Highlights of the week from Isabella

Yesterday we got the typing program approved by the PTA.  Tom came to say it will be OK to get the typing program.  After mid winter break, we will go and start learning to type.  We revised, edited, and copied our Mayan narratives.

We did a piece of art with lots of organic shapes and geometric shapes.  Today, I went with Ms. Wrong and I drew a horse with her and we talked about feelings before I went to the classroom.  That's why I was late to go to class. 

Highlights of the week from Max

In social studies, we did flash cards of little facts that we learned about the Mayans.  I know that in Mesoamerica, they didn't have a lot of dairy animals.  They had to grow all their food.  They ate chili peppers, beans, squash, corn.  They grew their food in the bush forest which they burned to clear the land.  And then they had to wait for the rainy season so the earth would soften up to plant seeds.

Yesterday we had our last book discussion on fiction.  It was OK.  We were reading the Secrets of Droon.  I sort of liked it.  Yesterday I had Go Club, it is like chess except you use round stones and the board is the exact same.  I also had a play date with Henry.

Highlights of the week from Karthik

The highlights of this week was doing cursive and my prediction is that we are going to do Castle Block in gym.  We drank Mayan Stew; it is tasty. Mr. P brought some very hot chili pepper hot sauce and it was very spicy.  He gave it to me to taste and then I asked if he could put a teensy bit in my stew.  And then everyone went to the sink to spit out because it was HOT!

We had a pretend Mayan Village Wednesday.  My table was first to make glyphs.  And then the second thing is making straw houses, and then if we do good on making them, we get 2 cacao beans as payment.  And if we don't do well, sticking it in like a piece of nothing, we get 0 cacao beans.  We got to do some weaving on a hand loom and then we got o read stories.  We also got to cook. We cut some vegetables and we were using butter knives. It was hard using butter knives; they were supposed to be fake stone knifes because the Mayans had stone knives.  The vegetables were used to make stew.

Highlights of the week from Thea

During the week, we made Mayan houses.  We got to use real straw and it was kinda hard when we were doing the glue.  We cut it out and folded the roof in half, laid the straw on it, and glued it down.  The not as rich people lived in those.  The richer people lived in stone  houses because the stone was cooler and safer.  The climate is hot where the Mayans lived.

On Friday, I skipped school and got my canines pulled out, all four of them.  'Cause there was a tooth coming in for one of the canines and they never pull out one tooth without doing the other tooth on the other side.  And they never do the bottom without doing the tops.  So I got all four pulled out.  I also got to have three chocolate milkshakes.  And I picked out four toys.  And I got four dollars for four teeth.  But it kinda hurt when they pulled it out.  And they had to put gauze in my mouth and bite down on it so it will stop the bleeding.  I couldn't eat crunchy stuff, hot stuff, spit,  or drink out of a straw.

More time in the land of the Mayans

Here are a few more photos from the rest of our time in the land of the Mayans.

This was in the plaza in the town of Tulum. It's the Mayan calendar.
If you enlarge this photo you will see that many of these squares are the glyphs we used to make our names.

Below are two photos from the Mayan ruins that were next to the ocean. Most sites were inland, so this site was unique. The location helped the Mayans trade along sea routes.

The below photo was from our boat tour of the Mangroves. If you look closely you'll see a couple holes that go from front to the back. The Mayans would place candles in the back of the holes. The light from the candles would come out the front and point to where the good fishing spots were in the lagoon.

This crocodile is really fat because it just ate something big.  

We went snorkeling and saw this sea turtle up close.