Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Data Management Survey

Please fill in the survey below to help us with math. Click here if you have trouble viewing it.

York Region Film Festival Filmmaking Workshop


Thanks to the leaders in our classes who submitted entries in this year's York Region Multimedia Film Festival, they have invited our classes for a special one day filmmaking workshop at York University! Click here for the permission form!

We need volunteers! Please come if you can!

Remember that this trip requires a 4:15pm pickup fem Beverley Acres on Wednesday!

Friday, April 25, 2014

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

The T-Shirt Logo Project

What's the project?
Design a logo which represents the grade 7 2013-2014 school year at BAPS. The entire grade will vote on which logo should go an a t-shirt that all grade 7s will be able to order. Any logos that tie for first will go on a t-shirt.

Why No Evaluation Rubric?
7S and 7L will create the evaluation rubric after studying logos.

What must I hand in at the end?
You must hand in your final digital or hand-drawn logo as well as at least 4 different sketches of versions you considered.

When is it due?
Friday, May 16. If you hand it in later, your logo will not be considered for the t-shirt.

Where should I do my drawings?
In your thinking book.

If I'm doing my final version in digital form, what app will I use?

What are the design requirements of the logo?
The logo must use a maximum of 2 colours, and be designed for a white background.

Click here for our Logos iBook.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

French Novel Study

French Novel Study on Ventre du Serpent starts today.

More Info at mmesuleman.blogspot.ca

Thursday, April 17, 2014

3D Geometry Unit Test

We will be having our 3D Geometry Unit Test on Wednesday, April 23. Practice using pages 262-265.

Monday, April 14, 2014

How to Keep Your Online Information Secure and Private



Have you heard about the #heartbleed security vulnerability on the internet? It's affecting some of your most important online accounts.
  1. What it is and why it 'bleeds' your privacy.
  2. Passwords you should change now.
  3. How to check on other websites whose passwords you should change.
Use something like the Lastpass app to be a privacy and security ninja.

New Dance Presentations Date

Dance Presentations date is now this Wednesday, hope you remember your iPod :)

3D Geometry: The Packaging Project

Due Tuesday, April 22


Click the image below for the project description.

Here are some examples from past projects:

Here is something to inspire you:

Math Homework

BRING AN OBJECT YOU INTEND TO PACKAGE FOR THE PACKAGING PROJECT!

pp. 260-261 #3-16

Friday, April 11, 2014

The Meaning of a Song Project

Written Assignment Due: Friday, April 11

Presentations Begin: Monday, April 14. Click here for order.

Get ready to write and speak about a song that means something to you. Click the image below for the project description.

Mr. Lee's Example 1
Song: Karma Police
Performing Artist: Radiohead
Songwriter: Radiohead
Click for lyrics and song
Description:
Karma Police hits me deep in my stomach. As soon as I hear the sound of the A minor chords from the piano, guitar, and bass, I feel like I'm falling down a gorgeous hole in a dream. I first heard the song while travelling in Europe and would hit rewind constantly on my Sony Walkman (this was before the iPod and MP3s). I'll never forget the feel of being on a bus in Ireland, looking out the window at the Irish rain and bright green rolling hills, with Thom Yorke singing "I lost myself" over and over again. I believe the song is about the joy of being different and not fitting in, and how horrible it is when people try to force you to be something you are not. The lines about a girl with a "hitler hairdo" and a man who "talks in maths" appear to make fun of them, but I believe the song is trying to express their beauty. Karma Police is a song for outsiders who don't fit in and don't mind.

Mr. Lee's Example 2
Song: Killing Me Softly
Artist: Fugees (originally performed by Roberta Flack)
Songwriter: Charles Fox and Norman Gimble
Click for lyrics and song
Description:
There may not be a singer in the world like Lauryn Hill. Her voice feels high, low, and in-between to me. It expresses joy, sadness, and anger all in the same breath. I heard this song for the first time while walking through a shopping mall. I remember thinking, "What is that voice? It's giving me an intravenous hit straight to my veins." The funny thing about this song is it's a song about loving a song. It's almost like Lauryn Hill is singing exactly what you're feeling about her while she sings it to you. Although there have been many versions and covers of this track, including Roberta Flack's great original, I love this one best because of the addition of some fresh hip hop beats and flavour. It's a song you can lie in bed and cry to, or drive your sleek sports car to on the freeway

Mr. Lee's Example 3
Song: Live it Out (acoustic version)
Artist: Metric
Songwriter: Metric
Click for lyrics and song
Description:
Metric's "Live it Out" can be listened to in both their electric and acoustic versions. The great thing about both is how different one sounds from one another. My favourite one is the acoustic because you can hear the melancholy in the song much more definitively. It's not too hard to figure out what this song is about. To me, the track is a call to arms to everyone in the world. Emily Haines wants us to live our lives to their fullest and to not have any regrets. This song always reminds me to do that in my life. I love the lines "No concrete adversity/Only traps of our own actions" which always makes me think about the importance of not letting your fears rule your life, to avoid trying to make your life perfect and comfortable, and to seek passion and challenges instead. It's also a special song for me because it makes me contemplate the love I have for my wife and family when she sings "But I don't want to live it alone". "Live it Out" makes me want to reach for the stars and climb every mountain with the ones that I love.


When you are ready, use the form below to hand in your assignment. If you have trouble seeing it, click here.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Practice SPG list 21

WE WILL NOT HAVE AN SPG TEST FOR ANOTHER WEEK!

Click here to practice this week's SPG. Also study the homonyms list.

7L Test Date: Tue Apr 22
7S Test Date: Thu Apr 24

Math Homework

pp. 256-257 #6-20

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Day of Pink

Wear pink tomorrow to help raise awareness about oppressed individuals and groups around the world.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Practice SPG list 20

Click here to practice this week's SPG. Also study the homonyms list.

7L Test Date: Tue Apr 8
7S Test Date: Thu Apr 10

Math Homework

Complete your 6 face views of your 10-15 piece geometric shape.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Math Homework

Choose a 3D object in your house. Draw a sketch of it from 1 particular side view.

Also, complete pp. 240-241 #11-18

Literature Circles Begin This Week

We are beginning literature circles this week, a great way to read and talk about books. See the links below.

7L Schedule and Roles

7S Schedule and Roles

What To Do

Evaluation Rubric

Self/Peer Assessment


Literature Circle Novels

1. Waiting for the Rain by Sheila Gordan
A story of two boys growing up on Oom Koos', Frikkie's uncle's, farm in South Africa during the Apartheid era. The friendship between the two boys dissipates as they grow older because one of them, who is black, seeks political equality, while the other boy, who is white, wants everything to stay the same.

2. Lost Goat Lane by Rosa Jordan
For Kate, being one of three kids in a family that's always broke means feeling ashamed and isolated, especially at school, where her classmates tease her constantly. Things can't get much worse at home. Her mother works long hours to make the mortgage payments on their tiny farm. Her older brother Justin talks about running away, and her younger brother Chip has a way of getting into trouble when Kate is supposed to be minding him. Now Kate faces a long, hot, boring Florida summer with no friends and nothing to do but chores. The day Kate's goat Sugar runs away, things start to get more interesting - and a lot more complicated. She and her brothers meet the Wilsons, a tight-knit African American family. Kate is drawn to Ruby, the Wilsons' glamorous grown daughter who has returned home from New York City. Ruby hasn't got much time for white trash but the two eventually form an unlikely bond as partners in Ruby's fledgling candy business. And as Kate begins to spend more time with Ruby, she awakens to the undercurrents of prejudice that run through their small town.

3. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Spear
Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean island she left behind. In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feels completely free is in the meadows, where she enjoys the company of the old Quaker woman known as the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and on occasion, her young sailor friend Nat. But when Kit's friendship with the "witch" is discovered, Kit is faced with suspicion, fear, and anger. She herself is accused of witchcraft!

4. Under a War-Torn Sky by Laura Malone Elliott
When Henry Forester is shot down during a bombing run over France, the World War II pilot finds himself trapped behind enemy lines. In constant danger of discovery by German soldiers, Henry begins a remarkable journey to freedom. Relying on the kindness of strangers, Henry moves from town to town--traveling by moonlight, never asking questions, or even the names of the people who help him along the way. Through his journey, Henry gains an understanding of the French and their struggle; and of his own place in a war that will change the face of Europe forever.

5. Trapped in Ice by Eric Walters
Helen is not entirely sure she is looking forward to spending the next six months on board the Karluk, a ship headed on an Arctic expedition. But with the recent death of her father, it is the only work her seamstress mother can find. Helen's nine year-old brother, Michael, is delighted to be off on a real adventure but neither he nor Helen could have realized just how extraordinary this trip would be. The ship's hard-bitten captain, Robert Bartlett, must use all his seafaring skill when the ship becomes trapped in ice. In the pages of her diary, Helen records the fate of the crew and her family as they leave the ship and try to make their way across shifting ice flows, through blinding blizzards and past polar bears to safety.

6. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Stranded in the desolate wilderness, Brian uses his instincts and his hatchet to stay alive for fifty-four harrowing days. 

7. The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Watson
A wonderful middle-grade novel narrated by Kenny, 9, about his middle-class black family, the Weird  Watsons of Flint, Michigan. When Kenny's  13-year-old brother, Byron, gets to be too much trouble,  they head South to Birmingham to visit Grandma, the one person who can shape him up. And they happen to be in Birmingham when Grandma's church is blown up.

8. The Alchemyst by Michael Scott
Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on 28 September 1330. Nearly seven hundred years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty and Nicholas Flamel lives. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects - the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world. And that's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it. Sometimes legends are true. And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time.

9. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.

But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

10. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called the Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed.

When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

11. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordon
Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school... again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus' master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus' stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.
 

12. Flip by Martin Bedford
Alex finds himself inhabiting the body of a boy nicknamed Flip. A charmer, an athlete and a slacker, Flip is foreign to Alex, a chess player and clarinetist who's never kissed a girl. Alex, now living in a town a few hours from his own, is mystified. How will he get home?

While juggling the demands of Flip's life — and those of his multiple girlfriends — Alex unravels the urgent mystery of the switch. The book's cover has a hard sci-fi feel, but the novel itself compels because of its heartsick longing and tender relationships among family, friends and first loves.

13. Trapped by Michael Northrop
The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive. . . .

Scotty and his friends Pete and Jason are among the last seven kids at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no one is coming for them. Still, it doesn't seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially when distractingly hot Krista and Julie are sleeping just down the hall. But then the power goes out, then the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the days add up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision. . .

  


Click here if the form doesn't work for you above.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Growth and Development Reflections

Please complete the below form as descriptively and honestly as possible. This will be your final assessment for our unit. Click here if the form does not load properly.