In Core class, we have recently started to study England in the Middle Ages. It has so far been pretty interesting, but there is one person I thought that is pretty cool. His name is Charlemagne. Charlemagne is French for Charles the Great ( Know any other "the Great"s?). From what we know, he was a very tall man for those times (6,4"). He also had this big beard, and he was very strong and buff. But there was one throwback on this awesome, huge monster of a person. He had a very high pitched, squeaky voice. Before Charlemagne, was the king Clovis. He was one of the first Christian kings of England. Then, the Franks, got a new king. His name was..... Pipen. A very short man, he became king by the pope since earlier rulers were no good. 

He had two sons, both ruled together until one retired to a monastery, but his brother Charles stayed and continued to rule the Franks. He conquered much more additional land to the amount Pipen conquered. One day in Rome, Pope Leo the third was attacked by rebels, but one he was taken to a Frankish infirmary for care. Then the Frankish army led Leo's way back to Rome and stopped all protesters from hurting him. On Christmas Day, 800, he crowned Charles emperor of Rome, hence the 

On New Year's day, everyone makes a new year's resolution. I'm sure you have, too. I tried to think of something that I wasn't able to do or I was lacking on the year before. I had thought and thought and thought. I wasn't able to until just today, at about 8: 40 in the morning. I have been going to baseball tryouts for the past few days, and today we finally got to see who made the team. I was so close, but I didn't make it. I later asked the coach, or Mr. Brown, my P.E. teacher, to please tell me how come I didn't make the team. He had said I was so close, and my batting was great, but my throwing just needed a little more work.

So my New Year's resolution is to work on my throwing, catching, and batting until next baseball season, so I can try out again and make the team this time. I going to throw the ball from a distance to my brother, and practice catching it once it comes back. I'm going to go to batting cages throughout the year and master batting. I know that if I put my mind to it, and try my hardest and practice all year long, I'll definitely make the team next year.

I'm about to have a wonderful, 3 week, winter break! I love winter break! I don't have any big plans for break, though. Some things I'm going to do are: Have Christmas ( Duh! ), memorize the periodic table ( Don't ask...), and have a great time with my family. Some things I would like to do are: Practice batting ( Baseball season is starting right after the break ), read the next Charlie Bone book in the series, and see all of my cousins I don't get to see very often. Another thing I'm looking forward to is drinking hot coco on a stormy night, by the fireplace (Who wouldn't want to do that? ). I can't wait. Can you? Make sure to check out my other blog posts, and check out my Core Digital Portfolio too.

" Yaaaaawwwwnn" is all I heard coming out of my mouth early in the morning. My brain knew I had to go harvest rice for the village with my friends, but my body was thinking that I could just stay on this rice mat forever. Sadly, I had to get up. I took some water from one of the clay pots, and used it to wash my face to wake up a little. After that I ate some rice and drank tea. I left my house to go to the farming shed, where all of the farming tools are. I grabbed what I needed, and walked to the rice fields. Once there I was greeted by my good friend, Jackie Chang. " Ready to harvest all of this rice?", he asked. " Yes", I replied.

 After about three hours of hard labor, I found myself in a part of the field that was I heard something like thunder. I knew it couldn't have been. They sky was perfectly clear. Then a shiver ran down my spine. Is it those nasty Mongols? I thought. It couldn't be! They had just destroyed a village yesterday nearly across half the kingdom! I'm scared out of my wits! I see them, yelling, and screaming, on their horses, swords held high. I dropped everything and ran towards everyone else. " The Mongols are coming! The Mongols are coming!" I yell. "Yeah right" was my friends response. At the current time, I didn't care about what he thinks. I just ran for my life, for the safest place I know, in my secret emergency shelter under my floor. When I reach half way to the village, I looked back for my friends, but there was just the sound of screaming.

I yelled to the village '' The Mongols are coming! The Mongols are coming!". They took it seriously. People were hiding in shelters, gathering food, babies, everything and anything they can grab. I kept running towards my house for the shelter. I finally reached my house. I unlocked the door, and dashed in, moved my water jugs, o0pened the secret shelter latch, and climbed in, then replaced the jugs back on to0p. I felt happy that I was finally at the shelter, but not very happy that I had to use it. I constantly kept a torch lit in there, so there was enough light to not trip over the water jugs and dried food. About 5 minutes passed before I could hear crashing and banging outside the latch. I meditated, trying to keep calm. I started to hear screaming. Those filthy Mongols must be killing all of those they found unprotected and those found an underground shelter with village people in it. I knew they found a shelter because it was too many screams to have been a few people who didn't make it to the shelters in time. 

I was scared out my mind. 20 minutes past with horrendous screaming, and then I knew they were at my house. I knew this because I smelled smoke. Fire! They were burning the house! I knew it wouldn't reach to my shelter, but I was so sad that all of my ancestors works and money, was all gone. I thought I heard the Mongols leave not very long later. But to be absolutely sure, I stayed in my shelter for about an extra day. I opened the latch. Something heavy was blocking the latch to open. I pushed and pushed, until it finally budged. I climbed out, seeing that a big pieceof wood was blocking my door. I saw a disturbing sight. The village was destroyed. Nothing was left, but remains of houses and still bodies. I knew everyone was gone forever. I didn't know what to do, but just sob. I decided to move away from my old village, to one not far from there. It was out of the Mongols way, but there are some chances that it too was destroyed. I'm going to hope for the best, and start on my journey towards the village.

There are many things I'm thankful for. I can give you a whole list: My family, my house, my room, my pets, my video games, my cars, my school, my phone, my life, etc... But today I'm only going to talk about three of the many  things I'm thankful for: My family, my school, and my video games. My family is the best. My siblings are nice to me, my parents push me and help me to do better in school and life. And the rest of my family is loving and caring to me, never putting me down, and always helping me. I  wouldn't trade any member of my family for anything in the world. I also love my school, Computech. It's the best middle school on the planent. In so many ways, movies, stories, and rumors are just to name a few, make middle school seem so miserable and hard. I'm sure that there are middle schools that are like that, but Computech is definitely not one of those schools. I can't think of a better school. And my video games are awesome! I love almost all of the video games I have, but you I have to remember who got me those video games

You can't be somewhere where you don't see any Chinese acheivements. The list could go on forever! Paper, fireworks, gunpowder, porcelin, waterways, inoculation, kites, noodles, etc... China has sooooo many acheievements and inventions. Today we are going to talk ( type) about two of the most, in my opinion, important contributions, paper and movable- type printing. Now, you might say that the Egypptians were the first to create paper. Actually, they did create the first paper, but out of reeds, so it is not the same paper we use today. Paper is pretty much a 3 in 1 acheivement because paper could be books, money, and just regular paper. That's one of the reasons why it is important. Do you know how hard life would be without paper? We would have to carve in stone to be able to write things. The next acheivement I would like to go over is movable- type printing. At first the Chinese used a harder, but it still was the first, type of printing called block printing. The Chinese would carve a symbol ( There's about 50,000 of them! ) out of wood and apply ink, and stamp a page of a book. But later on, they created movable- type printing. There was a little holder, and the Chinese would keep carved blocks and would be able to rearrange the blocks, instead of carving brand new ones.

I hope you liked this blog post. If you agree or disagree with my opinion on the greatest contributions to the world from the Cinese, please comment about it. Make sure to check out my other awesome Core Concentration blogs and my Language Arts and World History Digital Portfolios. Thank you!

In West Africa, they didn't have a written alphabet to record history until they started speaking and writing in the Arabic language. So how do we know so much, probably not accurate, information? West African griots. Now, there's probably yet another question that just came to your mind. What are griots? Well, griots are West African story tellers. They tell stories that are not just entertaining, but also teach their history. Many of our facts and ideas about west African empires are from griots. No one is ever really sure if these events actually took place, but they are all considered ideas. When a griot wants to tell a story, it is usually a special occasion where all of the village people wear their best clothing, and gather up in a tight circle to watch the griot and its helpers. Remember that this is about the only information we know about early West Africa. Some of these stories are legends, and you can tell that by easily listening to the story. Here is an example: Legend: The great leader Sudiata led Ghana to its power with his magic and sorcery. Possibility of being true: The women of that village created the best clothing, you will ever feel. 

So, now you know what griots are. Did you already know what they are? Tell me by commenting on this post, and any other Core Concentration blog. Make sure to check out my Language Arts and World History Digital Portfolios, too! Thank you!

Everyone loves fall. It's not too hot, always on the colder side, and there are so many different things to do and have fun with. My favorite thing about fall is ...... probably Thanksgiving. Every year I go to my grandparents house and we have an awesome BBQ and we always have a good time. It's also a hliday you can be proud to celebrate, unlike Halloween when people are asking you, Aren't you a little old to be trick or treating? But when it's Thanksgiving, nobody has a problem with Thanksgiving. It's also an American hlidy. That's good for two things: It isn't a religious type of holiday, well sort of, but everyone is celebrating it because we are all American in America. The second things is that nobody else in the world celebrates a holiday ( They may have a holiday like Thanskgiving ) called Thanskgiving ( Except Canada, they actually have a holiday called Thanksgiving, too!). Thanksgiving is also cool because you learn about your country's history so you know what the holiday is for. Another great thing I love about Thanksgiving is that it is a mark on the calendar and in your brain that Christmas is almost here! Christmas would be my favorite holiday than any other one.

I've just told you my favorite thing about fall. Now it's your turn to tell me. Make sure to tell me your favorite thing about fall, or give me more reasons why Thanksgiving is awesome, by commenting on this post. Thank you for reading, and make sure to check out my other Core Concentration blogs and my World History and Language Arts Digital Portfolios.

In Africa at about 500 B.C., a group of farmers found this very hard rock under the ground, with their very breakable and wooden tools. They found out that this mineral is flexible enough to change shape once highly heated. So the Nok, a tribe of Africans, started using this mineral. They used it for arrow and spear heads, and faring tools. Because of the iron, or the mineral they had found, they bacame greater farmers, which means more crops for more food could be made, greater hunters, and greater farmers, because both now had stronger weaponry. The Nok also became very wealthy, since they traded so much iron for other very valuable items.

I think the finding of iron changed Africa greatly. Here are some of the reasons why I think this: One, the all Africans eventually became strong enough to defend themeselves against invaders. Two, they were now master farmers, because the iron had strengthen their tools very much. And because they were able to create space for crops faster, they made so many that there was a lot of extra food, which just led to even more trading in Africa. Three, the Africans were able to hunt more, creating even more trade with the extra food they hunted. And four, other countries and people liked the idea of iron and wanted it badly, so they traded for goods like gold and salt (Believe it or not! Salt at that time was equally as valuable as gold! Crazy, huh?). There you have it. If that is not enough proof for you, or you agree with me, tell me with some comments. Make sure to check out my other Core Concentration blogs for more coll language arts and world history topics.

As we all know, and if you don't know pay attention, there are four regions of Africa. There is the sahel, a dry grasslands area with few animals, that borders the desert and rain forest, there is the desert, or the Sahara Desert, which has very little life in it and is the largest desert in the world, the rain forest, a very green area with many animals an plants, and the savanna, an area with trees scattered around, and is common to have animals. We also all know that it is very difficult to live in all of these areas, the desert with the heat and no water, the sahel that is very hot and also dry, the savanna with heat and all those animals, and the rain forest, with the humidity and mean gorrillas. But which one is the hardest to live in? Well, I think that the hardest region in Africa to live in is the desert.

There is about no water or food in the desert. And with the crazy heat and sand, it almost couldn't get worse. But, it does. There is also the chance of natural disaster, or a sandstorm, to occur. There is also the very big chance if robbers, and very violent people attack you. The other regions are dangerous and unsafe in their own ways too, but listing them all together, the desert has far more dangers than any other region. If I was an African who lived in the sahel, I would be very thankful, because I would definitely not want to live in the desert, where the temperature has reached up to 136 degrees F. Have I made my point? Tell me, by typing in some comments ndowm below. Thenk you.