My Book Review.

Hello again

I've been in China nearly two months, and in that time I have looked at lots of books but finished two. I loved them both, but they are very different.

The first book I read is "First Term at Mallory Towers" by Enid Blyton (written in 1946). My mum loved this series of books too. So you know the type of book it is the blurb on the back says:

Darrell Rivers is off to boarding school for the first time. She quickly settles down and makes new friends, including the clever and mischievous Alicia, who delights the form with her practical jokes. But the first term is not all fun and Darrell has some tricky problems to cope with: her dreadful temper, the mystery of Sally Hope's odd behaviour, and the spiteful tricks played on shy Mary-Lou.



So how was that?? 


Also I would like to show you this book called "Our Island Story"

It is the BIGGEST book I've ever read! The author is called H.E. Marshall. It has 506 pages and 110 chapters.
It is about the whole of Great Britain and some of Ireland from Neptune and Albion and Brutus to Victoria. It was published in 1905!!

The worst bit in it was the 100 Year War where there was lots and lots of wars that I thought were boring and I begged Kate to skip them but I failed.
The best bit was the Battle of Waterloo because I don't really like Napoleon very much!!


I hope you like my two books I have been interested about.

The World Is Yours

To say the world is yours and the birds are too

be kind to foxes, rats and dolphins you have the most love of all

and it will be shared to others.

You will climb a tree and all the animals will clamber on you

spiders, birds, ants and lots more.

You will be the mother of the whole world and every animal in the world

can read your mind in peace.

Even monkeys love you baboons too

the trees and the bushes the flowers to you are the god of the world.

Think of the snails the slugs and more you think they're yuk but they don't at all they like you and love

you as much as you love yourself.

God of the world, I will treat you so, as I love you so much that you wouldn't  know.


By Anna Zhang


Date:12.12.12

ANIMATION ANIMATION ON FACEBOOK!!!!!!!

Hello everybody,

At school in Year 2 we did an animation using the software SAM Animation (Sam must of been happy!). I also saw a great animation made by my friend Emma Townend, using playmobile. When I left Brighton Emma gave me a Townend Playmobile family, including Seth dog. This inspired me to make my own animation. It's so easy - in only 5 steps:

• Make your scenery (I did a silly city)
• Think of a story and plan it - I even wrote a script!
• Use a camera to take lots of pictures - each time move your characters in a very small way
•  if you have got Imovie on your computer click it, or use another film making software. Download all your photos, and move them to Imovie.
•  Start by getting you animation together by changing the speed (put your cursor onto the photo you want to change, and you will see a gear picture - this adjusts the speed down to 1 second (write it like this 1s). Then have fun using the voice recorder and sound effects. Add a title page (click on the T button) and credits.

After lots and lots of hard work to try to put my video on this blog, then You Tube, we finally put it on Kate's Facebook page today. Here is the link 

 http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151563458444348

I am planning to animate the story of How the Little Alien Crashed in the next week or two.


MY BIRTHDAY POST

I am now 8. We had a Swim Party the Sunday before my birthday. Here is the invitation I made on Smilebox (introduced to me by my Let's Dance teachers)

http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a51794e5449354e54513d0d0a&blogview=true 

Here are some photos of the party:

I look stupid in this picture - eating pizza.

We were playing musical statues
they were gathering to cheat!!!!!.

We are all statues!!!.

I'm the judge of that!.

It looks like Zekey is not happy!.

Opps i've dropped something.

Please may I have more?????

I'm going to cut that cake!!!!.

Arrr Gansen in white looks so cute (he is only 5)

I think Zekey is getting more cake (typical children).

I think Ye Ye looks tired to me:)

Kate is a bit full and Abby to!.

Here is my lovely cake it was DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!

I look like I've finished!!!!.

The tradition is to blow out the candles so I am.

The bike I told you about is right here!

  

And to prove it was GIANT it's here:)

How to make a strudel

Hello Everybody

Today I am going to show you how to make Strudel,
this is because we went to a Strudel making party on Sunday
organised by Zeky's mum Jane.

Strudel comes from Eastern Europe so this is the link with Jane's family, and she used to make them when she was a girl in the USA.

The recipe for Strudel is:  

100g self raising Flour (normal flour plus baking powder)
55g butter
1 egg

Mix flour and butter together (we used a food processor) -  then stir in egg. Knead dough until smooth. Rest oiled for 2 hours. This gives the gluten in the dough time to get stretchy.

Then the fun bit - sprinkle flour on a tablecloth and S T R E T C H the dough so thin that you can see the tablecloth underneath. Here's some pictures. 

Can you see the tablecloth under the dough?

Once the dough is very big and thin you can add the apple mix. This is how to make it:

2 Jin of apples (1kg) slice very thinly.

Raisins - 22g - Jane soaked her in baojiu (alcohol - yuk)

Brown sugar - 2 teaspoons

Cinnamon - 2 teaspoons

Butter - 25g melted

Mix all together. Then put onto the dough, wipe over with butter and then pull the tablecloth to make a big sausage shape. Then wipe over the top with butter again.

This is how it looks in black and white.

Then bake in the oven at 220 degrees Centigrade (C) for 45 minutes - 1 hour.

This is ours, nearly eaten. Delicious.

THANK YOU JANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    

My Townend city

Hello everybody

Today I am going to show you what I have been making in the last 2 months since I arrived here. In Chengdu there is a lot of packaging on everything (even worse than Brighton) so I collect it and use it to make things. The people who live in my city are our friends called the Townend Family - we stayed with them just before we came to Chengdu, and Emma (my friend) gave me a play mobile Townend Family.

Next week I will make a stop motion animation using the city and family. 
I hope to upload it to the blog soon.

This is a picture of the whole city on my window sill. The tree outside is a gingko tree - the national tree of China.

This is a boat that they go on, its called the Sea Dog Ship. It is made of plastic, so it floats. It is named after Seth the dog (can you see him onboard?)

This is Cambridge University, it is huge!

This is where the students sleep. 

This is typical of Dawei's making of a WC.

This is another picture of the Sea Dog Ship.

This is where Eden (my friend) lives. 

It's huge, and it's even got a lift!

This is Emma's (my friend) farm.

This is where Caroline and Stuart (my friend's mum and dad) live.

This is what it looks like inside.

This is where the king and queen lives. Stuart performs here.

This is an aeroplane.

This is a shopping place.

It is called Lineda.

This is a bus.

It's destination is Certen Road.

This is the market...

where you can buy pictures...

sticks...

and maps.

This is the whole of my city done. Soon I will make lots more things and I will show you them when I can.

How to make crystals

Today I want to show you how to make crystals. I was interested in crystals because I found some inside an Igneous rock in my garden.

This article tells you all about crystals and how to make them http://chemistry.about.com/cs/growingcrystals/a/aa012604.htm
It's so easy,  quick and just involves mixing kitchen ingredients with water to make a saturated solution. THE RESULTS ARE VERY GOOD!!!!!!!!

The pictures below show the steps and results. 

This is me preparing all the ingredients in our kitchen 

This is me making a saturated solution with sugar 

You need to make sure all the sugar dissolves

Heating the solution makes it absorb more sugar

I did the same with the bicarbonate of soda

This is me showing you that you need to weigh down the string  

This is my crystal garden on the left and my crystal on a string on the right

This is the size of the crystal (it only took one day), my finger shows the scale

We are now going to make a BIG crystal by using one little crystal above,
you can learn how to do this on the bottom link 

This is the recipe using bicarbonate of soda, you can also use salt or sugar.
http://www.chemistry.co.nz/growing_crystals_string.htm  

I also used sugar to make a crystal garden or geode (this takes longer) but I will post the results when I have them.

I am now planning to make a BIG! crystal by using my little crystals as "seed crystals" if you want to do this have a look at this link http://chemistry.about.com/od/growingcrystals/a/seedcrystal.htm