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.