01.23.09

Lovely week. We kept up with our maths, did some kitchen chemistry (yeast!), have been reviewing lots of book on Japanese culture, language, history, and folklore (because Benjamen is so very into karate), and are gearing up for Chinese New Year on Sunday/Monday. We had a library day and spent a morning at the playground, despite the cold. Jonathan and I hit yoga on Wednesday evening and that always makes for a nice time. And of course, Tuesday and Thursday nights are karate nights, and Thursday night karate was followed by a night at the local Japanese steak house. They're getting to know us by name up there!

Jonathan has been doing some more writing this week, as well, and I thought I'd include a sample of his cursive penmanship.



It's a history of his Bionicle (LEGO) guys and reads:

The Great Spirit Mata Nui created an island named after him. He also created inhabitants for the island called Matoran. However, his brother Makuta was jealous of Mata Nui, and cast a spell over him making him fall asleep. However, the Turaga, the elders of Mata Nui, used six Toa Stones to summon six Toa, heroes that control one of six elements: Tahu, Toa of Fire, Kopaka, Toa of Ice, Pohatu, Toa of Stone, Lewa, Toa of Air, Onua, Toa of Earth, and Gali, Toa of Water. They must collect six Kanohi masks in order to defeat Makuta. But Makuta, in the last few seconds before he was defeated, awakened the Bohrok swarms. The Toa defeated them and changed into Toa Nuva, the Bohrak Kal came, To Be Continued.

(The lines on top are where I was showing him that his lower case letters needed to be smaller --half as tall--as his upper case letters.)


And a book review! I bought him the book last night after karate, and he had finished it this morning when I woke up. He wrote up the book review this afternoon:

I bought the book for Jonathan last night and he read it for a few hours before falling asleep. He finished it this morning and wrote the review this afternoon.

Dragon Rider

I really enjoyed the book Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. It's about a dragon named Firedrake, a brownie named Sorrel, and a boy named Ben. They travel all over the world looking for the Rim of Heaven, a place where dragons can live and not be afraid that humans (apart from Ben) will find them. One of the adventures that they had along the way was getting a map from a rat map maker. The map looked like an atlas, only on each page there was a ribbon, and if you pulled it, a new section of the map popped out. They are searching for the Rim of Heaven because humans are planning to flood the valley that they live in. I liked this book because it had a good ending, because it had sandmen, and, of course, it had dragons! I recommend this book to just about anyone who likes dragons. It had a whole lot of details, interesting characters, and a djinn with a thousand eyes! I would give it a rating of 9/10. I hope that you like this book as much as I do.