Thursday, March 11, 2010

General Announcements:

• No School Tomorrow, Friday, March 12: Conference Day Conference times still posted in front entryway. Prisms should attend conferences along with their parent(s).
• Progress Reports available for pickup in Main Office.
• 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., 3/15: Complete 7.1 and 7.1 Follow-Up on p. 70 of CMP book. Use a table to record your data. Answer questions in complete sentenecs that restate the question. You will need a working compass and grid paper. Hint: Measurements given for pizzas are always diameter.
• 8th Grade:
  • Due Mon., 3/15: Read the int to Inv. 4 on p. 41-42 in CMP book. Complete 4.1 and 4.2 according to directions. As usual, answer questions in complete sentences with question restated in answer. Show how you got your answers, including computation used. You will need Labsheet 4.2 (handed out today).

Social Studies:

• None assigned.

Science:

• Due Mon., 3/15:
  • Make a cover for your "Physics of Motion" folder. Cover should be illustrated in color.
  • Write summary on sheet handed out today (does not need to be signed yet).

Language Arts:

• Due Mon., 3/15: Read Ch. 4 & 5 of Children of Willesden Lane. White a one-¶ journal entry on your main reaction to each chapter read—the content—not whether you liked or didn't like the chapter (total of 2 ¶). Be ready to share a portion of the entries

8th Grade Project:

• Next Thurs. and Fri., 3/18 and 3/19: ~30 min oral presentations/interviews about topic with your advisor as project check-in. You can use your outline/notecards as notes for your presentation.

Moment of Zen:

What Was That You Said About Old Dogs?

Like many contemporary dance DJs, British DJ Mamy Rock (aka Ruth Flowers) sprinkles sets of contemporary electrodance tunes with a little vintage flavor, layering in tunes from sources like ABBA and the Rolling Stones. Unlike most of her DJ peers, she was already an adult when those songs came out. Flowers first became interested in DJing when already in her 60s after a birthday party for her grandson. Now nearly 70, she has become quite in demand on the European club scene, with trademark rhinestone-studded headphones and big sunglasses. She says that although she initally puzzles many people, she's been largely very well supported by her younger peers, several of whom she credits with helping her build her skills. Oh brave new world, that has such people in it! Have a great 3-day weekend.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

General Announcements:

• Parents! You can pick up your Prism's progress report in the main office! Also, conference slots still available for this Fri., 3/12 if you haven't signed up yet or need to make a last minute time change - Sign-up sheets in Prisms' main classroom entryway.
• 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., 3/11: Math's Mates 3.3, work for * problems and work for any N/A problems from 3.2 shown on a separate piece of lined paper. Begin 3.3 with problem #s incorrect on 3.2.
  • Bring homestudy due Wednesday to class Thursday.

Social Studies:

• Due Thurs., 3/11:
  • Organize your Ancient Rome folders per same criteria as Space Science folders
  • Write a summary
  • Get a parent's signature.

Science:

• Test Thurs., 3/11: Read over your notes, especially pre-assessment. Come up with a list of topics you want to review for test.

Language Arts:

• Due Thurs., 3/11: Finish reading Ch. 3 of The Children of Willesden Lane. You will be given an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the chapter in class.

Buddies:

• Due Thurs., 3/11: For Group going to Greens for Buddy Time: Bring a children's book to share with Greens.

Spanish:

• 7th Grade:

• 8th Grade:

Moment of Zen:

Third-World Golf

Golf is a pastime that is traditionally associated with the wealthy and powerful, sometimes used as a metaphor for that. This association is not abstract: shelling out money for equipment and greens fees adds up. It's an interesting upset of that to find a golf subculture in the middle of some of the poorer cities in the world, hitting golf balls off of rooftops at abandoned buildings with precisely placed holes along an improvised course. It works a little like frisbee golf borrowed back to golf equipment. While urban golf is not limited to poor areas, golfers elsewhere have had more difficulty finding suitable courses. Click the picture above to see more pictures from a series by Polish photojournalist Tomasz Gudzowaty.

• Read more about Urban Golf

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

General Announcements:

• Parents! You can pick up your Prism's progress report in the main office! Also, conference slots still available for this Fri., 3/12 if you haven't signed up yet - Sign-up sheets in Prisms' main classroom entryway.
• 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 Wed., 3/10: Complete #20-22 on p. 66. Also, you must bring a working protractor and compass to class on Thursday.
• 8th Grade:
  • Due Wed., 3/10: Read #20 on p. 37-38. Complete parts a,b,c of #20. Use grid paper and ruler for table. Also, do #21-26. answer questions as usual. You will need grid paper and dot paper.

Social Studies:

• Due Thurs., 3/11:
  • Organize your Ancient Rome folders per same criteria as Space Science folders
  • Write a summary
  • Get a parent's signature.

Science:

• Test Thurs., 3/11: Read over your notes, especially pre-assessment. Come up with a list of topics you want to review for test.

Language Arts:

• Due Wed., 3/10: Finish reading Ch. 2 of The Children of Willesden Lane. You will be given an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the chapter in class.

Buddies:

• Due Thurs., 3/11: For Group going to Greens for Buddy Time: Bring a children's book to share with Greens.

Spanish:

• 7th Grade:

• 8th Grade:

Moment of Zen:

Darwin meets Dodgson in the Parlour

In the Victorian Era, cartes de visite (lit. "visiting cards" - think of them like baseball cards for tea drinking) were quite the thing. Ladies would display them, showing off all the guests they'd had at their house. Then, they started cutting up their friends' pictures and pasting them into strange contexts, onto the bodies of animals or into the middle of some kind of geometric maze, decades before surrealism and photomontage had been officially discovered. It's not entirely clear what started this fashion. Likely, it was a combination of things. One speculation is that as cartes de visite became more widely available to people outside the upper class, rich ladies felt the need to distinguish theirs further. Another deals with two books that came out within a few years of each other and which have both had a profound influence on the intellectual landscape. One was Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and the other was Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). Both caused quite a stir, in very different ways, but both changed the image of what creatures could look like. Follow the link above to see a gallery of more odd and interesting visiting card collages, along with more history and interpretation to go with it.

Monday, March 8, 2010

General Announcements:

• Parents! You can pick up your Prism's progress report in the main office! Also, conference slots still available for this Fri., 3/12 if you haven't signed up yet - Sign-up sheets in Prisms' main classroom entryway.
• 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 Tue., 3/9: #7-10 on p. 60-61. Show how you got your answer.
• 8th Grade:
  • Due Tue., 3/9: #1-7 on p. 34. You will need dot paper for #1 and 2. Use Pythagorean Theorem and symbolic method to do #3-7.

Social Studies:

• Due Tue., 3/9: Read " A Taxing King" (photocopied handout, p. 50-55) and highlight/underline important things and/or write questions where you have them.

Science:

• Test Thurs., 3/11: Read over your notes, especially pre-assessment. Come up with a list of topics you want to review for test.

Study/8th Grade Project::

• Due Tue., 3/9: Complete draft #1 of outline. Bring everything to school: binder, journal, notecards, web resources.

Language Arts:

• Due Tue., 3/9: Complete the reading of Ch. 1 of The Children of Willesden Lane. Be ready to actively participate in a discussion of the chapter, have a quiz, and/or write a paragraph on a prompt given in class.

Spanish:

• 7th Grade:

• 8th Grade:

Moment of Zen: Although last night's Academy Awards ceremony probably accounts for this weekend's Big Deal in Movies, I know many of you went to see the most recent cinematic take on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, as imagined by Tim Burton, which opened on Friday. However, many others have tried to bring Alice and her adventures in Wonderland to film since the very beginnings of the medium. A cursory search turns up more than a dozen attempts, the first of which was made in 1903 - 37 years after the book's release and just 5 years after Lewis Carroll's death in 1898. This 1903 silent film, directed in England by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, was the longest film ever made at the time, running almost 12 minutes (only 8 of which have survived). Hepworth was insistent about staying as faithful as possible to the book's original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. The cast included his wife as the White Rabbit and Red Queen, his secretary as Alice, and the family dog, Blair. The dog went on to star in 1905's Rescued by Rover. The British Film Institute has made the surviving 8 minutes of the movie available online.

• Information on the 1903 film from the British Film Institute
• Detailed description from the silent-film focused blog Verdoux, including many more stills from the movie