Castle in the Attic

Makenzie and Tori's Review

The Castle in the Attic, by Elizabeth Winthrop, is about ten year old William who is on a quest to save the Silver Knight who has been shrunk by the evil wizard Alastor's spell. Also, he must make his nanny, Mrs.Phillips, big again with the lost half of the magical token that shrunk the Silver Knight and Mrs. Phillips.

William begins the story as a baby. He is ten years old but unable to care for himself. Instead of trying to keep Mrs. Phillips from leaving, he should have worked harder to keep contact once she did leave. What he chose to do instead was childish and inconsiderate. By the end of the story, William is forced to learn to care for himself when he finds himself all alone in the dangerous and magical forest.

I would recommend this book to fantasy lovers because of the Through the Cabinet theme. William leaves the safety of the modern day world and travels through time to Medieval England to experience life as a squire.

A New Site in the Making

 

So, I told Miss Makenzie she was to start writing journal entries for History and as usual, she’s an overachiever. Instead of creating  a simple entry into a notebook each day, Makenzie has decided to host yet another web page. After each quick K12 lesson, she will do a bit more research and post a blurb about it on The Nerdy Place. (Do you like the name? Fits, huh.) Take a minute to check out the landing page since we haven’t created the individual journal pages yet, but you can get a feel for the plan from the landing. 

makenzie.mysmartypants.info

Mayans

The Mayans lived in Mesoamerica around the years 2600 B.C.-900 A.D. During this time, they made calendars, wrote hieroglyphics and carved stone slabs  that resemble totem poles called stelae. The Mayans also developed astronomy, the first calendars and their own writing. The Mayans are known for their pyramids. They lived on the Yucatan peninsula and some of the land around it. Around 900 A.D. the Mayans suddenly stopped carving stelae, stopped making calendars and abandoned their cities. Some thrived until the early sixteenth century. No one knows what happened perhaps a famine or a war occurred.

People from all over the world go to see the ruins in Mexico and surrounding countries drawn by the infamous pyramids. The lost Mayan city of Mirador holds the largest known pyramid by volume in the world. 
  

 

This is a kids site that tells about the Mayans.