I tried to run away but I could not.  I was so sad that I could not see my mom and that mad me mad. So I jumped out of her hand and I landed on the ground and ran back. When I was running I bumped in to a camera and I pressed a button that was circle shaped and there was a flash.  I tried breaking the camera because the flash scared me.  It never would break so another person grabbed the camera and took it away.

Mommio: Word Challenge

Write a sentence for each word.  

Anyone who can come up with a complete sentence that makes sense for each word gets a dollar!

congenital- (adjective) existing since birth
The infant's congenital health problem was corrected through surgery.


conjecture- (noun) speculation, prediction
The actor refused to comment, forcing gossip columnists to make conjectures on his love life.

conjure- (verb) to evoke a spirit, cast a spell
The cotton candy conjured up the image of the fairgrounds he used to visit as a child.


*all words, definitions and sentences are from the Kaplan SAT Vocabulary Prep Level 1 book

Kiki: Blog Of The Day

The Monkey Who Fell Off A Vine

By Kiki

I was swinging on the vine today and the vine couldn't hold me so long, so I fell on a tree stump and saw a camera.  I went to go tell my mom, Monkey Go Happy.  When she saw the camera she tried to destroy it.  I went to go take pictures of the people who were looking at me.  I looked like a pig because I was so fat.  Then I got skinny and took all the mud off of me.  Then I took more pictures of the people.  They were so excited to see a monkey taking pictures.  I pressed the video button and I took a video of the news reporter.  That news reporter was really, really weird.  She had a really high pitched voice and she liked monkeys.  It was weird, but still I put her in the newspaper.  She was weird, so whatever.

Daddio: 5/27/2011 Blog of the Day

Write a story about the following picture.  Your story has to be a first-person narrative from the perspective of the animal in the picture.  That means you have to write your story like you are the animal-- for example, "I was climbing a tree the other day and saw a camera..."

Marney: Blog Of The Day

Boy Got Pooed

By Marney

This really tall boy got tons and tons poo,

He looked and he saw that it landed on his shoe.

He went to get it off,

So he put it a trough.

 Then he heard the cow that pooped on his shoe go "Mooooo!"

Mason: Blog Of The Day

Banana Peel

By Mason 

Once I slipped on a banana peel,

I fell on my head and it made me squeal.

 It made everyone laugh, 

They took a photograph. 

And then I decided it was no big deal.

Connor: Blog Of The Day

There once was an ancient geek
Who just happened to be Greek
He didn't know his latest theory
and thus had another query
When he didn't complete the idea it made him shriek

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

The Man with the Pan

 By Gabe

 One day on the beach there was a man,

 Who had a greasy non-stick frying pan.

And he wanted to date it,

 But the pan threw a big fit.

So the man just played with a old aluminum can.

Avery: Blog Of The Day

Girl In The Snow
By Avery
 
One day a girl was playing in snow,

When suddenly she started to grow.
She fell on her knee,

And she sang songs from Glee.

She decided that snow is not the best place to go.

Kiki: Blog Of The Day

The Man Who Ate A Mouse

By Kiki

There once was a man who ate a mouse 

He ate the mouse in a really big house.

He said it was yucky,

But he was very lucky.

He didn't throw up on his wife's blouse.

Daddio: 5/26/2011 Blog of the Day

Okay guys.  Last time we tried this (about a year ago)--- it was a struggle.  So now that you've had more practice with writing poetry, we'll take another swipe at it.  That's right.  We're going to try writing limericks again.

A limerick is normally a humorous poem that has five lines and a special rhyme and rhythm pattern:

Rhyme Pattern: The last words of the first, second, and fifth lines all rhyme with each other. We’ll call those rhyming words “A,” however the words could be “ Peru,” “shoe,” and “true” as illustrated in the first poem below or “Tim,” “swim,” and “him” as illustrated in the second poem below. And the last words of the third and fourth lines rhyme with each other. We’ll call those rhyming words “B,” however the words could be “night” and “fright” in the first example or “dock” and “rock” in the second example.

Rhythm Pattern: The first, second, and fifth lines all have this rhythm pattern: da DUM da da DUM da da DUM (notice there are 3 DUMS or beats). Say, “There once was a fellow named Tim” out loud. Now say, “da DUM da da DUM da da DUM” out loud. Notice that both have the same rhythm. The third and fourth lines have a different rhythm pattern: da DUM da da DUM (notice there are 2 DUMS or beats). Say, “He fell off the dock” out loud. Now say “da DUM da da DUM” out loud. Notice that both have the same rhythm.

Here's an example of a limerick:

There was an old man from Peru
who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in the night
with a terrible fright,
and found out that it was quite true.

So try writing your own limerick.  It can be about any subject you want, but it has to follow the rhyme and rhythm patterns described above.

Today's blog subject was suggested by Gabe.  Thanks for the help, dude.

Avery: Blog Of The Day

John Edwards is a psychic with a tv shows. Sometimes on his show he has his little assistant go into the audience, looking all normal, asking people what they are going to do the next day or what they did yesterday. But he doesn't doesn't tell the future much. He normally " talks to the dead ". I have a video of an interview with him. He most times get hints and clues about people that died from the people he is talking to. Then he starts asking questions about the people he is talking to. After that he starts making up some stuff that makes since and says what the dead person tells the person that's alive. I think that John Edward is kinda fake but still interesting.

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

The name of my psychic is Criss Angel. He is a magician and has a show.  He does some stunts and illusions like when he jumped into a cage that was hanging over the Grand Canyon when he was in a car.  He does some predictions so some people think he is a psychic. I think that they are cool but fake.  Here is a video that shows how he does his tricks.

Connor: Blog Of The Day

Nostradamus was an incredibly famous psychic or seer, astrologer and possibly phony, in all of history.  He lived during the fifteen hundreds and worked to predict the future of kings, queens, and other royalty like people.  One of his most famous predictions is and I quote "The year 1999 seven months from the sky will come the great king of terror.  Before and after Mars reigns by good luck."  Depending on how one views this quatrain, which rhymes in French,  you might find that it can predict millions of events that have happened or have not.  In a way this could be a fulfilled prophecy or it could just be something that will never be true.  Remember this was before the Gregorian calender, so he must be referring to something in another month.  July wasn't the seventh month in his time, thus he isn't referring to July 1999.  Note he never says what day or week, whether it be the middle or end or even start of the month.  Nostradamus should have been able to say the day, week and even the exact month instead of being so unclear about it all.  Another famous quatrain is interpreted to be about Adolf Hitler although hister can mean part of France, Belgium and the Netherlands in modern times.  It can also refer to Hitlers home a place near the Danube river and east of the Rhine river.  Personally I think Nostradamus was not a psychic, but rather used the Delphi oracle's ancient prophecies knowing that history repeats itself.  The oracles had in fact made multiple mistakes in their prophecies and were often experiencing a drugged like state.  The oracles were also forced to answer the way the government wanted multiple times.  Nostradamus and the oracles were both phonies in my opinion.  Neither could see the future nor give precise dates, despite the fact that they were working with their respective calenders.  Both groups were sucking up to the government leaders by predicting great things and horrible things.  Nostradamus will be right a few times depending on how you read the quatrains, meaning how one understands them.

Marney:Blog Of The Day

Who I researched was Sylvia Browne I have a bunch of things about her. Sylvia Browne was born 1930 October 19. I got some of her predictions like she predicted that a president will die in 2010 by a heart attack.  I do not believe that because it would be all posted on the internet and it was not. A other one that I got is that she predicted that kids with skin cancer will have no cancer in 2011.  I do not know about that one but I think it is not real.  She also predicted that it will be cold one summer in hot places. I believe that one because I think that will happen sometime.  I believe that she is a psychic because I found a bunch of stuff about her.

Mason: Blog Of The Day

Miss Cleo's real name is Youree Dell Harris. She says she predicts the future. She had a famous call in service. People could call her on the phone to get their predictions. Miss Cleo was sent to jail because she cheated people out of money because she lied. I don't think she is really a psychic.

Daddio: 5/25/2011 Blog of the Day

For today's blog of the day, I want you to research a famous psychic and write about them and their predictions. A psychic is a person who says they can predict the future and have supernatural mental powers.  There have been many famous psychics through the ages, from Nostradomus, who supposedly predicted the future hundreds of years ago, to the Famous Kreskin from the 70s, Miss Cleo (who offered psychic services for money over the telephone and through infomercials) and even Sylvia Browne, who got famous as a psychic who appeared on daytime talk shows.

I want you to approach this topic from the perspective of a skeptic.  A skeptic is a person who critically views claims of paranormal and supernatural nature.  Essentially, a skeptic is a person who debunks the claims of people like psychics.

So research a psychic on the web (you can even use one of the ones I used above) and talk about their supposed powers and some of their famous predictions.  But then I want you to research further.  Because for every "correct" prediction that a psychic makes, there are dozens (if not hundreds) that were incorrect.  Talk about those as well.  Then talk about whether or not you think the person you chose is actually psychic or not.

Today's blog of the day was suggested by Ava.  Thanks for the inspiration, girl.

Connor: The Strange Murder

It was a dark night.  I was sitting alone in my office with a class of coffee waiting for a case to solve.  Suddenly a beautiful blond haired, blue eyed girl walked in.  She looked distraught and, as it would turn out, truly was.  Someone had been murdered.  The cops couldn't get the time of death or the type of murder weapon that had been used.  The only obvious hint was that the victim had a hole in her chest.  A blatant stab wound on the corpse, with no weapon in plain sight, the typical case that people bring to my office.  I looked at what little evidence I had to work with.  The victim was at the library when he was killed.  The girl said she didn't know him, but had found the body.  Seeing as she looked frightened, which is only natural after finding a corpse in a library, I guessed she was telling the truth.   She said her name was Zoe, which I thought to be a beautiful name, and that she worked at the King's Land library.  I promised I would find the culprit if it was the last thing I did.  I went right to the crime scene and talked to police chief Mason.  Mason said that he found a small amount of evidence, a note with the letter l capitalized as if the first letter of the sender's name.  I looked for clues for a bit and then Mason said "It might be..."  Before he finished the sentence he was dead, a mace stuck in his corpse,  I knew I would have to look for more clues.  I investigated the crime scene for a long time and figured out that it must have been someone on the police force.  I thought with my great powers of deduction "The mace, the fact that the culprit knew where I was going, and the note with the capitalized l. It all added up in a gruesome way.  An officer of the law would be able to keep a tab on any conversation.  The medieval weapon used to slaughter the chief of police was a hint.  Officer Lance had  caused the murder for no reason.  Then it made sense to me there was a motive to kill, the victim was a lawyer who had protected a murder suspect.  I returned to the police station and arrested Lance for his crime.  Afterward I went back to my office and told Zoe who the murderer was.  The End

Mommio & Kiki: Hotel Night!

Today is Kiki's special night out for her 7th birthday.  She chose to go to the LaQuinta for the night with Mommio.  Before we arrived at the hotel we had some shopping to do!  Kiki got to pick out her birthday present...shhh..can't tell you what it is.  We also bought every snack she every wanted to eat tonight.  When we finally got to the hotel the first thing we did was go swimming.  Here's a shot of Kiki in the pool.

She was swimming so great and because there were no brothers and sisters there to scare her she was super brave and jumped off the rocks all by herself!

Next we hit the hot tub- which we loved.

Then it was back to the room for some snacks, games, movies and a fun night together.  Next up- she's going to paint my nails bright yellow!

Mommio: World Geography Cooking- Germany- Bretzels

We got back to our World Geography Unit Study this week and started with Europe.  For all our geography cooking projects we are using this book:

Yesterday Avery and Mason made Bretzels from Germany.  Big, yummy soft pretzels.

 

Here are some pictures of the cooking process.  They even let Jack help.  They were pretty disappointed by having to wait two hours for the dough to rise, and then another hour again after the pretzels were formed.

 

Here's the finished Bretzels- ours grew a little too much and got really big but they tasted great! We ate them with our family movie last night and everyone loved them.

Connor: The Forgetful Thief

The Forgetful Thief

By Connor M. Jones

I was a notorious thief.  There were multiple crime watch reports on me.  This is the story of my biggest and last crime.  I had everything I needed, but as usual I forgot something.  I had misplaced my bifocals, which I couldn't see with out.  At the time it didn't seem important, because I am always picking up stuff that seems to have value.  Afterward I always sell my loot to the highest paying fence.  This time I wandered in through the correct entrance rather than the front door, unlike that one time I got found out and FOX put on a crime watch about me.  Anyway I had found a few items of worth, a difficult to see painting with a golden frame, a bust of Athena,  a stuffed raven with an inquisitive look in its eyes, and to top it all of a diamond sculpture of Edgar Allen Poe.  I thought to myself "All I have to do now is escape and sell these items to the fence.  Although I better dash before the cops arrive or anyone wakes up."  I tend to think aloud sometimes, and unfortunately this was one.  The exact same time I started to leave a murder had taken place.  I was barely out of the building and knew cops would show up eventually, or a vigilante dressed in a ridiculous get up.  They would blame me saying that I had killed the owner of the house to keep my theft secret.  I would have none of those scandalous rumors about me killing people.  Anyway on the way out I met the owner's twenty-year-old daughter, and she wanted her father's business.  Seeing as she didn't want a witness who could claim to so much as hear the old man's screams, she chased me back into the parlor and killed me.  I was but a hapless victim of another murderer.  The only thing that would stop her was a tiny piece of evidence in my hand, a book of short-stories by Edgar Allen Poe.  Thinking like the character in The Telltale Heart she hid the corpse of her old man under the floorboards.  In short I never got my payment and thus my entire afterlife is being spent trying to recover the items I had taken.  The End 

Connor: Blog Of The Day

Search For The Lost City

By Connor M. Jones

One day at the UN the nations decided to take a vote.  The topic of the vote was if they should search for Atlantis or not.  They all decided that if they found the lost city their own countries would get rich.  Suddenly an argument broke out over which government would get the biggest cut of the lost treasure.  Everyone was very greedy and extremely corrupt.  The Greek leader says "It's within our territory as Plato said.  Thus Greece should get the biggest amount.  I say look near the Pillars of Heracles."  Soon after the argument it became a race for Atlantis.  The Americans searched nearer to their own country and found only a few artifacts.  The Greeks and Spaniards searched near the Pillars of Hercules and found a few things.  Suddenly every country on the planet searched near the famous landmark.  They all found a sunken city at the exact same time.  Suddenly as they were all digging for gold a strange man swam up to them.  The man was carrying a trident and had fins instead of feat.  "Be gone from this place greedy humans!  Or feel my wrath!"said the finned man to which the Greeks replied "Never.  We don't care if you are Poseidon, the god of the sea!  We want the treasure of Atlantis!"  The man replied "Thou can't hath what mine citizens are using!  I repeat be gone or I shalt call the rest of my people!"  Everyone remained there as the waves got higher and an army of mermen and mermaids swam toward them.  Finally the head merman could stand it no longer.  "Be gone thou mortals or mine men will release the Hydra!"  When no one left Poseidon shouted "Their not leaving RELEASE THE HYDRA!"  The Hydra was in truth a giant, venomous water snake that swallowed twenty people and then returned to the spot in which it had been imprisoned.          

Connor: Word Challenge

Thor's chagrin was most visible when he couldn't find his hammer.
Loki was seen as a charlatan amongst the gods.
The assassin made many clandestine trips to spy on and eventually slay the victim.

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

Fighting The Tsunami
By Gabe

One day there was a giant tsunami in Japan. Before it hit Japan a guy saw it far out in the ocean. It got closer and closer so he went and told the Governor. The Governor sent a whole bunch of scuba divers out to the ocean to fight the tsunami.   But not all the scuba divers wanted to go fight the tsunami. So then they had to find some people to go and fight the tsunami. They dressed up the military as scuba divers. So they gave the scuba divers some oxygen tanks and some flame throwers. They gave the military tanks, cannons and a bazooka.  So right before the tsunami crashed, the military and the scuba divers went and hit it to America and California sunk. 

 THE END

Marney: Blog Of The Day

Ninja

By Marney

One day there were 20 ninjas and the master ninja was called Ohhhhh.  There were also tons of other ninjas.  Ohhhhh said "Let the war begin!" and everyone else said "Let us be the ones to say that!"  All the other ninjas said "Let the war begin!"  At that point all of the ninjas were fighting each other and they thought it was fun.  All of a sudden someone said "No! Stop all of this. It is not good for you and you should be mad at yourselves now." All of the ninjas stopped and looked around and they did not see who was saying that. So they just got back to fighting. All of a sudden again the voice said "I am up here you dummies." All of the ninjas looked up and they all saw a person on top of the roof.  He said
"Get out of here! That is not good for your body. Now out! Get out!"  So all of the ninjas left.

Avery: Blog Of The Day

Under Water War

By Avery

One day there was a club in Japan called "The Sea Club". Despite the lame name, the people that joined were very earth friendly. Every other week 10 of the people in the club would spend 5 hours cleaning up the bottom of the ocean. One day while they were cleaning a narwhal came up to them and stabbed one of the men in the arm. All the men went to shore and took the wounded man to the hospital. The other 15 people went under water and looked for the narwhal. They searched 7 hours for it. They did not succeed the mission. The next day all but the wounded man went under water to look for the creature. They would not rest until it was found. At the last minute a man yelled, " Hey! I found it! I shot it! It's dead!" All the other people rushed up to the dead animal and took it to a science lab. Suddenly they found out it was a sickness that affects narwhals and that it had spread all over the ocean. Now all the narwhals were vicious creatures that will kill every living thing in sight.

Kiki: Blog Of The Day

The Scuba Diving War

By Kiki

Once there was people who had a war.  But they did not want to have a war with swords, they wanted to have a war with scuba diving masks and scuba diving tubes.  So they got into their scuba diving outfits and went to the lake.  When they got on their water mat they started the war.  So they got their tubes and hit each other in the faces with them.  Then they poked each other in the stomachs with them, which didn't hurt so much.  Then they got poison and put it in their tubes and sprayed it at their eyes.  Then they started to use their scuba diving masks to go under water and fight, so they could see underwater.  Of course they couldn't breathe because they were using their tubes to fight so they had to come back up for air.  They didn't know who was going to win the war so they went and had the master fight with their scuba diving outfits.  Then the scuba diving outfit was way too small for the master but he of course wore it because he was trying to wear a kid one because he didn't have another one, so he took someone's clothes and they didn't have any clothes.  They got on a giant egg carton and they started to fight.  When they started to fight they got eggs and threw them at each other.  The eggs were two feet long so it really badly hurt them. The person who won was the orange team and then they went scuba diving because they won and they got the lake all to themselves.

Avery: Word Challenge

 Julie felt chagrin after throwing up all over the boy she liked.

John and Stephan were passing clandestine notes to each other in class.

"That is a charlatan axe made out of plastic and foam", complained the 10 year old Derick.

Mommio: Moving Up!

Congratulations to Kiki who moved up to Math 3 this week.  Way to go!

Daddio: 5/20/11 Blog of the Day

Write a story about the following picture:

Mommio: Art Class- Vermeer

We continued our study of Vermeer in art class today by reading more of Chasing Vermeer - which the kids are really enjoying- and then we made collagraph prints inspired by some of the patterns we saw in the Vermeer paintings.  A collagraph print is a simple print made with found items attached to a hard surface so that there is a raised area for the ink to adhere to.  The kids used simple foam craft shapes today to make patterns on hard cardboard.  First they laid out their patterns.

 Next they glued them to their boards.

 When they were dry we prepared the printmaking area by taping waxed paper to the table, putting a spoonful of printing ink in the center and using a brayer to roll the ink in a rectangle.

 Then the kids chose a piece of colored construction paper, placed it on top of their pattern and rolled over the paper with their inked brayer.

 This takes a little practice to get the right amount of ink (just a little) as well as the right amount of pressure when rolling (almost none), so we had a lot of tries at this one!  Here are their patterns and a sample

print they each made.