The Great Pencil Hunt!

All last week, whenever you needed a pencil, that’s when you couldn’t find one. So today, Mom put three jars on the counter and said, “I’ll give you a nickel for each pencil you find”! Thus, off my sisters went, and 15 minutes later, Haddasah’s jar was full! Mom gave both  Nya and Haddassah another jar with a wider mouth. They are still looking! And Haddassah just filled her wider mouthed jar and is working on the smaller one! So far, as an estimate, Haddassah has 60, Nya has 40 and I have 10. That’s a lot of pencils!

Word of the Week: Placid

Placid means pleasantly calm or peaceful, thoughtful, serenely calm, or undisturbed. I really like this word. To me it means sitting in my still quiet room, and reading in the stillness. When a person is placid, they are usually thoughtful. When a scene is placid, it is usually quiet and still. L.M. Montgomery wrote in Anne of Green Gables  ”And yet here was Mathew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill.” This probably means that Mathew had no particular expression on his face and was driving thoughtfully up the hill.

Word of the week: Vexatious

Something is vexatious if it is annoying or bothersome. Like a stain on the carpet that just wont come out no matter what you do. That stain is vexatious. Or when you are playing a computer game and you just can’t figure out the one level. No matter how hard you try, You are still stuck on level 13 or whatever level it is. That level is vexatious. Joan Aiken used vexatious in her book  The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

“A small plaster knob seemed intended to open it from the inside, but when Bonnie rather impatiently  pressed this, it crumbled away in her hand. “How vexatious!” she said.”

 

 

Terra Cotta Army

This is the Terra Cotta Army.

   Terra Cotta is a special kind of clay.  It is the only clay that could have been used to make the warriors. These statues were probably made by hand in the third century, which means they had to figure out how to make 8000 of them in an unknown(but probably very short) amount of time! The workers didn’t even have molds, they had to coil the statues by hand! The emperor commanded that the soldiers be made to be buried with him, to serve him in the after life.

    Previously, emperors were buried with thousands of people and animals of all ranks who were killed so they could be buried with their ruler. (The people had enough sense not to try to bury the people alive!) This emperor realized that doing this would cost the empire much trade and valuable  people. So he ordered this HUGE project: thousands of clay people to be finished before he died.

     Thousands of years later, some farmers  in Xi’an, China stumbled on the huge burial site by accident in 1974. The archeologists discovered that the soldiers were lots of different heights with height being directly related to rank. they were also painted, but the paint fell off the statues shortly after being exposed to fresh air. In another pit, archeologists found non-military statues such as acrobats, strong men, officials and musicians.  Isn’t that cool?

My Day Being Small (A Fictional Story)

One morning, I got up and got dressed like I always do. After feeding the rabbits, I went upstairs for breakfast. Breakfast for me was one pancake and two sausages. I went into the living room and sat down to wait for Mom to come so we could start school. Mom came in and started reading, so I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, there I was standing next to a boat! I climbed in and realized that I was on my sister’s Polly Pocket boat! There was some useful stuff too, such as plastic tongs which I later used to eat lunch, a coat which I wore, and a table that I sat on so people would know where I was. My sister Nya saw me, and said, “Wow Mom! Rachel is really small!”
“Stop being silly and answer the question.” Mom answered.
“Really Mom!”
Mom looked and saw that she was right. She asked me how I got so tiny, and I said I didn’t know. Mom accepted that and life went on.
Later, at lunch time, I was trying to eat my pizza. I ate as much as I could with the tongs, but Nya said:
“Wow! Rachel hardly touched her pizza! Can I have it?”
I said, “How am I supposed to eat it when the pizza sauce comes to my ankles? This black olive is bigger around than my head!
She thoroughly enjoyed my pizza.
After lunch, the piano teacher came. I played my scale by jumping on the keys. I did not like doing that because the piano seemed so loud, although my teacher acted like she couldn’t hear it. However, I could not play my other pieces because I was so exhausted. My piano teacher said, “Practice this week extra well. As soon as you get big again.”
My whole day was like that. I started to get frustrated. Eventually I got so mad I woke up! It had been a bad dream. Later, when Mom came in to wake me up, I said, “I had the strangest dream last night mom. I was the size of a Polly Pocket and we had piano lessons and we all did school!”

A Fun Day

Wednesday was a busy day.  We went to Chipotle for lunch on the way up to the aquarium. The aquarium was cool. We saw fish that floated on the surface and whose eyes looked like bubbles! We also pet sharks,(small ones) horseshoe crabs, a crab,  a sea star, and birds! We had a really good time. Next, we went to the Creation Museum.  We went to the petting zoo and pet a zorse, a zonkey, a camel, goats and lammas. One goat even chewed Nya’s hair! We also went through the museum. It was interesting going through the Garden of Eden room because there Nya was sitting under a dinosaur, and Hadassah was on the other side of the path standing under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Wednesday was very fun.

Skating

On Friday, we went skating with some friends. A daycare also went skating. Some kids were really good on skates, while others were not. There were also some adults on skates. I can get around on skates, but not fast. I prefer not to try to hard for speed. Nya is only a bit faster than me. She pushes herself with her brake. Hadasah still clings to the wall at first, but she can skate fairly well.We all like skating. It is fun.

Favorites

Favorites. What is the point?  Everyone wants to know what my favorite book, movie, song, color, web site, and so on is.  I can usually tell them some that I like a lot, but I do not really favor one over another, especially as my intrests change often.  Some people get so caught up in favorites that they go so far as to wonder who your friend’s favorite friend is.  Is it you or someone else? Isn’t it good enough to have several good friends? And just beacause you like blue or green or purple or orange does not mean that everything in your life has to be that color. And just beacause your friend says they like puppies a little bit more than cats, does not mean that she is weird for having both dog and cat stickers in her room. Favorites are ok, as long as you do not take it to far. I however, do not see the point.

Camp

Last week we went to camp for about a week. I had lots of fun.  We went biking, canoeing, geocaching, and lots more.

 We arrived Monday evening and got settled in. Tuesday, we went geocaching, which is hunting for boxes with stamps and ink in them.

Wednesday, Mom , Dad, Hadassah and I played W.H.A.T. That is when a lot of teams of four assemble for rounds of a game , survivor style. One team gets eliminated each round untill there is only one team left. Fisrst we did a relay with running balls to a bucket. Next  we played a game simaler to bowling, except you throw sticks at smaller sticks and try to knock the smaller sticks out of the square. We got eliminated that round. After that, everyone who was left played a jumbo rush hour type game. I don’t know what they did after that.

Thursday, it rained, so we played carpetball and painted logs indoors. Friday, was Lumber Jack and Jill lunch. Everybody wore plaid shirts and jeans, except for one person who was wearing a hard hat, gogles and work gloves. Saturday, we ate breakfast and went home. I had fun, but it was good to get home.

The Popcorn Festival

On saturday, we went to the popcorn festival to walk around. We went by this one booth with plastic fruit that was suposed to look real, but it was shiny! Mom bought honey at one of the booths and asked about something she had seen online at another.
When we were done looking around, we went to krogers and bought groceries. After that, it took 15 minutes to get home the less crowded way.

Nya and I helped out at the Popcorn festival on sunday.  We were at the fishing game in the kids area. I would take tickets and then give the kid a “fishing pole”.(really a stick  with a clip attached on a string) I would then toss the clip over the puppet stage decorated to look like an aquarium and tell Nya whether it was a girl or a boy. Then Nya would attach a toy to the clip, and toss it back over. The toys were foam airplane kits that the older boys loved, little plastic fish that little kids loved, coin purses that girls loved, and smiley-face things that you roll on your hands and they make noise that everyone liked. Sometimes I would say something like ” Airplane! It’s an older boy!” Evidently I did not speak loud enough, but if I spoke too loud, kids would know that someone was back there. Despite my efforts, once an older boy ended up with a pink coin purse.

It was fun, despite the mistakes.  I was sad when they cancelled the festival early because of bad weather. Tear down was difficult because nobody was there yet to help yet except Dad.We ended up coming home and dad went back to help more. What an event!