Geography

My Aunt Darcy shared a link on her blog where Jay Leno asks high school students some geography questions. Here is a link to it.

 Geographically Challenged.

My mom thought I might know some of the answers so she asked me the same questions. Here are my answers.

Me answering geography questions.

After I answered the questions I went to look up where the outback is, its in Australia.

Dear Santa

I think that Santa is real. He gives presents, not just to kids, parents can get presents too. He lives in the North Pole.  He has a white beard and a red hat. If kids are good he will give them a present, if they are bad then he will give them rocks. I don’t know what would happen if you didn’t believe in him. The reindeer pull his sleigh. He gets his reindeer from St. Laurence Island in Alaska. I only remember Rudolph's name.

At school we wrote a letter to Santa. This is what I wrote.

 

Dear Santa,

Here are three good things I can do.

1. Listen to my teacher.

2. Treat others kindly.

3. Take turns.

Here are some things that I would love to have for Christmas.

1. Puppy

2. Kitten

3. Map book

4. Camera

5. ipod (it’s a thing that does abc’s and has buttons that control it)

Thank you.

love, Stephen

If you give a dog a hotdog

If you give a dog a hotdog, he will want a bag of chips to go with it.

But then he will realize you don’t have any bags of chips. So you’ll go to Macey’s and buy a bag of chips.

He will wait in the car while you buy a bag of chips. He will wait and wait until he cannot wait any longer.

So he will squeeze through the secret door from the back seat of the car into the truck.

Then he will realize that the car is out of gas. So he will go get a gas can. When he fills the car up with gas he will see you coming with the bag of chips and hotdog.

Then you will drive him back home. And then he will remember he is hungry. So then he will ask you for the bag of chips. And chances are if you give him a bag of chips he will want a hotdog to go with it.

This is the story of If you give a dog a hotdog.

Bedtime story

 

Uncle Daniel wanted to know what story I would tell Kathryn and Parker at bedtime. Here it is.

This is a story about Stephen and his dog Buckler.

Once upon a time Ice Guy kidnapped Kathryn. He has ice powers. He left a note written in ice that he had taken Kathryn and we would never see her again.  Why he kidnapped Kathryn is a mystery. 

Stephen had the storm powers, like storm shark power and thunder snake power.  Buckler has fire powers the are the most dangerous kinds of powers.

Ice Guy lives in a secret world called the Ice World. It has lots of ice caves in it. Ice Guy took Kathryn into the cave that he lives but no one knows which cave is his. 

The passage to Ice World is in Afghanistan.  Stephen Buckler flew on an airplane to the Atlantic Ocean. Then they took a long boat ride across the ocean to, around Africa and landed in India. Then they took another airplane ride to Afghanistan. The secret passage was in a mountain. It was dark in the passage, there was some skeletons and zombies.  There were a lot of holes that went into voids in the passage. Buckler and Stephen used metal boxes to block the zombies, the last door they found led them into Ice World.

There isn’t any snow in Ice World, just ice. There were six ice caves. The first ice cave was Ice Guy’s and they found Kathryn in a cage. It was just big enough for her to fit into sitting down. They saw Ice Guy and he looked pretty scary. Kathryn was going to cry but Stephen and Buckler stayed calm.

“ No need to worry Kathryn!” said Stephen, “My storm powers will help you.”

“ No need to worry Kathryn!” said Buckler, “My fire powers will help you.”

Stephen and Buckler powers worked on Ice Guy. Ice Guy froze them but Stephen’s storm powers melted the ice off him and Bucklers fire power melted the ice off him. Then Stephen used his storm shark power onto ice guy. It really caused some damage for Ice Guy and he started to melt, he was almost all the way melted but not quite. Then Stephen had an idea. He used his thunder snake power, Ice Guy got smaller but still wasn’t melted all the way. Then Buckler had an idea. He used his fire cat power, when Ice Guy touched the fire cat he melted all the way.

Kathryn was still stuck in the cage. Buckler had an idea. Stephen could throw Buckler at the cage and he could use his fire power to burn the cage open and free Kathryn.

They flew back to Provo (backwards from the way they got there) and lived happily every after and Ice Guy was never seen again.

The End

The answers of Darcy’s questions

1. If you were holding a flat head in one hand and a Phillip’s head in the other what would you be holding? 

Giant flat fish and Prince Phillip.

2. Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?

Be invisible. So I would be protected from bad people, cause they wouldn’t know where I am.

3.How many bites does it take to eat a whole piece of butter bread?

I think it is twelve.

4. What is your five year plan?

Getting a pet. Go to a pet store and buy one. A dog for me and a cat for Kathryn. The dog will have a short tail and a black body. The cat will be white and have a long tail. They will ride in the back of the van when we go somewhere.

5. What does Buckler eat when he is hungry for delicious dessert?

Chocolate vanilla ice cream. He gets it at work when the ice cream man comes. There is a floor in his dog house that goes down and and opens into a tube. The tube takes him to a balcony and down a zip line. That is how he gets to work.

Whale

I wanted to do a post completely by myself. I thought of what to write and typed it all myself.

A whales  teeth is called a whalebone. To breathe, whales use a hole on the top of it’s head called a blowhole. Without a tail, whales can’t splash, so, all whales must have a tail. All whales must eat herrings and tunas, too.

Dad’s birthday list

My dad’s birthday is in October so Mama asked me and Kathryn what we should get him. Here are our ideas.

• those chocolate nests we made that one time
• a Princess and the Frog video game
• a book about things people should stay away from. Some of the things in the book would be tigers, cactuses, monsters and dinosaurs with big claws that eat people.
• a soft baby doll to sleep with
• a fan in case he needs some wind
• a cup to drink out of
• a Dora cake
• a book about the anatomy of the universe
• a good necklace for boys
• something that will help you with a good thing to do

Which one do you think we should get him?

I don’t want to sleep forever

Today my mom asked me if I slept well last night. I told her that I didn’t sleep, I stayed up all night.

“Why did you stay up all night?” she asked.

“So I could look at my clock.”

“Why do you need to look at your clock?”

“So I will know when it is 7 a.m. and I can wake up.” I told her.

“Why don’t you just fall asleep and see what time it is when you wake up?” I thought this question had a pretty obvious answer.

“Because if I can’t see the clock I won’t know when it was time to wake up and  I would sleep forever.”

“So you stay awake all night looking at the clock to so you know when it is time to wake up?”

“Yes.” I told her.  She didn’t seem to concerned that I’m not getting any sleep at night.

Aunt Darcy’s questions

Dad reminded me that I need to answer these questions from Aunt Darcy.

1. How many dollars would you have if you had 15 quetzales?

I would want to have more quetzales than 15 so I will win the quetzale contest that Buckler made. The number quetzales that I would have is 26. If Darcy had 15 quetzales and I had 26 quetzales then I would have 32 dollars.

2. What are PJs?

That is easy peasy rice and cheesy. Pajamas. I call them pajamas, I don’t like to call them PJs a lot.

3. What is you favorite season and why?

Hmmm. My favorite season is winter. I like winter because the world is almost turning green. That’s the only reason I like winter.

4. Would you rather have a pet gorilla or a pet porcupine?

Well, since a porcupine has quills I’d rather have a pet gorilla.

5. Please explain the process of making hot butter bread.

Alright so, the first thing you have to do to make hot butter bread ( or hbb ) is to get some bread. Then you have to put it in the toaster. When its all done toasting put some peanut butter on it. If you want to you can fold it or use two bread and put them together. And that is the process of making hot butter bread.

Why did the chicken cross the park?

A while ago I was playing at the park with Parker and Kathryn. Some other kids came over and started to play. There was a girl about my age. She asked me to tell her a joke, so I did. This is how it goes.

Why did the chicken cross the park?

To get to the other slide!

The girl thought it was pretty funny. I told her a bunch of other jokes but I think this is the best one.

Reading Process

Today I asked my mom if the book I was reading had precise language, emotional appeal, insight or content.

She wasn't sure which it had. I read it anyway.

I’m not afraid

We went to the zoo with my aunt Darcy. It was a lot of fun. I got to have a map to help us know where to go.

They had some dinosaurs there. I thought they were real. I was a little afraid. My mom told me they weren’t real but I didn’t believe her.  She wanted me to sit on the fence  so she could take my picture. I don’t think she knew that the dinosaur wanted to eat me.

Princess William

Most of the time I like to play with Kathryn. We will play games with Kaybo and Buckler. Or we will look at food ads and find things that will make her babies that are sick feel better.

When we play outside I like to be Swiper and steal things from her and hide them. Then she has to find them. Sometimes I will even where my prince cape and be a prince when she is a princess.

But I don’t like to do girl games. Like painting toe nails or dressing up in princess clothes.

For that she has William.

.

He doesn’t seem to mind.

Maybe someday Kathryn will have a sister.

Ninja Power

From computer games I have learned that you need to save up your energy and power if you want to be able to do things. When you have a lot of power, you are really strong and can do really cool stuff. This is can sometimes be dangerous.

That is what happened to me at the park the other day. Kathryn and I were playing on the big toy. I was being a ninja, and she was a princess. I could feel myself getting more and more power. I could tell that I was starting to have too much power.

Kathryn was coming through the tunnel right as my ninja power burst out of me.

And I kicked her.

She started to cry. Sisters cry a lot.

"Mama, Stephen kicked me!" Kathryn whined.

"Stephen, did you kick Kathryn?" Mama asked me.

"My ninja power was at 32!" I responded.

My mom started laughing. Usually she doesn't laugh when I hurt Kathryn. I guess she must have understood that when your ninja power is at 32, you just can't help kicking someone.

Answers to Uncle Daniel's Question

Uncle Daniel asked me some questions after my questions post and I have some answers for him. Here they are. I had to google the answers for 3 and 5 but I knew the rest.

1. Why do we have two eyes not one?
Because that's not the way God made us. Because we are not aliens.

2.True or False: The eyes are connected driectly to your brain.
 False. Because you brains are in your ears.

3. What is Snellen acuity?
An eye chart to tell how well you can see.

4. What is the front part of the eye called?
The lense, pupil and cornea. The pupil is the dot in the middle and cornea is on the outside of the pupil.

5. What is the back part of the eye called?
The retina

6. Why am I (Daniel) special?
Because your an eye doctor. Because your great. I can't say why though because it is a secret.

Does anyone else have questions for me? Because I am smart and I will know if the answer of the question is wrong or right.

Nutrition facts

     I  have found some exciting new reading material.  I like to read the nutrition facts on the boxes of bags of foods.

    Mostly I like to read them so I'll know if it is unhealthy or healthy, and so I will know what stuff is inside, like vitamins.  My favorite vitamin is vitamin A because it is the healthiest vitamin. Vitamin D, my other favorite, is also healthy.

    When I was at Baha's house, I asked Baha if I could look at some nutrition facts, and she didn't know what I was talking about. I told her that food has nutrition facts on it.  She let me look at some bar-b-que sauce, and it was pretty exciting. Did you know that Kraft Original BBQ sauce has 60 calories per serving? And Gogurts have 70 calories and 5 calories from fat.

    My mama says that I should eat all the things that I look at the nutrition facts on. I told her I only like to eat things that are healthy, like apples and candy.

Library Books

The library is great. It has books you have never read before. When you get there you look on the book shelves and find books you like. We went to the library yesterday. Here is a list of the books I picked out.

Exploration into Africa- I got two of this book because they looked slightly different.

Severe Storm and Blizzard Alert!- I read this last night my favorite chapters were "Storm Science", "Storm Safety" and "Recipe for Disaster"

Exploring the Solar System : Venus - I picked it because I like to learn about planets. Did you know that there might be waterfalls of lava on Venus? Just like in Hawaii.

Can you find Saints? : Introducing your child to Holy Men and Women - I don't know why I picked this book. I haven't read it yet.

100 Wonderful things to keep kids busy and having fun - Dad picked this one out for me. For some reason he thinks I need to find more things to do during the day than just reading.

Finding your experience

   On our way to Oregon to go camping with my cousins we dropped my Aunt Darcy off at the airport to go to Guatemala. Guatemala is in country after Mexico. They speak Spanish there. I know a little bit of Spanish, I can count to 22 azul means "blue" and benada means "your welcome". Ayuda me means "help me", thats what animals say when they need help in Diego.

    I wasn't sure why Darcy was going to Guatemala so I asked my Dad.

"Why is Darcy going to Guatemala?"

"For the experience." Dad said.

"There's an experience in Guatemala?"

Dad said something about an experience not being an object but I was to busy playing with my hanger to remember. I figured I would just ask Aunt Darcy when we got to her home. When we got to Darcy's apartment my dad carried her bags out to the van. While we were waiting I told Darcy that I hope she found her experience in Guatemala. Mama says she got back from Guatemala on Wednesday, I am excited to see what she found.

Questions

I like to ask questions. That is how you learn new things. I think my mama loves it when I ask her lots of questions. She doesn't always know the right answers though. Sometimes I ask her questions I already know the answer to just to make sure she is paying attention. Here are the questions I asked her while at the park this morning.

What animal is 66 cars tall?

What is skin made of?

Where are there lots of chinchillas?

What animal is 5 cars tall?

Can you tell me an item that is in the world?

What is 6 times 23?

Lions live in Aftrica. True or False?

Can I look up Matthew 6:9 in your Holy Bible?

Is the center of the earth solid?

What makes me special?

She didn't answer all my questions but she did know what makes me special.

Princess Kathryn

My name is Kathryn. I am Stephen's little sister.  I am four years old and I am a girl.
Every morning before I can play I have to get dressed. I like to pick out my own clothes. Sometimes my mom tries to get me to pick different clothes but I like the outfits I pick out better. This is what I wore today. It is all my flower clothes. My flower shirt, my f;ower pants and my flower skirt.I figured since they all have flowers on them they would look good together.

My are girl clothes. Boy clothes have stripes and balls on them. My brothers wear boy clothes, except for William. He is a baby so he wears baby clothes.

Once my mom took me clothes shopping with her. She was looking for a new skirt. I showed her the ones I liked best. The ones I picked out looked a lot more like princess clothes than the ones she picked. I picked the pretty pink and purple ones, and the ones that had flowers on them and looked like you could swirl in it. Mom let me pick one oufit for her to try one. I found a really pretty skirt that was bright pink and purple and had sparkles in it. Mom looked really pretty in it. But she didn't get it, instead she got a plain white one that only had a few flowers on it and wasn't sparkly at all.

44

My dad and I like to play games together. One game we are playing now is King's Quest. In King's Quest they use roman numerals. I thought they were cool so I learned how to read them. King's Quest 4 in roman numerals is KQ IV. Did you know my visual dictionary has a section called "Useful Data" that talks about roman numerals? It shows the roman numerals up to to 20 and then has some of the bigger numbers too. It also has a section on measurement conversions that is pretty interesting.

When my mom was making lunch I found some letters and made the roman nemural 44.

  I showed it to her and told her it was 44. She wasn't sure what I was talking about at first, then I told her it was roman numerals. She thought it was cool. I wanted to make some more roman numerals but we only had one X, L, I and V magnet.  I guess I will have to stick with arabic numbers. Mom says they are easier to read anyway.

The Heart of Dixie

Today was me and my mama's night to spend together. We went to Wal-Mart to get a birthday present for my cousin. I like riding in the car because I get to talk to my mama all I want, and she has to listen.

"Mama?" I asked her.

"Yes, Stephen?"

"How far away is Kansas?"

"I don't know, Stephen." Mama says "I don't know" a lot. Usually when she says that, I tell her to think, but sometimes she still doesn't know even after she thinks.

"Are you going to go to Kansas?" Mama asked me.

"Yes, when I am a man."

"When will you be a man?"

"When I am 22 years old I will be a man. When you are a man you are old enough to drive a car."

"What type of car will you drive?"

"I don't know. You pick," I told her. Sometimes making decisions is hard, so I have my mama do it for me.

"How about a pink car?"

"There aren't pink cars."

"You could paint it pink."

"I want a red turbo 4x4 truck. Red is my first favorite color and blue is my second. Bapa has a black turbo 4x4 truck. I will drive one like his."

"Okay."

"Mama?"

"Yes, Stephen?"

"When I am a man, I will live in Montgomery, Alabama."

"Why do you want to live in Montgomery?" Mama asked me.

"Because it is the Heart of Dixie. That is the state nickname. And it is on the first page of the United States Road Atlas." Sometimes mamas ask silly questions.

"Will Buckler live with you?"

"No, Buckler will live in York, Alabama. It is the only city in the state that starts with a Y. But he can fly over to Montgomery whenever he wants to visit me. When he flies, he will fly over the limited access highways, so he will know how to get there."

"Okay. That's good."

"But Sally will live with me." I say, Sally is one of my friends.

"Why will Sally live with you?"

"Because we will be married."

"Does she know this?" Mama asked me.

"No, Sally doesn't know yet." And my sister, Kathryn doesn't either. She thinks she's going to marry me because she says I'm her prince, but I'm not.

I think Mama was getting tired of talking about Alabama, so she changed the subject. "Stephen, what treat do you want to get from Wal-Mart?"

"What type of treats do they have at Wal-Mart?"

"You could get some candy, or a drink, or an Icee."

"I want to get rootbeer, Sam and Ethan like rootbeer. When we were driving to Baha Camp, we stopped at a COFFEE shop, but I didn't get coffee. I got chicken nuggets and sprite. Sam and Ethan got rootbeer."

"Okay, you can get some rootbeer."

"The coffee shop also had beer," I said in a whispered tone. I wasn't sure if Mama had ever been somewhere that had beer. Beer is not good to drink. "I didn't drink the beer though, it isn't good for you."

"I'm glad you didn't drink the beer. It is not good to drink beer."

"The coffee shop was in Filmore. Did you know that Filmore used to be the capitol of Utah? It isn't anymore though. Now it is Salt Lake City. Filmore is more in the middle of Utah but Salt Lake Ciy is a lot bigger. " I want to make sure Mama know as much about geography as I do.

"Yes, it is."

"When we were driving to Zion's National Park for Baha Camp we mainly drove on principle highways. We drove on Veteran's Memorial Highway. That is another name for Interstate I-15. How close are we to Springville?"

"We are there now." Mama says right after we exit off the Veteran's Memorial Highway.

"We won't be in Springville until we turn right."

We turned right.

"Okay," I said, "We turned right, now we are in Springville." After we turned right we were at Wal-Mart. I bet Mama was really happy that we got to talk on the way to Wal-Mart. And we got to talk the whole time we were in the store and on the way back too.

How to sentencize

One of the things you learn in kindergarten is how to write a sentence. This is a very important thing to know, so I decided to tell my mama all about it while I was reading one of my dinosaur books to her. She thought it was very interesting, so I will tell you too.

The first thing you need to know about writing sentences is that they are made of words. In between the words are spaces. Spaces are not symbols. They are where Mr. Spaceman lives. Ifyouleavenospacesthenthereisn'troomforMr.Spaceman. If you leave a big space, like        this, then there is more room for Mr. Spaceman.

Next you need to know about periods. They are dots. They are not polka-dots. They are tiny dots, but you can still see them. When you put a period after some words it sentencizes the sentence. Sentencize means you write a period.

You put an explanation mark at the end of a sentence if you want it to be an explanation. An explanation mark is like a line down and then a dot, like this ! To make an explanation point on your key board, you hold down your Shift key and 1 at the same time, like this!

Now you know how to write a sentence. Don't forget to leave room for Mr. Spaceman.

Baha Camp

A few weeks ago I went to Baha Camp with Baha, Bapa and my cousins Sam and Ethan. Baha and Bapa are my mom’s mom and dad. We went to Zion’s National Park. It was 261 miles away. I know because my Utah map told me so. When we first started driving to Zion’s Baha let me hold the GPS so I would know where we were. I told them whenever we had driven a mile or passed an exit or city. It was a lot of fun.  It wasn’t very long before Baha said she needed to hold the GPS. I guess she wanted to know where she was too.

Did you know there are signs on the interstate every mile telling you what mile you are on? Once I learned this I was able to keep everyone updated every mile even though I didn’t have the GPS.

Once we got to Zion’s went on a lot of hikes. There were signs that said dogs weren’t allowed.

“Well Baha, it’s a good thing Buckler is invisible.”

I don’t know why Baha laughed. She seemed to do that a lot when I talked about Buckler. I guess I’m just funny.

At the beginning of every hike I went on there were maps. I like maps. My Baha gave me a US Road Atlas that I loved but she left at her house. I keep asking her about it but she keeps forgetting. Whenever we saw a map I had to show Sam and Ethan where we were and tell everyone where we were going. It is important to always know your location in case of an emergency.  

Sam and Ethan weren’t as excited about the maps. I don’t know why.

I think maps are great.

Can I Tell You Something?

My name is Stephen.  I am six years old. I like maps, Afghanistan,  and my dog buckler.

Maps are great. Did you know that you can find maps on the internet? Google earth has maps of the whole world and even the other planets. I am always asking my parents for places to look up, and they usually get tired of it after a couple of hours. I’m not sure why. That’s how I learned about Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is where Buckler is from.  Buckler can fly. That’s how he got to my house from Afghanistan. One time he came to kindergarten with me and lifted up my school into space. He put it back down and told me that he wasn’t tired at all. Buckler is invisible, because he is an imaginary dog.

Lots of times Buckler flies outside the van when my mom is driving me home from school. I have to tell mom he is there so she doesn’t hit him. I don’t know why she can’t see him.

Once she hit him, and he died. But don’t worry, he was ok.