April 12, 2024

We are better together

Helping others with read aloud

DVD RW OPTICAL DRIVE

I went way too ambitious on last year’s top god art project. I wanted a Walschaerts valve gear and instead I got some 3D printed wheels and some brass in the shape of a backplate, 3 wheels and a coupling rod. This year I’m going simple, just a DVD drive made out of some cardboard and some mechanical goodness, which I will explain now. I am going to use a CD tray from some old CD cases that Ms. Pritchard has, then I will put it in a small cardboard box just enough to fit the CD tray. Then I will cut two slats in the box for something with a rubber band to catch on and a lock mechanism. I will then build a bigger cardboard box to house the rubber band and spring loaded lock. When you push the button the lock will release and the CD tray will fly forward.

-DVD RK


Bridges Art: Neurographics

By Ben

One of the most extraordinary things on this planet is the human mind. It can be filled with so many untold wonders that even we have yet to discover. It is amazing to see what the limits of our minds can reach and what it can exceed. At Bridges we can celebrate this by showing the absolute wonder of the mind with something we see equally as great in our school: art! A while back we did something similar to our current art project that involved the mind as well. The difference is that it was a reflection of what is in our minds by coloring in spaces that represented our hobbies and interests. This time we are going on more of an abstract side more than an intellectual self portrait. First we draw wavy lines with twists and turns all around the canvas. Then we round the edges and corners; this makes a bubble effect that also makes everything look more filled in. After we finish rounding, we start painting in the bubbles. What we try to do is leave some bubbles blank and try our best to avoid “the rainbow effect”. When it is done it turns out very pleasing to the eye due to all the unique strategies used in this art project.


                                   Fitness class

Yesterday, we walked in two lines to the park. It took about five minutes to walk there. We earned it and it was really toasty outside. When we got to the park, we played secret agent tag for practice. Then we played Capture the bag. Each team had to collect six bean bags. Our team had to run and get the red bean bags in the grass and not get tagged. Each team won a game. We walked back to Bridges to clean up and end the day.

by Ethan


Electives: Art 

by Mati


In this elective we are doing a perspective art project. The goal is to draw a wall, make it look 3D as a perspective, and write something on the wall that looks like it's spray painted on or dripping on like graffiti. It's very fun, but very confusing for the brain. Even though it's on something that's 2D, it looks 3D. You draw a line in the middle of the piece of paper and draw two other diagonal lines from the top of the line and the bottom of line, making them go until they touch each other. That makes it look like there's depth. What that means is it's like an illusion. You’re looking at one certain point in the drawing and that sends signals from your neurons in your brain to your eyes. That sends a message to your eyes to look at a certain point in the drawing. That's what makes it look 3D when it's actually 2D. It is really fun and really confusing! This is Mati signing out.



  Short recess  

This week we did a lot of map testing and the teachers noticed the kids had a lot of energy. The teachers decided we should go outside for a brain break. So we played outside just now  and when we came inside its website. Some kids at Bridges played basketball and soccer. It was a 5 minute recess and it was very short. I was hanging out with my new friend Cece  and we were walking and talking. I wanted to  play soccer but it was too late  because Mr E. blew the whistle But before that happened I talked to my other friend and I went over to Ms. Quinter with Cece and I also talked to Ms Jex. The other times we take brain breaks is in the afternoons sometimes during growth mindset and science. 

BY Alana.


Fitness (At the park)


By Nelson 

Hello when you see this title you might be like Nelson fitness again but this is a different type of fitness. This is fitness at the park! I know Mr. Demon I mean Mr. Keenan out of the kindness of his heart let us do Fitness at the park. It's super fun because all we do is games. This time all we did was secret agent tag and capture the bag. Secret agent tag I think I've talked about before capture the bag is basically just Capture the Flag but with bean bags. We've done Fitness at the park multiple times. It's a short walk and then we're at the park. The walk is a sort of substitute for the warm-ups. Thank you to Mr. Keenan for running Fitness at the park.


Soccer (Elective)

Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world and my school added it to the elective list and I of course chose it because I'm a soccer fanatic. You might wonder how do we get a soccer field or do we just play in the parking lot no we don't play in the parking lot along with a park only a couple blocks up there's a soccer field we usually go up there and play there sometimes we'll do a World Cup and sometimes we'll just do some regular drills like passing and shooting I love soccer and I think it's really really fun plus there are some other soccer players that are doing soccer elective. I consider myself a talented soccer player and I want to get superb therefore I think soccer elective is such a good idea.

 Thanks for reading. 


Editing

 Nelson

 Ms. Pritchard

 Mr. Keenan 


Writing 

Nelson


Thy Flamingo Kingdom’s Northern Liberty Once again an “Unbiased Opinion”

By: Theo 

The northern library is flooded with book’s from thy Raven’s library. So that's why we have repurposed the book repair bin into the “bin that is used to bring books to the upstairs library” bin (working name) or you can just call it the book repair bin that also works. But the best part a cool thing about it is that there's less work for me. There are more books in the upstairs library. 

Next up is more about the categories. The dictionary category which I bet you can’t guess is dictionaries one of which has a cereal box on its cover.


Tune in next week for part 3

bye- Theo

Elective: Soccer 

by Daniel


We have 5 weeks left of electives for now, so I wanted to talk about soccer. In the soccer elective, we will learn how to play the game and we will also do a little fitness here and there. The people who are there helping us are Mr. Keenan, Miss Jex, and some parent volunteers. And now you may ask, but where do you go to play soccer? We go to a track which is about a 10-minute walk from the school. The reason I put five weeks in is that we played last week, leaving 5 weeks and we do this every Friday. The reason we came here is that we chose soccer as our elective. And a reason you should choose this elective is because you get fresh air and you get to play soccer. If you're lucky as well, your friends might be there! But that is all I have for now and I ran out of things to say. Anyway have an amazing day!


Capture The Bags At The Park 

By Hudson 

On Wednesday the Flamingos went to the park for Fitness, which is a rare occasion in the Flamingo classroom! At the park, we played two rounds of Secret Agent Tag. Then we voted on if we were going to play Sharks and Minnows or Capture The Bags and Capture The Bags won. Most of the second years were very excited because the second years haven't played Capture The Bags since last year. After the vote, the Flamingos played three rounds of Capture The Bags. Then we walked back to school. Hopefully, we will play some more Capture The Bags this year. This is Hudson signing off. 


Geography Elective 

By Dylan


Last week every student at Bridges chose their last electives for this year out of the five options. I chose Geography and I am happy I chose it. In Geography we have been checking out Google Earth, but we are also going to do other things in the future like GeoGuessr. That is a game that spawns you in a random place on Earth and you have to guess where you are with nothing but your surroundings. We also might go on a field trip if we behave well and other stuff I am excited for.


The Story 

By Tessa 

Today's subject is what I'm doing in I.E.W. You've probably read the title and wondered what ‘the story’ is. It may sound like a Death Omen but it's not. Also, you're probably wondering what does this story have to do with I.E.W. Well since we had completed our I.E.W. writing work, we earn an opportunity to do some writing of our choice. I decided I'm going to handwrite a story instead of typing it on a computer. It's called ‘Lilly and Flame’ by Me. I'm still trying to figure out a good name for Flame. I really want his name to be a fun, cute thing. You know, like Gloop. 

Well that's all I have for this week. 

This is Tessa signing out from Flamingos South.

Remember to always read books. 

 Also I recommend the Wings of Fire books, they are great for kids. I love them! ☺️ 

Working on Science Projects

Pain Makes Beauty (Gardening Elective)


Hi. This week on Website Thursday I am writing about the first week of new electives! I am in the Gardening elective. Miss Pritchard will NOT tell me what we are doing next in Gardening but I will do my best to give some important and not so important details. On Friday after recess we have electives. At the moment in the Gardening elective we are doing a lot of weeding of old plants, or plants that like to take over the entire garden bed. Before we started electives last week we had a talk about a little bit of what we will be doing in this elective. It really is dependent on the weather. If the weather is nice we go outside to do some work in the garden beds. If it's raining we might stay inside and do an art project or something. 


The Weed Killer, Sam 


Top God

 Flyers

By Riley



Coming up is the Top God event where all the 8th graders, the kids who have one year left at Bridges, prepare a presentation to convince people to vote for a specific God. There's persuasion, comedy, and facts. Only one can gain the title of the Top God. But there are flyers for it that are handed out before the main event. There is a competition to see whose art piece is put on the flyers, the Top God flyer competition. The Top God flyers are a half piece of paper. I am one of the many, many people making a Top God flyer, but all the flyers are amazing. None of us have any idea which one will win. Top God flyers use only items such as pencils, colored pencils and markers. No paint, no collages, no cardboard. The teachers vote, excluding Ms. Pritchard and Mr. Keenan since they know who made the Top God flyers… and they're biased towards me. The rules of the competition are not showing a specific God that somebody has done their persuasive piece on since that might cause bias. Also, it must have “Top God Spring Show 2024” on the front of it. And it should reference Bridges or Top God, as in Greek or Roman gods, and things like that. There is a decent bit of competition to see who can make the best flyer. Remember, your kid might make a Top God flyer. If it gets chosen, you will see their drawing and so will everybody else who visits Top God. So see you later. Let's see who wins the Top God flyer competition! 




Our Very Last Livestream 

By Abby


Everyday on Tuesday, Flamingo North and Flamingo South will go into Flamingo North (because their TV is bigger) and do a livestream. Where do or how do we do the livestreams? I will get to that in a moment but first I will tell you what we do during the livestream. Miss Hofeld and a few other students, including me, might want to help her out. A worksheet will have instructions for us to do, like writing three examples of adaptations and other things like that about the animal or insect that we are learning about in the livestream. We must put our name and date on it because at the end of the livestream we will have to separate our clipboards and papers and put the papers in a pile where the teachers will collect them. We have to put our name on it and I put the date on it too because I heard a rumor that if you put the date on you get extra credit. So I've been doing the date since. Okay now I'm going to tell you where we do the live stream feed. In Pritchard's classroom she pulls out her computer and connects to the enormous TV and we do it on the enormous TV so everybody can see the screen. Here is what we do. We do it at the ELC at Clackamas Community College. Here is what ELC stands for: Environmental Learning Center.

Somebody who works at the ELC will be the host. We learned about all the different animals and insects. Here are some things we learned:

I was glad that we had a livestream and that it ended on a Tuesday because Tuesdays and Thursdays are my favorite day because we had art class and art class is my favorite class. The last live stream was about dragonflies on April 11th 2024. Goodbye and have a great day. 


The Final Zoom Meeting

By Madelyn 


In Science we have been joining Zoom meetings for class at Clackamas Community College. Clackamas Community College calls it wildlife in the wetlands. This week was the last week, and they did one on Dragonflies. We learned about all different dragonflies. We fill out a worksheet during the meeting. Some fun facts about dragonflies: They can fly all directions. Another fun fact is dragonflies can eat while flying. Dragonfly habitats are ponds and lakes, but the most common is a pond. The average size of the dragonfly is 1-4 inches and they can live up to 56 days as an adult dragonfly. They start in an egg and go through their life cycle. Dragonflies can help keep bug populations down. Dragonflies have lots of adaptations and their wings are transparent. Dragonflies eat flies, butterflies and tiny insects. That is all, this is Madelyn signing out from Flamingo South. 


Geography With X

By Ewan

Before we begin, let me just clarify I am not using social media feed to learn about locations around the world. That would not be school-appropriate. Instead, I am doing a geography ELECTIVE, with teacher Mr. X (a.k.a Mr. E, a.k.a Mr. Ekstrom) to learn about random places around the world. Today, we learned about the functions of Google Earth, which we are using for… you know when you pop open “search”, and you see a tiny dice icon? That’s “I’m feeling lucky”, and that’s what we experimented with. If you click on “I’m feeling ducky”-- Wait. Sorry. I need to take a bath.

ANYWAY, if you click on “I’m feeling lucky,” you’ll be transported to a random location somewhere in the world (Not Mars. It’s called “Google Earth”.). If you find a location that tickles your fancy, you can take a screenshot of it, and print it out! (At least, that’s what we did).

BREAKING NEWS!!! We are also going on a field trip, second-to-last-elective, to the Aerial Tram and looking at Portland from above!!!!!!

So, until next week, see ya!

The school 


This is a compiled list of aspects that I really like about this school starting off with number one



By Sampson :)


Electives

Drawing

4/11/24

By Sam L.


In Electives this week, I have chosen the drawing class. The Electives this time are in a set of 6, which means we have 6 days of these electives. They are Soccer with Mr. Keenan and Mrs. Jex, Drawing with Mrs. Quinter, Gardening with Mrs. Pritchard, and Geography with Mr. E. In Mrs. Quinters Elective, Drawing, we are starting out by making a wall at a corner. There are twenty steps and I am one step ten right now. It is interesting to learn how to make the bricks layered properly so it seems 3D. We even got the entire upper floor to spread out, so we were not cramped. The reason we got so much room is that there are twenty-one kids in this elective. Other than that a lot of kids chose gardening and soccer which are outside. So we only have to share space with geography with Mr. E. that allows us to have a bunch of space so we can have quiet. For the actual wall, the picture at the end looked really cool. I am also really focused on making it exactly like the picture so I can have the same end wall. For making the wall we started out with a vanishing point a little above the halfway point. A vanishing point is the point where the view fades into the distance. Whenever you look into the sunrise where the sun's coming up is your vanishing point. That is why a vanishing point is so important, it makes it look like you are actually looking at the image. Then we made the corner of a wall by making a line through the middle of the page. Then we split the middle line into five sections of the same size. We then draw a line from the vanishing point to each of the edges of the sections. Then we made a line near the vanishing point that was the end of the wall. After that we made bricks in between every other line to make part of the bricks layers. Then in between the other lines we made a line at the middle of the bricks on the other layers. That made the wall, and I was about to go to the buildings when class ended. That is all I have for you on Drawing Elective this week.