Animals Inside/Vertebrate Comparison: Human vs. Deer Skeletal Systems

  In science we are studying human anatomy while we learn about vertebrates and bodily systems. I had to choose one body system to create a project on. I chose to focus on the skeletal system because most people associate skeletons with Halloween and I like Halloween and spooky things, but as I learned quickly they weren't scary at all. They turned out to be fascinating.  The skeleton's function is to support the body, promote movement, and to create blood cells from the bone marrow.

 One thing that I have to do is compare and contrast the human skeleton and an another animal's skeleton. Luckily we had a friend named Wendy Martin who had a whole set of deer bones. She lent them to us so that we could try and assemble the bones, find out how old the deer was, and what its cause of death was.The bones were sooooo complex that we had a hard time putting them into the right place. Some of the bones were so small that we couldn't figure out where they went. After assembling the bones, we concluded that the deer was two and a half years old and died of a broken hip. Make no bones about it, it was a very awesome lesson!

Patrick Henry: Revolutionary Man

Patrick Henry was one of America's founding fathers.  He was a post-colonial governor of Virginia, and one of the most influential and radical advocates for the American Revolution and republicanism.  Patrick Henry later opposed the Articles of Confederation with the U.S. Constitution because he feared that it would endanger states rights and individual freedoms.

St. John's Church here in Richmond was the site of the Second Virginia Convention of 1775 and Patrick Henry's famous "give me liberty or give me death!" speech, his plea to unite Virginians to join the cause of the American Revolution.  If you are ever in Richmond, you should check out this historic site.  The church's baptismal font is where Pocahontas was christened and given the Christian name Rebecca.

Scotchtown, located outside of nearby Ashland, Virginia, was one of the many places that Patrick Henry lived.  He lived there for only five years.  Sadly, his wife Sarah was mentally ill, and luckily for her, Patrick had an enlightened view of mental illness.  Most people thought mental illness was caused by the devil.  At Scotchtown, he made sure that she was well taken care of.  When she died, no one would give her a proper burial, so Patrick did it himself.  There is a lilac bush just outside of the house where his wife is supposedly buried.Patrick Henry did not die at Scotchtown, but he moved to Red Hill Plantation closer to Richmond. There he died at the age of sixty three.

   Patrick Henry was a great man because of his revolutionary ideas and his kindness toward his wife. Not many people back then would be kind to mentally ill people. What makes him even more extraordinary was the fact that he taught himself law and he got himself  a job as a lawyer! He truly was a self-made man who was very compassionate towards others.

Johnny Tremain

  
 Eight patriotic men died at Lexington Green in the first volley of bullets; and so began the war for Independence, the American Revolution.

  Reading a work of historical fiction is a great way to get a inside look at historical events. We're learning about the American Revolution and we needed a good book that could give us the colonists' view and Johnny Tremain did just that. Johnny was a colonial silversmith's apprentice and was the best. Johnny had only one problem. He was so prideful in his work that one day he didn't see a puddle of melted wax on the floor, slipped in it and put his hand in molten silver, crippling it. He could no longer be a silversmith.

  Sometimes you need to fight for your beliefs, even if you have to die for them.

   Johnny had to find a new job. He finally settled on carrying papers for the Boston Observer, a local newspaper run secretly by the Sons of Liberty. He made a friend there named Rab. Rab wanted to fight and break away from England. One day Johnny heard the Sons of Liberty talk about having the Boston Tea Party and Johnny was to be part of it.

  "Mother England" taxes our tea, how dare she! We won't buy that tea, but we will board those tea ships and have a tea party in the harbor in which they sit!

Tea. The tea we have as part of our daily drink is gone to the sea for "Mother England" to see.

  During one of the Sons of Liberty meetings, they gave the following instructions.  If Sam Adams declared  "This meeting can do nothing for our country," Johnny would blow on a whistle to signal the start of the tea party. This is exactly what happened. Once Johnny got the signal, he blew on his whistle and patriots in Indian disguises started running onto the tea ships.  CHOP! CRACK! BOOM! SPLASH! That was the sound that came off those ships:  the sound of chests splitting and tea spilling into the harbor. When the work was done, the "Indians" ran back into the city and changed back into their original clothes. The "Indians,"  the British soon found out, were colonists and they had to pay for the tea.

  CRACK! The sound of a British gun firing, sounding the start of the American Revolution.

  The British started moving their troops into the colonies. While the British did that, the colonies formed militias of minutemen to fight back. At Lexington the British started fighting the minutemen and when the skirmish ended, eight minutemen were dead. Johnny knew Rab was at Lexington when the battle happened, so Johnny went looking for him. Johnny learned that Rab was mortally wounded. Rab later died from his wounds. Because of Rab's death, Johnny knows he has to fight for the freedom Rab wanted.  First he needs to have his crippled hand fix, which his friend Dr. Warren offers to do for him.  Johnny takes him up on it and begins to take up the cause. 

  I read this book because you can read all the facts about the American Revolution, but you won't find the important things that everyday people experienced.  Historical fiction gives you a fuller understanding because you get a different view that plain facts can't.  It puts you in the main character's shoes and allows you to see why people did things that they did.