December 15, 2023

A Flamingo Hanukkah 

Last Thursday, the flamingos participated in Hanukkah stuff. Me being a jew, I sang the prayers. I did it in the tune it was meant to be sung in, starkly contrasting my family at home. It took place on the first day of Hanukkah. That was on Thursday, the 7th of December, 2023. We played dreidel, and I lost horribly; at least I did well at flicky (a game we play at indoor recess. That’s another topic for another website).

The first prayer goes like this:

 בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ

אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ, מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,

אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָֽׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֺתָיו

וְצִוָּֽנוּ לְהַדְלִיק נֵר שֶׁל חֲנֻכָּה.

The second goes like this:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ

אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ, מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם,

 שֶׁעָשָׂה נִסִּים לַאֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ וְאִמּוֹתֵֽינוּ

 בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם בַּזְּמַן הַזֶּה.

The third that we only sing on the last night goes like this:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה.

Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav-

v zivanu l'had lik neir shel Kalman

Holiday Sweaters

Christmas SWEATERSSSSSS! Don't you love them and their rich history? History, you don't know? Sweaters have a history back to the mid-1300s. But wait, that’s not when ugly Christmas sweaters became a thing that only happened back in the 1950s. Now, you might be saying,”I thought you said they have a rich history?” Hold on, I'm getting to that part. First known as jingle bell “sweaters,” they composed it off a sweater and many Christmas themed objects attached to the aforementioned sweater. Not till 1980 did it hit the mainstream. 

By Sweater enthusiast Penn

Grand Acedrex- another way to play Chess

I wish the chess elective lasted longer, but we could do it the next elective selection, and if it lasted longer, we could learn about it.  

Chess has many variants and sibling games.  Shogi, also known as Japanese chess, we could start with Shogi or something weird like  Grand Acedrex. Grand acadrex is an ancient Spanish game, similar to chess. There were many different pieces, but I’ll be covering a few. The zebra unicorn and hawk are some pieces for the game.  The zebra moves the same way as the knight. The Unicorn would leap like a knight and then proceed to move diagonally making it extremely powerful. It would appear out of nowhere and it is incredibly powerful.  The Hawk Is a double-barrel rook . It is the second-strongest piece ever.

by Desmond

Homework and How it Works

By Rory (I'm sorry, my fellow students, for betraying you, but I genuinely think this is a big deal).

 This year it is required that we have at least four pieces to go into electives. Last year, it was possible to go to electives with no homework. I was the person who did that. It was a bad idea. I'm just letting all the parents know about this. Your kid must do four pieces of homework a week to get into electives. If they don't, then they have to do it during electives. So make sure that you know that your kid is doing homework because electives are really fun and I don't want anyone to have to not do them. They might beat themselves up like I did. And also it is common practice to help them when they get into High School. 

Fun fact: did you know that you're supposed to do 10 minutes of homework per grade (it varies depending on the school)? And when you're a 12th grader, you're expected to do an entire 120 Minutes of homework a day, that's about 10 hours of the week. And you're just supposed to do five sheets of homework a day. I would totally find how long that takes but it really varies from student.  Also, I don't think they'd want to tell me how long it takes to get a  sheet of regular Math/ homework done.

 In conclusion, parents make sure that your kids are bringing back homework because it is a big thing in high school and college and it will help them a lot if they have a foothold. For example, if your kid doesn't do a single page of homework from fifth grade to eighth grade, then when they move on to high school, they're going to have to do 90 minutes a day. So do them a favor and make sure that they get on top of it.

Reading (the sequel) (spoilers for Unbroken)

By: Theo, who is not yet going to finish his IEW website

Let me set the scene. You got to school and you had to go to reading and you stood up, grabbed your free reading book, and walked to the back table, which looks like three tables next to each other in a U- shape. Next, you take a seat. This week in Ms. Hofelds's reading group, since we don't have school next week, we don't have an angry animals packet. We get to read or do a crossword puzzle silently. I'm reading “Bendy the Illusion of Living.” which is a good book. We also are currently listening to a read-aloud of Unbroken, a story about a man named Louie Zamperini and his grim adventure. He was a World War 2 bombardier who survived a plane crash, being stranded at sea for over 40 days with almost no food and while being attacked by sharks, and even being captured by the Japanese but he wasn't always like this. He started as a mischievous boy, always getting into trouble and running away from the law. His brother Pete thought he could be a professional runner, and he was right; Louie qualified for the Olympic games. Just a couple of years later, WW2 started, and that's when Louie became a bombardier. Tune in next week

Chess Elective PT2

By Hudson 

From last week’s website: 

Chess elective is back from last year! In the first week of the chess elective, we watched a video about the creation and history of chess. Halfway through the video, it started freezing a lot, so we didn't finish the other half of the video. Then we matched up. I matched up with Freddie. 

This week:

After we partnered up, we got a chess set. We have about five regular chess sets and two no-stress chess sets. We have the chess elective in Mr. Keenan's room. Also, Mr. Keenan is running the chess elective. This is Hudson signing off. See you next year!  

Flamingo Sketch Class  

By Tessa 

Hi Tessa here in Sketch class. In Sketch class we are sketching a scene with two people and mountains in front of them. We can now do landscape or portrait drawings in Sketch class. As you all heard last time the teacher split up the art classes into two groups. Since I am in Sketch class I am worried that I will not be able to finish my snowman and my wax resistor art. Every day, we flip a new page, write our name at the top, and put the date on the corner of the page. And then we listen to the teacher and sketch something and every day it's something different. While sketching a fly we were learning how to take apart the fly into different shapes. And start to draw the side of that shape. Any more detail refining and defining work. There are no assigned seats yet so you can sit wherever you want as long as you don't talk when the teacher is talking. When I'm sketching I sometimes get really close to the paper so that I can see what I'm drawing super well. And so when you do that it makes it so you can sketch lighter. 

That's Art News by Tessa signing off from Flamingo South. Hope to see you next week!

The Gnome Tree

By Mati

In Growth Mindset, we are making a Gnome Tree. We are split into a group of three and given three gnome coloring sheets—one sheet for each person in the group. The gnome can be upside down or right side up. If it’s upside down, the background is green, and the hat is blue. The nose can be pink or red. If it’s right side up, the background is pink. The hat is still blue. The nose is also the same color as well. Then we cut them out and put them all together. See you later!

P.S. A gnome tree is a tree made up of gnomes.

I.T. Class

By Dylan

In I.T. class, we are making a slideshow with five slides. Mr. Keenan gave us a topic and so we have to make a slideshow about it. The topic he gave us was computers, so we're doing a five-slide slideshow about computers. Now, you might ask yourself, “But Dylan, what are you writing about computers?” I don't know. When Mr. Keenan gave us the topic of computers, he said that as long as it's computer-related, you can make a slideshow about it.
So we could make a slideshow about whatever we wanted as long as it's computer-related and family-friendly. For all I know, somebody could make a slideshow about how computers are deadly weapons, or somebody could write about computers being evil and out to get you. It's your decision as long as it involves computers. My slideshow goes something like this: A person had a good computer because he got tech support when he had problems with his computer. But then he stopped getting tech support, and his computer blew up. Then he got chronic injuries, which included rib fractures, internal bleeding, and a broken leg. He ended up passing away on March 11th, 2014 at 2:25 p.m. (This didn't actually happen and is in here for comedic purposes but it is how my slideshow goes) And that's why tech support is good. Anyway, R.I.P. to the guy that died in the slideshow. I think that this is a very fun activity in I.T. class and I'm hoping we get to do it again with a new topic. 

Okay, that's another website down, time to sit down and watch the news. 

“Breaking news, a 23-year-old man's computer blew up and he died at exactly 2:25 p.m.” 

Well, at least my slideshow is accurate…

The Core Values 

By Rowan and Nelson 

Hi today, Nelson and Rowan are writing about the core values in Bridges. Now you might wonder what the core values are. They are a set of rules that hold the school together. They're like the baseline principles that make us better people. I will name them now—honor, compassion, justice, citizenship, excellence, and integrity. I will try to explain them all. Without further ado, let's get into it. Let's start with citizenship. Citizenship is a very good core value. They all are but I like this one in particular because you can make people feel better and make yourself feel better. A couple of examples of citizenship are helping someone up when they fall, not laughing at someone when they make a mistake, and so on. The next core value is excellence is where you try your hardest and not just race through it. My teachers call it racecar brain. When you're in racecar brain you just want to finish it as fast as you can and not think about making it as good as you can. As we all know, perfection is just a fantasy. The following core value is honor. The meaning of honor is, well, imagine it like this: you're being unkind to a specific person and not apologizing to them for what you're doing. That is not honorable but you should try to be a better person. The following core value is compassion. Compassion is the greatest core value, in my opinion. It's the best because it feels the best. An example of compassion is taking care of people in need. Even the smallest acts of compassion can be impactful even holding a door open for someone can make their day. The next one is justice. It is one of my favorites because giving justice is one of the kindest things that you can do to a person. An example of justice is a justice deal. For more about that, let's transfer it over to Rowan.

Justice Deals

By Rowan and Nelson 

From what I know about Justice deals, how they work is you can ask a teacher for something like being able to listen to music that would be quiet time—or being able to use the computer when it's IEW. Justice deals can be all kinds of things. It could have a specific type of fidget like slime or putty or you could have a scribe to write for you. It could be many things. Justice deals are a way to get what you need. For example, Nelson has a Justice deal for using a computer during IEW. Justice deals are very handy; they're useful, but you have to use them correctly and not abuse their power.

 Thanks for reading!

Core Values and S.N.O.T. ← (Not actual snot)

By Abby C. and Riley

Core Values

The world is filled with kindness and hatred, but kindness and forgiveness will always win. I will now talk about the Core Values that are listed in our school that we have to follow to pull a cube. When you have pulled a cube, you have done something extraordinary AND something that has followed the Core Values. The Core Values are something that we have to follow. If we do not follow the Core Values that means we are not being good citizens of the community of Bridges Middle School. Here are the Core Values: Honor, Integrity, Compassion, Justice, Excellence and last but not least, Citizenship. If you do something extraordinary with the teacher's attention and you are following the Core Values they might ask you to pull a cube. If so, it's your lucky day! For example, you might stay after class to sweep if somebody made a mess, and it's not your mess. But if you are trying to pull a cube or if you ask to pull a cube, the teachers are going to say no. And the reason they will say no is that it will not be following Integrity, Excellence, or any other Core Values. Anyway back to Abby, But you might be surprised if they ask you to pull a cube because you didn't know that you were following the Core Values. Sometimes it is a good thing but if you are in a bad mood, the teachers might change their minds. That is a bad thing which you don't want to happen. Trust me It happened to me. It was not a good experience, trust me. Okay now I'm going to hand it off to Riley. He will explain what SNOT is. but trust me it's something that the teacher says that is on the Whiteboard. We use it for Learning and other class stuff.

S.N.O.T.

This one if Mr. Keenan's rule is that he finds the best, and personally I think it is the funniest. It stands for self, neighbor, other, teacher. Meaning, if you are stumped, ask yourself, a neighbor, another neighbor, before you ask the teacher. So if you don't know what the instructions are, for example, you weren't listening, just ask yourself to see whether you already know it. Then ask a neighbor and another neighbor. And then if none of them have the answer then take your chances and ask the teacher. Just be warned, it is risky! SNOT can come in useful a lot. It's SNOT lot, okay? Anyway, it can come in useful in math writing and reading… wait, is this meant to be a list? I should probably add in some commas: art, growth mindset, and science. Definition of S.N.O.T 

S.Self 

N.Neighbor 

O.Other 

T.Teacher

Holiday Sweater Day! 

Gnome tree art

                                               By Sampson and Adam 

Now the title might be a little misleading, although just hang on for a minute. Let me explain. In the growth mindset, we got a collaborative art piece. You split the class into groups, and we're all given a piece of paper that looks like a tree with a gnome. At first, it was a little confusing. And then instructions started. Once they were all cut out, they would be put together into one gigantic tree. After this revelation, it was much simpler to understand. We were given some general rules on what colors to use so it would match. Then we were placed into our groups and set off into the wild blue yonder. Coloring began, the sound of pencils hitting the table and pulling across a sheet of paper rose up through the room. Strangely quiet, only chatter within groups. Gnomes slowly gained color. Rather than a white sheet, spots of red, pink, blue, green, yellow, and more. Everyone was hard at work coloring in pink hats and blue hats with green backgrounds and pink backgrounds, blue and yellow lights. They were all turning out beautiful, and then time was up, and we weren't done yet. As time was called The TellTale clack of pencils being picked up and dropped into a bin filled the room yet again, though only a few people had to finish the Gnomes so far look good and there's much more of the colored. I personally like the art project as I believe it's a good way to have everybody working together, so it would match and be a good group project. I hope we do it another year and I had a really good time with it. That's my opinion on the subject. There's probably more out there. In fact, I can almost guarantee there are, but that's my opinion on the matter. Thank you for taking the time to read this. 

Bridges Electives: Chess

By Ben

Chess is one of history's oldest and most popular games. People worldwide enjoy playing the historic board game. They use many different ways of playing, many ways indeed. It is endorsed and embraced in culture with poetry, speech and many more. Chess is an astonishing game, so that's why we have a whole elective about it. Mr. Keenan runs the chess elective. It is where you play, well, chess. In the elective, we are doing more than just playing it; we are learning about it, too. We are learning about the history of chess and its origins. For instance, chess was originally from India and it wasn't even called chess. The game was first created to show how battles played out, but then people thought the demonstration was so good they used it everywhere. More and more often it became something you could play. Later, it was adapted over the ages of migration and pilgrimage. One of the most essential parts of how the game was moved was the Silk Road. Then the game was made into a more religious variant. At that point, it got the name chess and started to look like the game we have today. Chess continued to migrate over Eurasia and was even inspired by the game “Go”. More and more time passed and slowly the game adapted into the version we have today. In chess elective, we are playing the wonderful game and celebrating its astonishing legacy. To put it simply, chess is amazing.

The Buzz about science

By Sampson and Ewan :) 🙂

Ewan: Hello, and welcome to the second “episode” of The Buzz! I’m your host, Ewan (my co-host Sampson will be coming onstage in a minute), and this week’s Buzz is all about…

SCIENCE!!! Plants, at that. Specifically, plant propagation. *audience chatters* Ewan: No, not giant mutant tulips! “Plant poppy mutation”, you were thinking? Looks like you guys need a little reminder, so to explain plant propagation (no more talking about giant mutant tulips!)I want to introduce my co-host…

SAMPSON!!! 

Sampson: Thank you, Ewan! Plant propagation is when you take one plant and make it two. 

\There are these little things called nodes on plants, and they will sprout leaves. BUT if you cut below the node, the node can sprout roots, too. Any plant can do this, but some are harder than others. Onions are one of the easiest to propagate.  You need to cut it and put the top in water. It's as simple as that! But you also have to make sure you don't forget to give your plants water, soil, and sunlight . Specifically, a well-nourished soil that can fit in big pots. You might be wondering- why big pots? That's because you don't want the plants to get root-bound. Root bound is when their roots don't have anywhere to go, so they curl around in circles. Then it starts wilting, and their leaves curl up. You don't want that! So you always have to remember to take care of them. Now, back to Ewan, the host of the show! 

Ewan: Thank you, Sampson! So plant propagation is very simple. BUT that’s not all. We don’t know a lot, and we need expert tips. So now it’s time to phone our very own teacher, Ms. Pritchard!

*ring ring– click!*

Ewan: Hello, Ms. Pritchard?

Ms. Pritchard: Yes?

Ewan: What are your top 3 tips on plant propagation?

 Ms. Pritchard: You need to have the best compost soil, you need to have clean tools, and you need to store your plants in a perfect environment. 

Ewan: I see. So, what plant is the hardest to propagate?

Ms. Pritchard: To put it simply, some work and some don’t. (For example, woody-stemmed plants don’t propagate.) You just have to know the plant and if it doesn’t propagate, it just doesn’t. So you can’t just pick and choose which plant you want to propagate. You have to see if it can at all. 

Ewan: Thanks! Bye!

*boop*

So we know the expert’s tips, but how do we know what plants we can propagate very easily or hardly? It’s all yours, Sampson!

Sampson: Thanks, Ewan! How do you know what type of plants are.. propagating? Propagatable? I don't know how to say this! But anyway, you have to look for the node. The node is not always the easiest to spot, but the node is a spot where you can cut below it and some roots start branching out upon cutting. You have to find a leaf first,or a branch. These things are signs that there are node(s). Here you cut a little bit under the node, but NEVER cut the node itself. If you cut the node, you cannot propagate the section that you've cut off. ALWAYS cut under the node. (Shout out to www.picturethisai.com. They have more info on plants.)  By doing it under the node, you can plant it in a spot, and out of it grows baby leaves FUN FACT: Some leaves are edible. It's a fascinating and wonderful world of propagation! On to you, Ewan!

Ewan: Well, I think we’ve covered all we know about propagation, so it’s time for goodbyes. Thanks to Ms. Pritchard, appearing as our special guest over the telephone, Sampson, the co-host, and all of you in the audience for watching-I mean-reading it! Goodbye, everyone, and see you on next week’s The Buzz!

 Flamingos Art Classes

By Freddie and Madelyn

In Mrs. Pritchard’s art class, we are working on painting. We are working with more expensive materials and more steps. We bring in other artists, and we get inspiration from them. Here are some art projects that we have done so far. We have done wax resist, snowman clothespins, and tree clothespins, and those are just a few. I think it was a good idea that we split the class, but that is just my opinion. This is Madelyn signing out. Tune in next time for another website.          

Art with Keenan

With, the Flamingo art class, comes minor surprises every now and when. Recently, the flamingos were split into two art groups, one with Mr. Keenan and the other with Mrs. Prichard. I'm with Keenan. The class was mainly about how to take an art class and how to do a sketch. Keenan’s class is also for students who are working on attempting to give 100%. Also, for others who are building their teamwork skills sketching is more of a solitary activity. It is also for students who need help in art or are learning how to take an art class. Now, you might be thinking, “How to take an art class – WHAT?” well I know I don’t understand why, but I just have to trust the teachers in what they're doing, aside from that we are learning about pencil skills. 

Credits and Things

By Freddie

By Madelyn 

Peer Edited by a Friend

Edited by Mr. Keenan

.^.

Wax Watercolor Paintings/Watercolor Bookmarks

12/13/23

By Sam L.

We made some Wax Paintings and Bookmarks in art this and last week. We used Watercolors for the project. The paintings were on canvas and the bookmarks were on watercolor paper. The pictures were of something that we thought would look cool with some wintery stuff added on. We started by making an example sheet on paper with pencils. I made a couple of trees with a background and some random snow. I planned to use wax to make the snow. Wax makes it so the watercolor will not soak in. That is helpful because you can use it to make snow and some reflective water. That is if you don't want it to be like trees. So you have the branches and trunk be white like we did last year. Once we got our canvas, we could not draw because the pencil did not come off of the canvas! Then we would get our colors, water cup, and brush. After that, with our example sheet, we would color the canvas. Then when it dried, the watercolor would not be where we put wax. We could also put salt on it to add texture. For the wax, we had two options. One was a birthday candle, and the other was a crayon. The crayon was harder, so you had to press hard. I did the crayon, though, because it also had a more defined line of wax. Once we had done that and it had dried we could put another layer of paint on if we wanted. 

After we had finished, we could make a bookmark. We would also make the bookmark with watercolor and would have some patterns. I just made some lines myself, though some people probably made some patterns. Then, we would watercolor the bookmarks and have fun with the color combinations. When we finished, we would write thank you cards to people who deserved it. For the cards we would write Thank You and draw some simple (Simple!) designs on them. I only had time to make one, but I made a vine-ish thing with some red berries coming off of it. Then, Art class ended, and we had to stop making Thank You cards. This happened with only half the class since we split into two groups. The other group did something with drawing but I don't know. But I hope I will do the drawing class after this art class. I got a peak sneak and saw them drawing some classroom objects. And it looked really fun so I hope I will do it. My art group was with Mrs. Pritchard, the main art teacher, and the other one was with Mr. Keenan. Thank you for reading and This is all I have for you this week for Art goodbye.