Going to Japan

The day after tomorrow, I'm going to Japan with Mom.  First we will go on a plane.  Then we will visit our hotel.  Maybe we will go out and eat or do other things, but most of the time we will sleep and play in the hotel until it's nighttime.

The next day, we will go out and find some fun place, and there's the biggest toy store in Japan, so we can go there.  We are going stay there for five nights, so we will come back on the sixth day.  On the third and fourth days, or fourth and fifth days, Mommy and I are going to the hot spring.  We are planning to go to Japan's hot spring for months and months and months.  And now, the time has arrived!

We started planning a long time ago when I was still in school.  This is a storyboard of half of two of my days in Japan.  I didn't do everything because I couldn't make a hot springs picture.  So I just did half of it.

I made lots of things to do on the plane.  And packed lots of things to write a journal.  For example, pencil and even papers!  Isn't that funny?  Most of the hotels have paper.  I hope you hope I will have a good time.  If you hope I will have a good time, read everything I've ever written on my blog right now!

My Lighting Heart

Today, we made hearts that glow.  First we used the hot glue gun to make a heart shape.  We needed to make it really fat, so we had to add glue, let it cool, then add more.  I think we used three-and-a-half glue sticks.

Then we took a red LED light and made a hole in the back of the heart for it to go in.  We used a little watch battery for power, then we used magnets to connect the wires from the light to the battery.  When we completed the circuit, the light made the whole heart glow red.  It looked beautiful!

Then I got more little magnets, and used them to stick the heart on my clothes.  I put a magnet inside my dress, then I put the heart on the outside.  This makes it stick without falling, because the magnets are really strong.  I did the same thing with a real butterfly!

You can make circles and glue them to anywhere.  You can make any shape!

North South

Today, Adam brought some magnets and I tried to use them to stick butterflies to my dress.  I used a very little, very strong magnet and put in on the inside of my dress, then I put the butterfly magnet on the outside.  But sometimes the magnet pushed the butterfly away.

This is because magnets have a north pole and a south pole.  The north pole wants to be friends with the south pole.  The south pole wants to be friends with the north pole.  But two north poles or two south poles don't want to be friends and push each other away.  Because you don't want to be friends with yourself.

Then we talked about the Earth's north and south poles.  If you take a magnet, its north pole wants to point towards Earth's North Pole!  That means that the North Pole is actually the south pole of Earth-magnet.

Earth doesn't just have one north pole.  It has a Geographic North Pole at very top of earth (the point the earth rotates around).  And it also has a North Magnetic Pole, which is where magnets point towards.  They are close together, but not in the same place.

The North Magnetic Pole isn't always in the same place.  Every 100,000 to 1 million years, the Earth-magnet switches its north and south.  The North Magnetic Pole also moves around a bit every year.

We wanted to figure out what north pole Santa lives at.  If he lived at North Magnetic Pole, he would need to move his entire house and workshop and reindeer and sleigh and workers to another place all the time.  So if you were Santa, how hard do you think it would me to move your entire life?

Stupid New Words for Stupid

I always tell Adam, "You're a stupid stupid man."  Adam said, "BORING!  Think of some different words instead of using the same word all the time."

Then we went to look in a Thesaurus, which gives us lists of words that mean the same thing.  Words with the same meaning are called Synonyms.

First we looked for synonyms for stupid.  There are lots of them and they are all adjectives.  My favorite ones are:

1. idiotic 
2. unintelligent
3. moronic
4. dumb
5. dense

Then we looked synonyms for idiot.  These are all nouns.  My favorites are:

1. pinhead
2. ignoramus
3. imbecile
4. nitwit
5. moron

I don't know which of these words I should use for Adam.  Maybe all?

Adam is an idiotic pinhead.  He always wakes up at night and goes to bed in the morning.  He is unintelligent ignoramus.  He always eats everywhere even on other people, especially good girls.  He is a moronic imbecile.  He always looks up at the sky when he is walking and bumps into everywhere.  He's a dumb, dense nitwit-moron.  He even can make your little cute animals' home earthquake.  Adam is 12345 12345 all of them.

I think use all!  And I'll tell you a secret.  Adam's playing for fun phone number is 12345 12345.  You can guess why.

Captain Dino's Adventure Through the Water

Today we made a different kind of boat than we made before.  A few weeks ago we made a boat that moves by using a fan to push air backwards.

We needed empty plastic water bottles for the boat, but our bottles were full of water, so Cici and I raced Adam to see who could finish their bottle first.  Adam lost because he is super super so-so.

 We made holes in the bottles so we could put an axle through the middle.  Then we put a big red disc in the middle, and put paddles on each end.  The popsicle sticks push the water so the boat will go:

Look the dinosaur is being a captain on the boat.

Then we made our circuit with a battery, a switch, and a motor.  We had to make sure we connected the wires so that the motor would make the boat go forward instead of backward.  The motor uses a rubber band help the paddles have a stronger force.  The motor has to go around 9 times to make the paddle go around 1 time.  This is a kind of mechanical advantage.

This is the rubber band that takes energy from the motor and sends it to the paddles.

We put a little toy dinosaur on the boat for fun.  Then we went outside to try the boat in the water.

It's almost time for Captain Dino to have a ride. 

Ta-da!  The boat went really well.  It moved and it didn't sink.  But the dinosaur did not have a good time.  He fell in the water, I ran home to get a net, and Cici saved him.

Captain Dino is on the way to the island.

Do you want to know what happened to Captain Dino?  He sunk, but someone saved him.  He still has a chance to go to the island.  I don't know when Captain Dino will have an adventure with us again.

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!