Our Recent Activities/Projects

OM Competition

I was in a team coached by Ms. Mamtha for the Odyssey of the Mind competition (a creativity contest) at the K-2 level. In our category, we had to create a play which features a Money Maker, encouraging friend, customer, and commercial. I was the Money Maker.

CREDITS:

Mr Lightning Bolt (Money Maker) - Shreyes

Encouraging Friend (does not have a particular name) - Julian

Mr Wire - Elia

The customer (does not have a name mentioned) - Nathan

The narrator (does not have a name mentioned) - Sebastian

Commercial Boy1 (does not have a name mentioned) - Ilan

PLOT:

Mr. Wire works to invent a spark, and then makes Mr. Lightning Bolt. Mr Lightning Bolt tries out his first (planting a money seed), 2nd (digging for gold), and 3rd (composting money) wacky ideas, but each of them fail. He tries sliding down the Golden Cliff, and gets very rich.

In the competition, I could only find one little hitch - everyone was too close to the Backdrop. 

But to understand our competition, we need to go back one week before it.

 Monday -   

 5:15 PM

Our dress rehearsal. 

About 5:45 PM

The adults decide my paper costume is inflexible, so they say that we have to replace it with a foam-cloth type of material.

Tuesday -

About 4:45

We visit Michael's. It only has yellow felt.

About 6:00

Mummy gets lots of yellow felt from Joann Fabrics.

Wednesday -

I make my costume and try it out. It works!

Thursday  -

Ilan has a high fever, and won't be coming to the play.

                                                                                                            

Competition

 Before the play, we had even more dress rehearsals. 

We walked into the door of Room D1. We setup our props on the wrong side...

"Could you  please turn your props..."

We turned our props.

"Hello, I am Mr. Lightning Bolt..."

"I am always your encouraging friend. Come on... show us your first idea!"

...

  

"Go on! Go on!"

[laughter]

"I am rich! Rich! Rich!"

...

"The End!"

"The End!"

"The End!"

The judges proceeded to ask us questions. Elia brought up the fact that since Ilan was sick, he took over Ilan's role.

Awards Ceremony

"This team is Bay Area Homeschoolers! Bay Area Homeschoolers..."

We marched around the auditorium and sat down. We impatiently waited for the primary category.

"We never had this before... It's a 29-way tie!" 

"First: Bay Area Homeschoolers."

They gave medals to all of us (including me).

"Now, the 'Ranatra Fusca' award goes to... this team made a rock into a rock-king chair, and then into a rock-et.  They made a Donald Trump-et... this team is The Bay Area Homeschoolers!" 

The award, the highest in the OM (this level) was given to the older group. 

______________________________________________________________

1 Ilan had a high fever and couldn't come to the show, so Elia took over his part.

National History Day

I also participated in the National History Day (a history competition), forming a team with my new friend Vishnu. For the Elementary Division, you have to make a 2D poster summarizing a Debate or Diplomacy in history.


We tried to decide on the topic. I picked the XYZ Affair, and Vishnu picked the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were disagreeing so much that we were asked to pick second topics.
 "I would pick the... Pearl Harbor Diplomacy," said Vishnu.
 "And I would pick the Lincoln-Douglas Debates."
We finally decided on a coin toss.
"I would pick... heads," I said. 


"Tails!"
"That was because my hand touched it."
"Heads!"
"That was because my foot touched it."
"Let's ask Suraga."
"Tails!"

Our topic was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Later, we decided that the title would be "The Terrifying Thirteen - The Cuban Missile Crisis."


We started gathering images for the poster and voting them in. We got the following sequence:


Map - Missile Discovery - Pre-Quarantine (includes EX-COMM & Speech) - Quarantine - Post Resolution (includes Adlai Stevenson) - Resolution - Aftermath


One rule of NHD is that all words (including title, subtitle, and photo captions, but not including quotes) have to be less than 350 words. We got to work on the captions.


My list of captions had 199 words, but we shortened it and also shortened Vishnu's list. The total word count came to 184 words. 


We agreed on a set of quotes. Among them were:


"If there ever was a time I want to be right in my life, this is it."
"...clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace..."
"We were eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fella just blinked."


The next big fight was for color coding. Vishnu thought that all captions and quotes should be color coded by a colored construction paper behind it, and thought that people would be attracted to the poster by this. I thought that only quotes should be color coded by highlighting the text (in Word), and I did not want anyone to get attracted by any color coding scheme. We agreed that Vishnu could use his scheme on the captions, and I could use my scheme on the quotes. 


We started gluing down pictures. We first put the title and subtitle on the top center, the map directly below it, and around the map, the discovery photos. The pictures resumed in a "timeline" format (we made a timeline on both sides of the poster) from EX-COMM to Removal of Missiles. We then made another section which had Resolution, Aftermath, and Consequences. Vishnu prepared a conclusion, which we shortened 2 days before the competition (actually, we had only one month to make our poster, since we started late). 


Only one thing was missing in the poster: a color coding legend. We made it 2 days before the competition. 

The judges could ask us to explain about our poster and give us 15 minutes to answer. We practiced taking turns and explaining about our poster. The average time we took was 12 minutes. We were ready.
______________________________________________________________

Competition

Our team ("Gnana Academy") was the first team to present, at 9:00 am. 


At 8:30 am, they asked us to "setup" our poster. We came in and set up our poster. We then left. 


At 8:45 am, we started our "game-fight," and played until 8:55 am.



"Shreyes Nallan and Vishnu Tejus?" they asked.
We entered the room. There were three judges awaiting us.
"Explain," said one in a soft voice. 


"And my name is Shreyes. Our topic is: The Terrifying Thirteen - The Cuban Missile Crisis..."
...
"As Vishnu mentioned, Kennedy signed the blockade proclamation on the 23rd..."
...
The judges were amazed.
"You told me more about the Cuban Missile Crisis than I ever knew..."
"You mean that you lived during -"
"Yes, I was in college at that time."


"I wish my elementary students were like you."


The judges could only find one problem: say com-yoo-nist instead of cum-yoo-nist. 
___________________________________________________________


Awards Ceremony


They started with explaining some rules, and quickly moved on.
"First, we have our Elementary 2D Display [our category]. Our winner is... Shreyes Nallan and Vishnu Tejus!"
We paraded on to the stage. They gave us a certificate and said that we would move on into the State Level. We paraded back, proudly. 


_______________________________________________________________

Book Report/Review: Swamp Fox of the Revolution - Landmark Books

The Swamp Fox of the Revolution is about Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution. Even though one of my most favorite topics in history is the Revolutionary War, most of the battles in the book were unknown to me. The only battles I knew were Charleston, South Carolina; Cowpens, South Carolina; Kings Mountain, South Carolina; Guildford Courthouse, North Carolina; Yorktown, Virginia; and Eutaw Springs, South Carolina (no wonder it was called the Southern Campaign!). The book starts when Banastre Tarleton tried to defeat Marion. But he couldn't go past a swamp, and he called Marion the "Swamp Fox" and left. Now Horatio Gates, the hero of the great American victory at Saratoga, came south to defeat Charles Cornwallis, the hero of the great British victory at New York. The result was...

CAMDEN, A BRITISH VICTORY.

Now George Washington sent his most courageous general, Nathaniel Greene, to the South. And with him came Colonel Daniel Morgan. Once they went south, they had two choices:

1. Don't fight in the winter

2. Fight in the winter

"I'd better fight than hole up all winter," said Morgan, and so it was decided. Meanwhile, backwoodsmen from Tennessee and West Virginia attacked British and Tories (Americans supporting the British) under Patrick Ferguson. They killed Ferguson and defeated his force in...

KINGS MOUNTAIN, AN AMERICAN VICTORY. 

Daniel Morgan was getting ready. He had one row of sharpshooters, one row of militias, and one row of Continentals. Banastre Tarleton could come at any moment now. And...
There he came with his British Dragoons! They dissolved the sharpshooter and militia lines, but Morgan knew that they were not ready for the Continentals. The Continentals were pushing the Dragoons back. The Dragoons attacked Colonel William Washington. Washington attacked them with a sword. The Dragoons turned and fled. It was...
COWPENS, AN AMERICAN VICTORY. 

Now Cornwallis caught up with Nathaniel Greene in North Carolina, near Guildford Courthouse, so the battle was called the Battle of Guildford Courthouse. Greene modeled his lines on Morgan's successful Cowpens plan. But something went wrong. The Continentals, seeing the militias fleeing, fled too. Cornwallis won. 

Greene told Marion to capture two British forts, Ft. Watson and Ft. Motte. How could they capture Ft. Watson? It was on a hill! One of them had an idea. Most of Marion's men were once loggers. They felled all the trees that were around until they made a ramp high enough to reach the fort. And then, Marion's men went up the ramp and captured the fort. Now it was time for Ft. Motte. Ft. Motte was on a Native American mound. There was no place to build a ramp. How could they capture Ft. Motte? They had a risky idea. Private Nathan Savage was a bow-and-arrow expert. Marion's men dug a tunnel under the fort. Savage went through and shot at the fort. British soldiers tried to douse the flames. But Marion captured the fort. 

Cornwallis caught up with Greene again at Eutaw Springs.  Marion fought bravely at Eutaw Springs. At first, the Americans were winning. They were almost in the British camp! But the British fought harder and harder. And finally they succeeded in pushing the Americans back and winning at...

EUTAW SPRINGS, A BRITISH VICTORY

Though Cornwallis had won at Guildford Courthouse and Eutaw Springs, he was tired of chasing Greene through the Carolina wilderness. So he went northeast until he reached the coast, on the Chesapeake Bay and York River.

The French admiral Comte de Grasse was leading a fleet from the Caribbean to...

Chesapeake Bay! General George Washington was interested. He knew that Cornwallis was camped on the York River, and that he established a settlement called "Yorktown" where he camped. Washington and Comte de Rochambeau, another French admiral, set out south. De Grasse blockaded Yorktown on sea, while Washington and Rochambeau blockaded by land. Cornwallis sent a message to British headquarters at New York, pleading for supplies. But it was too late. The Americans won at...

YORKTOWN, THE FINAL BATTLE
RATING: 100/100
STATUS: READ
Here is a photo of Marion:

http://teachers.greenville.k12.sc.us/sites/ekrezdor/South%20Carolina/Francis%20Marion-%20Swamp%20Fox.bmp  

(Though it's underlined and blue, you can't click on it)

Activity/Project: Rhyme Maker

Can you make a rhyme about tables?

Words rhyming with table:

stable, label, able, cable, Mabel

 Can you make a rhyme about snakes? Or cakes?

Words rhyming with snake:

 bake, cake, fake, Jake, lake, make, quake, rake, take, wake, (Sir Francis Drake??)

Can you make a rhyme about bays?

Words rhyming with bay:

May, sundae, sway, away, play, gray, highway, San Jose, Subway, tray, pay, NBA, LA, hay, lay, Chile, way, stay, x-ray, Paraguay, Uruguay, sun ray, quay, stingray, jay, cay, say, whey, (Dr. Tay??) clay, day, hooray, yay, USA

Do you have any more suggestions for rhymes?

Search: Grandster Queen of Bicycling

GRANDSTER
SEARCH/MAIL/MAPS/IMAGES/VIDEOS/MORE

Queen Of Bicycling

Queen of bicycling

A Queen of Bicycling (Maphitea Masturas) is a creature which only eats the haert fruit (Which is only found in Xerkopa, a planet 328 quadrillion light-years from where the Queen of Bicycling lives in Tonga). It lives for 1 nanosecond and doesn’t know what 1+1 is.

Quadrillion - a very large number

Nanosecond - a billionth of a second

Poem: Africa Continent Rhyme

In Africa there were many empires and civilizations,
Like Mali ruled by Mansa Mosa,
Over time they became nations,
With languages like Zulu and Xhosa.

Poems: Country Rhymes

Country Rhymes

1. Bulgaria

He went to Bulgaria
But didn’t like the area

2. Ukraine

He went to Ukraine
But there was too much rain

2. Paraguay
He went to Paraguay
But it was a cloudy day

3. Chad
He settled in Chad
Because there was more money than he ever had

4. Niger
He went to Niger
And became a miser

Poems: Extremes in the U.S.

Extremes in the U.S.

Wet: Mount Waialele, Hawaii

There is a huge amount of rain on Mount Waialele,

Much more than you can imagine there may be.

Not far away it is very dry,

And the amount of rain goes down by two times five.

Dry: Death Valley, California/Nevada

In Death Valley it is very dry,

And the temperature is very high,

It is also very low,

To Death Valley lots of people go.

Hot: Death Valley, California/Nevada

In Death Valley it is very hot,

Unlike Minneapolis where it is not.

It is also very low,

To Death Valley lots of people go.

Cold: Barrow, Alaska

In Barrow it is very cold,

So unless you are Amundsen, Roald,*

Never ever ever go there,

It is probably too cold for a polar bear.

*- Roald Amundsen was the first person to reach the South Pole.

High: Mount McKinley, Alaska

McKinley is the tallest mountain in the USA,

On it, it'll always be a cold day,

Oh, Oh, it is cold and high,

On it your eggs will never fry.

Low: Death Valley, California/Nevada

In Death Valley it is very low,

To Death Valley lots of people go,

It is also very dry,

And the temperature is very high.

MOUNT WAIELELE (OR WAHILILI)

DEATH VALLEY

DEATH VALLEY

BARROW

MOUNT MCKINLEY

DEATH VALLEY