Paricutin

Hill of Fire
by Thomas P. Lewis
Report by JJH
10-5-07

There was a farmer in Mexico who thought nothing ever happened but something did happen. Everyday he would get up early and work in his corn field. And one time he was working in his cornfield when his son Pablo came out to help. Then the ox stopped because it thought there was a rock. But the plow really got stuck in a small hole in the ground.

Pablo and his father heard this rumbling sound and it smelled like rotten egg. Smoke began to come out of the hole and then an explosion! They ran and ran. Then Pablo’s father ran to the town and rang the church bell. Everybody came to the church and prayed. Then they came outside to look if it was still there and it was!

The people ran away to a different place of town. And then they hoped that it would be gone the next day but it wasn’t. Then there were people who came in uniforms that helped all the people move to the other part of town far from the volcano. Too far that the volcano wouldn’t get the people.

The farmer was saved from the volcano. He built another house and a new cornfield. Everyday he could see the glow from the volcano. Sometimes Pablo would get other children to look at the farmer and the children would ask his father, “Are you going to make another hill of fire?”

Grandma Gretchen's Visit by Benjamin, Christian and Dante

We picked her up from the airport and then we had lunch. We had big tongue sticks (fruit bars) and we had sandwiches and cheese pops (cheese sticks) and apple juice. ("And cream soda, Sawzie!" says Dante.)

First we went to the 'Prise (Surprise) and then we went to the Star of India. It was fun when we went to the Star of India because there were skeletons in the basement and Grandma got to come with us.

When we took Grandma back to the airport, we went to Seaport Village. We saw lots of boats and minnow fishies. It was neat to see the school of fish, when Grandma gave us her glasses to see them because the fish looked really neat.

Grandma read us Peter Rabbit and "row hoe, row hoe". She read us the dinosaur book.

I like Grandma because she comes to see us.

Goldilocks

Goldilocks
by Abigail Marie
10-2-07

There was a golden-hair girl and she had a dollie and she was picking flowers. She went to the woods. She saw a little house and clapped her hands. Her go in and started eating their food. She sat in the chairs. There was a momma chair and a daddy chair and a baby chair. That one was too soft and that one was too rough. Her sat in the baby chair and it got broken!
She climbed up the stairs and her go in the momma’s bed and that one was too soft. Her go into the daddy bear bed was too rough. The other one was just right. So she slept in the baby’s bed.
Then the bears came home. “Who eat my food?” said the daddy bear. “Who eat my food?” said the momma. “Who eat my food?” said the baby?
“Who got on my chair?” asked the daddy bear. “Who in my chair?” asked the momma bear. “Who got my chair and crashed it?” asked the baby bear.
When they went upstairs that daddy asked “Who get on my bed?” The mommy asked “Who got on my bed?” Baby said who get in my bed?” Her run out the house. Her run out of the bear’s house to her momma.

Riding at Aunt Marie's House
By Christian Hinrichs

When I went horse-riding, we went trotting a lot. I was riding Silver. He's a nice horse because he lets us ride on him. I like trotting because it's like I'm running. Aunt Marie told me to put my arms out and then put them down. When I'm trotting, she tells me to take my hands on and off of the saddle. It was really, really, really, really, really fun. Aunt Marie is nice because she lets us ride on her horse, and she really likes me and Ben a lot.

The Lizard Eggs
By Benjamin Hinrichs

Well, one week when the students came, one of the students said that they had some lizard eggs under their hose. I was interested in them and then next week, they gave them to me in a little container. I put some moss and water and some nice dirt in it and we looked at them with the microscope and I think they are skink eggs. We saw little tiny lizards in them through the microscope. They haven’t hatched yet, but I am still taking good care of them. And that’s all.

Vesuvius

The Sleeping Giant
By Jonathan J. Hinrichs
9-18-07

In Pompeii, which was built around two thousand years ago, there was a sleeping giant. It wasn’t really a person, it was really a volcano. Pompeii was a town that was built underneath the volcano. The people thought it was a beautiful mountain.

One day it started getting ready to blast off. All these people were just coming and coming to Pompeii, to sell things, and to buy things. And there were carts rattling which woke up the people. It started as a normal day. Then the people were looking out of their windows just as the volcano blasted off.
The volcano’s name was Vesuvius. It had hot lava and gases. The gases are what make the volcano erupt and go everywhere. The people started to hide in their houses or run out of their houses to the beach. They had to run to the beach to escape. There were little volcano pebbles falling on their heads. Some people found pillows to cover their heads. The volcano was not done. There were ashes that started to fill up the houses to the second window. Soon the city was buried, only the tops could be seen.
There was a little boy who lived near Pompeii who grew up and became a writer and he wrote about the volcano. Hundreds of years later scientists came in and they had a lot of excitement that they found Pompeii.
Now it’s more like a museum than a town. A lot of people came and scientists to see if the sleeping giant would wake up again. Then there were a lot of people who came from all these different countries, America, and Italy. Vesuvius and Pompeii are in Italy. They don’t know if the sleeping giant will wake again.

Twenty-One Balloons

The Twenty-One Balloons
by William Pene du Bois
Report by J.J. Hinrichs
9-25-07

There was a man, Professor William Waterman Sherman, who wanted to fly away for a year, or months, to be alone. So he prepared a hot air balloon with a house beneath it. The house had a bed made out of air and when he was getting ready to go he would give the command and he would go.

Professor William Waterman Sherman left from San Francisco and flew over the Pacific Ocean. The days were sunny days. When he needed to wash something he would just dip it into the ocean with his fishing pole. When he needed to go higher he would just release some junk, or old food scraps.

Then once there was a sea gull what went right into the balloon and got trapped inside. He was terrified and didn’t know what to do. He started throwing all his things off of his balloon. He made it to an island which was called Krakatoa.

On the island of Krakatoa he met a guy named Mr. F who helped him to go through a jungle to a diamond mine. The diamond mine was so sparkling that they had to wear dark glasses. Some of the diamonds were as big as little pebbles, some were was big as baseballs, and some were as big as boulders.
At certain times of the day the whole island would move. Well, all except where the diamond mines were. After they left the diamond mines the volcano started to shake.

Mr. F. took Professor Sherman to his house. His house was French. The next day he saw all the houses and they were all different. Like T was for Turkey. One of the most interesting things was that all of the men’s names were after the alphabet like Mr. T, Mr. F…

There were 20 families living on the island. For money they would take a few small diamonds and sail to any place in the world and sell the diamonds and get the material to build their restaurant on Krakatoa.

For fun the children built an airy-go-round. Where you build a merry-go-round with hot air balloons. There was a tall pole that was like a screw thing and inside a little round thing there was a screw what went up and when they landed the commander would tell them to pull the strings and they would pull them and they would go up and around. Then finally they would go off the pole and then they would just go right around and go until the commander to let all the air out of the balloons. Then they would let all the air out and they would land in the ocean.

The day the volcano erupted everyone was in a restaurant and they saw the wall break into two. They all fled on a sort of platform and finally they got off with parachutes. Professor Sherman had to run back and forth to let the air out of the balloons. He landed in the Atlantic Ocean where he was rescued.

Of special note: we read that there was a volcano named Krakatoa which exploded in the 1880’s creating the loudest sound ever recorded. Krakatoa and Pompeii are the two most famous Stratovolcanoes.