October 20th, 2023

The Haunted House Project

In art class, we used expensive black paper. We are coloring the whole paper with oil pastels. We are coloring the moon and nighttime. We blend the oil pastels. I used my fingers to blend. The next step is to cut out a haunted house and put it in the background. We cut the different shapes in the haunted house. We can also put doors and windows. We can add ghosts,bats, and trees to the picture. This reminds me of last year when we did a picture with bats. That was fun. 

We glue the haunted house on the papers. We always glue last. 

By Ethan

Bridges Writing: Scary Stories

By Ben & Freddie 

Ben: Here at Bridges writing is embraced through many forms, but this month we are doing something special. We are doing scary stories! Scary stories are creative writing that are, well, scary. I cannot wait to see how everyone's stories turn out. There are also new art pieces of haunted houses and stories about the houses.

Freddie: I love how we are doing a Halloween event for writing class. I am a first year student and I don't know a lot about this school. But I think it's a really fun thing to write about a haunted house. And we are drawing a haunted house in art class. During the Halloween Season, the teachers organized this for us as sort of a way to bring aspects of weight to art and vice versa. 

Ben: The project is really fun. I may be a second year student, so I have already done this before. But now there are new addons to the project and even without the new additions I still can't wait to see the new stories.

The Interviews!

Freddie:  I'm going to interview Abby. How do you think your story turned out?

Abby: I think the haunted house story is like a little plaque for our art project. You know how by paintings there are little plaques that say who made the painting? It is sort of like the background story and of what happened.

Writer’s notes:

Hi, I'm Freddie. I am honored to have you reading this. I hope you enjoyed. I wrote this with Ben because I like working with a partner. I find writing for you all a lot of fun. Stay safe and I’ll see you next week.

Adobe Photoshop CS6

This is an argument to get Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Bridge for school on the desktops, because chromebooks suck and can’t run Photoshop. After more research, you have to do a monthly subscription to use the versions of Photoshop. My second idea is to buy Adobe Photoshop CS6 on disc to buy it once and keep it once. The reason why an older version of Photoshop is viable is because CS6 is very similar to Photoshop 2023. The desktops are not very powerful and very old, plus we don’t need a super advanced version for not very intensive photos only once in a while.

I think I even have a disc of Adobe Photoshop CS6 on CD that I can bring in. So in conclusion we can get Photoshop for free for school, but not Bridge, still a win for me.

-Kalmpact Disc

      Electives 

You can probably see from the title that I'm talking about electives this week. So, we're in the tea making elective class. It’s very fun. Every week we try a new type of tea. I can't wait for this week. It will be so much fun drinking more tea. Sometimes you can bring in a teacup to show people. You can also bring in tea to try. It’s just the best. We learn about the different cultures and how teas are brewed and made in different ways. We're mostly trying different types of tea. For example, we tried green tea, black tea, and iced tea. We also made King’s coronation loose leaf tea. My favorite so far is the pear iced tea. People may think that there's herbal tea but herbal tea is not tea, it's just herbal medicine. So yeah, and if you say, “ I would like a cup of  chai tea.” then you're just saying   “tea tea” because chai means tea.  I hope you enjoyed this week's  website. Thanks for coming, bye!

                                       Bye! Scarlet...

Art: The Oil Pastel Haunted House

 by Riley

 In Art we have been doing a very interesting project, an oil pastel haunted house. We are making a moon shining in a fog and the silhouette of an old house. We may even add ghosts into our image. These are going to look amazing. The dark color in the background and the bluish or purplish tint to it make the Haunted House appear as if it was just barely visible over the horizon. And it is an enormous deal that we're using oil pastels. Last year it took until (I think) spring before we even touched oil pastels! These are getting cool and our hands are getting either bluish or purplish. For me it's purple. This might be the most fun project we have done this year, and it is a tremendous deal that we're allowed to do it already. We have put the oil pastels back in color coordination just as they were when we got them and we are determined to keep them in one piece. This is turning out to be arguably the best art project I've ever done and you know that's a big deal because I'm a second year. I wish I could make the sky pink and make the clouds flamingos that would be hilarious but not Halloween. Know your kids are doing something special. You should be proud of your kids. :-)

                            Tea                                                  

We tried black tea, green and Oolong tea.   

We watched videos about Teas from Britain and China. Teas can be very popular around the world.  

When we sip the tea, we sip for Happiness, luck or love and long life. My favorite tea was the cold pear tea.                    

           By   Bryson

Ambassadorship 

Yep, it happened again, all because of the ambassadorship but regardless, Hello people, and welcome to this exciting article about the  2023 ambassadorship. Now as we saw at last year's ambassador awards at top god, a lot of ambassadors got to do their job and achieved certificate papers and some trophies. The last ambassadorship trophy Chose the best tour guider, Rory, and the most helpful trophy was to Adam. Now this year's ambassadorship chose 20 ambassadors, And of course, ambassadors had a meeting to attend while lunch already started. This meant we had to listen to the educator saying, are you confident being an ambassador, do you think you can enhance your true accuracy and give people help? So that's all I have to tell you today and remember, Practice makes perfect.

 By ABIIR

ART: Haunted House

by Mati

In art, we are making haunted houses.  First, we take a piece of black paper.  Then you take a white oil pastel and draw a moon on the top right corner.  Then take a light blue pastel and draw a big circle around the moon.  Then take dark blue pastels. Then draw bigger circles around the light blue circle and make the circles darker each layer until the black piece of paper is filled in.  Then take a black paper haunted house and glue it on an oil pastel background.

P.S. We haven’t cut out our haunted house silhouette yet.

Reading: Half Magic 

By Madelyn

In Reading we are reading a book called Half Magic. The book tells us about three kids who mysteriously get a charm one day. The charm gives them half-wishes. Not full wishes, but half wishes. The three kids' names are Jane, Catherine, and Mark. Mark is the only boy and the three kids have fun using their wishes and going to fun places. Mark got his wish first. He wished that they all could go to a desert island. The charm, since it was only a half wish, the kids went to a desert. As soon as the kids arrived they realized they were not on a beach, they were in a desert! Then the charm started flying around. As soon as all the kids got the charm they realized they were in a desert. Then the kids decided it wouldn't hurt to walk. When they stopped they saw a man walking towards them. He had three camels and he looked exhausted. The camels had empty packs on their back. The kids started walking towards the camels. Mark and Jane got on the camels but Catherine did not want to get on the camel. She said the camels were too sweaty. She wasn’t going to get on them but then Mark picked her up and threw her on the camel's back. Then they started walking and Mark said where do you think we're going. Jane shrugged.

 As soon as they got to the town, Catherine said “Oh my gosh is that Sir Lancelot?” See, Sir Lancelot was from a book Catherine read a lot. Sir Lancelot said that he was going to go on an adventure. Sir Lancelot decided he was going to go on horseback. the kids wanted to go so they started talking to him. He said no I don't bring children along but the kids' fall started following anyway. They arrived at the castle. Sir Lancelot said to the kids, “You wait here I'm going to go inside.” But they watched Lancelot struggle to get the door open. Then Catherine whispered to the charm and said, “Open the door.” The door opened halfway. Then Catherine said, “Open the door” again to get it open all the way. Then they followed Lancelot up the passageway and into a room where he was. He must have forgotten the knights were hiding in there. They captured and put him in a cage. Then Jane wished that Sir Lancelot was out of the cage and chopped their heads off. But since it was only half a wish, he just got out of the cage. But then he pulled his sword out from his pocket and chopped off the Black Knight's head. Then the green one’s head. Then they had a little battle with the red one but then he chopped his head off too. Then the kids decided they would go home because it was already starting to get late there. They wished that day could go home and that they'd go double home and only be gone for 1 minute. This is Madelyn signing out.

Halloween Activities 

 By Daniel 

At Bridges, we are working on some Halloween-related activities such as our haunted house and our scary story. For the haunted houses, we made a description or a story that connects back to the house and what happened to the house. Some students are still working on their spooky stories. And for the haunted house, it's our main priority because we are on “borrowed time” for it. Halloween is coming up in 1 week and 6 days and we're all very excited to finish in the given time. We might possibly hear each other's spooky stories. That's all I have for this week. Have an amazing day. 👍

Ticket To Ride 2:

A BRIGHT, ALL-AMERICAN FUTURE  BY EWAN BARNETT

 Have you ever heard of Ticket to Ride? If not, go back to my last website. If you have, continue.

 Do you remember my company, All-American Steamrail Service? Well, during the last game, it drastically expanded, from New York to New Orleans, from Denver to Detroit, and from San Francisco to Seattle… You name it, it went there.

Again, I was pitted against Kalman, and we started out with three routes each. For me, it took 30 minutes to complete my first route (Los Angeles to New York City). However, Kalman was a whiz at completing 4 routes in that same 30 minutes. (He drew one more when he ran out of his original three routes.) We decided we wanted to keep playing instead of stopping, and by the end of the elective, I had completed my last two routes (Los Angeles to Seattle, Denver to Pittsburgh) and Kalman had completed two more routes. Obviously, Kalman won.

I can’t wait to get on board for what will happen next week!

See you soon,

EWAN, PRESIDENT OF THE ALL-AMERICAN STEAMRAIL SERVICE

My First Quick Bread

By DYLAN

My first quick bread was pretty fun. I mostly just stood back and watched people doing stuff because I was confused and didn't know what to do. On the first day we were able to get all of the dry ingredients down. Sadly we were not allowed to do the wet ingredients yet and I was really looking forward to cracking eggs but whatever. Our quick breads teacher, Mr. E, was going to make us some samples of the pumpkin bread we were trying to make but it turned out to be a mush of inedible ingredients. It turned out not as expected but baking is harder that it looks!

But we did another quick bread class where this time Mr. E made a great batch and we all ended up with some pumpkin bread muffins. My duty was sadly not egg cracking instead it was oil distributing but I had a lot of fun with it. We also got to take a small bucket of pumpkin bread batter home to make our own batch of pumpkin bread. It ended up tasting amazing later in the weekend. Me and my mom decided we would make our own pumpkin bread with some slight modifications to the recipe and it ended up tasting amazing. We also got the recipe for pumpkin bread so we can make it whenever we want. I must say I'm not regretting choosing quick breads as my elective.

Creamy Dark Chocolate

 Hi, let me talk to you about quiet time every day after recess. We are in our classroom, which is a  dark room and we think about stuff that makes us happy. You just like to let your body settle. We get ready for the next class. We do 15 minutes of quiet time. It helps and it's very peaceful. We listen to some calming music and we see some bears live on the TV. Yeah but definitely check out the school it is so flipping fun bye!

By Braylee 

Quick Bread Making Class By Tessa

In my last two classes we made pumpkin bread. I mixed the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. In my group of two we separated the dough into two groups and we took them home and made our own batch of muffins. I only have two muffins left, and they were really tasty to eat. Our teacher, Mr. E, had a volunteer baker to come to school and help with baking class. So at the end of last week's class we got to try the muffins before we left and brought the batter that we made home to bake. It was great, and I forgot to save some for my mom so she had some when we made it at home.

Halloween at Bridges

By: Theo

It is the spooky season at Bridges (middle school) and so we have some activities like spooky stories. Which we are doing on Monday and Tuesday. Now you may wonder why we don't do it on Wednesday and Thursday. That's because we are doing a website. Next up is spooky art! So we mix spooky art with writing. We are making a house with a backstory. And now last but not least the Halloween party. For the party, we can wear a Halloween costume. Not to school after lunch and it's on Halloween. We also get to play some (not video) games.

Oil Pastel & Haunted House Stories  Hi! Today I'm going to be talking about what we're doing in Art class. In our class right now we are working on oil pastel and haunted house stories. For the oil pastel, we are making a scene at night, with the Moon with a shadow around it, and a haunted house. The writing part is writing about the story of the haunted house and what the designs and colors are for the haunted house. For mine, I am doing a blue and purple background and a black haunted house with yellow lights inside. Goodbye for now. 

 By: Sam S.                                     

Art: Haunted House and Pointillism

By Abby :) 

We have started a new art project. It is called Haunted House. It is where we use oil pastels. Using oil pastels and other fancy art materials that are expensive is a privilege. We have to make a moon then we have to make rings that are from the moon. They go from lighter to darker near the corners of the paper. The paper we call “money paper” is expensive so it is really, really nice. So you want to go to the dark from light. After we have finished that we will draw out a haunted-looking house. It can have pointy tops on it because most haunted houses have pointed tops, that is just my opinion. You can also use printed-out haunted houses but Miss Pritchard and Mr. Keenan want you to make your own haunted house from something that isn't copied off of the printer or the internet. But before you glue the house on to the money paper you have to put yellow paper and glue it on the behind the paper to make it look like it has yellow window frames. This will give it a spooky sensation. There is one rule with glue and if you forget that rule you might have to start over which I know your child will not like. And trust me I had to restart on an art project one time last year and it was not fun at all. 

I will now talk about pointillism. It is another combination we did. Georges Seurat was a famous painter for making a painting out of super tiny dots. It took him over a year to finish a masterpiece. But when he wanted to enter it into an exhibit a bunch of old people had to look at it, confirming or rejecting his piece. All the bright colors made them reject him. He saw a few of his friends get rejected too because of their paintings back in the day. Colorful paintings were not allowed only dark colors were allowed in paintings. So they decided to form a secret club and other people who got rejected because of their colorful paintings decided to join the club. Together they made lots of paintings which we know are being stored in museums and in other such places. 

Our project for pointillism was a Halloween-themed pointillism. The second years could do a challenge where they made an animal out of pointillism. You could have the option to do it. I am a second year so I made a wolf howling at the moon. You watch the video and from that video, we learned that if you take a pointillism painting and you look at it from afar your eyes will deceive you and will blend in the colors together making it form into an actual picture. It is a cool unique skill. I also made a pumpkin and a yin-yang. All Pointillism is a really fun art project. The yin-yang looks really cool because you can look at it from afar. If you were just scribbling and not doing the dots you should restart because that’s not pointillism.

Ambassadorship

Being an ambassador is a big role to play in our school. Few kids get chosen to be an ambassador. The kids that do are the kids that try their best and hardest. Every year they're ambassador sign-ups. In the sign-up, answer a sheet with questions about what you think you would struggle with and what you need to work on. After that, you have 30 days to work on those things and then the first ambassador meeting was held. During that meeting, The First Cut Is announced. They also pinned the First Cut up to a board. After that for 2 weeks, we go to meetings with the first cut. After that, they announce the second cut. We start with many sign-ups, then it narrows down to fewer and fewer until we have the Final Cut. As ambassadors, they expected a higher level, although it is a lot of fun and you get to help other students. Over the years, ambassadors have done trickier or higher-level jobs. Last year, one ambassador planned Spirit Week. At the end of the year, during which top God ambassadors help pass out voting ballots. There are three ambassador trophies, which are. Most helpful ambassador. best tour guide. And last but not least, top ambassador. On very rare occasions, they will let you sign up late. As one student did this year and last year.More to come on an ambassadorship in the future. we mean, we have an entire year, we can add more. Overall ambassadorship is very helpful for the school and fun. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope this inspires any first years who want to become an ambassador!

by Sampson and Adam

Art: Oil Pastels

By Nelson 

Hi, today I'm back with Art. Yes, we are still doing pointillism in the morning, but I already did a website on that. If you haven't read that you should. It was very fun to write. Okay, let's get into it. What we are doing in art ties another subject into it. That subject is writing. But anyway, what we're doing in art is we're drawing a haunted castle, which is super cool because we are also doing it with oil pastels. You're probably asking how writing ties into all of this. We have to write a summary description of the castle that goes along with our art. I think that's super cool tying amazing subjects together. I thank Miss Pritchard and everybody who came together to make this happen. I think it is great that I get to do two of my favorite subjects: art and writing. Thanks for reading, bye!