Otto von Bismark

I think Otto von Bismark was pretty cool.

He was a Prussian prime minister who defeated Napoleon III and who was able to unite all of the German states under princes into the German Empire and he became the chancellor.

Here's a picture I drew of him. (My sister drew over it after unfortunately).

The Kingdom and the Crown

I've been reading a series of three books which tells the story of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus from the eyes of a family who lived there. I'm on the third book now and they're each about 600 pages long.

One of the sons is a Jewish Zealot who wants to kick the Romans out of Jerusalem for good and who gets in a lot of trouble.

Many of those Jews thought that Jesus would conquer Rome and were disappointed when he didn't.

I learned that Roman Legionaries serve in the army for 30 years.

I also learned that money changers were at the temple in Jerusalem because when people came for Passover they wouldn't accept money with the head of someone else on it since it was like an idol.

So they would change the Roman coins for shekels although they weren't always honest and many people were cheated out of their money.

My favorite thing though was reading the story and seeing how the people listened and started to understand or didn't understand the message Jesus was teaching them.

Romans

I love studying about Rome. There's so much to learn and Legionaries are one of my favorite things to draw.

I love the turtle formation they made with their shields.

I like the architecture based on the Greeks but even better like the aqueduct and the colliseum.

I also think they had an interesting goverment since they changed from a monarchy to a republic. Although when an emperor became too powerful it didn't always work perfect like when the senate killed Julius Caesar.

Polynesian Adventure

This week my brother and I have been into Polynesian culture and while we were at the beach we made up a story.

We found a cool looking stick with what looked like Maori markings on it so we pretended it held an important message from the King of New Zealand for the King of Australia and we had to deliver it.

We were Maori warriors who took our special ships across the ocean. We met other tribes who we had to battle, but luckily we knew the Haka war dance and scared most of them.

We also had to build rafts at one point which were wrecked by a manatee which thought they were food. We had to hunt and decided to look for Kangaroo.

In our story the King of Australia had a fort at Ayers Rock and we had to go there. It turned out the writing on the stick said that there had been a new island discovered in the north which we would have to go explore.

That will be an adventure for another day.

Winter Reading

This winter I finished reading the following series:

Redwall, by Brian Jacques (all 21 books in the series)
Fablehaven, Brandon Mull (all 5 books)
The Candyshop Wars, Brandon Mull
The Time Quartet (Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters), Madeline L'Engle
Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites, Chris Heimerdinger (5 Books)

I love all these books because they make you use your imagination so much.


When I get into a series I read about 200-300 pages a day.

I wrote my own story, but am still working on editing it.

Multiplication

KEY - RED = THE FACTS I KNOW

 

 

Today I am learning my times tables and have just about got them all memorized. I'm trying to finish them by the end of the week. I've been practicing them on www.coolmath-games.com which is a fun way to learn math.

My favorite math games though are the ones my dad makes up with history and stories. We have to figure out problems to win or to get through the story.

The French and Indian war project

I have been studying the French and Indian war and decided to create my own project showing what happened in my own word and with my own drawings. So here we go. The drawings in order of the story are below: