The Cousin of Raspberries: the Salmonberry

One of the things I will always remember about my summer in 2015 is learning about salmon-berries.

Salmon-berries, unlike raspberries, come in different colors. Each color tastes different. There are three colors that I know of. One, yellow. Two, red. Three, dark red. My favorite color is dark red. It is the sweetest. Yellow is my least favorite color. It is the most sour.

Even if you have more of one color than another in a smoothie, the smoothie will taste the same.

The first time I ate a salmon-berry it was red and it was possibly unripe because it tasted sour. Then Mom convinced me to eat the dark red ones and I liked them!

My favorite place to pick salmon-berries is on the local bike trail and by our house. When I was picking salmon-berries on Father's Day I told my mom, "Somehow salmon-berries keep popping into my mouth." I couldn't resist eating them as we picked.

The first time we made a salmon-berry smoothie I told my mom, "This is like blood to a vampire." I loved it so much that the next time I had a salmon-berry smoothie I used four straws! I figured that would suck it in faster. But apparently, because two straws were on the side of my mouth, it just sucked air, therefore slowing the amount rather than increasing it. But two straws are can both fit in my mouth without me needing to push them in more, therefore increasing the amount that I am able to suck up.

Home School Week 1

This week I learned about Bernoulli's Principle.

Basically it means that the lower the pressure, the faster it goes.

AKA "Flip the Ship"

FLP (or flip) stands for, "the faster it goes the lower the pressure."

SHP (or ship) stands for, "the slower it goes the higher the pressure."

The experiment I did with dad was blowing on a card with a match behind it.

The air pressure was lower in the section of the flame which caused it to go towards you.

Another science lesson dad taught me was about inertia.

Newton's First Principle AKA inertia is,

"an object at rest tends to stay at rest until it is acted upon by another force."

To demonstrate this principle, we shot a BB gun at a can.

The can stayed still until the BB hit it.

The BB was acted upon by air pressure, and the air pressure was released when we pulled the trigger.

Then the BB hit the can and acted upon the can so it moved as well.

So far I think home school is awesome.

I like it because I like the way we test and practice spelling.

I also like that we have awesome new books to learn from.

So far my favorite topic this year is spelling.

So far I don't have any complaints about home school.

My favorite thing about Laurie is that she had her first dog pile - 

on me!

I love playing with my baby sister and my brother - 

my sister especially.

My goals for next week are:

To get to Chapter 8 in math.

To Memorize my preposition song for grammar.

To get to the review test in spelling.

To learn about the constitution for social studies.

To properly spell Pacific States, Mountain States, Nothern Central States and Southern Central States for geography.

To read Heroes of Olympus Book 4 for reading.

And a few other things...

Kayaking in Ketchikan

I am in a five day - day camp to learn about kayaking.

I have been looking forward to this for most of the summer.

On Sunday our family drove to the Kayaks to make sure we knew where we were going.

I was SOOOO excited!

My lessons began on Monday.

The office is in this boat.

We started our lessons on the top of the boat.

We played games while we waited for another group to get there.

We got to kayak up Creek Street.

I was disappointed to not get to do the rutter but I was good at paddling.

On the second day (Tuesday) we kayaked to Pinnick Island.

It wore me out!

I had to paddle against the wind and waves.

My partner was one of the instructors.

Once we got back, we waited in our kayak while everyone took turns getting out.

To get out of a kayak you put your chest on the dock and then roll out.

On Wednesday we had our first time going in single-person kayaks.

We went around Thomas Basin.

We were also in double kayaks and went by the cruise ships and docked somewhere for our snack.

I have two more days of kayaking adventures and I am looking forward to them!

My First Day of the Family Marathon

This morning my mom challenged us to a family marathon. Everyone in the family runs miles until we all get to 26 miles. Our goal is to finish before traveling to Utah on June 30. Everyone who finishes gets to have a family Papa Murphy's pizza party while we are in Utah. The first one to finish also gets $25 to spend on whatever they want to buy. If I win first place, I already know what I want to buy: it's an EX Pokemon pack with a big EX Pokemon card. Big cards are rare and so are EX's.

To work on the challenge, I immediately did two miles on the treadmill. Then we walked another mile to Dad's work. I am currently winning with three miles. (Peter has two, Mom has one and Dad doesn't have any yet.)

We ate lunch at the middle school and had fun playing with North and April (and Peter). While we were playing hide and seek I was hiding down a trail. I got bored waiting for them to find me and went back to where the lunch was. No one was there except for a lady who said that someone was looking for a boy in a red jacket (me). She told me what direction the people looking for me went in (about 15 minutes earlier) and I decided that I should go the other way to meet them. I got back to the car and no one was there. Then I just waited at the car and eventually Dad found me. Dad told me that people had been looking for me for a long time. He was more than  half an hour late getting back to work from his lunch break. Mom said she was really scared and almost called the police,

We went home and played for a while. Peter and I played war (card game). Then we went to the library. North and April were there too! (Unplanned.) I played chess with April, checked out some books and two movies. We went home and I started reading. After a while Peter and I were continuing our war game.

Oh, and by the way, the war game started this morning (before the marathon challenge.)

To be continued...

End of 4th Grade

To celebrate the end of 4th grade, I made an ice-cream sundae. (shown above)

I am going to miss having Mrs. Lebeau for a teacher. She was just super nice. I liked the spot parties. They were parties we had throughout the year that were different each time. Sometimes they were read-ins. Sometimes they were movies. My favorite spot party was the last spot party - surprisingly on the last day of the school year. We watched Frozen and had treats.

My favorite subjects in school this year were math, science and reading.

In math we learned how to add decimals. We learned how to add and multiply fractions.

In science I learned about the willow ptarmigan (shown below). It is the state bird. The scientific name for this bird is the Lagopus lagopus. It's higher classification is lagopus. It's lower classification is the red grouse.

The best thing I read this year was Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 4: Battle of the Labyrinth.

Other highlights of my year include participating in the Geography Bee where I took 4th place in the school. My other highlight was participating in Battle of the Books. I hope to do both of these again next year as a 5th grader.

Another great thing about this year is that my parents bought me Minecraft. My user name is peanutbuterninja.

My New Baby Sister

Laurie was born on New Year's Eve. On June 8th she is 5 months old and wears 12 month clothes!

I love being a big, big brother. But it's only to my baby sister. (I am a big brother to Peter and a big, big brother to Laurie.)

I love having a baby in the house because I love playing with her dinosaur toy. I love to see her have fun. But I don't like it when she interrupts my reading because I am babysitting her.

My favorite thing to do with her is hold her and pretending to "eat" her tummy. (That makes her laugh.)

My Fish

Picture taken by Ammon

These are my fish.

The big ones name is John Henry.

The second big ones name is Speedy.

Peter named the one with white Sariah.

The last one doesn't have a name yet.

If John Henry Were a Fish

*** Note from Jenny:  Yesterday Ammon saw his Grandma Peggy and told her about his new fish.  As we were driving away he asked, "Can I blog about my fish?"  I told him that we can, and I will help him with a post this weekend.  But in the mean time, I wanted to share this story which was written April 28, 2011***

Ammon acquired four new fish today.  When he came home from school I told him that there was a surprise for him.  I sent him in to find the fish tank.

"There's fish!"

"Yes," I agreed.

"Are they mine?" he asked, barely daring to breath.

"Yes, yours and Peter's," I answered.

He is like me - processes the pleasant but unexpected quietly and slowly.  But I watched and saw the thrilled amazement cross through his face.  He looked a little overwhelmed with joy.

"Can I go get my friends to show them?" he asked.

I sent him out the door, but he stopped and turned back.

"Wait!  How many fish are there?"

"Four."

His face was shining with genuine awe now.  This was beyond his wildest dreams.

***

Later he asked me if he could name his fish.  Of the four, one is particularly recognizable because it is larger then the others.

"I will name him John Henry," he said with determination.

"That sounds like a great name, Ammon, where did you get that idea?"

He explained the idea came from a book he read at school.

"Oh?" I asked, "What is it about?"

Trying not to sounds overly impatient with me Ammon carefully explained, "It's about John Henry."

"OK," I tried again, "but what does John Henry do in the book?"

"Well, some people say he was born with a hammer in his hand," he recited.  "It's a tall tale, Mom."

It sounded familiar so after I went to bed, I googled it.  John Henry is a legend based on an american steel driver who grew to be six feet tall and 200 pounds which, they say, was considered a giant in his day.  Which explains why, just as Ammon was going to sleep, he called me back to his room.

"I can't wait to tell Mrs. Capson tomorrow about my new pets.  I will tell her that I named the big one John Henry.  Because I think this is what John Henry would look like - if he were a fish."

My Friends

Korben, Kyler and Me

 I have a lot of good friends.

We like to play the wii.

Other things we do inside is play No Stress Chess.

Sometimes we play outside.

Patrick, Kyler, Me and Jerson

Me and my friends have so much fun outside.
My friends and I have so much fun outside.

We like to play a certain game.

I don't know what the game is called, so I won't tell you.

I have so much fun playing the game.

Shopping List

My mom needed to write a shopping list.  I decided to do it for her.  She told me what she needed and I wrote it all by myself.  I also helped her add some things to the list - like the apples.  She likes Fuji apples best and Peter likes green apples, but my favorite are the dark red ones.  I also reminded her that we needed new jelly because I dropped the jelly on accident when I was making a sandwich for Peter.  The jar broke and we had to throw it away. 

My mom wants to take me to the book store to buy a new book now that I am done reading Harry Potter.  But I don't want a new book.  I want to read the next Harry Potter story (The Chamber of Secrets).  She said that some of the other books get scary and she wants me to wait until I am older to read them all.  We agreed that I can read books one, two and three.  After that I will read something else and wait until I am nine or ten years old to finish the other Harry Potter books.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Today I finished the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  It is LONG!  My mom and dad helped me read it.  Even Grandpa Derrick read part of it to me once.  I also read a chapter by myself at the read-a-thon in my school class.  When I finished the book, my mom asked me to write about my favorite character.  This is what I wrote:

The Week Before Easter

I am decorating a cup to put dirt and seeds in it.

I had fun throwing bean bags in the bean bag toss.

After the bean bag toss, I played basketball.

After that, I went back and put dirt and seeds in my cup.

Then I had an easter egg hunt.

(But we didn't get any pictures because I was with the big kids and the camera was where the little kids did their egg hunt.  But my Dad came to watch and cheer me on.)

I made sure to only pick up the green eggs because green is my favorite color.

After the egg hunt, I  had a picture taken with the Easter Bunny in it!

Later that day I went to another egg hunt.  This egg hunt was at Grandma Lynn's house.

All of my Nunes cousins were there.

I was the first one to find all of my eggs.  Grandma Lynn knows that green is my favorite color, so my eggs were the green ones.  After I found them all, I went inside and opened them up.  Some of them had numbers in them and Grandma had prizes for us that we could trade our numbered paper for!

One of the prizes Grandma Lynn gave us all was the Bunny masks.  We had fun and pretended that we were bunny super heroes.

I was pretending I was the opposite bunny.