This is a money saver!

  this is a money saver!! In this video i tell you how to make a years worth of washing detergent for like $3!!!!!!! just go to the link of my video and check it out like comment rate and subscribe!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hACkBSl2nZI&feature=channel_video_title

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci is a super famous artist, The one that painted the Mona lisa. He was a very well known man because of what an amazing artist he was. This man has painted hundreds of paintings witch are mostly famous such as the Mona lisa. Leonardo was one of the great geniuses in history. But he was also very much a product of his time, and that time was Renaissance Italy. The Renaissance began in Italy nearly six hundred years ago, in the early fourteen hundreds. Renaissance means "rebirth." This rebirth refers to the fact that artists and scientists rediscovered the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome, which had been lost to them for a thousand years. They applied this classical knowledge to their own investigations of the natural world and of human kind. 

 Leonardo Da Vinci also made sculptures and lots of other things as well such as drawings, paintings and much more! This is a very interesting site that has a lot of cool stuff on it about him!http://www.mos.org/leonardo/                                                                                

Homeschooling dirtbike maths!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agVXw9CkLu0


this is a video of me and my mum doing dirtbike maths!

Summer Thoughts of 2011

Motorbiking was really fun this year with all the clear weather.
           

     







I had a lot of time in the pool

                                                                                                                                                                                 i went and played mini-golf and got a hole in 1 and one that went around a rock on the course and went in!!!

i also had lots of fun with my friends and went to there place they came to my place as well it was loads of fun!!

i had some fun on the computer with a game called Minecraft! p.s buy it its only $20 USD and it is epic!! It's a game made of blocks yes I know it sounds childish but trust we watch a few videos on it and you will love it!

We hatched new baby ducklings and chicks. They are too cute.

I helped my mum work in the vegetable garden, picking vegetables and buckets of tomatoes.
I went outside a lot to shoot my paintball gun and we have no paintballs left now!!!

sustainability of food

Sustainability of food production is where you preserve how much food you have available, by growing it, harvesting and preserving it throughout the year. By growing your own food you will save money and have access to it whenever you like for example in a snow storm, when power is out, and traveling is impossible you have food whenever you need it. This makes you more resilient and more self sufficient.

We have to design the garden by drawing it on a sheet of paper. We have to go out to buy the seeds that we want for he garden and we get non hybrid seeds so we can plant them again.We use the design to find out where we plant different things according to their growing habits.

We have chickens and ducks for eggs and meat, and also protect them from foxes, dogs, coyotes and predatory birds.

We grow herbs like lemon balm, basil, catnip and mint which grows in the river. We use the catnip for cat toys. We store food and preserve it by canning it, pickling it, dehydrating it and freezing it. We store food in our nice cool cellar that we have. This year we made a solar dehydrator and we will be doing a lot more dehydrating this year!

Well this will save you lots of money because all you have to do is buy the seeds and plant them and re plant them each year. The food is as fresh as you want it when you harvest the food and its better than store quality. This is a life skill that you should have because when you need to do it and you don't now how to do it you will not be able to do it, so when you have learned how to do this teach your kids if you have any! You have access to the food whenever you like without traveling. You always can have food available when travel is impossible.

Upstate N.Y winters are harsh and growing outside is impossible. We can sprout beans and seeds inside, but that is the limit of fresh greens. We have 10 acres of land and use some of it for growing food.

Many people who have lost their jobs would love to have a garden to be more self sufficient.

Mathletics Computer Program Review

Mathletics is a math program that helps you with math and you will learn fast when using it! This online program goes straight to the point and doesn't take a long time at all. This is the home page where you make an account and pay for the program for a year at a time.

 

This is when you have an assignment to do if your parents allocates you an assignment.     ------------------------------------------------->
My opinion on this program is that it is pretty awesome. I did 4 weeks of regular school math in 3 days!!! I am home schooled and I do this because its fun and it gives you rewards (online) and certificates (1000 pts for a bronze 5 bronzes for a silver and 5 silver for a gold). I like that part.

There is a Question mark button in the tests that will give you an example of how to do that particular type of math.                                              -------------->

 Hint when using this program have a pen or pencil and sheets of paper to write down formulas and to do sums. Have a calculator near by to check your answers.

If you are interested in this its not free but its worth the money link is up top.

Soil testing for Spring Gardening

We wanted to test our soil's ph level in a number of locations before spring planting. We bought a commercial soil testing kit and collected samples from the Blueberry's and the vegetable garden. We discovered both locations to have a ph level of 7 which is neutral. mostly good news for the vegetable garden but however the Blueberry's need more acidic soil to grow best.


Soil ph is a numbered scale from 0 to 14 the lower the number the more acidic it is, 7 being neutral and the higher the number is the more alkaline it is. By measuring ph levels we have more data to make decisions on soil health and any amendments needed.



Some examples to improve soil health for particular needs are:

1 Add amendments to increase acidity like. sphagnum moss, aluminum sulfate and iron sulfate.

2 Add amendments to increase alkaline like wood ash or potash.

Now we can make changes to the soil before planting, for a better growing season.    

Pancake Tuesday

Pancake Tuesday is a  holiday and is a day where people gather with friends and family and have a feast of pancakes. On this day you make pancakes of all sorts and there also is a long history of this special day. In the middle ages it was called Shrove Tuesday.The name Shrove comes from the old word "shrive" which means to confess. On Shrove Tuesday, in the Middle Ages, people used to confess their sins so that they were forgiven before the season of Lent began.

Pancake Day celebrates the start of the Christian celebration of Lent where Christians give up something for 40 days to empathize with Jesus Christ when he was sent into the wilderness for 40 days and nights and tempted by the Devil. The forty days now leads up to the celebration of Easter.

During Lent people would fast, so the day before, Shrove Tuesday, households would use up food items in the home such as sugar, butter, milk and eggs. Pancakes were easily made from these ingredients and provided needed nutrients before the fasting period. Eggs would not be eaten thereafter until Easter.!Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at Easter Sunday, a period of forty days. 

So what is a pancake? A pancake is a thin, flat cake, made of batter and fried in a pan.You mix flour, egg and milk and vanilla in a bowl and this makes a batter. You then pour some in a frying pan on low heat and flip it when the bottom is solid.

The pancakes were great!

Trip To The Science Center

 

On March 1st i went to the Science center and had loads of fun and my most favorite thing there was probably the frozen shadows chamber at firs i was thinking that you had to look at the light when it flashed but you didn't have to. You had to face the wall flash the light and walk back from the wall and you will see your shadow frozen on the wall. I really liked going to the science center this time it had newer better things to do. There was a cool Musical pipes thing there too here is a link it was fun! Musical pipe! Here is another link to the science center website for Ithaca

The Silver Chair

By C.S Lewis



This story is part of a series of books called The Chronicles of Narnia. The main characters are Jill and Eustace, Puddleglum the marsh wiggle, prince Rilian son of Caspian The 10th.



Time passes a lot quicker in Narnia than in England. Jill and Eustace are on a quest to find Prince Rilian the next king of Narnia who is under an enchantment by a evil witch of the green mantel. In the beginning of the book after Jill and Eustace meet Aslan the lion who gave Jill a quest to find Prince Rilian who is in the underworld hundreds of feet down from the surface. In underworld there are these enchanted Gnomes who are working for the witch who took them from their homes under underland.

After Jill and Eustace find Rilian they unenchant him from the witches enchantment the witch comes up and finds them and after her trying to re-enchant all of them Puddleglum finally get up courage and snaps them out of it and then they slay the witch who made all of the enchantments on the whole of underworld was taken off. After they get out they lose Jill threw a hole in the wall and it appears she found a Narnian town having a festival. After she tells them that her friends are there some Gnomes that rush to the side of the mountain and free the others. When they get back to Narnia they see king Caspian's boat and that Caspian the10th is in a bed dead!

I would recommend this book for ages about 6 and up but it is a great series of books and there are also movies called The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, Narnia the Prince Caspian, Narnia The voyage of the Dawn Treader I personally really like the Narnia book series and movies.

for and against fps games

This is a discussion about computer games and whether or not they are bad for people. Not just children play computer games.

From playing computer games i improved on my research skills and typing skills. It helped me with both my writing and spelling skills, maths and calculation / scoring / estimating skills. I have to solve cause and effect problems. I improved my hand eye co-ordination. I also learned about places around the world for example in China a place called vertigo it is a map on the game.

Playing computer games has a down side too, you can lose time on a game that never ends and is addicting. Computer games are also physically passive, negative things might happen to you like weight gain, repetitive strain injury, over stimulation of eyes that effects your sight. Kids and teenagers get very boring in conversations and are all ways talking about games. they also spend less time with everyone especially family and friends.

So in conclusion you need to balance what we call screen time with other activities such as outside time, chores, family activities and even creative drawing or painting or making things ... I like lego and model making for example.

I am not good at being aware of the time passing so it is important to use a timer or clock to help you notice. Its not that hard to get used to. This was my mums and dads idea.

K'NEX set mini bots

I got two k'nex sets from A.C.Moore in Ithaca where they had a buy one get one free so i bout one and received one free. So I opened them and there was an electric powered motor as part of the kit that would move the k'nex models it was so cool.

It was powered by 2 AA battery's it was so fun putting them together. It was so 1nteresting how it moves and walks! The first stage is to look at the instructions and look at the pieces and have a play with them to figure out what they do and how they do it and then read the manual and look at the plans to help you put it together.

I found out that it is very interesting how the pieces combine to make robots and creatures it is very cool i loved putting the pieces together it was fun. you have to be careful and don't rush ahead because u have to take some parts of if u make it wrong u will have to rebuild it until u are done with it.

The 1890 House

The 1890 House in Cortland N.Y is a impressive limestone mansion built in 1890. The Wickwires financial success came from their ability to produce reasonably priced window screening, wire fencing, and a variate of household wire items.



Gilded age fashion. Two decorating firms j.b Tiffany of new york city and Henry C. Allewelt & Sons of Syracuse.The spacious rooms not only provide ideal for entertainment but they also provided quiet refuge from hectic pace of the factory.

The entrance hall bold stenciling and carved oak woodwork greeted visitors entering the Wickwires residence. Combining of styles of architecture.

The east parlor had sliding doors of cherry and oak to keep rooms more warm in winter they close them to seal of rooms to keep them warmer. Alot of the rooms had a wood fire or coal fire and heavy curtains to keep out the cold in winter. the window also had a awesome wooden shade mechanism that had multiple wooden shades that would control how much light and cold would come inside.

The 1890 house needs money for repairs so if you do go there donate some money to keep the house in good shape i would hate to see it fall down! So please donate some money for repairs to keep the building standing.

The family made their master bedroom and morning room very personal with lots of family portraits modest furnishings and bric-a-brac arrangement.

The billiard room and the ballroom used exuberant colors and ceiling of the third recreational rooms the ballroom was made when they took down a wall of the third floor to make it bigger it became the ballroom.

Out of the House that i like was every thing it is amazing and i would recommend going there with kids and adults it is a fun yet learning environment it is very educational and very fun at the same time!!! ITS GREAT!!!

Building a chicken coop

The Design

First for your design you need to talk and mentality think of what you want it to look like. Then design your building on paper by going to your space and measuring how big or small you want it to be..... depending how many chickens or ducks you have to house and measure the space that they will need. the sketching process allows you to communicate or discus your ideas with family or builders.


step two evaluate the space

Second evaluate the space or location and change the design to fit or be stable and sturdy. We put a window in for natural light for summer and winter. You might even have to change the location if it is not enough space. Maybe change some of your materials. We where going to put up a hay wall but we didn't because we would have to change the hay every year, so we put a study permanent wall up made of wood and insulation instead.


step three collect your materials

third collect you materials such as what we used. We got 25 hay bails, some ply wood, non used wooden poles cut to the size we need, 3 bags of r15 insulation, screws of 3 in. and 2 1/2 sized screws and some 3 inch nails, a cord or cordless drill, a circular saw, and a chalk tape line, and a measuring tape and pen.

step.4 construction

Start to construct your coop by adding insulation with a staple gun if needed. Start cutting the insulation until it fits in the holes or the places between wood beams. We had to do a lot of measuring and cutting in which case took a while.


Step.5 plywood paneling


start with the ply wood by putting it over the insulation so the chickens don't eat it Warning. insulation will damage a chicken in some way. Do not let them eat it that's why you put up the plywood in front of the insulation so they don't eat it, and to prevent damage to the insulation and chickens. work out the area for putting up the 4ftx8ft sheets of plywood making sure you have spots to screw the paneling to.

Step.6 natural lighting

If there is a spot that you can put a window in, it is a good idea to put one in. we used a recycled window from the house that was a pretty good fit. Use space filler around the edges of the window to keep it insulated and protect from cold ice winds in winter. natural light is more sustainable if the lights go off we can still see.

step.7 arange hay bails

We arranged straw bails on both sides for insulation and structural practicalities. by putting the bails of straw there you now have an insulated wall that the chickens an make nests on or sleep on.

step.8 patching

start patching up the floor by putting ply wood or any stable strong wood to cover it up, a chicken might fall trew it or get stuck that's why you patch up the floor. Now start construction ond the end wall that will be the door and insulated wall.

step.9 door and closing mechanism

first build a door that fits the door way you have made or use a dor that you are not using and use that if it fits. After you have made the door put 2 or 3 hinges in it so it wont fall down. Use a bolt lock to put on the door to close it put it on the outside of the door. On the inside put a hard to brake chain so you can close it so the chickens don't get out.

step.10&11 lights and roosts

if you don't have a light up there already you will need to put one in....... First strip enough of the plastic and wire it into the light. After wireing thi light put it in the roof with 3 to 5 screws maximum. next step 11 make some roosts for the chickens to sleep on at night to be off the cold floor make them reach from one side to the other and put at least 2 or 3 roosts in because some chickens might not be like in the flock so they now have a place to sleep with its pals that don't bite or peck it. Now that ur done with the roosts if you want to store ducks in it make a fence with a gate so you can get in and to keep the ducks from getting out also ducks don't like being with most chickens.

My new Computer Monitor

I have a bank debit card and savings account for the first time and my first purchase was a monitor for my computer - it is a 20'' hp monitor. I  spent $161  on it. It is my first investment towards my new desktop computer.  

I love it because I can finally see whats in the corners again. When i play games I could never find out what was in that corner because my laptop screen was broken and now i can see just fine. I would rate it about 9-10 of 11 its a really good buy! I am using it right now!.

 

My new moniter

pokemon cards through Amazon

                                                           These are some of my new cards in the booster packs and these are my lv.x cards and a hgss prime maganium.

I got 21 of the supreme victors booster packs and 210 cards in all! I went to amazon

The diamond of Darkhold book review

The Diamond of Darkhold is the third book of Ember that began in the underground City of Ember with two characters called Doon and Lina .

We read this story as a group book and discussed it as we read on. The third book started with a big thunder storm when the day was ending Doon's dad tripped and fell and his hand smashed some glass and it cut across his hand and Doon had to take his dad to Doctor Hester's house to get it fixed. The doctor wasn't there so they had to find her, so Doon and Lina went and found the doctor roaming around. So they came back and tried to fix his hand and dug out the glass from his hand.

In the second part of the book Doon decided to go back to Ember to collect the canned foods and return to the village of Sparks and be a hero.

When Doon and Lina got to the city of Ember and were roaming  around the streets, Lina was lagging behind lost in thought   when Doon got captured..... That was the beginning of things going wrong........ You must read the book to find out what happened!

In the end of the story Doon finally escaped and found Lina but Doon had a hurt leg and was finding walking difficult.

Back at the village of Sparks when Doon's leg healed the villagers sent out an expedition for food left behind in Ember. D Doon secretly got all the diamonds from the cave room and gave them out to each group and showed them how to charge them in the sun, they put a light bulb in them the bulb will glow and then they left for the city of ember.when they where done they went back to the village of sparks and then when they got there there was roamer and it was the Trogg's and Doon remembers them so they decided to live here in sparks.

I would recommend this book for E = everyone including grandmas grandpas mums and dads brothers and sisters. 

I really liked the book and i will do anything to watch the movie....... if they make it. It would make the best movie in the thousands and thousands of galaxy's in the universe. 

My first home made pizza base

Just last week I made a pizza at home and it was so delicious.  It was a cheese and ham pizza.

The ingredients I used were......

1 TSP of yeast

1 TSP of sugar 

1/2 cup of warm water

1 cup of flour and then mix it until you've got it to be all doughy. Set it in a warm place for about 7 min. Then cook it for around ten minuets and then put your tomato paste on and then put you're toppings on and the put it in the oven for 20 min at 350 oF.

                                                                                   

  My pizza Dough 

The pizza was DELICIOUS and I forgot to take a photo before i ate it! oops

My first photo shoot

On my first photo trip with my camera i didn't take a lot of photos because it was too cold.These photos where taken at New Hope Mills N.Y. It was fun and the people who worked there are making it into a museum and it is going to be really cool.The trip was a long ride because we didn't quite know where it was but it was in New Hope.If it was summer I would of taken around 50-100 photos but it was too cold!!!

My new camera

My new camera is a Nikon coolpix 10 megapixle 3 inch lcd. The camera is red and it is a really cool. I have already taken 53 photos and 2 videos. If you want to get a good hand held camera I  would recommend this camera here is the site that my mum bought it from AMAZON 

Book report on the book Old Yeller

The book Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

A story of a boy and his dog, called old yeller. This book was made to take place in Texas in the 1860's. The dog old yeller wasn't really a pet to them more of a work dog who helps the family hunt and harvest the crops when they need to be harvested. The dog doesn't really  do much with the corn field but the dog protects the family from wild animals like bares.The boys little brother little Arliss how gets in a lot of trouble from sticking animals in his pocket.

In the middle of the book the families bull got in a fight with another bull and it looked like they where going to tear there house down but Old Yeller jumped into action stopping the bulls in there tracks and then in the next few chapters Old yeller gets into some trouble with other animals like horses.Then in the next chapter Old yeller helps the boy mark some wild hogs.

In the end of the book they have to burn there bull and their cow because of an infection that made them sick and the after a couple of days they had to gather wood to put on the burning animals and then the next day he had to shoot the old dog old yeller and in the last chapter he cant go to sleep cant eat for weeks because of what he had to do.

After those few weeks he went out side and then he heard a racket inside the house little Arliss yelling and screaming saying don't hit my dog and when the boy went to go look a what had happed a sparkily pup ran out of the house with a bit of corn bread in his mouth and then the boy felt better and wasn't so upset anymore.

 

I would recommend this book for people 9 and up but it was a fantastic book and I think that you readers would love this book.

New movie 2012 Doomsday + review

This blog post is about the new movie 2012 an awesome movie where the planet suffers great damage from all the natural disasters. Like a super volcano that blows in Yellow stone park that is bigger than New York, mini quakes, 10.5 magnitude earthquakes, tidal waves that wiped out the whole continent of Australia and all this started when the largest solar flare recorded in history heated up the earth core and this could very well happen because the Mayans calender ends in the 21st of December 2012.   

PREVIEW HERE

I think that this is a good movie that i would recommend for ages 10+ because it has a lot of people that lose there lives.

Roblox science fun a building game.

 This post is about roblox a fun online building game that is free.

Instructions for you to create a roblox account.

First create an account at www.roblox.com  and then download and install roblox and save it to your desktop.

Once you have saved it to your desktop you double click the icon and then it will say starting roblox and then a screen pops up and it will have your character and  up above that it will say hi,..........

Once you have gotten into the roblox page go to my roblox and you will see a butten that says places and then click on it and you will be able to build your very own roblox place to insert an object  to your place go to insert and you will have a huge selection of bloxs free models and descales. 

                                             

                                                                                    

Here is an object or model that I made to show you for an example of what you can build on roblox and it was kind of hard but not to hard for you to build.

 

This is my chicken house and yard with chickens in it and a couple of my pine trees fell down.


Have fun and experiment a little and come up with stuff and that means you parents and adults.