We just learned about the Iron Ore that is used to get iron for blacksmithing.
One way to get the iron out of that iron ore is using something called a Bloomery.
A bloomery is like a chimney, where a fire is made at the bottom with charcoal, iron ore is poured into the top, and there are are holes on the bottom that help bring in air for the fire to keep burning.
We just learned about 39 different types of snakes, like the Anaconda!.
Let's learn a little bit about how a snake's body works.
Snakes have many of the same body parts like we do, like hearts, lungs, vertebrae, but they are smaller, stretched out, or in different places.
One thing we have that snakes don't have is ears outside their body!
Long ago people used to do something called snake charming, where they would play a flute and a snake would rise up out of a basket like it was in a trance.
The trick really was the way the flute was being moved, because the snake couldn't really hear the flute!
Another group of nerves is called the Lumbar Plexus.
These are connected to your spinal cord in your lower back, and they help control and get messages from your stomach, back, thighs and upper legs.
(from: wikipedia - lumbar plexus)
There are many mountain ranges in the Pacific Coast Belt, like the Kenai Mountains.
The Kenai mountains are in Alaska, and are between 3,000 to 5,000 feet tall.
There have many glaciers on these mountains, as well as rivers that are very popular for fishing.
The mountains were named after the Kenai natives who lived in the area.
Just like Abraham started out as Abram, Sarah's name started out as Sarai.
When Sarai traveled with Abram to Egypt, Abram was worried that bad people might hurt him so they could take Sarai from him, so he lied and said she was his sister.
The Pharaoh took Sarai as his wife, but then bad things like plagues came to his kingdom.
He found out that Abram had lied, so he made him leave Egypt.
Sarai was sad because she could not have any children for a long time.
When she was 90 years old God told her she would have a child!
She laughed because she thought she was too old, but she did have a son the following year.
God was happy with Sarai and changed her name to Sarah.
The Bible tells the story of Sarah in Genesis Chapters 11 - 23.
Another ancient sculpture from the same time, was the Stenkvista Runestone.
This was made in Sweden, and it was a large stone carved near a grave to honor someone who had passed.
In the northern countries of Europe, they believed in the mythical Norse gods like Thor.
On the rune stone, you can see what looks like an upside down capital letter T.
That is Thor's hammer Mjölnir.
The words carved in the stone are in old letters called runes, and the words mean:
Helgi and Freygeirr and Þorgautr raised the rune-decorated landmark in memory of Þjóðmundr, their father.
To respond, you might say "Very good thanks, and you?".
Remember we already learned the sign for good, moving the hand away from the chin.
The sign for good and thank you are almost exactly the same.
Usually the only difference might be that for "thank you" instead of moving your hand down, you move your hand out toward the other person and then down.
Or you can have your left base hand out for good, but not for thank you.
Then to say "and you", you would just do the same sign for "How are you?" that we learned.
This is the heaviest snake in the world, usually growing to around 150 pounds.
The largest anaconda ever found was over 200 pounds!
Their eyes and nose are on the top of their head, so when they are hiding in the water they only need a little bit of their body in the air to breathe.
These snakes are not venomous, they are constrictors so they kill their prey by squeezing them.
They are so large that they can eat tapirs, deer, capybaras, caimans, jaguars, and even other anacondas.
We just learned that the North American Cordillera is a group of five different mountainous areas in North America.
The first area is called the Pacific Coast Belt.
This belt contains four mountain ranges: The Southern Alaska ranges, the Western System of Canada, the Pacific Border Province in contiguous U.S. and the Western mountain ranges of Mexico.
Noah had children and his children had children and so on through many generations.
Someone's children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are called their descendants.
One of the descendants of Noah was called Abraham.
When Abraham was younger, he was known as Abram.
God told Abram to leave his home and go travel to a place he would lead him.
Abram promised to follow God, and his name was changed to Abraham.
God promised Abram that he would have many descendants, and he had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.
The Bible tells the story of Abraham in Genesis Chapters 11 - 25.
Another ancient sculpture is the Gero Cross, carved around 965 AD.
This crucifix is over six feet tall, and is made out of oak wood, painted, and gilded with some gems.
The oval and sun rays behind the crucifix were added about 700 years later.
It is different from other sculptures of the time, because other crucifixes showed Christ alive with his eyes open looking out.
This crucifix shows him after he died on the cross, looking sad.
Many other crucifixes made after this one copied the same style.
It's like the Bent B, but not exactly the same.
Keep your thumb up, bend your hand, point your fingers down, and your palm is facing down.
You do this with both hands, have them meet in front of you with the backs of your fingers facing each other.
Then rotate your hand at the wrist, bringing your fingers up toward the inside of your body until they are pointed up.
After that make the hand shape for "1" with your index finger, and point at the person you're talking to.
A lot of ASL also uses your face and your body, so it helps if you lean forward to show that you are interested in how someone is.
Here is a helpful video showing this sign, and also a way to say "What's up?" that you might say to your close friends:
These snakes are constrictors, and they are not venomous.
They can grow to be 7 feet long, but they are thinner than most pythons.
They live in trees, and mostly hunt at night in the trees.
Even though they are called the Timor Python, none of these snakes live on the island of Timor in Indonesia.
When they lay their eggs, they will stay curled up around them until the eggs hatch.
Sometimes to warm up their bodies they can twitch and contract and that helps keep the eggs warm.
Most of the mountain ranges we've learned about have been in Asia, as those are the highest mountains in the world.
In North America, there are mountain ranges that are part of a group of mountain ranges.
The word cordillera means a group of different mountain ranges.
The North American Cordillera is a group of five different areas called belts that all have mountain ranges in them.
Adam and Eve had another child named Seth, who had many children.
The Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandson of Seth was Noah.
God told Noah to go build a giant boat called an ark that was 300 cubits long, which is about 1 and a half times as long as a football field.
He told Noah to bring animals on the ark, and then the flood came and flooded everything for 150 days.
After 150 days the waters started to go down, and the ark landed on a mountain.
Noah sent out a dove to go see if there was land.
After 40 days the water had gone down enough, and Noah and his family came out of the ark and built an altar to God.
God was happy, and promised to never flood the earth again.
The Bible tells the story of Noah in Genesis Chapters 5 - 9.
With your fingers pointing up and your palm toward your face, put your fingers on your chin, and then move your hand out forward and down.
That is the sign for Good.
Usually this sign is also done with your left hand out as your "base hand", and your right hand slaps down into your left hand.
For morning, put your left forearm up in front of you in a horizontal line.
Think of this like the horizon that the sun comes up from in the morning.
Take your left hand and put it on near the inside of your right elbow, and then bend your elbow inward, bringing your right hand up and toward your face.
Think of this like your left arm is the horizon, and your right hand is the sun coming up over the horizon.
For afternoon, use your left arm as the horizon again, but touch your left hand to the outside of your elbow by your forearm, and pointing your hand away from your face make a motion like the sun is going down a little.
For evening, your left arm is the horizon, and your right wrist goes onto the back of your left hand, and your hand goes over and down your left arm, almost like you are slam dunking a basketball.
That is the sun going down for evening.
So for each of these times of day, just put the sign for "Good" in front of them, and that is how you say Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Evening.
Another thing blacksmiths do is called forge welding.
When a blacksmith has two pieces of metal that they want to stick together, like maybe a handle for a shovel, or a hilt for a sword, they get the two pieces of metal really hot, and then hammer them against each other.
The metal has to be so hot that it is almost melting into a liquid, and then the two metals get joined together.
In ancient times when people would make swords, they would take two types of metal and forge them together.
One type of metal would bend easily but never break, another type of metal would never bend, but could break.
By forge welding them together, they could make a sword that would never bend and never break.
Another type of snake is the mandarin ratsnake.
This snake is not venomous, and has colorful black and yellow marks on it's body.
It is one of the most popular snakes to be kept as a pet.
In the wild it is a sneaky snake, and likes to live in the homes of mice or rats to hide out.
Even though it is cold blooded, it likes cooler temperatures and is mostly outside in the evening.
The next highest mountain range is the Saint Elias Mountains.
These mountains are on the southern coast of Alaska, right on the pacific ocean.
Because they are on the coast, they are called coastal mountains.
They are the highest coastal mountains on earth.
This is a carving in ivory of a powerful angel called an archangel holding a scepter, which is like a staff that rulers use, and an imperial orb, which is a ball with a cross on top.
This carving is the right half of something called a diptych, which is almost like the front and back covers of a book that opens, and the carving is on the inside.
Some people think the other half of the diptych was a carving of the emperor, and the archangel was giving him those gifts.
We've now learned a whole year of Italian words.
Molto bene!
Let's try another language now, how about ASL - American Sign Language?
This is a language created for people who can not hear, so you use your hands, to make most of the signs.
First let's learn how to say hello and goodbye.
To do this sign, you put your right hand in what is called the "Flat B" or "Flat Hand" shape.
Then you put that hand up to your forehead pointed up with your index finger touching your forehead and your pinky facing out, and move your hand away from your face up and away, like a salute.
To say goodbye, you hold your right hand up in what is called the "Open B" or "Open Hand" on your right side with your elbow bent and your palm facing forward.
Bend your your fingers down to your palm two times, like a closed hand wave.
Remember we learned about the Pritchel Hole on the anvil.
When a piece of metal needs a hole in it, the blacksmith will hold the metal over the pritchel hole, and then hammer a hole into it with a shaped piece of metal called a punch.
Remember we learned that the other part of the nervous system is the Peripheral Nervous System or PNS.
One part of that system is the Somatic Nervous System or SoNS, or voluntary nervous system.
These are all the nerves that go through your body to control muscles that you move on purpose, like your arms and legs.
The voluntary muscles are the ones you can control, like your feet.
Involuntary muscles are the ones you can't control, like your heart beating.
Another ancient Roman sculpture is the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.
A sarcophagus is a large decorated coffin.
This sculpture shows many different stories from the bible, because Junius Bassus became a Christian before he died.
There are sculptures of Adam and Eve, Daniel in the Lion's Den, the Trial of Jesus, Moses with the ten commandments, and many more.
When a blacksmith needs to make a shape, a mark or a bend on a piece of metal that they can't do using just their hammer and anvil, they can use something called a swage block.
The swage block may have shapes on it, like a rounded cave that the metal can be pounded into, when they need to make a spoon.
Some swage blocks have rounded edges for helping to make a wheel, or half hexagon shapes for making a rod that is hexagon shaped.
This snake is not venomous, and has orange and gray stripes.
It is a very calm snake, and very shy.
Even though it has orange stripes, it can be very hard to find in the wild!
Because this snake is calm, not venomous and very nice looking, many people keep these snakes as pets.
Further down the spinal column is the Coccygeal nerve.
This is the last spinal nerve at the bottom of the spinal column.
The coccygeal nerve is the 31st pair of spinal nerves. It arises from the conus medullaris, and its anterior root helps form the coccygeal plexus. It does not divide into a medial and lateral branch. It is distributed to the skin over the back of the coccyx.
(from: wikipedia - spinal nerve)
The next highest mountain rage is the Andes Mountains in South America.
These mountains are the longest mountain range in the world, and they go through seven different countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.
The mountain peak of Chimborazo is farther from the Earth's center than any other mountain peak in the world.
This is because near the equator, the earth is wider than other parts of the world.
There are many active volcanoes on the Andes mountains.
The name Eve means "living one" or "source of life".
The Bible says that Eve was the first woman, and the wife of Adam.
They lived together in the Garden of Eden.
In the Bible, God warned Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent tricked Eve and Adam into eating from the tree.
God was angry with them, and made them leave the Garden of Eden.
The Bible tells the story of Eve in Genesis Chapters 2 - 4.
Another ancient Roman sculpture is the Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs.
Around 300 AD, the Roman empire was ruled by four emperors.
Two senior emperors that were called Augusti, and two junior ones that were called Caesars.
This sculpture was made to show that the emperors were all working together.
We just learned about the bending in a blacksmith shop.
Another thing a blacksmith may do is called upsetting.
This is where a piece of metal is held upright and hit like a nail.
If only the end is hot, then the metal at the end will flatten out and the metal will get shorter.
