Gabe: Blog Of The Day

     One day there was me, I am a giant who lives in outer space. I was walking around on my planet, jumping really high up then coming down. Then I jumped off my planet and plummeted down to earth at the speed of light. When I got to earth there were these brick things with glass plates in them. Then I saw this brown thing running at me with four legs but I just grabbed it and ate it. Then I walked over to a big blue spot that was wet.
     So I stepped into the wet thing and it was really cold.  I started swimming and it was really fun then  I started splashing, it was fun.  Then I swam deeper and deeper, I went really deep. Then two men saw me and I sunk their boat. So then they started to swim away.
     Then I got my hair wet and I freaked out so I got out of the water.  Then I started climbing a big pole in San Antonio. So I was half way through climbing and I felt a bunch of ant bites and people were shooting me with darts. So I got the darts out of me and threw them at the people.  It killed them, so the ones that did not die ran away.

     So then I got to the top. It was cool and I danced. Then I shook the building and everyone fell out of it. Then I tried to throw a rope up to my planet but it would not reach. So then I jumped up to my planet and went to sleep.    

Marney: Blog Of The Day

     One day I was siting down in my cool house.  But then I wanted to go to the real earth so I packed my stuff and got in the car. When I got there everyone was looking at me like crazy like last time I came. This time I came so that I could see my friend but she is not a giant.  So she had to make sure the house was clean.
     So then I got to her house and we played Uno.  I almost killed her with my giant Uno cards.  So then we played tag. But I could find her right away because I am taller than her house. So then I went swimming.
     We I got in the water and I could touch the bottom. So then I wanted to live down here.  But I couldn't so I said goodbye.  I will always miss them.  Then I left that world and went back to my world.
     So then I said goodbye to my mom but I had to hug her first.  Then I went to my dads.  Then I went to bed.  Then I woke up and ate.  Then I wanted to go back to the world,  but my dad did not let me.

Kiki: Blog Of The Day

     Once upon a time I was a giant.  It was a sunny day so I was swimming in a small lake.   I didn't want people to see me.  They want to kill me.  Two people in a boat saw me.  So I tried going under water but I couldn't because I was giant. 
     I saw two little girls in a big boat.  They were trying to talk to me.  I didn't understand them because I speak a different language.  The girls were scared of me.  I was scared of the girls because I didn't know them.  So I decided to eat them.
     I tried to grab them, but I couldn't.  They paddled as fast as they could.  So they got away.  I was super hungry.  So I ate another person who was swimming in the lake.  I was happy.
     When I ate the person, I turned into a normal sized person.  I went home.  I noticed my house was too big.  So I got a new house.  I went to bed. 

Daddio: 8/31/11 Blog of the Day

Write a story about the following picture.  Your story needs to be in a first-person perspective- which means the story is narrated by one person who refers to themselves as they tell the story.  A first-person narrative story is like a person actually telling you the story.  An example is: "I'm a detective in a broken down city.  I was down on my luck the day the heiress walked into my office and told me that she had a big case for me." For your story, I want you to write your story from the perspective of the giant woman in the lake. In your story, the woman can't speak the same language as anyone else around her-- so NO dialogue.

Your story needs to be four paragraphs long, and you need to have two major characters other than the woman who's telling the story.

Connor: Blog Of The Day

    In Syria the citizens are protesting everything their president is doing.  Bashar has tried to put an end to the protesting by blocking pages of facebook, youtube, and kind of twitter.  The Syrian soldiers were forced to kill protesters according to some groups.  The soldiers that refuse to kill the protesters either are shot or desert the army.  The government is accused of keeping "lawbreakers" hostage.  These hostages are editors, newspaper spokespeople, and the families of those who protest or his known political rivals.

      The government officials are on one side.  The groups that want Bashar to resign are on the opposite side of the conflict.  Finally, we have the foreign groups, the Arab League and the UN are against Bashar in order to assist the civilians.  So far the UN and Arab League have been trying to resolve the conflict by telling Bashar to resign.  The countries may need to go to war against Bashar if the problem gets worse.

      The government has been killing the protesters since January first of this year.  More people died at the beginning of this month.  Bashar has denied many rebellious parts of the country water and in the more rebellious parts of the country they were also denied food.  Government officials reportedly vandalized churches and mosques in some parts of Syria.  The citizens started protesting because Bashar was taking away some of their rights from their constitution.

I read about this on the Wikipedia page and on CNN.

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

     Syria is a country in the Middle East which is part of Asia.  There is lots of conflict in Syria.  There are lots of protests in Syria because the people of Syria want to over rule their government because the people of Syria don't like their president.  They don't like their president because he kills them and tortures them. The protesters are fighting back.  
     There are thousands of people in the streets of  Syria.  They are protesting because they want the president to stop killing the people of Syria. The people are also protesting for Al-Assad to give them freedom.  The people of Syria are going on hunger strikes so they can protest more.  Islamic groups are taking advantage of this time to protest to kick out Al-Assad but for a different reason.
     Al-Assad is trying to stop everyone from trying to kick him out because he still wants to be president. Al-Assad is shutting off electricity and water from the people of Syria to help him with still ruling Syria.  He is also sending out tanks to shoot them because he does not want them there.  He is also sending his military out on the streets to kill people and if they refuse to kill the people then the soldiers get killed.  Now Al-Assad is saying he did not do it.

Sources:  Wikipedia Article, NY Times Article     

Avery: Blog Of The Day

     Right now in Syria people are being killed because they put up anti-government graffiti.  Their cruel president, Al-Assad, soon sent out people from the military in giant tanks and started shooting from them.  Al-Assad was not going to stop them at all.  He was the one that sent them out.  Later in July, our president, Barack Obama, went to talk to the president of Syria.  He said that President Al-Assad should stop what he's doing and finish being president.
     After Obama talked with Al-Assad, Al-Assad started killing even more.  He told the military to go out and start shooting and killing people again.  Most of the them were protesters.  About ten-thousand people were killed total.  I personally think that Obama was correct and that there is absolutely no reason to kill people because of graffiti.  Al-Assad has been trying to stop all the protesting by killing more and more and more people.  Although, it's just making more and more and more protesters.
     He isn't going to solve anything by killing. Some people that try to stop the military from shooting can't stop them at all. A lot of people are very afraid to protest because he might kill them, their family or friends. Sadly, everything Obama said to their president didn't do anything. The president got even more mad and started killing more.  If I was the president of Syria I would stop everything that I started. I hope that Syria survives.

Sources:  NY Times Article, Factmonster Article

Mason: Blog Of The Day

     There have been protests in Syria and they started on January 26, 2011.  The people are protesting so their president will step down.  The president is Bashar al-Assad.  They want him to leave because he has been killing innocent people.  The government of Syria is using tanks and snipers to stop the protesting.  There have been a lot of people killed since the protesting started.  The people in Syria want to stop the killings.
     I think we should be helping the people of Syria because their president is just really evil.  I think we should tell people what is happening there and that will help because more people will want to help the people of Syria.  I think that if the United States send military to fight against al-Assad it could start a war and that would be very bad.  I think we should pick the side of the people.  Mostly because the president has killed a bunch of innocent people.
    In other countries in the Middle East people have also been overthrowing their leaders lately.  Last week, the people of Libya overthrew their government and kicked out their president, Qaddafi.  It has also happened in Egypt and Tunisia.  Right now in the Middle East there has been lots of protest.  I feel like we should be doing something.

Sources: NY Times Article, Wikipedia Article

Marney: Blog Of The Day

     I learned that they changed some laws because of killing. One of the laws is that there can not be violence.  So people put it all over the internet.  They want freedom from the president. He would not give them any freedom.
     His name is Basher al-Assad.  The people did not want him to be a president.  Because he was so mean. I would like everything to go normal in Syria.  The president is so mean.
     There was not good water and there is no fresh water.  The president wanted to stop the people from protesting. The people wanted to make the president stop hurting people. People wanted a nice president.  Not a bad president.

Sources: CNN Article, NY Times Article

Kiki: Blog Of The Day

People in Syria were protesting because they were not happy with President al-Assad.  He was killing people. When they protested started more people started dying.  The president and the government were killing people with guns.   People are still protesting. The word is still trying to decide if they should help the Syrian people or not. 

Mom read me this article from the NY Times so that I could learn about Syria.

Daddio: 8/30/11 Blog of the Day

What the heck is going on in Syria?  I'm not going to give you any clues, but I want you to research it and find out.  Then for your post, I want you to post up a three paragraph report that gives details on what the current crises is in Syria, who's involved on the different sides and why everyone is doing the different things they're doing.  Your report needs to be at least three paragraphs long, and you need at least five sentences per paragraph, if not more.  At the end of your post, you need to provide links to the sources you used to research the subject.  You need to have at least two sources.

For help on researching Syria, here's some links:

A Google News search on Syria

A recent article on CNN

Wikipedia's entry on the Syrian uprising

Mommio: Art Class- Impressionists- Cassatt

Today in art class we studied one of the few well known female Impressionists- Mary Cassatt (1844-1926).  

Mary Cassatt grew up in Pennsylvania in a wealthy family that enjoyed traveling overseas.  Mary was exposed to many famous Impressionist artists when she was very young.  Although it was still not acceptable for women to be professional artists during this time, her parents allowed her to begin a formal art study at the age of 15.  Later she moved to Paris where she met Degas and began her own painting career.  Since it was not "proper" for women to be out of their homes on their own in the 1800's, Degas suggested that she focus on painting everyday scenes in the home.  Cassatt took his advice and began to paint informal portraits of women and their children using the Impressionist style of loose brush strokes.  While she was alive she became very famous, being the only woman invited to show her work alongside the other famous Impressionists of her time.  We watched this video gallery of her work today.  

Afterward, I had the kids create a list of common themes they saw in her work.  

Here's what they came up with:

 For our project today the kids painted portraits using their gouache paints.  We have painted portraits many times in this art class, but today's lesson worked a little more on getting the proportion of the face correct.  Here's what the assignment in the book looked like today:

  The kids paired up and began their sketching.

 When they were happy with the face sketch they used the gouache paints to fill in with color
and create a background.

  Here is the finished artwork:

Connor By Avery

 Avery By Connor

 Mason By Marney

 Marney By Mason

 Gabe By Kiki

 Kiki By Gabe

*Our art classes are based on the lessons we find in Artistic Pursuits.  

This one was inspired by Lesson 7 in Grade K-3 Book Three.

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!

denigrate- (verb) to slur or blacken someone's reputation
The people still loved the president, despite his enemies' attempts to denigrate his character.

depravity- (noun) sinfulness, moral corruption
The depravity of the actor's Hollywood lifestyle shocked his traditional parents.

deprecate- (verb) to belittle, disparage

Ernest deprecated his own contribution, instead praising the efforts of his coworkers.

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

Max & Jack: Blog Of The Day

Max and Jack both took turns at the art show playing a song on the keyboard.  Here is Max playing an original song, "Boat in the Sky".

And here is Jack, playing his own interpretation of "Boat in the Sky".

Mason: Blog Of The Day

At they art show I did Tae Kwon Do.  First I did my yellow belt steps, it is called Tae Guek Ee Jang which means joyfulness and it has 18 steps.  Next I did kicks. I did the snap kick, the round house kick, axe kick, back kick and the double kick.  I had fun doing it, I think that I did good.   

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

My talent was guitar, I had started  learning guitar about a month before the art show.  Dad was singing the song so you can tell it was a song because I am only doing chords which makes it hard to tell if I am doing a song or not.  The guitar I am playing has top steel chords and bottom nylon chords.  If my guitar is making a buzzing noise on some of my chords it either means I am too close to the fret or not pushing it down enough.  

The first song I played was "Rain Comes Down". 

The last song I played was "Love Somebody".

Connor: Blog Of The Day

For my performance I recited an Edgar Allan Poe poem.  I remembered the words perfectly and didn't stumble once.  I chose "Eldorado" because it was one of the poems I remembered completely.  I chose poetry because I don't play an instrument anymore.  I think I did perfectly in my performance due to the fact that I didn't forget any of it.  I also chose it because "Eldorado" in the poem is supposed to represent ones goals.  My goal is to become a historian.

Avery: Blog Of The Day

     For the art/talent show I did two things.  First, I taught Kiki and Max ( Jack didn't feel like doing it) some yoga.  I taught them a sun-salutation that I learned a long time ago when I started taking my yoga classes.  A sun-salutation is a ton of yoga poses put into a flowing movement.  There are very many sun-salutations, and you can make up your own.  I like sticking to the simple one that I do every day with them.  Max and Kiki did very good and followed what I said and what I was doing.  Max does very, very well at the sun-salutations.  He does it as good as Kiki!

     The other thing I did at the art/talent show was playing my recorder.  I played a duet with Marney that was called "Down the Valley". I was very pretty. I played part A, the higher notes. And Marney played part B, the lower notes. We played it from the beginners recorder book that we got about two years ago. I love playing the recorder.  You can see the video on Marney's post.
      I also played "Don't Stop Believin'" from the Glee Soundtrack book. I got that book almost three months ago. I played it a little slower that I was supposed to, but that was because the song had a note that I didn't know yet in it.  Next I'm going to learn how to play Rehab by Amy Whinehouse on the recorder. I am super excited!

       I also played the Native American Flute.  I played some of the notes that I learned.  It is very different from the recorder, it only has six holes in it.  It also has very low notes.  I like it because it sounds very nice and calm.

Marney: Blog Of The Day

I did my recorder.  I did two things with the recorder.  I did one by myself and one with Ava. The one I did by myself was called "Shortnin Bread". It is supposed to be a really fast one. It sounds super cool and 

everyone liked it. 

 There is also one I did with Ava, it was called "Down in the Valley".  It is a duet and that is the last duet in the book and it is really hard.  But we did it and people liked.  I had fun. 

Kiki: Blog Of The Day

I played the piano in the art show.  I played "The Speed Boat",  it is about a boat that goes really fast.  

 The other one was called "Up and Down", it is about up and down.  I did good!

Daddio: 8/29/11 Blog of the Day

Wow.  We had a great trip with Grandma and Grandpa last week.  And the best part was the big art/music demonstration we had on their second-to-last day.  Mommio's blogging about the art show, so for today's blog of the day post, I want you to write about what you did for your performance.  So Mason needs to write about his Tae Kwon Do demonstration, Ava about her recorder, etc.  Then let Momma know when you're done and she'll post up the video of your performance with your post.

Mommio: Grandma and Grandpa Visit

Well...an entire week has passed and we didn't touch the blog- I guess we had so much fun with G & G that we were all too worn out.  So here are some of the highlights from the rest of their visit.  

We did a lot more pool swimming.  Boy, we wish we could just go to the La Quinta pool whenever we want!

We showed G & G how we do our World Geography Unit one afternoon with an introduction to 

mapping the Middle East.

 We had a really fun all day outing at Hemisfair Park in San Antonio.  First we went up in the Tower of The Americas where Connor and Grandma did a great job dealing with their fear of heights!  

 At the base of the tower we watched a 4D movie about Texas.  It was good, but it really scared Jack when the rattlesnake jumped out at us. 

Then we went for a walk in the sweltering heat over to the playground, along the way we found a letterbox and took a small break in one of the fountains.

 It was too hot to sit outside so we wandered over to the Institute of Mexican Culture which turned out to be a nice art museum that we all enjoyed.

 After that- some snow cones while waiting for a play to start.

Then we went to the Magik Childrens Theatre to watch their production of The Jungle Book.  It was great!

 It was a  long, exciting day and then we had another one on Sunday.  It was time for another Jones Family Art Show and some swimming at the lake.  Here are a few pictures but I will post more about the art show later.

Thanks for a great week Grandma and Grandpa!

 

Marney: Grandma and Grandpa Vist- Day 4

On Friday we had so much fun! It was so fantastic we went to the pool at the hotel. 

 Then  we went home and had lunch. Grandma and Grandpa went to shower.  

And we got new rats- Yoshi and Koopa!  

 Then we went to do geography.  Grandpa knew how to do it but Grandma said stuff that we did not have to do sometimes.  Then we went to go to dinner and we went to have Chinese food. We had 3 pupu platters and then we had rice and we were all full after that. Here are some pictures of us having too much fun that we would all exploded.

Kiki: Grandma and Grandpa Visit- Day 3

Yesterday we went to Sea World and it was fun. I went on two new rides. One was called the Flume Ride and the other was called the one person tube ride. Here is a picture I found online.

I also went on the bowl ride. You and a friend ride in a two person tube. Then it goes it this giant bowl that has water flowing in big circles. Then you get sucked down the hole that's in it. I went in the Lazy River. It was awesome. My favorite thing I did was the one person tube ride because it has these lights in it and they are really colorful.

Gabe: Grandma and Grandpa Visit- Day 2

Today we went swimming at the hotel  it was really fun to swim in cold water.

Then in the afternoon we went to the movies. The little kids went to Smurfs.  Max says he "likes it."

  

The older kids went to Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was really good.

Mommio: Grandma and Grandpa Visit- Day 1

Today we....

Harvested all the watermelon,

 Went swimming in the lake,

 (there's Grandma swimming across the lake with Ava and Marney)

 (and here's a great shot of Max swimming all alone in the lake for the first time)

 Then we went home and made some pasta,

 Baked some fresh peach cobbler,

 And made some peach ice cream.

 It was a busy day with Grandma and Grandpa!