Eitan's Blog  

This year we did so many fun things! Though we all were not able to finish the grade with our classmates and teachers, there is always next year to do a meetup or a late birthday party. I really enjoyed the invention convention. Mrs. Midkiff taught us about inventions for a couple of weeks and now we know a lot about inventors and inventions. I liked that you could come up with an idea for an invention and then you could make the invention. I liked going on all the nature walks. We saw many animals, flowers and trees. My favorite subject this year was history because we learned many amazing facts from the funny history teacher Mr. Evans. If this year had a theme song it would definitely be the Bob The Builder song because it reminds me of all the times at dance party that we played that song. My favorite book we read this year was Call It Courage. It was a great adventure book that had a lot of description. This year there were so many good things that happened. All of us are probably sad we can’t celebrate the end of the year with our classmates and teachers. In conclusion, 4th grade was amazing!!!!!!

My book is called Spy Camp. They had just gone to Mexico to defeat their enemy SPYDER. They defeated them but then the SPYDER group escaped. And now they are on the run from the spies. Who will win? You’ll have to find out bin the book called Spy Camp British Invasion

My book is called The Familiars. It is about a cat who is from the streets. He has stolen a fish from the market and is running away from the bounty hunter. He quickly swerved into a magical shop where magic animals are sold to become a wizards familiar. A familiar is a wizards magic pet. Now, the cat named Aldwyn had no magic. But a kid training to be a wizard has chosen him to be his familiar. How will that turn out??? 

In my book they are at a spy school and an enemy agency is trying to capture the main character named Ben. They are going on a survival week and suddenly agents from the enemy come and attack the bus that the kids are on. They are forced to evacuate the bus and split up. Ben ends up in the forest. And if you want to read this book it’s called Spy Camp. I’m not going to spoil the ending for you!

The book I’m reading is about basketball. This mysterious new coach named Rolabi Wizenard is now coaching the Fairwood Badgers a team from the Under. The Under is a town where everything there is bad and there is littering and the people there are poor. The Badgers were 12 and 3 last season so they needed help this one. In the book there are different parts for different characters. Each character has a fear that has brutally effected their life and Rolabi speaks to them in their head and helps them face their fears. They have many drills with some especially difficult mentally and physically.  That is how far I have read.

As I fell I didn’t fall. And that was when I realized I, George ‘Happy’ Revere had witnessed magic. So when I woke up the next day I told everybody. As I skipped to school I noticed something. Nobody was there except for me. I was very petrified at the thought until somebody yelled,” The British are coming!!!!!! The British are coming!!!!!!” It was my dad. I charged over to my dad and yelled over the screams of the people” Dad whats going on?????” ” You have to get home”,dad yelled!” First tell me what is happening”. My dad tried to yell back but his voice could not be heard over the yelping of everyone. I wanted to hug him, to stay with him, but I know it wasn’t right . I knew that sometimes easy was not right. So I walked away and then a horrible feeling started in my stomach and I ran back to him.I would have to tell him. But how? So I ran to the wagon and I jumped in. If I went in for a while and hopped out of my spot he wouldn’t be able to drop me backat home.

We went to Ferry Farm, George Washington’s childhood home. At first we went to the archaeologist and she showed us all sorts of things from Ferry Farm that they had dug up. There were many cool things at the place where we went but I think the archaeology lab was the best. There were many things that I had never known that I learned right there in the archaeology lab. Then we went to a room where the museum curator was and she showed us some things that they had to do to find out  things about George Washington. Then some people read facts from cards and we chose which one we wanted to find out more about. We were able to do all three of the facts and the first one we did said that George Washington’s clothes were stolen by 2 girls and that the girls got a whipping on their bare backs. But then one of the girls said that the other girl had the idea and that the other girl had the idea was the one who did it. So the girl didn’t have to get whipped but the girl that didn’t have an excuse got whipped 15 or 16 times. Then we had lunch and I ate some food.It was delicious! After lunch we went to the outside part of the plantation and it started to rain so we went under the pavilion and the guy talked to us about the plantation. After the rain stopped we went down to the river and took a picture. We walked back up and went into one of the houses. We saw how the rooms were decorated and we even got to touch the things. After we got out of the house we walked back to the main house and got on the bus to leave. It was a great trip and I think all of us had fun!

P.S. When we got back the teachers let us have recess on the playground. Usually that’s one of the most exciting parts of my day. But this time I think I should consider it not!

Does it bother you that your baseballs get dirty so quickly? Well, it sure bothers me so I, Eitan Zachary Fierst, made an invention just to clean a baseball. It took me a while to think of an invention because right when I found out my sister was making an invention in 4th grade I started sitting and brainstorming for amazing ideas to do. And then one rainy day I sat in the corner brainstorming and a light bulb flickered on in my head. A brilliant idea, I thought! It must have been the one. So long ago I had started but surely there was only one. The Catch and Clean I called it, it was the perfect name for it so it simply was the best. I soon started exploring when I found out. It was hard but I finally found something that actually would work to clean a baseball. I got some lumber and some other things. I started working but it took me a long time to drill everything together. We were trying to end up with a box and the box actually looked pretty good. Now all I’m trying to do is figure out what else I’m using to clean the ball.

Last week we went on a field trip to the Richmond Zoo. We saw lots of animals and some were some of my classmates Endangered species. We saw big cats and small monkeys. We even saw some primates and by the primates there was a lake and in it they had(for some reason) fish like carp and some turtles. And on one of the primates habitat Levi spotted a water snake and it wasn’t even supposed to be in the zoo! We paired up with Taylor and Campbell. We saw the following Endangered species. Giraffes, Elephants, Snow Leopards, White Rhinos. We walked around for a long time and then we had lunch. After we finished lunch we walked to the bird cage where birds could land on you or on the stick of food. One of them landed on me when we got their and one after that landed on my stick of food. After the birds we walked past the farm animals and to the crocodiles and some kinds of goats not the farm kind. We walked back to the gift shop and I got a slap bracelet and a squishy. We had so much fun at the zoo. It was a awesome day. And by the way we went into the snake house and saw lots of cool snakes some poisonous and at the end of a row we saw baby monkeys. We also got to see a tour with mammals, reptiles, and birds. It was a great day!

In third grade we have been learning about endangered species. My animal is the Florida manatee. It is a mammal which means that it has hair, drinks it’s mothers milk, and uses lungs to breath. It’s skin is dark gray and it is two inches thick. It has very little hair and algae grows on its back so it has to rub itself on a rock to get the algae off. The average weight for both male and female is one-thousand lbs. . The average length for females is 6-7 feet and the males is 6-8 feet. The females are actually bigger than the males.

They live in Florida in warm waters because if they live in cold waters they would die. They can live in the cean but mostly in rivers and lakes. They live in fresh and saltwater and they will live anywhere where there are water plants and the place is warm. They migrate to warmer waters when their waters that they were living in get cold and it could take weeks or even months for the water to get cold. They group together to find a warmer place and that is one of the only times that they group together. A group of manatees is called an aggregation. They live in waters that can get up to 10 feet in depth.

The Florida manatee has one young at a time and when the baby is born the mother pushes the baby up to get its first breath. They have 2-3 years in between having babies . Their mothers teach their calf how to do things and then they go off on their own. The calf needs to stay with their mother. They guard their young but don’t attack to protect them. The fat in the mothers milk help the calves grow faster. Newborns weigh about 70 pounds. The mother will scream underwater to call their calf. They eat water plants from the bottom of their habitat but sometimes  they eat leaves from overhanging trees.

My next category is adaptations and what that is, is something that helps them survive in the wild. One of their adaptations is that they have flaps of skin on their their nostrils so when they want a breath the flaps go up and they can breath but when they are underwater the flap goes down and they don’t get water in their nose. They only breath through their nostrils! They have nails on their flippers so they can stay in one place and move in the current. Their flippers pull out the water plants and push it into their mouth which I think is really cute!

The Florida manatee is listed on the Threatened status list. The reason is people and motorboats. People are hunting them for game and for their skin. Scientists are putting chemicals in the water and hurting or killing the manatees. One of the reasons is that they swim into lock gates and get crushed. The propellers spin fast and the manatees are slow moving creatures so when they swim into the propellers they get killed or the luckiest thing that could happen to them is they get scarred for life. The scientists identify manatees by their scars. They have a huge loss of environment because people are hunting them and putting buildings on the water

There are 13,000 of them left in the wild. They have been making reserves and what reserves are is a protected area that you cannot hunt them in. Since people are helping them their environment is totally changing and their numbers are increasing.One thing that I can do is I can not pollute. They have been making laws like you cant touch a manatee with two hands but you can with one only if it touches you and a no wake manatee zone sign.

Did you know that Columbus thought that they were three mermaids but it was actually just three manatees and they are called sea cows because they eat grass from the bottom of the sea. They are related to elephants and their snouts are like stubby elephant trunks.they are the largest kind of manatees in the 4 kinds of manatees.Thank you for reading my blog today.

R: I chose this blog because I loved researching the Florida manatee. I learned some really cool facts like they are the largest kind of manatees.