March 15, 2024

Pi Day 

 Today was Pi Day so in math we did something pi related. We threw pie at each other all day. I'm just kidding. We actually took string, and we had this piece of paper with different Pies on it and we used tape and string to see how long the circumference was. First, we had actually to put the surrounding string. Then we put the name of the pie. Then we found the diameter and the circumference we put them into an equation and wrote what it equaled. We have to divide the circumference by the diameter and try our best to get pie. We got really close but not quite.

 Now for a bonus story. The origin of why the flamingos are called the flamingos. For a long time before we had a name we were just called the little kids, And the teachers were like maybe we should stop calling them the little kids and call them something else. They saw in the back a flamingo kite and the teachers were why don't we just call them the flamingos and there you have it all the flamingos became the flamingos. I'm just glad they don't call us the little kids anymore that would have been annoying.

By SAMPSON

My name is Cece, and I'm new to Bridges. I've been here almost three weeks. I like fitness because I get to hang out with my good friend Alana and I get to play secret squirrel. Secret squirrel is a game we play at the end of fitness. There are two foxes and two people with acorns. The foxes go around tagging people until they find the squirrels hiding the acorns. When I was the secret squirrel, I got caught right away. I also like the relay races. 

Pacific Tree Frogs

By Dylan

Pacific tree frogs are the most common frog species in Oregon. These frogs are also pretty small as adults. They will, on average, be two inches long. They also make amazing pets. I would know after all I own three. They can have very interesting colors as well; they could be green, brown, or a combination of both. They also make the iconic ribbit sound. It turns out not all frogs make a Ribbit sound. Pacific tree frogs like 177 other frog species can change color. Pacific tree frogs can also be found in Baja, Canada, British Columbia, California, Nevada, Mexico, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and of course here in Oregon. In conclusion, this is an amazing species of frogs.

Fitness 

Last fitness was different from others. All the warm-ups were the same, However the relay race was brought back. This specific relay race is where you get to decide which relay race you want to do you're allowed to do a bunch of different things like speed walking, kangaroo, hops, Etc. We all vote on what we should do for the relays. The game is also different; we play Secret Squirrel. Secret squirrel Is where there are two taggers and a bunch of squirrels. Two of the squirrels have bean bags they must keep concealed and away from the taggers. Everyone else runs around with their arms on their chest for distractions You can also do fake handoffs and real ones for distractions. The Taggers must get both bean bags before the time runs out 

by Braylee

Secret Squirrel

By Hudson 

In Fitness, the flamingos have started a new game, Cold Secret Squirrels. How the flamingos play secret squirrels is that there are two foxes, who are the taggers. The way Mr Keenan chooses who gets the two corns is I was By us and close your eyes I'm holding our hands out. Their goal is to find the acorns. How the fox finds the acorn is tagging the squirrels. Everyone else is a runner and two squirrels the acorns google the wonders of to survive for long enough without both of the acorns being found. The way the runners hide the acorns. Is by covering their hands around their stomach so the two squirrels with the acorns will be so easy to find. Once you get tagged by them, they are out for that round. Was just level one. Level 2 is the same but these squirrels can give other squirrels the one acorn and we can make decoy passes. Also, when you tag you show them you have the acorn or not and keep running around. In conclusion, Secret Squirrel is very enjoyable. Have a great day! 

     Fitness

   We are playing this new game called relay race. There are 4 teams, and hopefully, they'll have an even number hopefully 🤞.One person runs to the other side of the parking lot then hey run back and the next person in the line will run. But another thing people will decide a random movement that you have to do while you're going to the other side. Sometimes you have to do wacky things like grapevines . Sometimes we can even use items  like cones and hula hoops .. It's a Testament of absolute skill at random stuff and pure speed. Got a running start at the game. 

by Banks

Our Passports 

By Abby 

If you like to travel you will like this article. Today I am writing about social studies (I like to call it history because history makes it sound more official and grown up that's what they do in other middle schools and for me the social studies doesn't sound that much official). We have studied Mexico, Borneo and England. We were supposed to write about what we learned about because we watched a video and we were supposed to take notes. I helped the teachers and grabbed clipboards and lined paper. You had to put your name on the paper so the teachers know who the paper belongs to and don't have to throw it away. I put the date on because I think you get extra credit if you put the date on. I think we were supposed to do that and type in our Chromebooks all of the fun facts that we have listed on our paper. Once we did it on our Chromebooks otherwise known as computers but I like to call them computers because it sounds more official that way. Once we have turned it into teeny tiny paragraph it will fit in our passports (Not real passports, just for fun). You may be wondering “Why would we do fake passports and why wouldn't we use our real passports?” Good question.  The teachers wanted to cut out the paragraphs that we had written on our chromebooks and print it out and put it on our passports. Sure, sometimes you may have some trial and error but everybody has trial and error sometimes. Mine was six pages so I went to Mr. Keenan and said… “I have a dilemma… My passport that I wrote on my chromebook is six pages long… what should I do?” And his reply was… “You don't need a numbered list, each bullet point should be turned into a sentence. And Abby you have to find a way to shorten it, we cannot have six pages on your passport.” So yeah that's what I did. Here are some things I learned about Mexico, Borneo and England: The Mayan pyramids were built in the 3th through 9th century. In Borneo the island of Borneo has to be very protective. You can't just hop in and out on a cruise boat you have to show them your license and real passport. Not the paper ones that we're doing. And the reason it is very protected is because it is like an animal sanctuary. Lots of turtles hide out and lay eggs. And even some endangered species have to live on that island because they are endangered. And in England they keep the birds up on the perimeter of ancient buildings, chapels and other alikes. The reason why is because there is a prophecy In England. I gotta go bye! And have a great day. 

Sasquatch 

By Tessa

Hi today we will talk about Sasquatch a book me and my class are reading. We have read the book for a while. Roland Smith writes it. He is a fantastic author. I highly recommend his books. We are currently at a page before chapter 3, I'm so excited. I have a theory about the father, he's always been strange. The character's names are Mr. Hickock, Mrs. Hickock, and Daniel Hickock. That's the family that we’re following around in the book. We’re mainly following Daniel Hickock as he is confused about what is going on since this is all new. His mother goes off to medical school and she's left him home alone with his father. I think it's funny how the dad has never gone hunting, and yet he goes hunting. It’s hilarious how he goes hunting and surprises his entire family by saying he goes hunting but he's never gone hunting before in his life. It's crazy. Crazy phenomenons are happening in the book. Some of my theories are that Sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot, is related to the yeti and is also known as the Abominable Snowman. It could also be an animal, a creature that has different species like the yeti and Sasquatch. 

That's Tessa signing off from Flamingo South

Have a good read 

Bye ☺️ 

 The Mystery of Math!

By Freddie

The mystery of math?... Oh shoot,Tom messed up the title! Sorry about that. Tom is new on the set so he is bound to get some things wrong but it's not his fault.

Ok so the title of this informational short story should have been The Math Mystery, but it's fine. Now then buckle up peanut butter cup. I'm going to teach you about the moon and back.       

So anyway, math mysteries are basically self-solving math worksheets. Or in other words there are numbers with letters under them and math problems that result in the same numbers that have letters under them at the bottom of your sheet.

 Sasquatch                                 

We're reading a book called Sasquatch. It's superb. We're supposed to read to Chapter 4 and not go past it. We can't wait to read the next chapter. It's by Roland Smith. In the before chapter it shows us a little of what happened before. The father comes home. With a bunch of hunting stuff, and the main character says I'm pretty sure he ever went hunting. What alone fired a gun. Anyway, this is Scarlett signing off. See you next time 

     Frogs

Hello, This week, we were in a Zoom meeting with a Clackamas Community College scientist telling us about frogs. You may wonder about my last article “Salamanders and Frogs”  

But if you haven’t, I’ll review it. So last month's article was about a similarity between these two amphibians. Like are they exactly the same? So let's play a game called “Frogs vs Salamanders.” In this game we are going to find out the big question: Are Frogs and Salamanders the same? 1. What's the difference between a frog's skin and a salamander? A frog is smooth, and a salamander is rough 2. Does a frog and a salamander have the same life cycle? Yes, a female amphibian lays eggs and starts off as a larva. A larva is a type of baby frog when they are hatched. Do frogs have a different way of communicating? Surprisingly, Frogs don’t just ribbit,they croak.  

by Abiir

                   Sketching 

In Mr. Keenan's class, we Sketch but Sketching is not just shapes. There's also perspective. Perspective is where you add the third dimension to your art, adding depth, width, and shading. You might have heard the term one or two-point perspective. One point perspective is where, after you draw a horizon line, you put a point near the middle of the page; this is called a vanishing point. The first example of a point perspective our class was introduced to was a railroad where the rails vanish into the vanishing point. The two-point perspective is basically the same thing but with two vanishing points.

by Penn

HEY, EVERYONE!

CONFERENCES

Are Coming Soon!

 DON’T MISS IT!

By EWAN

Oh, I get it. You’re probably wondering “Wait… what are conferences?!” Well WONDER NO MORE! Today, a week before this crucial event, I will explain to you about conferences. But, before that, I need to tie in CORE VALUES. No, core values are not numbers from 1 to 10, but a list of nice things to show to teachers without noticing so you can get a cube later on.

The core values are:

• Compassion

• Honor

• Excellence

• Integrity

• Citizenship

and

• Justice

These positive values are the key to being a good Ambassador.

The teachers review these values at Conferences. (Finally, we’ve gotten to the star!) It usually happens before an official pause of some kind, (i.e. summer break, spring break, winter break, Thanksgiving break and NOT 3-day weekends!) and during conferences, we showcase some of our work from the trimester past, then our parents have a talk with the teachers, and then we’re out of school for… however long we’re out of school for.

Here’s an example; there’s this random boy named Figg Newton who goes to our school (and no, there is not), and when it’s time for his Conference, Figg shows his parents things such as a few math assignments, his work in Social Studies, his mathwork, his writing practice, et omni. Then, Figg sits outside of his classroom while his parents are talking with the teachers, fuming at the fact that there will be absolutely NO SCREENS during the break until his parents come out and… He’s free! He’s freeeeeeeee!

Well, that’s conferences for you! I’ll write next after I have my own! Byeeeeeee!

NOTE: THIS CURRENT TRIMESTER IS ENDING RIGHT AFTER THESE CONFERENCES, SO WEBSITES WILL HAVE A TWO-WEEK HIATUS UNTIL WE GET BACK INTO SCHOOL.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND PATIENCE.

Bridges Art: Perspective Drawing

By Ben

Art is a concept. It can mean many things in many ways. From the beauty of nature, to the one who prescribes it to be beautiful, art is in everything. At Bridges we show all the art in the world by embracing our school on a canvas. We have been doing this practice at Bridges for a really long time and are still doing it currently. This time we are doing perspective drawing. Perspective drawing is a style of drawing where you try to draw the exact replica of what you see in another's eye. This means to go above and beyond with the detail and shading to cause the effect of looking through someone's eyes like a telescope. This time though we are doing something special with the art piece. Instead of a normal person's vision we are drawing the perspective of an alien! Since we are doing this we are drawing this from an outer space point of view, sketching earth and looking down below it. This project may be a bit simple, but it is still very amazing to the eye.

Reading: The Westing Game 

By Riley “L. Westing” 

In Reading we are well, reading an amazing mystery. It is called The Westing Game. 

In The Westing Game, the main character, Turtle Wexler, gets caught up in a game. In this game we see who earns the millionaire Samuel L. Westing’s fortune. In the game there are mysteries like, what does fruited purple waves for sea mean? The contestants in The Westing Game are from a variety of different places. But there's one thing we know for sure. There is a bomber, a bookie, and a burglar. They are in there with someone who isn’t supposed to be there. Our main character Turtle Wexler, is in a family where her mother Grace Windsor Wexler, is biased in favor of Turtle’s sister, Angela Wexler. That has caused Turtle to kick people in the shins basically whenever she meets them.

In chapter 6, there is an interesting thing that happened. They are all taken to hear the reading of Sam Westing's will. In the will he claims he was murdered and that this is a game to find who gets his fortune. And who will get punished for his murder. Supposedly, the clues lead to one person who is the person who murdered him. But not all of us think he was murdered at all. For example, how could you have planned such a massive game in his dying moments? How could he have easily known that he was going to be murdered when he came home? And how come everybody who knows him says that he is mischievous, clever and never plays fair? I'll leave the rest of the story unexplained, so you can be just as surprised as I was.

In Fitness, we do the stretches first. We do high knees. Then, we run around the parking lot doing something we call an interval rectangle jog. We jog around the rectangle for eight minutes and every fitness class it increases 15 seconds. In fitness we do a game at the end called secret squirrel. There are two foxes, two acorns, and the foxes run around tagging people until they find the people with the acorns. We did a relay and we voted for what relays we wanted to do. We did skipping, fast walking, sprinting, and pool noodle races. We have water breaks after warmups and after game sessions.

by Ethan

Sasquatch The Novel 

By Madelyn 

In reading we are doing a novel. The novel is called Sasquatch and the author is Roland Smith. He is originally from Portland, Oregon that's why I enjoy reading some of his books. He has many books. He has spent years learning and researching about wildlife and he is a fan of animals. The characters in the book are Dylan Hickock who is the main character. Mr. Hickock which is the dad and Mrs. Hickock and she is the mom. She is studying to be a doctor when Dylan was a baby. Mrs. Hickock put her career on pause so she could take off full time for Dylan. We are currently on chapter two and we are unraveling the story. On the back of the book it said that Dylan’s dad was always a little strange. We have figured out there's an Acronym area. The acronym is BFI who we think is Bigfoot Incorporated. I’m enjoying this novel study and next week I will bring you more about Sasquatch by Roland Smith.

This is Madelyn. Signing off from Flamingo South.

The Birthday Teenager’s Website

My Bday is on Pi Day, and at math we did pi related work. We measured pies (printed on paper) with string, tape and rulers, although Mr. Leonette banned us from saying easy, it wasn’t that hard. The formula was diameter divided by circumference to get the ratio that was supposed to equal pi. That was the not not easy part, first we had to lay out string along the sides of the Pies, then measure the diameter. In order to measure the circumference, we had to lay out string on the pie and then measure how much string it took to cover the outside of the pie. The next step was (hard times zero) compared to finding the circumference. We had to just get a ruler and then measure the distance from one side of the pie to the opposite side. It was much (harder minus itself) with a class of only six kids so the teacher could get to more students more quickly.

-Kalman who was born on the same day as Albert Einstein

Fitness

 Secret Squirrel

3/14/24

By Sam L.

In Fitness last week, we played level two of Secret Squirrel. We have only done two of the three levels of Secret Squirrel. The game is much like other tag games where there are taggers. Then there are two taggers and two acorns that the squirrels protect. There are two protecting squirrels at a time and they have to keep the acorns away from the taggers. If the tagger tags you in level one, you show if you have the acorn, then you go to the sideline. If you had the acorn, you give it to them and they take it to Mr. Keenan. In the second level, you can pass the acorn between people and you don't go out if you get tagged. It is really fun to play and you get to run a lot. There are many tactics for the game, like bunching up, which I don't like, but it can be good in certain situations. I like to keep to the outside so if I have the acorn my behavior won't change. In the second level, it becomes much harder for the taggers since the people they already tagged can still have the acorn. Once we even had three taggers, which speeds it up a lot. That is all I have for you on Secret Squirrel so far.

Variety relay show

By Nelson 

Hello you might wonder what the variety show relay is. It's a relay as the title says but it's not just a running relay it could be any relay it could be a Hopping relay or a full out Sprint Relay. It gets pretty wacky because The students get to choose what they did one time we chose Naruto run. You might not know what that is, and it's kind of hard to explain so I won't. Another time we did the old man walk where you had to hunch over and pretend you had a cane. That was funny. The rules of the game are simple. Mr Keenan breaks us up into teams and then we choose what we want to do. The winner well never mind there is no winner but me personally I like to make it a little of a competition. It's quite funny and very interesting to play. We play this every Fitness too so each time it gets wackier and wackier. Sometimes it’s borderline chaos because of how funny the relay was. We once did a relay that was chaotic that Mr Keenan had to say no to it. The games just kind of organized Chaos. But that's what makes it fun. I love this game.

 Thanks for reading  

Sasquatch, chapter 1.

Sasquatch is a book about a boy and his dad with some other people trying to find Big Foot. Chapter 1 is about how Dylan (the boy) his dad and his mom left for work, and so they’re alone. When they were on their way home from dropping off Dylan's mom at the airport, Dylan’s dad paused because he saw a newspaper, and then he asked Dylan for two quarters so he could buy the paper. As soon as they got back in the car, they went to a church with lots of cars in the parking lot. When they went into the church they saw that there were a bunch of people. The dad already knew that because they were having a big meeting about finding Sasquatch. So far, that’s all I know. Next week I will get you caught up!

by Pachi

Reading: Unbroken 

by Daniel

A book that we have nearly got to the end of is called Unbroken. It is a story about a man named Louie Zamperini. Originally he used to be a criminal who would steal from other people but the one thing he couldn't run away from the people he stole from. And his very successful brother made him run daily. He made him run and eventually he joined an Olympic team where they needed to run 1 mile. Though, Louie's team had lost and here actually met a man named Hitler. Days after seeing him, he went on to steal his flag. There was a massive amount of drama and people made false stories of how he did it. One day he got drafted into the war where he was bombing the Japanese Islands because this was during World War I. He was told to pilot a plane called Green Hornet which little did he know would be the worst mistake of his life. The original plane they flew on was called Superman. Louie even thought the Green Hornet would crash. This prediction would be correct. And they had to crash in the middle of the ocean. Only two other people had survived besides Louie and had been trapped under a piece of metal which had caught on his leg. As he was losing air all the sudden he was broken free. After he had gone to the surface he found out that one other person was alive but they had drowned to save Louie. After that happened they drifted to sea for a very long time and their lifeboat was shot by the Japanese. They have lost a person, leaving just Louie and his friend Mack. They drifted to an island, but they were caught by the Japanese, and they were brought aboard their ship and taken somewhere. Eventually, they were brought to Ofuna, and they were separated. Louie was brought to an imprisonment camp where one of his biggest enemies was there. During the entire War Louie was brought to four POW camps. On the 3rd imprisonment camp, his worst enemy was there. His name was the bird. He was terrified of him to where he was seen in his nightmare. When he left, he felt relief, but that relief would be lost. He was brought to the same camp where the bird was. After months of subordinate work an atomic bomb dropped on a city which caused the war to end. They were told to go into the river and a plane had fallen overhead and dropped supplies and notes telling the war was over. Soon would he bring his friends to bring in more supplies. During the celebration the bird had vanished. Which is where we are. Sadly, this is all I have for now I hope you have an amazing day.