JW's Dreams

My motto is: "When I start something, I finish it," says JW, who has been very persistent about getting these dreams written down and onto the blog, in spite of a busy, forgetful mother. Enjoy!

I was standing on the edge of this dumpster. Then, I jumped onto one of our visitor’s area sofas. Unfortunately, I landed head-first, so when I turned around, there was this huge blue monster with lots of spikes sticking out of its back looking at me.

I’m usually lucky about my dreams and wake up just before I’m about to get killed. Except for one time. I was balancing on top of that sort of roof that you see in circuses, except there’s large openings on almost every side. Then, I lost my footing, and I don’t know how long it took before I hit the ground, which was gravel.

I was watching TV. It was this sort of Aztec Scooby Do thing. There was the cast of Scooby Doo, and a girl and a boy who were explorers. The cast seemed very anxious to be show the explorers that they could move quickly and get things done faster and, therefore, they were better. All of the people crawled around on hands and feet with both pointing outwards. After that, I don’t remember what happened for a short period of time. Then, Malachi said that he was going to play Lego Batman. I suggested that he play the level with the golden robot that you make. Just before the level, there was a huge liquid toxic waste pit. You had to smash an ice cream truck and build a cannon, and then you had to have three people who could go through toxic waste inside the cannon and one person who wasn’t to aim it. Malachi never got into the level, and I have no idea how he played it, since me and Malachi were alone, and I was just watching him.

The Thing...Revisited

JW's assignment this week was to combine two previous essays, the essays about "The Thing" (found here and here). "The Thing," of course, in this instance, is JA, so here are their expounded adventures.



Around 11:00 AM, I was running quickly in New York City, because I had to catch a 747. In the airport, I saw my new little brother Jeremiah crawling around. I stopped and looked at him. He started talking loudly. That was very surprising. I mostly hear him crying, coughing, sometimes hiccupping. I couldn’t believe my ears! I fainted.

Later, I woke up. I checked my watch. It was 1:00 PM. I had passed out for two whole hours! I grabbed Jeremiah. He’s small and soft, so it was easy to do. I didn’t want to leave him there, and he was very cold. We hurried to catch the plane, but it wasn’t there. I checked the airport schedules. I had to wait impatiently to catch a plane.

To pass the time, I went to get a hair cut. I asked Jeremiah if he wanted one. He said that he didn’t have very much hair, so he didn’t get one.

Half an hour later, we went to the gate and caught the plane. I let Jeremiah sit in my lap, even though he was a little smelly. Since it was a jet plane, we took off really fast, and his head got on my tongue a few times. He tastes a little bitter, but that’s okay. He's always been my little brother, ever since two months ago. And he'll always be.

Simile Showdown

JW was given several words to use in similes as his language arts assignment today. A tad creative, isn't he? No one could accuse him of being an inside-the-box thinker. I'm not sure he's even aware of the box.



1. Fast
- fast as a pre-historic dragonfly
- fast as a chetah

2. Beautiful
- beautiful as a pregnant hippopotamus
- beautiful as an overgrown gorilla

3. Skinny
- skinny as a piece of hair
- skinny as a bristle on a toothbrush

4. Intelligent
- intelligent as a rock

5. Unfriendly
- unfriendly as a charging rhino

I Couldn't Believe My Ears!

JW's assignment this week was to use the subject he'd written about last week (The Thing, aka his little brother, JA) and write a story incorporating the phrase "I Couldn't Believe My Eyes!" He was then to go back during the editing process and add some adverbs to several of the verbs to make the story more interesting. I allowed him to change the phrase to "I Couldn't Believe My Ears," and this is what we got.



Around 11:00 AM, I was walking quickly in New York City, because I had to catch a 747. In the airport, I saw Jeremiah crawling around. I stopped and looked surprisedly* at him. He started talking loudly. I couldn’t believe my ears! I fainted. Later, I woke up. I checked my watch. It was 1:00 PM. I had passed out for two whole hours! I grabbed Jeremiah and hurried to catch the plane, but it wasn’t there. I checked the airport schedules. I had to wait impatiently to catch a plane. Half an hour later, I went to the gate and caught the plane.

*It was explained to me by a certain grammar expert in the house exactly why "surprisedly" could not be a real word. I decided to let it go. Just this once.

The Thing

JW's writing assignment this week was to describe an object (sensing a trend here? it really was fun for them to discuss their "five senses" projects together). JW chose to describe JA (another theme). (The title of the post was the title of the assignment. I thought it was funny, given what he chose to describe.)

Jeremiah is my new little brother. He has a little hair. He's pretty small. I mostly hear him crying, coughing, sometimes hiccuping. Jeremiah's a little smelly, but that's okay. He's pretty soft. He's a little cold, but that's okay, also. He tastes bitter, and he's a little hairy (Mommy let me lick him). I like Jeremiah (even though he's a little bitter). He's always been my little brother, ever since two months ago. And he'll always be.

A (Cold, Soggy) Morning

JW was given the following quote (from A Lion to Guard Us) and asked to add some descriptive adjectives to make it more interesting:

On a morning in 1609, a man made his way over a bridge. He wore a jacket and a cap. His clothes were splashed with mud, and mud sucked at his shoes. He could hardly see for the rain in his face.


This was what JW came up with:

On a cold, soggy morning in 1609, an old man made his way over a rotting wood bridge. He wore a torn jacket and a dusty cap. His old clothes were splashed with cold mud, and wet mud sucked at his worn shoes. He could hardly see for the muddy rain in his old face.

An adjective for every noun! That's JW's motto today :-)

JW's Journal Entry 19 Dec 08

This journal entry was a big step forward for JW. He has been resistant to such open-ended writing assignments in the past but handled this one well.

I just typed as dictated, so you get to see the free-flowing style of his thoughts/writing. It covers a several days.

We went over to the McB's for a few hours. Finished two school books. Got a few presents (they were all books). We started the Advent calendar. Each day, one of us puts up a figure from the story of Jesus’ birth. Watched and finished The Very First Noel. Put out all the Christmas books and Christmas videos (found a lot of non-Christmas books on the Christmas shelf). I turned seven. Last night, I planned to leave my water bottle in the refrigerator for a few days until it turned to ice (I love ice). I got to sit in front of the heater with the pillow for a few minutes. When I didn’t work diligently, I had to sit on the floor. Put up the Christmas decorations. Put up the angel at the top, and all the other ornaments. Put the gold ribbon around the Christmas tree. Put up the kids’ Christmas tree after a few days, but before that, we put on the lights of the big Christmas tree and lit them. We put some lights on the kids’ Christmas tree (they change colors every few seconds). After that, we put on all the ornaments. Oh, and every year, we take turns putting up homemade stars. Looked through our albums. And, in a few weeks, we’ll go to America.

The Life of Paul

What happens when JW's Language Arts assignment is to re-tell a Bible story? Almost a month later, you have an epic biography of the life of Paul...from the perspective of a seven-year-old...with a large vocabulary...and a complex grammar structure.

Note the last paragraph. It was a hard-won battle by Mommy to end the writing assignment.

Paul grew up on the island of Tarsus. He always wanted to serve God, and his first step to making his dream come true was when he was taken at the age of 12 to be taught by priests. He was better any other kid who was taught by the priests (actually, in Bible times, people who are age 12 are considered adults). He and the priests discussed all the scriptures that told about the coming Christ. Paul wished Christ would come, and he would worship Him now.

Later in his life, Paul watched the stoning of Stephen, which caused him to persecute Christians, because he didn’t believe that Jesus was the coming Savior. After that, when the Christians were chased from Jerusalem, they spread the news of Jesus everywhere they went. Paul was angry, because they were already as far north as Damascus, so he decided to go there to persecute them.

On the road to Damascus, Paul was caught by the Holy Spirit. He was led into the city, because the Holy Spirit made him blind for three days. In a couple of days, Paul had a vision about a man named Ananias coming to restore his sight. Ananias had a vision in which the Holy Spirit said to go to a man named Paul who was staying in a house on the road called Straight. So, Ananias went down Straight to the house which Paul lived in. He told Paul about his vision and prayed that God would return Paul’s sight. He praised the Lord after his sight had returned, and, since he ate nothing in the days he was blind, Paul ate something to restore his strength.

Paul went to join the believers in Jesus, but they were afraid of him. They didn’t know that he had turned. Only Barnabas believed, and Barnabas took him to Peter and said to Peter that Paul wanted to follow God by following Jesus. For days and nights, they discussed Christ, and after that, Paul started preaching about Jesus in the town. This made the Jewish leaders who had given him the permission to persecute Christians angry, so they wanted to kill him. They knew only death would stop a man like Paul speaking, so they planned to persecute him. Paul was warned that he was going to be persecuted, so he left that area and went elsewhere.

For the rest of his life, Paul faced hunger, cold, bandits, whippings, beatings, stoning, shipwrecks, and imprisonment because no matter where he went, he wanted to preach the Gospel.

Descriptive Words

A black and white skunk looks ugly, small and mean. It has a tail that squirts out a really stinky, smelly substance. I think its taste is really…well, I don’t know. I’ve never tasted a skunk. It stamps its feet, which sounds like a thump. I like what it feels like, though. It feels soft and furry. But of all the things I hate about a skunk, its smell is the thing I hate most.

The End

A Science Recollection

JW's Language Arts assignment this week was a Science Recollection, something fun or interesting or something that had gone wrong. He, of course, chose something that had gone wrong.

A science experiment to test which parts of the body feel correctly went wrong. I was better with feeling things with my feet than with my hands. It's supposed to be my hands that can feel the most things correctly. It went right for the other two people, though.

The Man in Black

One of JW's assignments today was to write a simple dialog (Sonlight Language Arts 2, Week 3). He was given some potential conversation starters. Instead, he chose to write a story incorporating all of the sentences given (listed at the end). Together, we did some light editing once it was done, and I helped out with an idea or two, but this is all JW, all the way. His imagination, creativity and way with words amazes me!

Joe, on the way into the restaurant to meet his cousin Jerry for dinner, suddenly passes a man carrying an animal that is extremely strange to him.

“What in the world is that?” asked Joe.

“An orangutan,” said the man in the yellow hat.

“Oh, is that what one looks like! Where did he come from?”

“He came from Asia, I bought him in France, and now he lives in America.”

“Then, what are you going to do with him now?” asked Joe.

“I’m going to feed him this mango,” the man in the yellow hat said.

The man in black whispered, “Put down that mango."

Joe pleaded to the man in black, “Don’t take the mango from the man in the yellow hat! It would really upset my cousin Jerry. He loves orangutans and hates it when people don’t feed them. He’s just in the next room, and he might hear you and get upset.”

The man in black didn’t answer. Instead, he smashed the octopus’ tank.

The octopus swirled out of the remains of the tank, grabbing Joe.

LaRonda raced into the room. “Yikes!” shouted LaRonda, “Who’s the whiz bang who thought it was a good idea to taunt the octopus?”

LaRonda leaped to the octopus, punching the arm that held Joe. It loosened its grip just enough for Joe to slip out.

In all the commotion, the man in black had slipped out of the room.

Meanwhile, in the dining area of the restaurant, Jerry, not knowing the chaos happening at the same time, was arguing with the waiter.

“No,” insisted Jerry. “I did not order the sesame chicken. And I wanted boneless, not meatless”

As he looked away from the chicken, a mysterious man quickly bumped the plate, sending it spinning towards Jerry. The plate crashed, and the chicken skeleton landed on Jerry’s head, sealing him inside it. Smashing his cage of chicken bones, he leaped up, just as the man in black sped into the room, looking for somewhere to hide.

And then, the man in the yellow hat, Joe and LaRonda leaped through the window into the room.

The man in black, not wanting to fight, rolled up his sleeves and got ready to punch.

As the man in black got ready, the man in the yellow hat turned to Joe.

“Could you please hold my orangutan?” pleaded the man in the yellow hat.

Joe said, “Sure!”

The man in black charged, but then he slipped on the water seeping from the smashed octopus tank in the next room. It splashed the waiter in the face, making him drop his ten kilogram dish right in the direction of Jerry.

As Jerry is too scared to move, Joe hands the orangutan to LaRonda, leaped to his feet and leaped once again, diving for Jerry. Joe swept Jerry off his feet, carrying Jerry to a safe place just in time.

The dish smashed on the floor.

Meanwhile, the orangutan, put down by LaRonda, so she could fight on the man in the yellow hat’s side, started throwing leftover food at the man in black. (So putting him down, actually probably was a good thing.)

The man in black, suddenly hit by pieces of the ten kilogram dish and various chicken bones, fell backwards.

When he finally regained consciousness, he raised a white flag saying, “I give up!”

THE END


And here are the sentences he was given as options:
- “What in the world is that?” asked Joe.
- The man in black whispered, “Put down that mango.”
- “Yikes!” shouted LaRonda, “Who’s the whiz bang who thought it was a good idea to taunt the octopus?”
- “Could you please hold my orangutan?” pleaded the man in the yellow hat.
- “No,” insisted Jerry. “I did not order the sesame chicken."