The One and Only Silverback Gorilla and Other Animals by Eleanor

This term I did a novel study about a Silverback Gorilla, (SBG) called "The One And Only Ivan". it was about gorillas and other animals. The problem is the humans are so bad in this book!

This is a book which is made up of some true facts, all mushed together in a very good book, that is funny, good, helpful, meaningful, and lots of other things.

This video is what the real things are based on - a gorilla that really lived in a shopping mall for 27 years. This video was made in 1992 and after people saw this video they got so much notice about this video that he got moved to the Atlanta Zoo, and it was a good safe place for him to live and be, and be present there.

Here is what he looked like at the zoo:

They made this video they day he died, he was 50 years old.

I learned some facts about SBGs. SBGs are mostly herbivores, and eat mangoes, bamboo, plants and bugs

They live in the mountains of Africa, where it is hot, jungly and damp. They live in a special protected place because they are in danger because people are shooting them for their walls and decorations and their forest is getting destroyed and using trees for fuel and farming and houses - HUMANS! Why do you have to do so many cruel things?

Male gorillas get silvery grey hairs on their backs at about age 11-13 and its silver and on the back.

Gorilla troops are made of males babies and females, there is one main dude who is the protector of the troop and if an enemy comes he stands on his hind legs and beats his chest - "IIIIIIEEEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!" and scares the enemy away. The  other males in the troop are younger and when they get older they leave to find their own troop. Females leave their troop when they are 8.

They make nests in trees out of bent sticks and tied together leaves, if they are very heavy they stay on the ground and make a nest on the ground. The mamas and babies sleep cuddled together, and the babies travel on their mamas backs, like a piggy back ride, but they are not piggies.

Other Animal Growth and Changes
I also studied some animal growth and changes this term, and my favourite fact I learned was about ducks. In a duck's egg, the chicks of the ducks, the ducklings, have a little tiny pecking tooth, which they use when it's time for them to crack open from their shell. They peck, and peck and peck 'til they can squiggle out. And then the tooth falls off.

I visited Maplewood farm to see the animals, and I saw peacocks, chickens, bunnies, mountain goats, rams, sheep and mosquitoes.

I also participated in the GREAT CANADIAN SHORELINE CLEAN-UP with my Brownie troop, and we saw some goslings and geese. And I saw some goslings and geese at Granville Island too!

I learned how to use the Dewey decimal system at the library while searching for animal facts and I found out the Dewey decimal system connects to fairies, in a certain way I will not tell you unless you come to my house, because this can not be randomly posted on the internet. The end.

Learning About the CPR by Sophia

This term I have learned a bit more about the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The railway was important because Alberta and Saskatchewan were not part of Canada yet, kind of like no-man's-land. So the CPR -(who also owned the steam boats)- decided to make a deal so that you could buy:

• a steam boat ride from England

• a train ticket from Newfoundland to Alberta/Saskatchewan

• and one acre of land for $2.50 as long as you worked the land.

The railroad was part of a promise to British Columbia to enter confederation. So, the rest of what was Canada at the moment said to B.C. at that moment, "You can be part of Canada and we promise to provide transportation between us and you guys."

In the video "BC's Early Years" I learned it was really, really, really hard to build the railway because they had to work with lots of explosives to level out the ground and make tunnels so that he railroad would be easier to build and the trains going on the track wouldn't have burn so much coal.

But this was very, very dangerous and most of the workers were imported from China. Unfortunately for every mile of track that was laid out, 4 chinese men died. Some of them died from explosives, some of them died from scurvy, because to remind them of home they ate only fish and rice, and some of them died of being worked too hard. They weren't treated well or appreciated or honoured. The white men thought themselves better than the Chinese, kind of like they did with the First Nations. Sad, isn't it?

I'm reading the Dear Canada book "A Ribbon Of Shining Steel" and it's the diary of a girl who lived while the CPR was still being built in Yale, B.C. and her father would be away for long stretches of time, like a week, and she would lay awake in bed every night hoping that her father hadn't died in the past few days. Her father would always come home telling stories of how more and more Chinese died and he thought it was so unfair they were treated so unfairly.

We are also reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder book "On The Shores Of Silver Lake" and the railroad plays a part in that book because Laura and her family have only ever been transported in wagons up until then, and the train is this new wonderful invention to transport lots of people and cargo over land so extremely fast that a journey that used to take a covered wagon a whole day of steady going, only 30 minutes. Laura felt nervous about going on the train because it was a new invention and there were sometimes minor/ major setbacks, like trains running off the tack and huge train crashes and people dying, so she was kind of scared of going on the train the first time and every thing was all right.

In that book her Pa is working at  the store for men working on railway grade and the railway grade is when you smooth out the land you're about to build railway tracks on so that the trains don't have to burn more coal.

The first transcontinental passenger train departed from Montreal and arrived at Port Moody at noon on 4 July 1886.  Now at our new house we live really close to Port Moody and my Papa and I are going to visit that train station at Spring Break.

By that time, however, the CPR decided o change up the location of the train station from Port Moody to Granville, which was renamed "Vancouver" later on that year. The first official train destined for Vancouver arrived on 23 May 1887.

We went to visit engine number 374 at the Roundhouse in Yaletown, the engine that puled the first official train destined for Vancouver.

It was cool and there were a few old geezers there and I didn't really understand what they were saying, but it seemed like a nice chance to talk to them and basically they just said what I already knew about the CPR, but it was kind of nice.

The CPR is important in Canada's history because it was kind of the reason that Alberta and Saskatchewan are a part of the country today. The railroad joined the country together. Whhhopie!!!!

Brownie Badge: I Can Be by Eleanor

I imagine that I would be my favourite book character who is Junie B. Jones. She is a hilarious first grader with glasses, an amazing person, she thinks just hilarious things and talks to a stuffed animal named Phillip Jonny Bob, who is an elephant.

If I could be an animal, I would be a baby grey fluffy kitten, a housecat. I can act it out for my circle.

I did a charades game I thought of for my Mum and sister. I acted out the phrase, "water wheel", and they guessed it!

Eleanor Is Awesome

Dun, dun, dun, didle de dah!!!!!!!!!!! I AM A BROWNIE! Thank you, thank you, thank you for that amazing drum roll. To become a Brownie I had be enrolled which means I had to learn about Brownies and I had to memorize the brownie promise. it says:

I promise, to my best, to be true to myself, my beliefs and Canada, I will take action for a better world and respect the Brownie Law.

The Brownie Law says:

• Law

  The Guiding Law challenges me to:

  • be honest and trustworthy
  • use my resources wisely
  • respect myself and others
  • recognize and use my talents and abilities
  • protect our common environment
  • live with courage and strength
  • share in the sisterhood of Guiding

I think that stuff sounds good, I already do that stuff without knowing it anyway.

I have been earning badges. So far I earned the "Hurrah For Reading" Badge, the "Recycling Rocks" and "Cookies, Yum" - where you learn about being a safe cookie seller, counting money and being responsible - and Numbers and Math badge .

Mmmm. Yum, yum. His face looks so juicy! That is my new cousin Nathan. He is soooo cute. He as in the hospital for the first week of his life. Isn't that a long time?! When somebody has a new baby, it means I mean their it means they a family. They give the baby food, the give it air, energy, a home, everything it needs.

Here I am making pizza. I am a really great cook. I know all about the four food groups and how to eat healthy foods. We make home-made pizza and have movie night every Friday night. It's important to send time together as a family because of you guys are all busy and all around the place, so you can just be together, by yourself, you, only your family.

This is pattern a made with my Goldie Blox engineering set. I have started making my own patterns. I test them out on the pegboard first, then I decide if it needs and modifications, then I make the modifications, and then I do draw the modifications in my instruction book.

This is a fancy tea party I hosted for my brother and my next door neighbour.  To be a good host is to invite people to take a seat, ask them if they want more tea, if they want to have a DANCE PARTY! If there are new people who you don't really know, you say "Hi! What's your name, What's your age? Do you want to play a game, like ULTIMATE HIDE and GO SEEK?" 

We have new neighbours from Uzbekistan who are coming over for supper tonight, and we learn what they eat, what they do, and what's about them, what's about their country and the games they play - yippee, yippooo, I want to do something with you!"

Redeema and Other Fairy Stuff by Eleanor

FAIRIES! FAIRIES! FAIRIES!

Ok, ok, you get the point. This year I am going to make a.... FAIRY HOUSE!!!!

And yes, Sophia is going to do it too, I am just pretending she is a little stick. It will have plumbing, it will have electricity, it will have everything.

It's taking a long time because we are building a real house that has shrunk down. We have been meeting with a friend who is a scientist and she is helping us do the plans. I had to draw blueprints, but it didn't work the first time I drew the blueprints, and we had to keep on trying and trying until we got ones that worked. I had to cut cardboard and right now I am in the process of making a cardboard prototype so that way I can know how big I'm going to cut the wood, and sheetrock and everything else, and where everything is going to go.

I am imagining that a fairy family will live there for 5 acorn caps. To get fairy houses like this, that are already built by humans, you have to trade valuable things, like acorn caps. They have a family of 5, and the grandma and grandpa come to live with them, because where they used to live got destroyed by a human baby, so they came to live with them. The family who I think will move in will have one baby and two kids who are about 5 and 8 years old. I think they will have a lovely time there. We are going to build the Grandma and Grandpa's room, the Mum and Dad's room, we're going to build the kids' room, and a baby's room.

Right now I am in the process of building a fairy swingset, a toy box and other things.


A poem by Eleanor Pallister:

In Fairyland

 In fairyland...

a daisy could be a hat.

 In fairyland....

a pebble could be a rock -

a ginormous boulder to babies.

 In fairyland....
                                        the houses would be so tiny

and cute that you would want

to move the whole entire fairyland
into your backyard.

In fairyland....

a hollow tree could fit about
50 fairies.

 In fairyland....

everything is magic.

 In fairyland....

Pixiedust makes everything fly.
Mice can be horses.

 It's hard to go to fairyland...

but keep believing and then you might.

Redeema By Eleanor Pallister, age 7 1/2

This Halloween I was Redeema the Light Fairy. Redeema is a playful, joyful, light fairy. This is the story of Redeema:

Once upon a time, there was a light show. That light show was a special light show. The reason why it was special was that it wasn't lights, it was fairies. And, one of the fairies was Redeema. After the show she was hanging out with her friends in the theatre, stopping to get a coffee, and then behind her in line, was vicious BIG SCARY TIGER!!!! ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the tiger licked her! And then she started screaming, "Help! Help!" in a deep and bellowing, manly voice. Then the tiger, which was actually little, said, "Hi, my name is Daniel Tiger. Don't worry, I'm actually very friendly." Redeema started shaking and shaking until she fell on the floor. Then the tiger said, "Would you like to come to my house for a playdate?" and then Redeema said, "Ok, unless you don't eat me."

Then his Mum and Redeema and the little tiger went to the coconut car which runs on watermelon milk. And then they drove to his house, but then the friendly tiger forgot he had invited a dragon over for tea! Redeema said, "OH NO! A vicious powerful dragon who eats only blood and flesh!" And then, the friendly tiger's dad came out of his room, and Redeema found out that Daniel Tiger's dad was Lord Business, the evil guy from the Lego movie. Redeema shouted out, "BUUUUTT, BuuuTTT, AAAAACHHOOOOOOO!!!!" She sneezed the biggest sneeze ever which sent her flying backward with pixie dust coming out of her nose. Then the friendly tiger jumped up and bit her dress. Ah ha! So that tiger was NOT a friendly tiger!

Redeema shone light out of her hands and made everyone blind for fifty-eight hours. But she also put them asleep, because a bit of the pixie dust that flew out of her nose got in the lights that flew out of her hands, and pixie dust can make people sleepy who don't use it all the time, so they all went to sleep. And after that she lived at their house and she got used to there being a tiger, Lord Business and a dragon there.

The End