Friday, January 22, 2010

General Announcements:

• Updated Eighth Grade project documents available here, including Phase 2 calendar.
• Friday, Feb. 5: Prisms' Coffeehouse! St. Mary's Church, Haydenville, 6-9 PM — Dinner, dessert & entertainment! Tickets now available for purchase! $5/person, $20/family
• You must have an independent reading book every day. If you are getting close to the end of one, have the next one at school and ready to go.

Math:

• 7th Grade:
  • Due Mon., 1/25: Complete 3.2 according to directions. Also, glue your completed shape onto your homework paper.
• 8th Grade:
  • Due Mon., 1/25: Answer reflection questions on p. 16 of CMP book, using complete sentences and showing your current understanding.
  • Have a book to read regarding your research topic at all times.

Social Studies:

• Due Mon., 1/25: Complete worksheet and evidence for "Was Julius Caesar a good leader?"
  • Notes for evaluating the leadership of Julius Caesar (Part 3 of assignement)

Science:

• None assigned

Language Arts:

• Due Mon. 1/25: Grammar Sheet #6: Helper verbs, verb participle forms.
• Group 1 only: Have at least one origami figure completed that you could make again for Monday in preparation for Tuesday's Overlook visit.
  Links to origami instruction diagrams:
  • Origami Club
  • Origami Village

Spanish:

• 7th Grade:

• 8th Grade:

Moment of Zen:

You Are What You Eat?

Flamingos turn pink because of the shrimp they eat, humans who seriously overdo it on carrots can take on an orange cast to them. So what does this photo series of people's refrigerator contents by photographer Mark Menjivar tell us? Menjivar's photos are collected from the refrigerators and freezers of a wide range of folks in the US. Each picture is captioned with a few notes about its owner, including their job (everything from midwives to metal drummers), how many people the fridge serves, whereand some other kind of biographical information about the fridge's owner (e.g. "She can bench press 300 lbs," "Feels more comfortable among flora and fauna of his era than people."). A distinctly different kind of food-based voyeurism from What the World Eats but an interesting complement in examining that question.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

General Announcements:

• Updated Eighth Grade project documents available here, including assessment rubric for Phase 2
• Friday, Feb. 5: Prisms' Coffeehouse! St. Mary's Church, Haydenville, 6-9 PM — Dinner, dessert & entertainment! Tickets now available for purchase!
• Please sign up for Coffeehouse acts and raffle services (w/pay rate) ASAP.
• You must have an independent reading book every day. If you are getting close to the end of one, have the next one at school and ready to go.

Math:

• 7th Grade:
  • Due Fri., 1/22: Complete 3.1 on p. 30 and #1-5 on p. 32 of CMP book. Answer all questions in complete sentences restating the question. Be certain you have the mathematical data to prove you answer is correct. Show your computations and strategies.
• 8th Grade:
  • Due Fri., 1/22: Complete 1.3 on p.11 of new CMP book according to directions. Continue from where you left off last Friday. Be sure to clearly label data points and figures.

Social Studies:

• Due :

Science:

• Due :

Language Arts:

• Due Fri., 1/22: Complete Grammar Lesson 5: Reflexive Pronouns.

Spanish:

• 7th Grade:
  • Due Fri., 1/22
    • In ¿Qué Tal?, complete 3 written activities of your choice.
    • Read ch. 1 of Piratas and create a vocab list as you're reading.

• 8th Grade:
  • Due Fri., 1/22
    • In Ahora, complete 3 written activities of your choice.
    • Finish reading ch. 1 of Robo en la noche and create a vocab list as you're reading.

Moment of Zen: One of the earliest, but still one of the most important cinematic visions of a dystopic future, the silent film Metropolis (Germany, 1927) is one that transcends its era. Although, as the linked article (click picture) from The AV Club describes, it still suffers from some of the "big" acting characteristic of silent film, it also is a rare silent film that lets me forget that it's silent. The Nazis felt that the film's sociopolitical vision threatened their cause so much that they tried to destroy it completely, and some pieces of the film have still not been recovered. However, an additional 30 minutes of film has been recovered in the last year, so, with any luck, it will be restored and released in fullness soon. A landmark of both cinematic technique and vision, it isn't hard to see why this is regarded as one of the most important films in cinematic history.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

General Announcements:

• Updated Eighth Grade project documents available here, including assessment rubric for Phase 2
• Friday, Feb. 5: Prisms' Coffeehouse! St. Mary's Church, Haydenville, 6-9 PM — Dinner, dessert & entertainment! Tickets now available for purchase!
• Please sign up for Coffeehouse acts and raffle services (w/pay rate) ASAP.
• You must have an independent reading book every day. If you are getting close to the end of one, have the next one at school and ready to go.

Math:

• 7th & 8th Grade:
  • Due Thurs., 1/21: Math's Mate 2.5, with work for * problems shown on separate paper and corrections for 2.4, written out on paper other than original worksheet.

Social Studies:

• Due Thurs., 1/21:
  • Complete drawing about change in mood in Rome in the dissolution of the republic into military rule
  • Read pgs. 99-105 in packet, underlining/highlighting important information.

Science:

• Due Thurs., 1/21: Complete Reflection questions based on post-assessment and other assessment.

Language Arts:

• Quiz, Thurs., 1/21: Quiz on grammar lessons 3 & 4 (subject/object pronouns, possessive pronouns). Use returned, corrected grammar worksheets to help study. Questions will include material from sheets 1 & 2 as well.

Spanish:

• 7th Grade:
  • Due Fri., 1/22
    • In ¿Qué Tal?, complete 3 written activities of your choice.
    • Read ch. 1 of Piratas and create a vocab list as you're reading.

• 8th Grade:
  • Due Fri., 1/22
    • In Ahora, complete 3 written activities of your choice.
    • Finish reading ch. 1 of Robo en la noche and create a vocab list as you're reading.

Moment of Zen:

Codex Seraphianus

Is it a guidebook to a far off planet? An encyclopedia to an almost-parallel dimension? Simply an atlas to one person's twisted imagination? It's not entirely clear, and may never be. The Codex Seraphianus appeared in a limited edition in 1978, the brainchild of Italian architect Luigi Serafini. The book is primarily a visual catalogue of fantastical images ranging from simply improbable to completely impossible phenomena, but indexes what approaches a whole world, ranging from plants and animals to people and their mechanical contraptions. However, the entirety of the book's text is written in an as-yet undeciphered script. Serafini has stated in the last year that the script used the Codex is not systemic and that his goal in the writing was to create the sense of a child who can't read yet looking at a book they know makes sense to grown-ups. It has been determined that the numbering system is a variation of a base-21 system. While the text, which feels just out of grasp, adds to the mystery of the book, the images stand alone as a reminder that the root of imagination is image. Click the image above to read a Wired writer's description of it (includes links to more images from the book), or click here to go to Wikipedia's entry on this unique book.