The Throne of Fire

The Throne of Fire

(book 2 in the Kane Chronicles)

Rick Riordan

452 pages
Carter and Sadie Kane are young Egyptian magicians. They just discovered that Apophis, the serpent god of chaos, is going to escape. They plan to find Ra, the sun god and Apophis's enemy, in hopes that he can defeat Apophis. If all fails, the world will end, flooded with a sea of chaos.

Science Lab (5-31)

Jonathan 1                                                                                                                        Writing

Science Lab

        In this science lab, we did a continuation of the last one. We started out with a sheet of data showing how many bears survived with pollution in their habitat. Again, this was for 5 generations in each test and with multiple tests, each time the pollution growing. We then made a line graph out of the data and discovered that the bears went extinct in all the tests except for one. After that, we answered some questions about the data but the big question was what our recommendation was. I saw that at 17% pollution, the bears were not affected too much. For that reason, my recommendation was too lower the pollution to about 14%. That way, the bears would not get affected, but they would also not overpopulate. I thought this lab was a great way to get us thinking about how pollution affected habitats and population.

The Sea of Monsters

The Sea of Monsters

(book 2 in Percy Jackson & the Olympians)

Rick Riordan

279 pages

Percy, a demigod hero, has found out that the one safe place for him during the summer, Camp Half Blood, is under attack and his best freind, Grover, is in danger. He then finds out that this is because someone poisoned a magical tree that protects the camp, and Percy is determined to find something to fix it.  Also, Grover tells Percy (through a dream) that a cyclops, who has a fleece that can heal the tree, has captured him. Percy, with his friend Annabeth and his cyclops half brother Tyson sets out to free Grover and get the fleece.

Will they save Grover and the camp in time, or will all be lost?

The Lightning Thief

The Lightning Thief

(book 1 in Percy Jackson and the Olympians)

Rick Riordan

377 pages

A 12 year old boy, named Percy, has just found out that all of the the ancient Greek gods from the myths are real! He also found out that he is the son of one of those gods and is being accused of stealing Zeus's master bolt. The gods fight over who took the bolt and Percy's friends suspect that Hades, god of the Underworld, is responsible.With two of his friends, Annabeth and Grover, Percy sets out to the Underworld to find the master bolt and prevent the gods from starting WW III.

Science Lab (5-24)

Jonathan 1                                                                                                                       Writing

Science Lab

       I had lots of fun in today's lab. It was a game where we were finding out how pollutants affect bears. Red plastic bears signified the real bears and blue plastic bears signified the pollutants. We had to have 10 bears and 2 pollutants in a bucket. We pulled two out at a time, until they ran out, for 5 times. If you pulled 2 bears, they survived. However, a bear and a pollutant means the bear dies. Finally, if you get 2 pollutants, a pollutant is added next time. Also, at the end of each time, the surviving bears go back in the bucket (plus a baby for each pair) as well as all of the pollutants. Once, completing, it is all repeated, except with more pollutants each five times. It was amazing how much bears got affected because at the end of my last 5 times, all the bears died out! 

Science Lab (5-10)

Jonathan 1                                                                                                                       Writing

Science Lab

      Today's lesson was very informative. We still were on the subject of petroleum products in our life. The first thing we did was reading an article about the dangers of having so much plastic in your body and some ways to test for it. One specific method motioned was testing on rodents. Then, we read about many plastic products that are in a kitchen We had our own little picture of a kitchen so we found those items and circled them. It was really interesting to know that the only thing that could not be plastic in the room was the door nob. We also listed all of the plastic items that we used in our life and the number was mind boggling! To counter that, we listed five things to reduce our interaction with plastic. This lab was defiantly an eye opener and made me realize all of the plastic in my life.

Computer Lab (5-3)

Jonathan 1                                                                                                                      Writing

Computer Lab

       This time, on bitsize, we did English. The sub-sections included reading, writing, and spelling and grammer, although I only got a chance to do reading. The games and test for reading were deduction,  dictionaries, poetry, and finding information. One thing that stuck  out for me was poetry because there was a rich "baby" rapping the poems and it was entertaining. I also learned some new terms through the tests. Overall, doing bitesize was a lot of fun and hopefully it will stick with me for the tests (although I think it will).

Computer Lab (4-26)

Jonathan1                                                                                                                Writing

Computer Lab

     Today we went on bitsize math again and the subject was geometry. We did this to prepare for CST tests, in case we needed more practice or needed to review. Some of the sub-topics included 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and angles. It was helpful for me to review the topics and then take the practice tests. I found this way, of reviewing things through games very different but still usefull.

Computer Lab (4-19)

Jonathan 1                                                                                                             Writing

Computer Lab

      At Computer Lab today, we learned about handling data. There were three sub-topics of frequency data, mode,  mean, median, and range, and finally probability. We reviewed these by playing games and then taking tests. This was good for me because I reviewed frequency data and probability that I forgot a little bit about. A real life application would be if I worked with a lot of numbers and had to organize them. Either way, I found this lab very useful for my skills on handling numbers and data.

Computer Lab (3-29)

Jonathan 1                                                                                                                     Writing

Computer Lab

          During this computer lab, we played a program that had to do with ending hunger. It had a series of activities/games that would happen in the real operation. One was having to find the right mixture of food to give the people, so that they can have a nutritious meal. Another was delivering the food by dropping bundles from a plane.  There was also delivering food, by trucks, and feeding a small community. This made me aware of what is happening around the world and how people are solving the problems.

Science Lab (3-22)

Jonathan 1                                                                                                                         Writing

Science Lab

        Today, in Science lab, we continued to learn about resources. When we sat down, we got a chart and filled it out by rotating tables every five min. (so then we could fill the whole chart out). Some resources, which were the rows on the chart,  included natural gas, oil, geothermal, nuclear, solar, and wind energy. Some of the columns on the chart were: what, where, what it's used for, consequences, and other facts. One thing that I learned and found interesting was that wind power couldn't be stored easily. The solution was to put "transformers/converters" to change the power into electricity that could be stored. The bad side of this is that the machines were super noisy and had to be placed in remote areas with nobody around. I also learned many other facts/consequences about these energy resources and I found this lab very informative.

The Red Pyramid

The Red Pyramid

(book 1 in the Kane Chronicles)

Rick Riordan

516 pages

 The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan, starts off with a boy, Carter, his sister, Sadie, and their dad. Carter and Sadie's mother died so Sadie lives with her grandparents while Carter travels around with his dad (the two only see each other twice a year). On one of their visits, Carter and Sadie eventually find out that the Egyptian gods are real and that they come from a magical family called "the blood of the pharaohs". Eventually, losing their father, Carter and Sadie are left  alone with their uncle Amos and are trying to figure out what happened to their father, and if they can get him back. They also find out that they have to stop the evil god, Set, from spreading chaos throughout the earth before his birthday! Can Carter and Sadie learn magic and stop Set in time, or while chaos reign on earth forever?

Computer Lab

Jonathan 1                                                                                                           Writing

Computer Lab

Today, in computer lab, our class went on various "self teaching", or autodidacticism, sites. One major site was Khan Academy, but since we did that in class, we tried other ones. A few of them had answers to wanderings people had, like wonderopolis. Others, like Khan Academy, taught school skills. Examples were grammar girl and math dude. At the end, we looked at gown-up learning sites: apple, colleges, etc. I, personally liked the random facts, or wandering sites. One fact on wonderopolis was how to yodel! Now, whenever I need to learn/review something, I know where to look!

My Animoto Video

My Animoto Video

Prince Caspian



Prince Caspian

chronological: (book four in The Chronicles of Narnia)

written: (book two in The Chronicles of Narnia)

C.S. Lewis
216 pages
 In Narnia, a  prince named Caspian blows Susan's magical horn that supposedly brings help. The help is the old Kings and Queens: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, who magically arrive in Narnia. They find out that a group called the Telmarines took over Narnia and wiped out most of the old Narnians. When the children meet Prince Caspian, they help him with the war against the Telmarines and eventually take back Narnia. 

I Am David

I am David

Anne Holm

239 pages

You are a young boy who has just escaped from a concentration camp and is trying hard to survive by sleeping on the ground and helping people so you can earn a little money. I Am David, by Anne Holm, is about a 12 year old boy, David, who has lived in a concentration camp for as long as he could remember. A man in the camp helped David escape and gave him supplies. David is constantly running and won’t give up until he is free. He shows lots of persistence and courage in the story.

If somebody made a movie, I think the part when David rescues the girl from the fire would be really cool to watch.