Thursday, March 3, 2011

General Announcements:

• If you ever notice something missing or wrong on the blog, comment to let me know about it - I don't always have the whole picture. -Grace
• March 16 (PM only) & 17 (all day) - Spring parent/student/teacher conferences. Conference sign-ups will be available Mon., 3/7 in the River Classroom.
• March 16, 17 & 18 - Wed., 3/16 will be an early dismissal day (No Homework Club), and on Thurs., 3/17 and Fri., 3/18, there will be no school for students.
• Tuesdays: Hip-Hop Dance - The Prisms' next PE unit will be hip-hop dance class on Tuesday afternoons. Students need to wear or bring comfortable clothes and shoes for class.
• Eighth Grade Project resource page updated 1/24, including project deadlines through the end of February and downloadable documents. Page will be updated as I get new information.

Math:

Grade 7
• Due Fri., 3/4: Compelte #3, 4, 8, 12, 13 on pp. 48-52

Grade 8
• Due Thurs., 3/3:: Complete #3, 4, 5, 6, 7 on pp. 39-40

Language Arts:

• Due Tues., 3/1, Wed., 3/2 and Thurs., 3/3: Read for 20+20+20 min in resource book for research project. Mark the pages to which you want to return to take notes. Be sure to bring in the resource book on Thursday.

Social Studies:

• Nada

Science:

• Nada:

Spanish:

Moment of Zen:

Sculpture as Animation

I got to mention this museum to at least one class; the recently renovated and reopened Museum of the Moving Image in New York is quite something. As a whole, it provides a comprehensive, engaging overview of film, television and video game history, particularly the technology behind it. That said, I probably could have spent most of a day just on the animation floor. Its exhibits look at some of the earliest moving image technology from the zoetrope to the mutoscope, but follow through the computer animation area (they have a great computer-based stop motion interactive exhibt). One of my favorite exhibits, however, is the sculpture pictured above. Containing slight variations of the same images and rotating on a carousel, it looks interesting but not all that impressive until a strobe light is turned on, when it transforms into a 3D animation which bears resemblance to M.C. Escher's Metamorphosis. A little off the usual path in Queens, this one is well worth the extra side trip.