First Fairytale Chapter Book

I decided to make a chapter book.  I'm going to put it on my website, which goes to my blog that you are reading now!

We first brainstormed lots of ideas for what our book could be about.  Our ideas for the story were:

These are some of my ideas for the story.

Then I picked the three ideas a liked most.  They were:

• Deep Sea Adventure
• Riley's Magic First Day of Year 3
• Riley and the Lost Turtle

Then I wrote some ideas for characters for each of the stories I am maybe going to write:

These are the characters I wrote for the story.  My finger is pointing at the story I chose.

I thought about the different ideas, and decided to write about Deep Sea Adventure.  I chose this idea because I wanted to chose that idea before I wrote all the other ideas.  I got the idea from a video that I saw a week ago, but the story I imagine is different.

Then I made a plan for the different chapters I'm going to write:

These are my chapter ideas.  My finger is pointing at my favorite chapter.

This is my rough draft for the first chapter, "Princess's First Day on the Boat."

This is my first chapter.  My four fingers mean this part I like the most.

I have just written two chapters.  Tomorrow, I'm going to work on Chapter 3.

I think I'll finish writing the book in a week or two.  I'm going to draw pictures for my book too.  You'll be able to read my book on my website that goes to my blog that you are reading now!  Haha!  :7

Pop Out Pretty Snow

Today we made a pretty snow fan.  Last week, we were looking for things to buy on Taobao and saw a cool snow fan:

But instead of buying the kit, we decided to make our own snow fan with our own materials.

The materials we used were:

• Battery
• Wires
• Double switch
• Motor and fan
• LED light
• Glass jar
• Shiny/ stickers
• Colorful /feathers
• Cardboard
• Snow from styrofoam
• Box
• Hot glue gun
• Soldering iron

 First we made a lid for the jar by cutting a piece of cardboard and made a small hole in the middle for the motor.  Then we made our snow by breaking piece of styrofoam.  Then we tested the motor and fan.  It was good so we used the hot glue gun to glue the lid and motor to the jar.

Then we made a small hole in the cardboard for our light and put a light in.  Last week, we saw that a parallel (Princess Vecelina) circuit worked better than a series circuit when we had two different things we want to turn on.  So we decide to make our snow fan as a parallel circuit, with one switch for the fan and another for the light.

Then we set up the circuit and made sure everything worked.  Then Adam used the soldering iron to stick the metal parts together.  The soldering iron was kind of scary for me and cool because it gets very hot and it also made some smoke when it melted the wire.

Then we put everything into a box and cut the box so everything fit.  We used the hot glue gun to stick everything together in the box.

We turned on both switches and the light went on and the fan started blowing the snow and decorations round and round and round and round until you're dizzy!  I think it's pretty and more creative than the thing we could buy on Taobao.

These are stickers we put on the outside.

This is the inside of the box where our battery and wires are. 

This is the side with our drawing on the lid, as well as our motor, light, and switch.

This is what it looks like from the inside when it's on.

R C means my first letter, my brother's first letter, and a heart:) 

It looks even prettier in the dark!

You can try the snow fan yourself.  Remember you can add as many decorations as you want.

Warning:  Don't let little kids do the hot glue gun or especially the soldering iron.  Let the adults to that.  Still, you need to be careful!

Cat Girl and the Little Deer

In the deep deep forest, there lived a cat girl.  She lived alone in a small cave.  One day she decided to go out and find someone to live with.  

She went out and saw a wooden door.  

She never saw it before.

She opened the door.

And saw a little deer.  She picked up the deer and said, “Where is your family?”

The deer said, “I don’t have a family.”

The girl said, “Hmmmmm…ah!  I’m alone too.  You can stay with me.  I can adopt you.”

“Oh, thank you!” said the deer.  Then they went home, baked some cupcakes, and went to sleep.

the   raindeer is    called    /slashia 5
the girl is called lashia6

 The girl is a cat girl that is from my imaginary country.

Riley and Adam's . -..- -.-. .. - .. -. --. Morse Code Adventure #2

Today we made our own Morse Code machine.  The materials we used were:

• Press switch
• LED light
• Buzzer
• Most important thing - the battery
• A piece of cardboard
• Wires
• Electrical tape
• Our hands

First we talked about two different ways to make a circuit:

Series - In a series circuit the current has one path that goes through the light and the buzzer one after the other.

Parallel - In a parallel circuit, the current has separate paths, one with the light and one with the buzzer.

Then we took our materials and made a circuit.  First we tried just the light, and when we pressed the switch, the light was very bright:

Then made a circuit with just the buzzer, and the buzzer was very loud.

Then we made a circuit with the light and buzzer in series.  When we pressed the switch, the light was very dim and the buzzer had no sound:

Then we made a circuit with the light and buzzer in parallel.  When we pressed the switch, the light was very bright and the buzzer was very loud:

For our Morse Code machine, the parallel circuit worked much better.  We can use the machine to send Morse Code messages.

If you want, you can shine the light on your face when you're taking a picture.  It makes your face prettier.

And, um...
.. / -.. --- -. - / -.- -. --- .--

Adam says:  The light hurts my eyes and the buzzer hurts my ears :((

I Don't Know - A Poem

I don't know how to sleep.
I don't know how to eat.
Everything I don't know is something that we need.

I don't know how to draw.
I don't know how to run.
I don't know I don't know everything.

I don't know my friend.
I don't know my name.
I don't know I don't know everything I see.

I don't know how to walk.
And don't know how to talk.
If you were like this then it's a problem.

I don't know everything.
Oh please come teach me.
I really want to know it.

Teach me how to sleep.
Teach me how to eat.
Teach me how to draw and run.

Teach me how to say my name.
Teach me how to know my friend.
Teach me everything I see.

Teach me how to walk.
Teach me how to talk.
If you teach me then there's no problem.


Here's me reading my poem.  I don't know how to read!

I don't know what I should say next.  Oh, I know now.  I should say...  Bye-bye!

A Maldives Shell Adventure ;-)

We had a wonderful adventure in the Maldives.  We took a boat to our house and we sat on the bed to rest.  Dad said there was some soup for us to eat, so we ate some soup and went to sleep.

The second day was the first day that we played.  We went on a boat to go to the island and have breakfast.  When we went out of our house, I was very confused and scared because I thought I saw an octopus under our house.  So I ran to the boat and waited for it to arrive to the island.  We got off the boat and went to the restaurant.  It was kind of small and didn't have too many foods, but it was still good.  I ate crepes and sushi and porridge.  I ate and ate and when my crepe came, I saw there was no banana, but I ate it anyway.

After that, I went to the pool then went to play in the sand.  We went to the ocean and picked a lot of sea shells.  These sea shells are pretty and they are all real!

I put all the sea shells in a container.

This is one of the sea shells.

This sea shell is special.  Look at the pattern on it!

Do you know..the Maldives ocean makes the sea shells very white.

Riley and Adam's ..-. ..- -. Morse Code Adventure #1

Yesterday, we tried to make a machine that could send messages using radio.  But we couldn't get it to work.

So instead, we made a machine with a button.  The button is a press switch.  You press the button and it makes a beeping sound and turns on a light.

We can use the machine to send Morse code messages.  More codes uses long and short sounds to make letters.  This is the Morse code alphabet:

If we want to figure out what a Morse code message means, we can use the tree below to find out.  If you hear a short sound ("dit"), you go to the left.  If you hear a long sound ("dah") you go to the right.  When you go to the left, then hear a long sound, follow the long line down to the right.  So if you hear "dit dah dit," you follow the tree and see that makes the letter R.

We wrote some messages using Morse code.  See if you can figure out what these codes mean.  There is a space between each letter and a slash between each word.  Hint:  Use the tree above.

1. .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-. ..- - . / .--. . - ...
2. -... . ... - / -.. .- -.-- / . ...- . .-.
3. .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -. .- .-. -. .. .-

You can try writing a Morse code message to me!