The Colorado Adventure

13

13 Jul 2012 3 Comments

by liese4 in School Stuff

So today is Friday the 13th and the other day at the library I stumbled upon two books with the number 13 in them quite by accident…..then I thought…..hey, we’ll read these books on the 13th! The first one we read was this one:

It has 13 buildings from the Great Pyramid to the Parthenon to the Chrysler building and information about the construction of the buildings and facts and figures. Did you know the Eiffel tower was constructed for the World’s fair and was expected to be torn down after a few years? Or that the Chrysler building was in a race with the bank of Manhattan to build the tallest building in New York (and that the Chrysler building won by hiding 184 feet of the building within the top portion and then erecting it at the last minute.) I love the timeline at the top of the pages, you can see when other things were made in a similar time. Hannah noticed that the timeline went from 2,500 BCE to 2003 AD so we started talking about numbers on a number line and how they go from a big number (like 2,500) to zero and then start out again from 1 to whatever number you can count to.

Our next book was this one:

Before we read it we watched this video about the book, it’s funny.

Since today is the 13th, we wrote stories with 13 words that we randomly picked out. Maybe this could be an on-going thing, on the 5th pick 5 words and write a story, on the 20th pick 20 and so on. They can be spelling words or just….words. They can make a silly story or sad story a funny story or a believable story. Would you care to try? Pick 13 words and use them in sentences, don’t use all 13 in one sentence, so you should end up with at least 13 sentences. It’s harder than it looks (Hannah was sitting in the kitchen when she picked the last few words, she was darting glances around the kitchen trying to find 3 more words to use.)

Me: Creek, swim, hazy, excited, pondering, splendid, dog, sand, sunset, voracious, book, breeze, galaxy.

The creek gurgled along the banks as I went for a swim. In the distance hazy skies hovered over downtown. I was excited to see a storm rolling in. As I sat pondering, rain started to trickle down. Splendid! I gathered the dog and shook the sand from my feet as we walked back to the car. A gorgeous sunset was shining its colors from behind the mountaintops. The dog was voracious with hunger after the swim, so I stopped at the store to grab a treat for her. Later I sat on the porch and enjoyed the breeze while the stars twinkled from the galaxy above.

Bethany: Peculiar, cat, dog, melodramatic, walked, paper, pencil, swimming, flotation device, doughnut, cramp, inconsiderate, spectacular.

There once was a peculiar cat. If you didn’t notice, peculiar has the word LIAR in it and that is exactly what the cat was: a big, (slightly chubby) liar. The dog, who was slightly melodramatic, rushed into the house and said, “I’m dying! Help me cat, it’s awful!” The peculiar cat walked over to the dog and said, “What’s wrong dog?”
The dog picked up a piece of paper and put his pencil to it and said, “That’s what’s wrong! My pencil is not sharp!”
The cat said, ” Well, go sharpen it.”
“But the sharpener is BROKEN!!!”
“Well, go get another pencil.”
“But I don’t WANT to walk to the store! My leg hurts!” moaned the melodramatic dog. “Then let’s go play a game,” said the cat, “We can go to the pool.”
So, the peculiar cat and the melodramatic dog went to the swimming pool.
“Is that a flotation device?” asked the dog and the cat said, “Why, yes it is.” and started to eat it. The dog asked why he was eating it. “So that I can float in the water without putting it on, it’s an advanced flotation device,” purred the cat. The dog soon found out the cat was lying, it was just a doughnut after all. The dog and the cat went into the water, and the cat cried out, “I have a cramp!” The dog said, “Good, since you were inconsiderate enough to eat that doughnut right in front of me, I hope you have a spectacular time swimming by yourself. And, you are a most peculiar cat.”

Grace: Killer whales, technology, coupon, electricity, aquatic, dolphin, migrating, happy, silly, waves, conscience, bowling, ocean.

Killer whales hunt for fish. They do not use technology to hunt, they use echo location instead. Killer whales have no need for fish coupons. Fishing boats use electricity to power their lights at night. They chase after aquatic life such as dolphins. Dolphins start migrating. The happy dolphin calls her silly friend to jump over the waves. The captain of the fishing boat has a strike of conscience and decides to give up fishing and go bowling. The ocean is a beautiful place once more.

Hannah: Otter, swim, fish, sea urchin, cracked, rock, ocean, Mickey mouse, globe, rainbow, pot, food, Reese’s.

The otter went on a swim. He saw a fish. He saw a sea urchin. He cracked the sea urchin on a rock. He sees the ocean, it is blue. Mickey mouse goes to see the otter. The otter is in a globe. He saw a beautiful rainbow. There was a pot of food at the end of the rainbow. There were only Reese’s in the pot.

That was fun!