Thursday, May 31, 2012

Reading Eggs

I just heard about this new website for helping kids learn to read. It has a 2 week free trial - and I signed up my kids - so have fun!

Reading Eggs



Wednesday, November 23, 2011

At Grandma's House

At Grandma's House
I like the taste of turkey
Any time throughout the year
But it never
seems to taste as good
As when Thanksgiving's here.

Could be it's all the trimmings
That are cooked with it to eat-
But I think it's
eating at Grandma's house
That makes it such a treat!

~Author Unknown                                             

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~homespun/tpoems.html


I liked this poem because it talks about the turkey and why it's better at Thanksgiving.

isaac

Mayflower Compact

I(Rebecca) am studying the U.S. Constitution this year so when my mom asked me to give a report about Thanksgiving, I immediately wanted to do a report on their form of government, laws that they had etc. My mom suggested The Mayflower Compact. So of course, like always, I did a Google search. 


The Mayflower compact was written when the colonists decided that their contracts with their investors were not valid, one reason being that the promised land grants for New England were incomplete (the grants were finalized while the Mayflower was in transit). In the compact the colonists basically agree that they will work together in a society so they can survive in this  new land. They also agree that they will create laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, that will be of help to everybody, and that they would abide by such laws that they should create.


Here is the text of The Mayflower Compact as Governor William Bradford wrote it, followed by the "modern" version.


In ye name of God Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by ye Grace of God, of great Britaine, Franc, & Yreland, King, defender of ye Faith, &c.
Haveing undertaken, for ye Glorie of God, and advancements of ye Christian faith, and the honour of our King & countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northern parts of Virginia; Doe by these presents, solemnly & mutualy, in ye presence of God, and one of another; covenant & combine ourselves together into a Civill body politick; for our better ordering, & preservation & furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just & equal Lawes, ordinances, Acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
In witnes wherof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cap-Codd ye 11 of November, in ye year of ye raigne of our soveraigne Lord King James, of England, France, & Yreland, ye eighteenth, and of Scotland ye fiftie fourth, Ano: Dom. 1620.


In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.:
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another; covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.


Rebecca
Research from here

Thursday, November 17, 2011

ok so i'm writing a book

ok so i'm writing a book and I thought yall might injoy it, so I will share part of it with you, here it goes.





Chapter 1 the mysterious path






Have you ever wondered why some kids are at the park or swimming at the Y or at the library while you are at school or on a field trip? Chances are they are home schooled, there are lots of kids home schooled now days and I Bartholomew am one of them. Now you see there are many advantages to being home schooled for example
1. I can do school when I like and do what subjects I like, I still know a little of almost everything but I excel in what I love best.
2. I don't have to sit and listen to a teacher talk for half an hour before I can do my work.
3. There are no bully's at home (although my sister gets on my nerves a-lot.)
4. I can use lots of books to do my school work.
(I LOVE BOOKS!)



Now you know lots of reasons why I like home schooling but there is one thing that I don't like about it. I can’t seem to make any friends my age that are boys the only friends I have are either older, younger or they are girls.

For school sometimes I go to the house of a 60 year old man who calls himself George, Pete and Frank, but I just call him George. He likes to tell me stories about when he was young; one of my favorite stories is that he convinced his brother that he was superman. His brother would ask him “where’s your superman suit?” and George would just smile. “He never knew that I wasn't superman” he says and then he smiles at me and I smile back. One of his favorite phrases is “when I was a kid”... He really likes talking to me in fact I think he likes talking more then I like reading and reading is my absolutes favorite subject of all times. I would rather read then do anything else. In fact I like reading so much that instead of grounding me from friends or the computer (which by the way I hate the computer) my mother grounds me from books. And she forces me to do school on the computer since all my school is in books. Like my math books and art books and history books and lots of others. So I am a very good boy. And George really likes talking. George not only tells me stories he answers my questions about the town’s history and he inspires me to do things, for example he inspired my friend Tom and I to build a tree house (that is he inspired me and I told Tom and Tom helped build it) he said “well you see when I was a kid we didn't have these fancy thingamabobs, what I did with my friends is build things and our favorite thing to build where tree houses, in fact at one time we had 5 tree houses built and they all connected to each other with rope ladders.” So Tom and I built one, it is blue, green, and red, it has a rope ladder leading up to it and it has a table and chairs. We made all of them with the help of Tom’s Dad. My Dad is never home he is always on a trip somewhere for his job. I wish that I had a Dad like Tom’s.
In our tree house I like to sit and read while Tom is in school and after school and on Saturdays we go there to play games together some of our favorite games are Skip-BO and monopoly. We also keep some snacks there, though there mostly crackers. We also have some things for exploring. (Tom Loves exploring as much as I like reading.) We have matches flashlights and on the ground beneath our tree house we have a pile of wood, we cover the wood with a tarp that we found in Tom’s garage. And sometimes while exploring we find remains of fires and Indian like sleeping mats. One Saturday Tom and I went exploring and a found a big black cave and I, being cautious wanted to make sure that no animals already occupied it. So we came back every day for a week (except for Sunday) and put down traps and food, and we would see if the traps we had put down the previous day where still there and of course they hadn’t been touched, so that very next Saturday we went and explored the cave.
Tom talked almost the whole way there. He mostly talked about how school was, and what thing was most popular, and why exploring is way more fun than playing games on the computer, and I totally agree with him because I hate computers.
We explored for many hours not finding much but soon we found an Exit “an exit to a cave, how odd” Tom said, a little confused myself I said “are you sure it’s a cave and not a tunnel?” “Well there weren’t many stalactites or stalagmites so it might be a tunnel.” Tom said uncertainly. “Well I look it up when we get back, for now let’s continue on” l said happy to have another something to research. “Of course you will” Tom said laughing. “Let’s get going” I said again. So we continued on. We walked out of the cave and turned of our flashlights “have you ever heard of a magical path?” Said Tom “no” I said questioningly. “Well were either not the first ones here or we have just found a self-cleaning path.” “What are you talking about?” I said then I look in front of Tom and there right in front of Tom was a path that had nothing on it but on the grass all around it was lots and lots of leafs.
and then of course Tom had to experiment he picked up a leaf from off the grass and put it on the path, nothing happened so Tom put lots more leafs on the path and still nothing happened, “let’s check on it the way back.” Said Tom "okay let’s" I said. We continued walking. The path had many twists and turn but was still spotless and it was like that the whole way. After walking for about 30 minutes we came upon “what a dead end?” I said “no, there are just lots of foliage in the way” said Tom, then he pulled out a pocket knife and proceeded to cut his way through large weeds and bushes. Eventually we found the path again. And soon it got darker and I was ready to go home but no Tom just had to go on, so we kept walking and soon we found something. We found a castle ruin “WOW” Tom said as soon as we saw it “can we go home now?” I said tired of walking “and besides its getting dark and my Mom is probably getting worried.” “Okay but on the way back let’s make a map so that we can come back quicker next time” “okay” I said just happy to finally convince him to turn around. So we trudged back and when we came to where the mass of foliage was and you couldn’t see where Tom had cut, it looked as if nothing had happened, “that’s odd?” Tom said “I guess I’ll just have to cut through it again” so he again cut through the mass foliage and we walked on and when we finally got close to the cave Tom looked down “hmm the leaves are gone to?” he said “this place is creeping me out lets go” I said “wow dude I know and you know and everybody that knows you knows that you don’t get scared easy” Tom said sounding very scared “you know, I am now felling creped out, let’s go.” Tom said. We kept walking and Tom continued drawing his map and soon we were out of the cave and near the tree house. “Finally” I sighed we put our packs and things in the tree house and then went home.
When I got home it was about 9:00 and I was starving. When I walked in I saw my Mom sitting on the rocker comforting my little sister Lilly as soon as Lilly saw me she jumped up and ran to me, she hugged me as if I had been gone for years. I hugged her and then she went to bed and I scavenged the cupboards for something to eat and my mom didn’t say a word until I had had something to eat then sternly she said “Bartholomew where were you? You had us all worried, you are always home by 7 at the latest and that’s only when you’re caught up in a really good story at George’s house.” “I know” I said sighing “it’s just that Tom really wanted to keep going and going and I finally convinced him to come home” and I told her about the mysterious path and the ruin that we saw and the tunnel like cave and then I asked her “what was wrong with Lilly?” “She was worried about you of course” she replied “oh and what about Lucy was she worried?” I asked “no not really” she replied and then said “talk to you tomorrow” and yawning went off to bed, I also went to bed.
 

blogger templates | Make Money Online