Elsa's excellent drawing of A.J.

Andrew Jackson was our 7th president. He was most famous in his presidency for his battle with the bank to get money for the country. This was the bank of the U.S.A. He finally won. People had real money. His presidency ended well and he is still remembered often today.

            He was born march 15, 1767. When he was 13 he joined the American Revolution as a message carrier. He had a very terrible experience there, his brother died while fighting in the battle, and his mother died while helping American prisoners. He got a scar on his forehead because he refused to shine the shoes of a British officer. He would always hate the British because of these experiences.

            When he was a young man he became a country lawyer on frontier land in Tennessee. He then became the leader of a militia, also called a citizen’s army.  He  fought VERY HORIBBLE fights with the Indians. His nickname was Old Hickory because he was skinny and tough like a piece of hickory wood.

            The battle of 1812 was when the British invaded the country again, and Andrew fought them off this time also. The British were better trained and had better weapons but Andrew’s army won. Over 2000 British were killed but only 13 Americans were killed. Winning this battle is probably the thing he’s most famous for.

            He went on to be a very popular president, in fact he was so popular that they put his picture on the 20 dollar bill. He was also the first president anyone tried to assassinate. He would fight duels if anyone insulted his wife’s honor.

            He died at age 78 in 1845.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura as a very old woman (on top)
and Laura as very young woman.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote many great books about her childhood. She was raised on the American prairie as a pioneer girl. She had a sister named Mary that was two years older than her. She and her sister called their parents Ma and Pa as nick names for their real names, Caroline and Charles. 
 
 Laura and her family moved and moved to many different places until they came to a happy home where her little sister was born. Ma and Pa named her new sister Carrie. The family soon moved to a little house that Pa  had built, with yellow pine boards, glass windows, and china doorknobs. Laura had never seen such a fine house. But In the summer grasshoppers invaded the land and ate the wheat. Then more trouble followed. Laura's baby brother Freddie died soon after he was born because Pa couldn't take care of  him without money. But even so they were cheered by the sweet melody of Pa's fiddle. The family had to move many times afterward.

 One winter Mary caught a fever and lost eyesight. Laura had to make pictures in words to tell Mary what she would see if she hadn't caught the fever.
  
Finally, they  moved to a place called De Smet. Pa promised Ma they would not have to move again.

As a young woman Laura became a teacher and married a man named Almanzo Wilder  in 1885.  (She called this man Manly.) A year later their daughter, Rose, was born.

When Laura was much older and Rose was an adult and a newspaper reporter, Laura needed something to do, so she told her daughter to edit her first story of her childhood. Rose agreed and so, in 1932 Laura's first book Little House in the Big woods was published. She wrote seven more books about her childhood. Laura's books were very famous and well written.

Laura Ingalls Wilder died at the age of ninety in 1957. She once said she wrote her books because,"I want children now to understand more about the beginnings of things, to know what is behind the things they see, what it is that made America as they Know it."

my weekend

My weekend was great because on Friday my friend Michaela stayed the night at my house. We were going to sleep under the fort we made but my room was too messy, so, we just slept on the couch. Well, we didn't sleep that much all night, we just whispered to each other. At about 2:00 AM we finally fell asleep.

 The morning was horrible. We ate cereal and then went outside to play but it was too cold for me and I wanted to go back inside but she wasn't cold at all and she said "Elsa you're not being nice and just letting  me do what I want. I'm going to play out here with or without you." two seconds later we were called inside to clean my room, it took hours. We cleaned all day nonstop until the room was finally clean. Michaela barely helped.

Right when we finished my mom said that Michaela's mom would be picking Michaela up in an hour.We hadn't played at all. We played and played as much as we could and then her mom arrived  and took her home. For the next three hours I did school work that I hadn't done on Friday. It was boring. Finally we went to my grandmother and grandfather's house. My mom stayed for dinner and I stayed the night.

The next day  me and my grandparents went to a cook off. It was boring until we went up the street to buy cousin Crislyn a present for her seventeenth birthday. I'm giving it to her on Wednesday. It was a couple heart shaped stones. Later that night my aunt Shilo took me home. And now I'm here today typing this story in just for you.
                                                                     The end

A Fly's Last hours

The Death of Sparkly

One day me and my dad found a dead bottle fly. A bottle fly is a fly that has a blue or green shell. Our fly had a green one.  We put it under my microscope and what did we see on our fly? We saw a terrible wound on her head and  her whole body was in pieces. Our green bottle fly's body sparkled and shined so I finaly dicided to name her Sparkly. Her body was so gross and her legs were hairy and even her wings were hairy. I think that she was quite hyper when she was alive because she was moving around even after we got her under the microscope.

Now we will reconstruct the last hours of Sparkly's life.

Sparkly was having a nice day and while we had our door open she flew right in not minding us. She flew into the living room and then a fly named Blackie Winger flew by and said- "I like your green exoskeleton!"

"Why thank you," Said Sparkly, "I get that quite a lot but it's always nice to hear! What's your name?"

"Blackie Winger of course! Haven't you heard of me?" said Blackie.

"OH YES OF COURSE! BLACKIE WINGER!" Yelled Sparkly blushing deeply as she landed. Just then Big Fat Matt stepped on her and Blackie helped her to the windowsill. Within an hour she was DEAD.

Blackie Winger's Death

We found the dead body of Blackie Winger after my father had gone CLAP! and killed him. We think Blackie made my father kill him on purpose because he was both sad and angry about Sparkly's death. We also think Blackie made my father kill him because Blackie did not have any family or friends. My father is also known as Big Fat Matt.  Well I hope my science fantasy trickery was funny enough to make you smile.

Sparkly in her prime

THE END

FLY FACTS
1. Flies only live about 30 days and depending on the fly maybe a little bit shorter.
2. Bottle flies have what looks like a shell and that shell can be green or blue.
3.There are about 120,000 different species of flies.
4. Houseflies are some of the most common insects of all time. They can live almost anywhere.

Biographical Essay: Jesse James

Jesse James at work
(click to enlarge)

Jesse James was famous because he and his gang did more daring robberies than anyone had ever done and they escaped every time.

Jesse  learned  to guerilla fight in the civil war. The south had lost the war.  Jesse and his older brother  Frank James were angry because they wanted the south to win, not the north. So they started to rob banks and trains with the Younger brothers, some other outlaws.

After  many years of crime they robbed a bank in Minnesota and everything  went wrong and the Younger brothers were killed. Luckily Frank and Jesse stole two horses and rode back to Missouri, their home state.

Then Jesse  got married and had two children but soon got bored so he  went back to crime. then he started a gang with the Ford Brothers, two young outlaws.

After Jesse came home again the governor said "If you can kill or capture Jesse James you will receive 10,000 dollars." So one day after breakfast Jesse saw a picture that needed to be hung properly and while he was fixing it he was shot in the head by a man in his gang named Bob Ford because Bob wanted the reward money.

           

Jesse James was a brilliant man but horrible at the same time.

The Legend of the Trojan Horse

A proud Greek posing with the large wooden horse

The legend of the Trojan Horse is a very interesting legend. Some people think it really happend because some of our scientists have researched enough to find out.

The war, in the legend , was fought for a Greek princess named Helen who was kidnapped by the Trojan king, Paris. Helen was the most beautiful woman in the land. Some people now think that the war was fought for treasure and gold because the Greeks didn't have that stuff. So either for treasure and gold or for the love of a princess the Greeks set off with their leader Agamemnon to surprise the Trojan people with their bow and arrows and other weapons.

The war went on for ten years and never stopped until they finally came up with some nasty trickery and built a gigantic horse. The horse was made of wood and could fit thirty men. Some of the Greek army crawled inside the horse. The rest of the army left on a fleet of boats.

Then the Trojans, not seeing any Greeks, opened the city gates and saw the giant horse and, thinking it was a gift, they pulled it inside the city. That night the rest of the army came back and the men in the horse crawled out and let the army in the gates. Sadly they killed all the Trojan people. Also they took Princess Helen home.

Princess Helen was also called the face that launched a thousand ships because they say her beauty made a thousand ships sail to fight the war.