Me just finishing my 5 kilometer relay. As you can probably see, It was very tiring.

Public School- Different ain't it? (Daniel)

On my first day of public school for 5 years I felt like I did on my first day of kindergarten- scared and a little bit weirded out by all the people. West Valley High was the most crowded place I'd been in for a long time. Looking back on the first day I realize it must have seemed more crowded because I was about shoulder height to everyone else. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The teachers were nice, and, once I got to know them, the people were nice too. And, a semester later, Here I am! I have a lot of friends, I ski after school, and I get good grades. I look forward to World History Honors and English Honors next year, which I hope won't be to hard! German is especially fun: Ich habe mien Deutschclasse gern. Ihre seit verruckt. Skiing is going well. We just had Regional Championships in which I beat 3 people in the 10k, Although my team did come last in the 4X5k relay. I think I'm doing pretty well!

Science and History with Murals

I got a flash of inspiration yesterday. I had taped a long piece of freezer paper on the wall for Ethan to color on and started him off by drawing a couple of fish. As usually happens, Molly and Matt got interested in the project so I suggested they make an undersea scene. Before long, there were sharks devouring fish and octopi leaving clouds of ink behind them. Ethan had long since lost interest but the other two were having a great time.

As I was lying in bed last night, I got to thinking that we should do a more accurate undersea mural with more sheets of paper for the upper, middle and deepest layers of the ocean. We could research and look at lots of pictures to really get it right and then label things and illustrate different behaviors of the sea creatures. Then, (I pondered further) we could do murals for other habitats as well, such as desert and forest. More inspired by the minute, I thought we could also do history murals by either illustrating a timeline of a certain period or by illustrating a specific historic event. Heck, we could even do a book report mural! The possibilities are endless!

Now, stay tuned to find out if this spark of inspiration actually catches fire or simply burns out like the trivia game idea I was so excited about a couple of years ago. I still may try to do that....