Do you recognize Joe Burrow in this photograph? He’s the one in the middle.
​
As quarterback Joe took the LSU Tigers all the way to the national championship. He won the Heisman Trophy for the nation’s best college football player. This  sounds like the culmination to a great college career, but it wasn’t! It was a Cinderella season. 

​- No. 9 Texas went down 45- 38 on September 7th. LSU became No.4.

- No.7 Florida lost 42-28 On October 12th. LSU moved up to No.2.

- No. 9 Auburn lost 23-20 in LSU’s closest win on October 26th. LSU holds onto No.2.
​
- No. 3 Alabama goes down 46-41 in the biggest game of the season. Alabama was predicted to win, Joe pulled it out, and LSU was NO. 1!

- September 7th Joe passed for 471 yards in one game and takes over the No. 2 spot in LSU school history.

- September 21st Joe sets 2 records. He throws 6 touchdowns and has his 3rd game with over 350 yards.

- October 5th Joe has his 4th game with over 300 yards. It would have been 350, but he was 6 yards short.

- October 19th he scores his 32nd touchdown in one season, an LSU record.

- October 26th Joe has his 8th game with over 300 yards passing.
​

​- November 16th, he sets the single-season record for passing yards and another one for 17 completed passes in one game.

- November 30th Joe sets the all-time single-season record for passing yards, and he ties for single-season touchdowns.

All this from the quarterback who didn’t get an offer from Nebraska, the one who was passed over at OSU 3 times. Congratulations, Joe! Persistence pays off!

                                                 ​The Road to the National Championship

 - First up, the SEC Championship on December 7th.  No. 4 Georgia went down to the Tigers 37-10. LSU was still ranked No. 1.

- On the 14th Joe won the Heisman Trophy for the best college player in America.

- Next up, the Peach Bowl on December 28th.  No. 1 LSU defeated No. 4 Oklahoma 63 – 28 in the 1st game of the National Championship.

- Finally, on January 13th LSU defeated No. 3 Clemson 42-25 to win the National Championship.

- Records, yes, please! 60 passing touchdowns for the FBS* single-season record.

- 5,671 passing yards put Joe at third for all-time yards in an FBS* season.
​
- A passer rating* of 202.0, the highest passing efficiency in one season.
​
- This is a photo of Joe in the Oval Office. If you click on the link, you can see more photos of the LSU Tigers at the White House. Photo Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/49400533066/

* FBS is the top level for college football. It used to be called Division 1-A. Either way, it’s the most competitive subdivision of college football It’s made up of the largest and most competitive schools in the NCAA. That’s a record!

* Passer rating is a formula that includes attempts, completions, passing yards, touchdown passes, and interceptions. Click on this link if you’d like to see the math:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passer_rating
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Burrow
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/louisiana-state/2019-schedule.html

 
​Up Next for Joe

​​The NFL draft to be held April 23 – 25, in less than a month. Many predict he’ll go first to the Cincinnati Bengals, close to home and his parents. Where ever Joe goes, I think any team will be lucky to get him.

When I look at him through my teacher/writer eyes . . .
                         This is what I see:

​ 1. Persistence – Joe never gave up. When Nebraska didn’t pick him, he chose Ohio State. When OSU didn’t start him at quarterback, he tried for 3 years before moving onto LSU.

2. Initiative – When OSU didn’t pick him his sophomore year, Joe started looking at other teams. In May of 2018 he announced he’d be going to LSU.

3. Smart – Joe graduated from OSU in 3 years with a degree in consumer and family financial services. Most people take 4-5 years to graduate.

4. Coachable/Trainable – Joe went from zero to starter in 3 short months at LSU. To do that, he had to be able to work with a new coach, work with  new teammates.
​
5. Personable – Joe learned how to fit in with his teammates in those 3 short months. “There is no I in team.” A 10 and 3 season at OSU in 2018 would have been a failure. Instead Joe used the experience to build the relationships that took LSU to the national championship.

6. Leader - “Believe me when I say this because he was my roommate for two years,” Ohio State defensive lineman Dre’Mont Jones said, “you’re getting a dog in Joe. Joe’s no slouch. He’s a leader. He’s gonna take over that huddle.”
​
7. Work Ethic – “LSU fans should be excited because they’re getting a warrior. A true warrior,” Ohio State receiver Parris Campbell said. “Many people didn’t get to see Joe before at the highest level, but we’ve seen Joe go to work every single day. He’s a guy who didn’t say a whole lot, but is just a down and dirty competitor. Just a warrior.

8. Loyal – Joe never bad-mouthed the Buckeyes or Nebraska either, even when he was competing with them in the runup to that championship. When OSU played Clemson, he rooted for OSU. When Clemson won, he stil had good things to say about his old team.   Me
​
“Joe did about everything possible to win the starting position by the end of spring camp. “Do I wish he was still with us? I do,” Meyer said at Big Ten Media Days. “I love Joe Burrow. I love his family and have great respect for him. And that’s not going to stop. That relationship will continue for many years.” It says a lot about Urban, a lot about Joe. 
​From his former coach, Urban Meyer
3 Quotes: https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/lsu-football/one-got-away-burrow-osu-players-lsu-fans-burrow/

Why Write about Joe?
He's an inspiration! Joe is somebody you can learn from whether you want to play football, write stories, or do anything else. My advice: compare his character to yourself. Capitalize on strengths. Pick a weakness or two and work on them. Joe wasn’t an overnight success. He worked to be successful. The same is true for you and me. Here’s to the journey of becoming your own personal best! 

Meet Vivian Kirkfield in just five words – Writer for children, reader forever. Five great words, and I’m thrilled they apply to me too.​

Vivian is a retired Kindergarten teacher and now a published author. From February 2019 till January 2020, she published her first four books. That is an incredible achievement!

Along the way she also started a writing contest in     2016. If you’d like to take a look, click on this link. You’ll see how it all started, as well as this year’s prizes. If you keep scrolling, you’ll see the 2020 entries and the comments made about them.
Link: https://viviankirkfield.com/2020/02/29/50preciouswords-2020-contest-is-officially-open/

​​In 2016 Vivian hoped for a few entries. She got 128! That first winner found an agent and a board book series, but it all started with 50 precious words.

​This year Vivian is up to 390 entries. They received over 5000 comments. If you’d like to read a few, click on her link, and start scrolling. Happy reading!

This is my first try at 50 Precious Words. Where did it come from? An idea I played with since my granddaughter was born. I love telling stories, and I thought about the ones I want to tell her, just like the grandma in the picture.

I pooled my ideas into an outline about rocking her to sleep with a story about her dad as a little boy. It was too long and needed more heart so I shifted the focus to the night she was born.

After a dozen drafts, maybe more, here’s my story . . .  

Baby, can’t sleep?
Here’s a story  -
You were tucked in your mama’s belly.        
You twisted and turned.
“It’s time, baby!”
But hours passed,
Then a day. Was it two?
You twisted, tried turning.
“Need a little more room?”
You nodded and decided it was time to be born.

Before I wrote NEIL ARMSTRONG’S WIND TUNNEL DREAM, I’d never seen how illustrations come together for a book. It’s a process! I found a great illustrator in Cole Roberts, but I also found myself with no experience evaluating his art. YIKES!
​
The first set of sketches  came in red. I don’t know why, but they did. I worked with them, but I printed them in black so they’re clearer for you. In this first set, I looked them over to make sure I understood what’s there. The first two images are clearer than the others because Cole wanted a firm idea on how the book would start.

           Chapter 1 – I wanted an illustration of how Neil got rid of his extra planes as a kid. He threw them out the window and watch them crash. Why? He wanted to build better airplanes.
      Chapter 2 – It was about gathering the materials together. Cole wanted to show them in a notebook. It fit, by  middle school Neil had lots of notebooks full of wind tunnel notes.
         Chapter 3 -  It was about building the tunnel so  Cole suggested putting the materials together on a table with Neil trying to figure out how to put them together.
          Chapter 4 – Neil's tunnel wasn’t working. This was the only chapter I asked for a change. I thought kids would think it looked like a geometric design. It’s a plane hanging inside the tunnel.
       Chapter 5 – The  tunnel was done, and it was time to show Mom. Neil’s wind tunnel blew off her  housecoat and threw his plane smash-crash through a window.
       Chapter 6 – Neil, age 16, told Mom he was going to Purdue. She was thrilled, till Neil said he’d be flying fighter jets by the time he turned 18. That’s when she dropped a jam jar on her foot. OUCH!

Take a quick look back and forth between Set 1 and 2. The first 2 chapters look the same. So do the last two. The biggest difference is in the middle. The setting for Chapter 3 is coming into focus. Neil’s in the basement looking at his materials. This is one of the biggest mistakes I made. I didn’t notice all that wood! I wish I had. Wood was never on Neil’s supply list.
​
Chapter 4 is so much  better! You can see the plane. It’s clearly in the middle of the tunnel where it’s supposed to be, but I asked for one small change. I wanted the rod to run across the tunnel from side to side. In Set 2 it went from front to back. I didn’t think the real wind tunnel worked that way. Part of the problem was trying to imagine how Neil built the real wind tunnel. He didn’t leave detailed instructions!

Chapters 1, 2, and 3 look pretty much the same in Set 3. It’s interesting to look back at Chapter 3 now – I can see the wood. In my head I thought the supplies from Chapter 2 would be there, but I was wrong. Hindsight is always 20/20! It’s such a pity, but, you can’t know what you don’t yet know.

On Chapter 4, I love, love, LOVE the plane and how it sits in the tunnel! It’s perfect, and that’s what I told Cole. Every time he sent a new set of thumbnails, it was my job to look them over, then send an answer to him either the same day or the next one.

If we agreed, it was easy! Cole moved ahead to the next set of thumbnails. If we didn’t, we had a conversation via email about how to proceed. At this point, it was easy. Chapter 4 was the only place I needed corrections, and Cole understood what I was asking for in both Sets 1 and 2.

BTW – I sent him a copy of the book after we both signed the contract. I also sent him another copy, autographed, after it was published.

Next up, Set 4! Stay tuned to see what’s up next with his illustrations!

Set 4 is where the wood hit the fan. Not literally, but it felt like it!

This time I saw wood in Chapter 3, then again in Chapter 5. We were near the end of the thumbnail process, but I had to ask Cole to make a change. The reason – wood was never on the supply list, and I spent hours researching it. I came up with the four supplies show in chapter 2 – stovepipe, electric motor, rheostat, and fan blades.

BTW – Neil needed a rheostat so he could set the speed to high, medium, or low on the fan blades.
Fun fact #1 – The fan blades aren’t from a fan. They came from an airplane. Really!

Fun Fact #2 – The wind tunnel you see in Chapter  5 was based on the research notes I sent Cole. Did you know that Neil Armstrong modeled his wind tunnel on the one the Wright Brothers built in 1901? Without that wind tunnel, their plane wouldn’t have got off the ground.
​
Cole understood, and I appreciated it. When you’re this far into the process, it can be hard to back up the train. Cole did! As for the other chapters, they looked great! Until – I  discovered something new. YIKES!

When I started writing about Set 5, I thought it was the first set of ‘tight lines,’ but now I think Set 4 is too. Either way, I’d never heard of tight lines before. If you compare the first 3 sets of illustrations to the last 2, the lines look way different. The first 3 are sketchy. The last 2 look tighter, more like the lines you see in a coloring book. At least that’s how I understand tight lines.

Look at Chapter 3, 4, and 5. HOORAY! No Wood! The illustrations match my research and my words. In Chapter 3, Cole used  the supplies I wrote about, plusa few common tools like screwdrivers. I forgot there was wood in Chapter 4, but Cole changed the focus in both chapters to show only the tunnel. Brilliant! It was an easy fix, and I was grateful for it!   

In Chapter 6 I discovered a new problem. I wanted the illustration to show Mom dropping a jar on her foot. I thought the scene took place in the kitchen. It didn’t! While Cole was working on Set 5, I double checked my research, and I discovered a mistake. The scene really took place in the basement. YIKES!

I was so embarrassed ! I apologized to Cole and asked if he could switch the setting. Cole took it in stride. All the way through it looked like the kitchen sink. With a few small changes Cole turned the sink into a cabinet. I was so grateful! The hard work was all done. The final sketches were approved. All that remained was shading in the images.

Chapter 1





​
Chapters 2 and 3







​Chapters 4, 5, and 6

This is a copy of the last set of images I got from Cole. I lost the original file. I submitted them in my manuscript, and IngramSparks rejected them. My error message told me to convert the illustrations to grayscale and to 300 dpi.

I didn’t know what to do. I emailed Cole, but he doesn’t work with the interior files. Thank goodness one of my critique partners did. Rick is a tech guru! He solved both problems.

DPI’s are Dots Per Inch, and 300 dots per inch makes great pictures. Grayscale is a series of shades between black and white. There are 256 different shades. I can believe it, looking at the images above.
​
Rick emailed the changes, and I pasted them into my manuscript. I resubmitted them to Ingram, and they were accepted. Hooray!

Cole’s final illustration is below, the cover art. It went through the same basic process as the black and white ones did, but it went much faster with only one image. Here’s a screenshot of the final cover.

​ These are images from an interview I did with Kaitlyn Leann Sanchez on December 19, 2019. Her article focused on how I wrote and self-published  my debut book. She finished up with a very nice book review for NEIL ARMSTRONG'S WIND TUNNEL DREAM.

Click on this link, and you can read our December interview: 
https://mathiseverywhere439319476.wordpress.com/2019/12/20/giveaway-and-interview-with-debut-author-rinda-beach/?fbclid=IwAR0aWgc3fKKJrUa3iJQROmm8C-sfDXBU-cFBWAa3WtXQeYZ3XWUblMF81zE


​

I was thrilled to be part of READING, WRITING & STITCH-METIC’S 2nd birthday. It’s June McCrary Jacob’s website. She picked her top 5 posts from last year, and I was honored to be NUMBER 4!
​
June asked me two questions:  1.) What lessons did I learn from writing and publishing my debut book? 2.) What is my next project? My answer included the first illustration from my new book coming out in May, LAKE FUN FOR YOU AND ME.

Click on the link below and scroll down to NUMBER 4 for my interview. https://authorjunemccraryjacobs.blogspot.com/2020/02/mmgm-2nd-blog-birthdaycelebration.html?  fbclid=IwAR0_TFw9MTH2f4C_q8HEEVFta3_BZyEBh6eAzzQtljzUrALYTj3OLweVZnY


​

​ Thanks to my critique friend Karen O’Leary, you can listen to the first chapter of my book for free. She recorded it on her website, Time Out With Bear. The price - 7 minutes and 21 seconds to listen to the recording.

​Two confessions - first I finally listened to Karen’s recording tonight, and I loved it!  It came out around Thanksgiving, and I’m sad to say I didn’t make time to listen back then. Karen even added in sound effects! My favorite . . .  my words made her giggle, and she didn’t mean to. Making someone laugh is a great thing!

My second confession – I like hearing Karen read my words better than hearing myself do it. I don’t know why. I listened to the computer read them millions of times before I finally published them. My best guess is the writer in me is listening for mistakes on the first page or two. After that I can relax and enjoy reading aloud to kids. When I hear Karen read, I just feel the joy of listening to my words read back to me. It’s lovely!
Here’s Karen’s link. I hope you also take a little time to check out her other read alouds. Karen has some GREAT titles!

Link:https://shows.pippa.io/timeoutwithbear/episodes/neil-armstrongs-wind-tunnel-dream?fbclid=IwAR16nUuwNdcu3u8Q7G4x9LsoWYYf7OK-xW3sbXBT7aBOrHQ0l7avRWsC-J4

My original idea for the alphabet post started with two questions for quizclub.com. They asked how many letters were in the English and German alphabets.

I was curious so I asked a search engine, DuckDuckGo. My source said about a thousand, but they were based on  a hundred alphabets that could be boiled down to nine. After writing about each one, I never got back to the two original questions. Tonight I tried again, but the post grew once more. I found eleven languages. Here’s that world map to help you locate each one. They include:

      English, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Italian, French, Greek, and German
     My Source: https://wordcounter.net/blog/2015/11/24/10950_how-many-letters-alphabet.html
​

​#1.
Do you recognize the English alphabet, and do you know the importance of this phrase?
It uses all 26 letters.

​Did you know two hundred years ago there were 27? The dropped letter is still used today. Curious? It’s &!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet
& https://colinfalconer.org/27th-letter-alphabet/
​
Phrase Source: By No machine-readable author provided. Moyogo assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=701210

#2.
Can you read this? Me neither! It’s a sample from the Arabic alphabet.
​___________________________________________________________________________________________________
​

​
​It has 28 letters, but, they’re all consonants. Arabic has vowels, but you add them with a mark beside the consonant, like this – ‘a.
 
You read and write Arabic from right to left, and it’s all done in cursive. English is the exact opposite. It’s printed from left to right.
 
Arabic has contextual letterforms. That means a letter is shaped by its position within a word, depending on if it’s first, in the middle or last. If it stands alone, it may have yet another shape.
 
I’ll stick with English, but I love how Arabic flows across a page! 

                                                                                                    #3

​OH NO! There’s something harder than Arabic – Chinese! It doesn’t have a letter alphabet representing sounds. They use ideas and pictures, i.e. ideograms or pictograms. 

​
​I read that if you want to have functional literacy, you need to know three to four thousand characters. Would you believe there are TENS of THOUSANDS of Chinese characters? Thank goodness for English!
 
Ancient Chinese was even harder. It ran in columns from top to bottom, like that green sign with orange letters. It also ran from right to left, like Arabic.
 
Today it’s a little more like English, running across the page from left to right. It still goes from top to bottom. The Bus Stop sign reads 2E  6C   6F. Then 41   45.
 
If you’d like to try reading a little Chinese, click on this link, I picked up a teeny tiny bit! https://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2013/04/25/learn-to-read-chinese-in-eight-minutes/#56ff63a2179
​
Picture Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese
By Maloongkai - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8004756

​

 4. The next alphabet is a little easier than Chinese, and it also comes from Asia. Do you recognize it? It’s Japanese. I know – it looks a lot like Chinese, or Korean. That’s probably because they come from the same part of the globe. To read basic Japanese, you need to recognize about 2000 symbols from three different alphabets.
 
The first is called Kanji, and it’s based on those Chinese pictograms. The other two alphabets are phonetic. Both hiragana and katakana have 46 letters each, 92 total. Only 1908 more Kanji symbols to learn. Easy Peasy!

 Long ago you read Japanese from top to bottom in columns. It was called vertical writing. You started on page right and moved left.
 
Today there’s horizontal writing. It moves from left to right. It’s more like how we read English. There’s still one big difference. Japanese book spines are on the right. The book cover is on the back, and the back cover is on the front. To read Japanese, you start at the back and read to the front.
​​Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system
                  https://teamjapanese.com/japanese-read-right-left/

​ 
 
5. This could be Chinese or Japanese, but supposedly it’s easier to read than the other two. Did you recognize it as Korean? South Korea uses Hangul, and the North uses Chosan’gul. Modern Hangul has 14 consonants and 11 vowels, 24 total. Chosan’gul has 19 consonants and 21 vowels, 40 total.

The hardest part of reading or writing Korean is that it’s written in syllable blocks. I see 2 symbols to the left, then 3 and 3. I might be right, but there might be more symbols that I don’t see.
 
Korean was once written vertically, but now it’s horizontal, going from left to right. Looking at that red sign again, I’m not sure if there are three syllables or three words because Korean has space between its syllables, and its words, if I read correctly. Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul

​ 


6. Drive down this highway, and you’ll need to read, write, and speak Russian, but you can keep going. Explore Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the rest of the former Soviet Union too.

​
​The Russian alphabet is based on Cyrillic. Modern Russian has 21 consonants, 10 vowels, and 2 extra symbols, or 33 total. It’s phonetic so you can learn the letters and sounds at the same time. Best of all you can still read from left to right, from top to bottom.
 
​Source: https://omniglot.com/writing/russian.htm


​

​7. This alphabet is golden! It’s Greek to me, but it’s one of the oldest alphabets still in use. Did you know the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets came from Ancient Greece? They only had capital letters. It was the Romans who later developed lower case letters for the Latin alphabet. 

​ The Greek alphabet has grown and changed over the centuries. Now it has 24 letters that match up with English. No Greek J’s or V’s.

If you want to learn Greek, you’ll have to learn to write in syllables. Start with 1, 2, or 3. Then you can move into longer words with more syllables. Greeks like to make l-o-n-g words!
 
Today the Greek alphabet is still used in technical symbols and labels. If you go into some fields, you must master Greek.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet
https://www.mezzoguild.com/beginners-guide-to-modern-greek/


​

​8. Can you read the sign? I can, but it’s not in English. It’s Spanish. I’d mangle every single word on those signs except for Valencia. That’s because there’s one in California. The Valencia below is near Madrid, in Spain.
 
Spanish doesn’t belong to just Spain. Thanks to the conquistadors, it’s the official language for most of Central and South America, who are also called Latin America. 

My original source said there are 29 letters in Spanish, but if they have 4 extra letters (ch, ll, ñ and rr) shouldn’t there be 30? 
 
The letters look like our English ones, except they have accent marks. (papá  or güero) Those marks change the pronunciation, even the meaning. Letters in Spanish sound different. For example, their “h” is always silent. In our English word ‘house,’ it’s voiced, but not in ‘hour.’  
​
Source: https://www.enforex.com/language/spanish-spoken.html
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/how-to-write-in-spanish/


​​

 9. Here are more signs that look English, but they’re actually Italian. My only clue, Roma. Americans always write it as ‘Rome.’ If you want to see and hear Italian, take a trip to Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Slovenia, and Croatia.

Yay! The Italian alphabet has 21 letters, only 21! It matches up to our alphabet, but it uses foreign letters like ‘j, k, w, x, and y’ for foreign words with those sounds. The Italian alphabet has 3 different kinds of accent marks. You can see them in Métro, pescà, or genî.

​Source: https://omniglot.com/writing/italian.htm

​​10. This sign looks like it’s from a farmers’ market – in France. It uses the French alphabet, and it’s spoken/written in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, and Switzerland.
 
You’ll also find it used in former French colonies in Africa, Asia, North/South America, and Oceania. I didn’t recognize Oceania so I googled. It’s made up of Micronesia, Polynesia, Australasia (Australia, New Zealand, and the islands around them), and Melanesia (the islands from New Guinea to Tonga).

​ The French alphabet has 26 letters, including all 20 of our consonants. It also has all 5 of our vowels (aeiou) – plus y. Y is only a vowel in French, never a consonant. W and K’s are mostly used in foreign words.
 
French, like the other European languages, uses accents on its vowels. Examples: à, é, î, ü. They also combine them – æ and œ. And C’s look like this: ç.
 
Sources: https://omniglot.com/writing/french.htm
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/French/Alphabet



​

​11. I can’t begin to read this sign, but I see double dots on the last word. That’s German! The sign says stay off the ice. Deutschland or Germany is where 78% of German is spoken.
 
You’ll also find it in Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and South Tyrol, Italy. Three of those countries also speak French. My guess is that German’s spoken in the north, and French in the south. It’s also spoken in the former German colonies and in the Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite communities in North America. I googled again – the Hutterites are found in the Great Plains and in Western Canada. 
​

​The German alphabet has the same 26 letters as our English alphabet, but the pronunciation of some of them doesn’t exist in English. The G, CH, and the R are pronounced from the back of the throat. I can’t imagine how!
​
They also have a few letters with double dots, plus a fancy B – ä, ö, ü and are ß. BTW, if you’re curious, the sign says stay off the ice. I knew it was important . . . there are 2 exclamation marks.        Sources: https://www.thoughtco.com/where-is-german-spoken-1444314            
                                           https://www.thoughtco.com/the-german-alphabet-1444644

How many alphabets are being used around the world?           100           9           1000 

Depending on how you define alphabet, it could be all three. I found each answer from a source below. The top one from Quora made sense to me. It said if you look at pure alphabets that have a letter for every sound, there’s about 100, and they boil down to these nine: 
Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, Korean, Hebrew, Arabic, Braille, and Georgian
Tomorrow, I’ll look for  pictures of each one. I’m curious to see how they’re alike and different.

​Sources:   https://www.quora.com/How-many-alphabets-are-there-in-the-world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet            
 https://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_alphabets_are_there

Here’s a world map so you can find each of these nine alphabets. 

1.  This is the Latin alphabet. It’s everywhere, North and South America, Europe, India, Australia, and most of Africa. Click on the source link to see the ground it covers. The Latin alphabet looks a lot like ours. Did you notice anything missing, like the letters J, U, and W?

​Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet    Photo by Joannes Arnoldus Bergellus -
http://wally.rit.edu/cary/cc_db/16th_century/9.htmlhttp://www.bl.uk/collections/early/1540.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4409965

2.  ​The letters on this piece of pottery are from the Greek Alphabet. It only reached the land around the country of Greece. If you’d like to see the map, the pottery, or learn more about the Greek alphabet, click on this link:
 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet
​

​​3.  This is the Cyrillic alphabet. It spread – across the entire former Soviet Union, all of it!

Do you recognize this writing? It’s from the book of Matthew. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_alphabets
Photo Source:
Unknown - Герранъ мія̈нъ. Шондю-руохтынанъ святой іôванг̧ели матвѣйста, Карьяланъ кїӗлѣлля, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15401241

4.  This is the Armenian alphabet, from Armenia, of course. Where is Armenia? It was once part of the Soviet Union. Now it’s its own country. It shares borders with Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Georgia so it’s north of the Middle East, and it was in the southern part of the former Soviet Union. ( I looked it up!)
Sources:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_alphabet
                     https://www.worldatlas.com/as/am/where-is-armenia.html

5.  This is the Korean alphabet, and it’s found on the Korean Peninsula, of course. Did you know it has two names? In South Korea, it’s called Hangul. In North Korea, it’s called Chosŏn'gŭl. (I had to paste that in. I’m missing three important  keys.) 
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul
 
Photo by Kbarends - cropped from en:Image:Hunminjeongeumhaerye.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4210804 

​6.  This isn’t my computer keyboard, and it probably isn’t yours either. It was designed for people who use the Hebrew alphabet. If you’re Jewish, or live in the country of Israel, this might be your keyboard. 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet
​

7.  Here’s another keyboard. I bet you recognize half the letters, but not the other half. That’s because they’re from the Arabic Alphabet. You’d find this keyboard in the Middle East and in northern Africa.

Article Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_alphabet
Keyboard By Mohsen Madi - Intellaren Inc., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14688041 
​

8. Do you see two books? One looks like a real book, in German. The other is a notebook of bumpy paper. That’s a braille book. 

​Braille is an alphabet made up of bumps. Its letters match up with other alphabets from around the world, like English or German. My source listed 104 alphabets that have been translated into braille.
 
If you’re blind, you can’t see so you read with your fingers. You can read paper books or special computer screens. You can write with a slate and stylus or with special computers and printers.   Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille

 9. Can you read the letters on the car? Me neither! It’s a police car, but police is written in Georgian, the country, not one of our 50 states.
 
The country of Georgia was once part of the Soviet Union. It’s bordered by the Black Sea, Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
 
There are three different ways to write Georgian. The most common is Mkhedruli. That’s what you see on the car. The other two, Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri, are only used by the Georgian Orthodox Church.
 
Sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_scripts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_%28country%2

I started to share my cover story last night, but I didn’t like how the images fit together on my web site so I’ll try, try again tonight.
 
This is my final product from the Twelve Days class. It was supposed to be a book cover for the writing I did during class, but I’d rather have it as a poster because it’s my 2020 road map for where I want to go as a writer this year.
​
My title for the last three years has been ‘Use Your Word Power, Rinda Beach.’ We constantly tell young children to use their words, but it’s exactly what I do every day as a writer. You probably use yours daily in whatever job you do. Words ARE important!

​ KEEP   US  GOING
​These are the things that I’ve been doing for a year or more successfully. I want to keep them going. 

                                                                                             REVISE  AND  SUBMIT  US
These stories are sitting in my computer, waiting. Waiting for me to polish them till I believe they’re      submission ready. 

                                                                          WRITE    SOMETHING    NEW 
​The first one is as new as my grandgirl, but the others have been around for a while. The last one was my first story. It’s time to re-imagine it.

​Try  Something  New
These ideas are all new. I don’t know if they’ll work, but if they don’t, I’ll learn from the experience.

​ I won’t share everything I wrote this year for my class with Julie Hedlund – it’s too long! Instead I’m sharing the parts I posted in our private Facebook Group. It all started with surprises. I had 20, but these are my top 4.                                                                   SURPRISES:

1. I discovered a month before self-publishing that Neil Armstrong's name and image are trademarked. OOPS!

2. Within a day or two I had a few friends who helped me figure out what to do. It took a month, but 17 days after my original book birthday, Neil was published

3. The best 2-fer ever - The day I watched my daughter get married. That night I saw the sonogram of my first grandchild

4. Best of all, here's one of first photo ops. Look at all that hair!

​                                                                  SUCCESSES

It’s great to look back at 2019. I had 34 successes, more than 2018, but I’m only sharing the Fab Five.

1. I self-published my debut chapter book, NEIL ARMSTRONG’S WIND TUNNEL DREAM.

2. Neil was ranked #4 on Amazon over Christmas. He’s #8 today, but he’s still on page one in those all-important search results. ‘I am over the moon!’

3. I'm on track to self-publish my debut picture book, LAKE FUN FOR YOU AND ME in May.

4. I have a debut group and a May 20th interview already scheduled for the lake book.
​
5. Best of all, I've been a grandma for almost a month! 2019 was a very good year!​

​​Disappointments, Judgements, The Truth, Learning,  and Action Plan

I wasn’t going to share this with the private group, but confession is good for the soul, so I did, and I’ll share them with you too. I wrote five, the number Julie recommended. This disappointment encompasses elements of the five I put down.
 
DISAPPOINTMENT - I’m not getting enough done – writing, marketing, using my blog, etc.
 
MY BIG FAT JUDGEMENT - I don’t push myself hard enough or use my time well enough. URGH! There’s always more to do – no matter how hard I work.
 
MY HEART KNOWS/THE TRUTH - I’m learning as I go. I do as much in a day as possible. There is no more than my best.
 
LEARNING - In 2019 I learned how to target an area and stick with it. In 2020 I need to extend this to the business side of writing.
 
​MY ACTION PLAN - Each Sunday I’ll target one piece to write during the week, one place/thing to market, and one way to grow my blog. The next Sunday will find me reviewing, re-targeting, re-engaging, and repeating,

​                                                                                                                                                           BALANCE

​​Last year I picked “Know When to . . .” from Kenny Rogers’ song, “The Gambler.” This year my word is balance. Sorry, no song, but balance is something I’ve always struggled with.
 
I tend to put more time into work than anything else, especially when I was teaching. My father was a principal, and I was a daddy’s girl so I put my heart and soul into teaching. It got trickier when I married and had a family. Now as a writer, I want to balance work with family and fun. Here’s to this year’s adventure with balance​.

​ Writing Prompt for this Year:  During a visit to the library, a book flies off a shelf and bonks you in the head. What book is it, and what happens next?

My Response: ​​
I searched the shelves for the new book about Elizabeth I.

Thud! Thud! Thud! I turned and stared. Three books encircled my feet. I’d read two – The Royal Diaries Elizabeth, Tangled in Time, and the new one, The Heretic Heir. (YA title)

Tangled opened and whispered, “You’ve been reading about our girl since you were little. Now, write about her.”
​
My head spun. I stumbled, sat on the floor and held my head in my hands. “Me? I’d love to, but which one? The toddler who lost her mother. The girl who watched her stepmothers disappear. The imprisoned princess. Which!”

The book answered, “Read us again. Open your imagination, and you’ll find your story.”

I nodded, picked up the books, and checked them out.
​​
 The Result:
I already have a chapter book idea, for Elizabeth. It came to me like magic!

Back in 2018 I posted My Twelve Days of the New Year. It’s a writing class I took back with Julie Hedlund. Tonight I’d like to show you how to find it on my Pinterest boards. I have 156 posts pinned across the 8 boards titled Pictures and Text. They’re sorted into Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies.

Pinterest is THE easiest way for kids to find facts for a school report. Teachers, it’s also a great way for you to find content for your classroom. Here’s the link for this post: http://www.rindabeach.com/blog/the-twelve-days-of-the-new-year 

If you’d like to learn how to find it, try clicking on this link. It will take you straight to all of my Pinterest Boards.  https://www.pinterest.com/rindabeach/

I have 8 boards of pictures and text from my website’s blog. The post about Twelve Days is on my language arts board. You can click on it from Pinterest or from this link: https://www.pinterest.com/rindabeach/pictures-text-language-arts-posts/
 
My Language Arts board is divided into 15 sections. You can browse, or slide down to Writing Friends/Classes. This is where you’ll find those Twelve Days.
​
Then click on Writing Friends/Classes and it will take you to the 6 pins in this section. The link doesn’t work so I won’t share it. Sorry!

 Here are the 6 pins from this section. The only one that’s labeled is Twelve Days. I’m working my way through all my pins, adding in the TITLE and STRANDS. My goal is to finish it by the end of February. Now, all you have to do is click on the pin titled The Twelve Days of the New Year. It works! So does this link: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/201325045826994590/

t will take you here, with this image. It will tell you the TITLE, the Twelve Days, and the STRANDS. This one is only for Language Arts. If a book is listed several places, it will tell you here. Finally click on the image, and it will take me straight to my Blog. 

If you want to practice, try starting at my original Pinterest Board. See if you can find those Twelve Days again. If you get lost, no problem! You can browse my boards and see if there’s anything you’d like to read. Happy New Year!
 
PS – My next post will be on this year’s class. I’ve been with Julie Hedlund since 2017.  Her classes have shaped who I’ve become as a writer, and I’d love to share my new one with you!

I found this site when I was researching and writing Neil Armstrong’s Wind Tunnel Dream. I didn’t understand how a wind tunnel worked, and that was kind of key to the story, no LOL! Since then, Instructables have been sending me emails with ideas, and I’ve been looking for the right projects to share. This one came yesterday, and it’s perfect. Here’s the link:

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Christmas-Ornaments/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

                                                      Ready . . .  Set . . .  Let’s make some ornaments!

​#1 - First up is something easy-peasy. I could make it, and I’m not crafty at all. All you need is a bulb and some foam letters.
​
https://www.instructables.com/id/Emoticon-Ornament-/
​
​My Idea: I’d change it up with other foam shapes because I love re-imagining things. Must be the writer/editor in me!

#2 - This is an Oregon Duck Christmas Tree, as in the University of Oregon.

It’s a little harder to make because you sew sequins onto one piece of green felt, and then onto another piece. If you do it their way, it’s just a little longer, just a little harder, but very doable for someone like me.
https://www.instructables.com/id/Sequin-Christmas-Ornament/

​My Ideas: First I’d make it an OSU tree, as in scarlet, gray, and buckeyes. I also wouldn’t sew all those sequins on. I’d attach them with a clear glue, and I’d only do one side. I’d put something on the back, like a kid’s picture and date, but then I love to edit things!

#3 - This is an X-Wing Fighter Ornament. I loved the idea, and I thought you might too.
https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-X-Wing-Fighter-Ornament/

My Ideas: This is way too complicated for me. I like easy peasy. Do you have a Star Wars or Lego toy that would work? All you need to do is attach a hook.
​
If you and your family want to make one yourself , try this idea with Legos or K’Nex. They’re easier to work with!

#4 – Oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree! I wanted to post this ornament last night, but I couldn’t decide whether I should keep it or pull it down. I slept on it.
 
This ornament is SO difficult to make! It has 15 steps, and most of them are highly technical. That’s because this ornament is an LED Circuit Board Christmas Tree Ornament.
 
I decided to save it because it might help you win a contest, teachers only, for a 3-D printer. I know – a 3D printer! WOW!
 
https://www.instructables.com/id/LED-Circuit-Board-Christmas-Tree-Ornament/
 
My Idea: I wouldn’t even attempt a circuit board! I’d get something in a shiny green material. I’d find great stickers and sequins, and I’d try really hard not to over-decorate. I love this tree’s simplicity!
here to edit.

#5 – If you have a 3D printer, try making this floating snowflake ornament. The secret – tulle, the stuff you use for tutus and veils. If you like this idea, you can also make jewelry using the same idea. Click the printing on tulle trick.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Floating-Snowflake-Ornament/
​
My Idea: Go to the craft store and buy your snowflake and frame. You could use tulle to hold the snowflake in place. But if your frame comes with plastic, just lay your snowflake inside. Done!

#6 – This ornament is hands-on. It’s a diorama inside a glass ornament – with sand. The hard part – fitting things like trees and photos inside.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Snow-Diorama-Glass-Ornament/
​
My Idea: If you can’t find a fillable ornament, try decorating on the outside, but be careful! Sometimes flat images don’t fit well on round objects. You may have to do a little nip/tuck surgery.

​#7 – If you’re crafty and have a 3D printer, this is the project for you! Who doesn’t love Star Wars?

https://www.instructables.com/id/Baby-Yoda-Ornament/
​
My Idea: I don’t have a 3D printer so I’d look for my figurine in the nearest toy store. Just be careful that it fits inside your ornament.

Teachers, could your school use a 3-D Printer? Check out this link!
https://www.instructables.com/contest/stem2019/https://www.instructables.com/contest/stem2019/

From Instructables – “This contest is for ALL teachers (professional and otherwise) and open to any projects that have a definable STEM focus.

We are looking for projects that are replicable in the classroom or other educational setting, that teach skills related to Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math.

There is a special Judges' prize for the project that best uses the Makey Makey invention kit.
Only 39 days left to enter the STEM Contest!”