Open house on Friday, 8/29

Calling all parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins - tomorrow, Friday, 8/29 there will be an open house for our class, Your Story in Photos and Words, at 3:15 pm. We will share the work we did this week and there will be a final performance that the kids have worked very hard on. We hope to see you there!

No one told me we'd be doing math

Today we learned about the science of how people see. We talked about compositional elements of photographs, like symmetry, asymmetry, leading lines, rule of thirds, contrast, and negative space. 

 
Then we went on a walk to practice these techniques. 

 
Our teachers showed us how to use the grid lines on our camera screens to help us line things up. We also took pictures to use as backdrops for our performance on Friday. Here are some of our photos:

Aaron

 

Anton

Cindy

Ben

Cae

Emily

Jayden

Kaya

Maggie

Anna

Rowan

Shannon

Connor

Jim

Natalie

Dinosaurs, Chipmunks, and Aliens, oh my

We did our walk in the morning today, and this time instead of using our cameras and thinking about images, we had a stack of note cards and were considering language and story elements. Our teachers asked us questions like "where is that woman going?" and "who is in the trunk of that car?" and "when will that gate open again?" We wrote one answer per note card and after lunch we teamed up with a partner or two and used these note card story elements to create a story. I think you'll see how big our imaginations are. Hope you enjoy!

Help I’m Stuck in the 5^th Dimension!
by Anton, Cae, and Cindy

Louisiana, 2014:
Ring! Ring! Percy’s phone rang.
“Hello?” he said.  

“Hi, it’s me, Charles. I’ve contacted the rest of the gang and told them to come to my house at 7:30.”
“Okay,” said Percy. “Bye.”
He got out of bed and put his clothes on.
“Hi Mom, hi Dad,” he said as he entered the kitchen.
“Hi Percy,” said his mom.
“Is it ok if I go to Charles’s house at 7:30…..pm?”
“Sure,” said his dad. “But only if you do your chores.”
“Okay,” said Percy.
So after breakfast Percy did his chores and then went to Charles’s place, where James and David were waiting. They showed Percy a magic cabinet.

“Whoa!” said Percy. “It has the power to transport people to the 5^th dimension and back!” said Charles.
“Can I try it?”
“Sure,” said Charles. “Let’s go!”
ZAP!
“Where are we?” said James.
“The 5^th dimension!” said Charles.
After they got zapped, the gang explored the 5^th dimension for about one hour. Then, a ship hovered over them and zapped them inside it. 

Suddenly, they heard a voice say “Halt! You are under arrest by the laws of Mr. Fluffy.”
The gang realized they’d been captured by Mr. Fluffy, a giant chipmunk who was the captain of a ship in the 5^th dimension. But luckily James noticed a time machine in the corner of the ship’s main room.  

 
He realized that it was going to be the way they got back to their dimension. David happened to have some celery sticks in his pocket that his mom had packed him for a snack, so James told him to throw them across the room in the opposite direction of the time machine. Mr. Fluffy was smart, but he was also really hungry, so he went running after the celery. Meanwhile, the gang ran the other direction and jumped into the time machine. They punched in “Louisiana, 2014” and before they knew it they were home. 

Candy the Magic Dinosaur

by Connor and Jim

Prologue:

21-year-old James Ravine and 20-year-old Connor Reynoso were relaxing in their simple apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota when they heard a strange noise followed by lightning. 

 

They both went outside to check it out. In front of them, they saw a dinosaur-like creature that had a faint glow.

It said, “Hi, I’m Candy the dinosaur.” 

 

Both James and Connor started freaking out. When they calmed down, Connor asked, “What are you?” and James asked, “Where did you come from?”

The creature responded “I’m Candy the magic dinosaur from the cretaceous era. I got struck by lightning and now I appear to be in the year 2014!”

“Yup,” said James. “The year of the Internet” he said while rolling his eyes.

“Hi I’m Connor and I’m a lawyer.”

“And I’m James, a computer programmer.”

Candy piped up, “Anyways, is there any way I could get home?”

James said, “Deep underground there is actually a time machine made by a mysterious scientist. It is under the lake of the isles.”

Then Connor mentioned, “But how will we get there? We don’t have any excavators.”

So they walked to a nearby construction site to borrow an excavator, but when they explained to a monitoring worker what they were doing, he immediately called the government and told them EVERYTHING about Candy. Luckily they had already driven off with the excavator, so they made it off scot free. 

 As they drove to the lake, they spotted a government army truck. As it got closer they got out and said, “PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”

Connor said, “Crud! What are we going to do?”

Suddenly James pulled a grenade out of his pocket and threw it. The grenade hits dead on and explodes.

“Where on Earth did you get that?!” Connor exclaimed.

“An explosives store owned by my cousin. Don’t ask.” James said.

So they went on driving and reached the lake of the isles, but when they got there, they found a fleet of planes waiting. Candy threw a meatball at the window of one of the planes, which caused a chain reaction of crashes.

“Candy, that was my lunch!” Connor said with disappointment.

“How did you do that?” James asked.

Candy simply said, “I’m magical.”

They got out of the excavator and Candy trampled over a wire which opened a secret door.

James said, “This must be the time machine!”

They entered the room and saw Bill Gates and FBI agents everywhere! James pulled a red button out of his pocket and pressed it.

“My dad owns a paratrooper training facility” he said.

All of a sudden paratroopers started landing right outside the door. They killed all of the FBI agents. 

“Thanks, and say hi to dad for me,” James says.

Connor saw the time machine, took Candy and threatened Bill Gates to tell them how to use it. Candy made it home and the military was defeated….or was it?

“So, Candy, this is goodbye,” said James and Connor in unison.

“Thank you so much! Here is a reward as thanks.”
A credit card appeared that had $10,000,000 prepaid on it. As the time machine was going away, Candy and his parents thanked James and Connor again.

Epilogue: After getting back to the cretaceous period, 2 years later. 

 

“Hello,” a voice in the new mansion said.

James and Connor assumed it was the butler, but it was Candy and his family.

“Candy has finally mastered the abilities of time travel and can go from time to time.”

Connor thought that they might want to stay, so he says, “Would you like to live with us?”

Candy’s family said yes, so they all lived in that mansion for the rest of their lives with Bill Gates as their butler. James now owns a video game company and Connor is a famous lawyer.

USS Scare

by Rowan and Ben

John was a 69-year-old grandpa.  He was on the USS Midway.  When the ship’s alarm went off he had no idea because he was sleeping with earplugs in.  

Everyone abandoned the ship because they thought it was sinking.  It was rumbling and shaking but that was actually from an underwater volcano that was erupting miles away.  The ship was fine but everyone had already abandoned ship.

John was the only one left.  He woke up because a wrecking ball smashed into his room.  

He realized that an enemy helicopter was wrecking the ship because it was in their way. That part of the ocean is where they do training.  He ran down the hall to get the speedboat but the wrecking ball came straight for him, so he did a somersault under the wrecking ball.  The speedboat was his only option off the ship.  

When he finally got to the boat he had trouble getting it untied.  Just in time he remembered he had a pocketknife so he pulled it out and cut the rope holding up the speedboat.

The speedboat crashed into the water.  He jumped in and escaped just in the nick of time.  The wrecking ball smashed the deck and floor he’d been standing on.

He never went on a boat from that day on.  He decided to retire and move to Greece to live with his grandchildren.

Aliens

by Jayden and Natalie

There once was a scientist named Clark in the city of Paris.  All across the city people were being found in trees unable to get down until firefighters helped them down.

Clark was walking around and saw a broken glass door.  He was curious so he inspected the shards and saw un-human fingerprints.  He took samples of the broken bits back to his lab and found alien DNA on the glass.

He thought he should try to communicate to aliens.  At night he was waiting to see them. The sun started to rise and they hadn’t come.  He almost fell asleep but then he heard a sound outside.  He saw an alien.  The alien looked at him and ran off.  He thought he had proof.

He tried to make a translator to communicate to the aliens.   This device was very complicated.  He needed water mixed with very rare flower that he could only find in the Amazon.  He didn’t have enough ingredients.  He took the next flight to the jungle.

The part of the tropical forest where the flower grew as so thick he had to parachute down from the plane.  As soon as he hits the ground he sees the rare plant, he almost landed on it!  He picked the flower and grinds it right away but realizes he didn’t have a container to put it in.   That’s when he heard a rustle in the bushes.  He looked over and saw a walking talking test tube.

“This will be perfect”, he said as he put the powder in the test tube.

“Thank you, I felt so empty” said the test tube. 

He calls a helicopter to pick him up.  It arrives 2 and a half hours after his call and takes him to the nearest airport where he flies back to Paris to the lab. 

Its here in his lab where he finally adds water to the test tube filled with the flower powder.  He opens a window for fresh air. 

This is when he sees an alien pick up a woman and fly her into a tree! 

So that’s why these people are getting stuck in trees!

The alien looked at Clark and was terrified because it was caught.

This alien saw Clark’s device and immediately thought it was a weapon to use against its kind so he went straight to his alien king and gave him the information.

The King commanded his alien force to fly away and they were never seen again.

The Balance

by Anna, Aaron and Emily

This is Liza Olwen.  

She is 34-years-old.  She is from an alternate dimension that is only slightly different than our own.  She has to save our world before hers crumbles.  There is a strange connection between our dimensions.  If they build a strong enough machine they can cross to our world, but the connection is so strong that if either universe would falter in any way the other would follow in a similar fashion.

As she stepped through the portal between the dimensions she thought about the instructions that she was given: she was to plant the machine at the direct location of the explosion that started an apocalypse that ended with a radioactive wasteland that was Earth.  Then she would go back to the portal site and go back to her dimension.

Easy right?

Not when the deadline is in 24 hours!  ONLY can the portal be opened during the summer solstice in 2050, 4050 and so on.

She felt dizzy when the portal spat her out.  She saw no one though she was told of the ghosts that dwell on Earth.

She was almost convinced there was no one in the wasteland until she saw words appear on a destroyed bench saying “WE’RE STILL HERE.”

She felt bad for seeming to ignore them, so she called out,

“Show yourselves!  I come in peace!  I won’t hurt you.  I’m here to help!”

Then she looked at a rundown store and saw a mannequin.  In front of it was a whole city of ghosts. 

One appeared next to her.

“Hello, my name is Steve” said the ghost, “we call ourselves Shadows.  Are you here to restore life to Earth?”

“Yes, I am.  Are you alone?”

“No. A former gangster and drug-dealer is here, too.  His name is Craig and he is my only friend.”

“HELLO. MY. NAME. IS. CRAIG.” said a new shadow.

“Will you benefit from life here?” interrogated Liza.

“Yes, of course.  We shadows want bodies” replied Steve.

“You think if the ecosystem is restored you’ll get your bodies back?” questioned Liza.

“There’s only one way to find out” Steve answered.

As they walked Liza spoke concerns that came to mind as they set out on their trek, “How are you leading us to the crater?”

“GPS! Isn’t that obvious?” 

“I thought devices like that didn’t work here!” Liza exclaimed.

“Radioactivity works wonders,” said Craig, “you can even get internet access.”

As she looked around Liza thought of all the poor souls caught in the terrifying grip of the apocalypse.  She looked up towards the sky and was shocked to see it was already four o’clock, “We have to hurry!”

As they approached the crater she gasped.  As far as the eye could see, a hole gaped as if someone had taken a big chunk out of the earth.  A thick grey fog hung overhead, most likely the remnants of a huge mushroom cloud.

“Quick,” exclaimed Steve, “It’s almost midnight!”

She slammed down the device and yelled, “I can’t remember the code!”

Craig slammed an object into her hand, “Put it on the device and press the red button!”

She had no choice but to do what he said and---BOOM!

Plants grew out of the ground and people started to appear.

Liza began to speak her thanks but she barely uttered “thank you” before she was shot back into her own dimension.