Hanging Gardens

One of my Christmas presents was a new history book. On Dec. 27, 2010 I did my first lesson. The book has pictures in it, and teaches you how to draw them. While you are drawing, it shows you facts about what you are drawing. I drew the hanging gardens of Babylon.

It was built by King Nebuchadnezzar II, for his wife Amytis, from Persia. It was 100 ft. long, 100 ft. wide and 75 ft. tall. It was built like a theatre with plants on the sides. The gardens also had balconies on the walls. They also had a huge pump to draw water from the Euphrates River. It was 1 of the 7 wonders of the world.

Heron

While on the California trip we drove to a small cliff. We stood on it for a couple minutes, before a great blue heron emerged from the grass. We could walk up to it, and follow it along the cliff. When we could touch it if we wanted to, it flew to the other side of the cliff. We then walked after it, but it flew to the ocean below.
I colored this picture of a Great Blue Heron for art class. He looks very similar to the one we saw.

FACTS:
Their Latin name is Ardea herodias
Herons hunt day and night
They eat all small aquatic animals and mice (we saw them trying to eat voles when they stuck their heads out of holes)
They live in colonies
Size 3.2-4.5 feet wing span is 6 feet
Life span 15 years

Glass Beach

Glass Beach - Fort Bragg, CA. When we went to Glass Beach, we saw TONS of glass. There is a huge rock covered in seaweed, and there are hundreds of tidal pools. In them are small fish called sculpins, and I even saw a crab.

Glass beach was basically a dump in the 20th century. Cars, machines, and everything else was thrown in the water, but that was taken by the waves. However, glass still remains. Glass Beach was closed, but then it was cleaned and reopened. Now it is a state park and open to the public.

Pioneer Graduation

On December 2, 2010 I graduated the pioneer class at Great Hollow. We had made a boat out of knotweed, goldenrod, and muggwort. We went to a place called beaver bog, to test it out. The boat was heavy and we had to move around trees to get there. My teacher, Justin, got in the boat, but it sunk, another kid stepped on but it sunk, but we put a younger kid on, and she didn't even get wet. We then went to the Merit house to do the actual graduation. When we got there we did the same thing as we did in the other class, but it was still great. Afterward I got these pictures with the teachers. I did not realize that I had terrible hat head!

Dan (right) and Justin (left).

Mark Twain Chapter 2

Chapter 2
Sam on the River

When Clemens moved away from home at age 18, he gained much knowledge from libraries, for he left school before he could finish his education. He moved back to Missouri when he was 22 years old. He then became the apprentice to the steamboat captain Horace E. Bixby. He coaxed his brother Henry into training with him, but when they were on a boat, Clemens was fighting with the captain and was told to leave at the next stop. He left and went to where he was to meet his brother on a steamboat. While on it, he was told that the ship, the Pennsylvania that Henry was on had exploded. Henry was taken to the hospital, and died of an overdose of morphine eight days later. Clemens blamed himself for the accident.
He got his pilots license in 1859, and loved being a steamboat captain, and he said that he would never stop being one. However, when the Civil War started 3 years later, all riverboats were stopped.
He joined a small company of soldiers, The Marion Rangers, but they disbanded after two weeks of doing nothing.

Mark Twain Chapter 1

Chapter 1
Early Years

Samuel Langhorn Clemens was born November 30, 1835, when Halley's Comet was visible in the sky. He was born in Florida, Missouri, 2 months early and weighed 5 pounds. He was very sickly, said his mother, Jane.
Sam moved to Hannibal four years afterward, for his father needed a new job.
The Mississippi River inspired him greatly, as it was the dream of all boys to become a steamboat captain. This is noticeable in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Life on the Mississippi.
His father was a court judge. He died of pneumonia when Sam was 11. He became a printer's devil (apprentice) the next year to help his family. They are called printer devils because their arms become stained black with ink. People thought this was a relation to the black arts. They also thought that a ghost caused spelling flaws and other problems. The ghost was thought to inhabit the apprentices.
In the year 1853 he became a printer in New York City, Cincinnati, Philidelphia, and St. Louis.

Mark Twain Intro

For the past few weeks, I have been studying Mark Twain aka Samuel Langhorn Clemens. I am now doing a report on him. I read 2 books about him, listened to the Tom Sawyer audiobook, went to his house in Hartford, studied an online scrapbook about his life, and watched a 3 1/2 hour documentary.

You should check back often to read my report. It will be written in chapters, like a biography.