Monday, May 30, 2011

May 27, 2011 - Birthday letter to Daddy

Birthday Letter to Daddy
(copied onto paper by Jake and given to daddy for his birthday)
By Jake McKaskle
Age 5 1/2

My daddy is wonderful. He helps me find stuff that I like. I like his breakfast so much that someday I might just puke. I love everything daddy does for me. I love daddy.

Love,
Jake

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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

May 9, 2011 - Journal Entry #2 - Marquesas

I finally got Jake to write about the Marquesas and what his favorite things to do were.  In completing this story, we started talking about the questions you ask yourself when you're reading or writing a story:  who, what, when, where, why and how.  It proved to be a lot to think about, but I think his story turned out just fine.  Judge for yourself.

My Favorite Things in the Marquesas, by Jake McKaskle

Short cut in Hiva Oa
I like everything about the short cut we found to get to the boat. I like going down and climbing dow
Swimming
I like playing in the water and looking at fishies. I didn't get to go swimming with the dolphins but I did get in the water. I was too late. They were fast.
Hiking
When we went hiking, I liked the same thing about the short cut. I loved swimming in the waterfall and I like splashing around. We pretended we were bronta scorpians.

The End.
 
Here are the answers to his 6 questions...
 
who: daddy and mommy and jake
what: swimming, hiking, short cut, I fell down. I liked climbing and I liked swimming and snorkeling. I liked diving.
when: afternoon
where: Tahanea, Marquesas
why: because I like to and wanted to
how: I just jumped off the boat and sometimes climbed down. I just swimmed!

May 1, 2011 - Journal Entry #1 - Dinosaurs

I know it's been a while but Jake is getting old enough to start writing things himself and we're on such an adventure, so I thought we could use his blog to share things going on in his life (and cover some items for school).  I asked him to start writing a journal about the places we go and what things interest him. I wanted his first writing to be about the Marquesas. He protested and said he wanted to write a story about a dinosaur. In order to keep him interested, I agreed and said we would write the Marquesas story afterwards. The deal was, he would tell it to me and I would type it for him and then we would put it on the blog.

Before you read the story, let me give you a short background. We have the video, Walking with Monsters, about the times before dinosaurs that a friend gave us on a harddrive full of various movies. It's somewhat of an evolution story and while we don't fully embrace the whole show, it does make for a good story and I thought on some level would increase his vocabulary and expand his imagination. The story you read below was dictated to me by Jake. Where I have ? is where I couldn't really understand what he was saying. Some of the grammer is incorrect but it's as dictated by Jake. Enjoy!

Dinosaurs, by Jake McKaskle - Age 5 1/2

This series tells the ?? story of life before the dinosaurs, a time when strange and savage creatures thought the ruthless battle to rule the earth. An epic war for our world. a war between monsters. Nothing yet lives on land but in the ocean, it's a different story. Predators have tooken their first bite. Enormacares (?) these tiny animals are called vertbrats, they have boney skeletons on the outside of thier body. It is a competition against the mighty enonmacaras. defenses are constantly put to the test.

Meet bronta-scorpian. He's a meter long monster scorpian, gills and a stinger the size of a lightbulb. Cabalastus (?), she's a pieceful grazer who sucks algea through her jawless mouth. Cabalastus has had an ealry warning system. Special sensors on it's skin detect the tiniest vibrations in the water. The scorpian zeros in on his next meal. Cabalastus suddenly changes her path. She's picking up bad vibrations. Soemthing bronta scoporian can't detect.

Terigotus is the titan of sea scorpians. She's more than 5 meters long. She's the size of the crocodile. She's turned the tables on bronta scorpian. It will make a good meal for her young.
With such dangerous seas, there is no where to hide. When breeding season comes, Cabalastus congregate and head for one place they might escape the scorpians grasp. Arthropods take their first tremendous step out of the sea onto dry land. Cabalastus finally reach their destination, navigating their way back to the esmorning ??? pool where they began their life. First morning they have to cross a ridge of rocks to make it to the river to the pool. The first fish make it through and start to lay their eggs. It's a arthropod enemies. They're soon stuffed to the gills while the fish keep jumping. One scoprian is still hungry, but he can't feed. He has become a prisoner in his own skin. His rigid skeleton can't grow with his body. He needs to shed his expanding hard skin and grow another while the new one is still soft. For such a large creature, this is a long process. The next morning there is no life in the smorning pool. The scorpian has missed his chance.

The End.

He has completely memorized the first part of one of the episodes on Walking with Monsters. He told it to me with animation and certainty. I don't know whether I'm surprised or not as he routinely memorizes things, but I think I might have learned something?