The Tiny Ice Age and the writing of Frankenstein

Today I learned about the tiny Ice Age and I learned that Frankenstein was written because of the Ice Age.

Mary Shelley, her husband and a couple they were with would go to Geneva for vacation. They usually would go boating and swimming and lots of other stuff outside. But the year they went it was very cold due to the Tiny Ice Age and so they decided to have a competition on who could make the best horror story. After a few days Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein

Hnefatafl: A Viking Board Game

This is what a Hnefatafl board looks like.

Hnefatafl is a game that is very similar to both chess and checkers. The board is normally a square made by 11 squares on each side, the game can still be played with any number as long as it is odd. The point of the game is for the attackers to try and capture the king while the defenders try to escort the king to one of the corners of the board. Whichever team competes it's task wins the game. The way you capture a piece is you have to have one of your pices on two sides of another piece, except for the king, you have to be on all four sides to capture him.

SOTW 32

This time I will be writing about the Native Americans.

Around the time that Columbus found America the Mayans empire was very powerful. They were described by Columbus as black hair, short in front and long in back, they had painted themselves with black and white paint. The Mayans started building great cities around the same time that Rome was falling apart. Worshiping the gods was very important in the Mayan lifestyle, they would also do things to their bodies to make them look more "godlike" Mothers would strap planks of wood to their sons heads so that the head would grow in a strange shape. Also they would tie toys in front of infants eyes that they would become cross eyed. Eventually the Mayan empire became too big to be controlled and it started to fall apart and the Aztec empire took their place. The Aztecs built there city on an island that used to be swampy, but they brought rocks and dirt to the island. The island became bigger and the Aztecs were able to build a huge city on it.

SOTW 31 Christopher Columbus

Today for history I read a chapter from my Story Of The World book about Christopher Columbus and I am now supposed to write a few paragrahs out the chapter.

         Christopher Columbus was an Italian sailor who wanted to find a sea route to get to india. He believed that if he sailed in the oposite direction he go all the way around the world and end up on the coast of India. He pitched his idea to a couple people trying to find someone to pay. He first tried the king of Portugal but he warned Columbus against the idea. He then tried to convince the kings of France and England but they also wouldn't help. Finally Columbus went to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Ferdinand showed very little interest but Isabella was very interested. She saw that if she helped Columbus Spain could become very rich and powerful from the trading route so she decided to help him. Spain was in the middle of a war so Isabella couldn't help Columbus for 7 years. But she held to her word and 7 years later Columbus set sail of three ships filled with a crew and supplies for many months.
          After many days the crew started to complain about the trip, the food and water was running out and they were suffering from scurvy becuase they hadn't eaten any fresh fruit or vegtables in a long time. They started to say that they would never reach any land so Columbus made them a deal. He said that if they didn't see land in three days they would turn around and go back home. On the morning of the second day land was spotted. Columbus thought for sure that he had made it all the way to India but he had acutally landed on the coast of Florida. He called the people there Indians with out knowing where they were. It was later determined that Columbus had found a new continent by a man named Amerigo Vespucci and the name of North and South America are named after him.

Indoor state champions!

Last weekend my soccer team participted in the Iowa Indoor state tournament and won! We went 5-0 for the whole tournament.

Our first game was against Vision Soccer Academy we started pretty slow but picked up as the game went on, we went ahead twice but both times VSA socred to tie the game. With very little time left our keeper Ian McDonald kicked the ball forward and in a series of strange happenings the ball ended up in the back of the net! We won the game 3-2

Our second game was against Iowa Soccer Club U15 which means that they were a year younger than us, we pretty much had our way with them and won the game 7-0, it was a good game all around for the team.

Our third game was agains Ceder Rapids Soccer Association U15 again, they were a year younger. We started the game as if we were still asleep and CRSA went up 2-0. The combination of that and some fresh subs, we quickly woke up and went on to win the game 5-2. Which advanced us into the semifinals of the tournament!

The semifinals were played against the CRSA team our age. They are always able to give us a good game, but they didn't have their star player today who is ranked one of the best U16 players in the state of Iowa. Despite the fact the game was tied 1-1 at the end of the game so we went to a penalty shootout. Our first to shooters made their shots and then Ian made a save, I was the third shooter so if I made my shot we won the game. I placed it in the back of the net and we were on to the finals!

In the finals we again started really slow and went down 2-0, Then Nick Raley socred 3 straight goals to take us into the lead! We would go on to win the game 6-4 and win the tournament!


Overall it was a great tournament for the whole team and it was great to come out on top!

The Cuerdale Hoard

The treasure is displayed in the British Museum

The Cuerdale Hoard is a chest of treasure found in 1840 by a group of workers

Not everything in the chest was coins there were also chains and clasps

Most of the chest was filled with coins

Silent Trade

          The silent trade is a form of trading that was used between Ghana and northern African kingdoms that had salt. Because Ghana had an abundance of gold but not much salt so they were willing to trade pound for pound. There was a problem though because the people Ghana was trading with didn't speak the same language so they participated in what we know as a silent trade. One of the sides participating in the trade would set their goods in a specific area, then they would leave and start beating drums so that the other party would know they had set their goods out. Then the other party would come look at what was set out and put what they thought was a good trade out next to the other parties goods. Then they would leave and beat on their drums. If the first party thought it was a good trade they would take the goods but if they didn't they would leave and beat their drums again. this went on until a deal was made.

Different types of farm irrigation

There are multiple different types of irrigation

Surface
            This is where you cover the surface of you crops with water, it is also called flood irrigation

Localized
            This is where water is distributed through pipes to specific locations, there are a few sub catagories of localized irrigation

        Drip
             The water is in a tube that drips water out through small holes in the hose.

       Sprinkler system
              Sprinkler system is pretty self explanitory but there are even more sub catagories of the sprinkler system

                 Center Pivot Sprinkler
                      The hoses come together in one place where the water sprays out and circles around so as to get water everywhere


                Lateral momvent
                     These sprinklers move along a black hose and spray of to the side, so if you put the black hose around the parimeter of your crop it will go around the edges and water everything    
      

More Viking stuff

I am here today to tell you 10 Facts about Vikings

1. Vikings did not wear horned helmets


 2. Vikings actually kept themselves quite clean


3. Important vikings were buried in boats


4. Viking women had some basic rights


5. When viking men weren't raiding they were most likely farming at home


6. Viking men would die there hair blonde because that was the prefered hair style


7. Vikings would go skiing for recreation


8. Vikings didn't really intereact with other vikings outside of their village


9. Viking were active in slave tradeing


10. A big viking meeting was called "The Thing"

Pros and Cons of eating Legume

According to the paleo diet one should not eat Legumes (beans, peas, lentils etc.) because they have high concentration of anti-nutrients like lectins and phytates which apparently reduces their nutritional value to very little. Research has however shown this to be untrue, it has been proven that the benifits of beans outweighs the anit-nutrient content.

Beans have lots of healthy nutrients that our bodies need.
B vitamins
Calcium
Potassium
Folate
Protein
Fiber