Follow Lian, a fun loving seventh grader, as he talks to members of his community and explores the boundaries of his world. Help Lian Interview President Obama
Today I want to talk about the most viewed post of the year.
It was a present for my cousin. I was worried she wouldn't like it. She really did. It was really fun to make and we killed a bunch of Sharpies.
It is a really popular post. This week alone there have been hundreds of views on this post from all over the country. It is also one of my most pinned posts on Pinterest.
Lian's second year of
blogging is coming to a close this month and I thought that this would
be a good time to tell the world how proud I am of Lian and all he has
managed to accomplish in the last twelve months.
As
most of you know, family circumstance caused Lian to have to move to a
new city and even switch schools. Neither of us are too happy
about that. He misses his friends and I lament the opportunities
lost. Still, Lian is a great kid and he has made the best of it and found opportunities galore in his new situation.
On
his blog he has made great strides. He has had some fantastic projects
over the last year and has lots on tap for the coming summer. He is building on his second place win at his last school's music composition contest and has written several new pieces for use in his vlog segments and his upcoming animation show. He is also interested in producing music videos for his dad's original music.
He has begun
writing and story-boarding his regular videos, taking a more directorial approach to them. He has learned many new video editing techniques
(and thankfully shared them with Mom). He has begun interviewing guests for his blog on a
small scale but he has big plans to expand that idea as he found great
fun in learning about other people. Film-making has become a big hobby
of his and he can't wait until summer to find the time to edit his animation show
together and share it with the world. He has added new pages to his blog
and has some great plans for renewing old favorites when he has time
over the coming months to spend on them. It is good to see him excited.
At
school, he has really enjoyed getting to know his new team of
teachers and he has jumped at the chance to try all sorts of new things
in the past few months. Over Spring Break he spearheaded the team that earned 250 new books for his school from WeGiveBooks.org. They were delivered in April.
He really enjoyed going to his first school
dance recently and although his school field trips aren't on such a
grand scale as he is used to, he got to go to his favorite place in the
whole world (the city library) and was super excited to learn things
about it he didn't know.
This past week was another
first for him. He was in his first school production. The fourth grade
classes put on a historical musical skit for their fellow classmates,
teaching them about the California Gold Rush. He had a super blast
learning the songs and he says that he picked up quite a bit of
history along the way. I didn't have the heart to tell him that was probably the point of the exercise. While I have to admit the whole production reminds me of a certain scene in "The Music Man", it was obvious that the kids worked hard and had a terrific time. I am proud of them all.
Academically and socially he has a hard road ahead, but I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that he is finding ways to showcase his strengths. No matter what problems he may face, my boy is fairly spectacular! I am so looking forward to another year of Lian's Summer of Fun
Today I got my dad to help me make my video. I love when dad has time to help me out on my blog. Memorial Day is important so I wanted to say something. My dad wrote the song in the first video. It is called Solder's Serenade.
Last week I got to go on a field trip with my classes to the library. I love the library I have been there at least 1000 times. Not really 1000, but it is one of my most favorite places to be. You can see my first post on the Corona Library here http://lianssummeroffun.blogspot.com/2011/06/library-fun.html.
I have seen music shows at the library and dressed up like a pirate and checked out thousands of books. Maybe not thousands, but lots. The librarians are so nice and they always help me find books and they always remember me. I love how they always know right where to go when I have a question. It has the best kids area of all the libraries even though the big one in Riverside has toys. It even has Finding Nemo fish.
This time we got to go before the library opened and took a tour and that was very fun. I really enjoyed learning about the heritage room.
Later my teacher read us some books and I got to check out some more books. We walked there and back and that was way better than being class.
Thank you to the librarians and my teachers. I had a great time.
I got to go to my first school dance. My mom was my date. I made a flower to give to her when I asked her to go with me. I had so much fun. They gave me a flower to give to her and they took a picture that we got to keep.
For PE we learned how to dance. My favorite dance to do is the Charlie Brown.
I really liked dancing with my mom. Oh and there were LASERS!
I would like to thank our PTA for throwing such a great party
Saturday was the RCC Jazz Festival. My family went to see all the bands play but mostly to see the RCC Combo Bands in the afternoon. The members of the combos didn't want me video them for the blog. That is okay. That is why I ask first. It turned out to be a good thing though. There was a booth that let people try out musical instruments near them. Those people were great musicians, but it was so loud we couldn't hear the music from the RCC band anyway. In the end it was so hot and loud that we finally decided that they weren't worth it and left.
Earlier in the day we got to hear some great high school bands. We got video for Upland High school. I really enjoyed their music.
Jazz is a new kind of music for me. It really flows. I really liked the horns.
My Gran has a hummingbird nest in her backyard. She says it has been there for a long time and she didn't expect that it get used again. Gran has food out for the birds and I have seen a lot of them waiting for her to hang it up sometimes.
Mom and I did some research and I found out some neat things about hummingbirds.
Hummingbirds live for about five years.
They lay their eggs in late spring and early summer.
Hummingbirds are known to steal each others nests.
They may use their own nest again but more likely they will move in to one that isn't being used. Mothers usually lay two eggs the size of a jelly bean and they take 16 - 18 days to hatch.
When the babies grow up they fly away and don't come back.
Some hummingbirds migrate but where we live they are here all year long,
The kind of nest we have is a cup style nest but hummingbirds build other kinds as well.
I think the kind of bird in the nest is an Anna's Hummingbird.
I was looking through my stats page (because I love to see where people who read my blog live) and I saw that a bunch of people visited me this week from someone else's blog. I went to check it out and it was because they posted one of my book reviews from last summer http://www.buildingalibrary.com/picture-books/book-trailers-and-videos-for-the-2013-caldecott-medal-and-honor-books/825. They also said some really nice things about me and my blog. A teacher even left a comment about how she liked my video too.
The blog is called "Building a Library," http://www.buildingalibrary.com and it is all about the perfect books for a kid's library. They say they have over 500 books. That is so great. I love to collect books. I have a link to the blog in my side bar because they are always posting neat book stuff there. They even post about comic books and that is awesome because I love comic books.
I love making my blog, when I have time, but I really love doing it when I find out that other people like it too. Plus it is awesome because my second blogaversay is coming soon and like last year I am adding some new pages to celebrate. I already added my autograph book. I am going to add a page just for my book reviews. I really want to try one per week during the summer. It is hard to do that during the school year, at least it was this year.
I hope you visit the Building a Library blog and see all the great suggestion for books. You can even make suggestions yourself for the perfect kid library.
