Mommio: Art Class- Modern Art- Cubism- Picasso

Today in our Artistic Pursuits class we continued our study of Pablo Picasso and took a closer look at Cubism, an art movement started by Picasso and Braque in the early 1900's.  Cubism is one of the first forms of abstract art.  In Cubism artists turned natural forms and shapes into geometric shapes, and then mixed them up- creating a fractured, puzzle-like piece of art.  We watched this video of Picasso's Cubist period and discussed what we saw afterwards.

The kids noticed musicians, dark colors, shapes and lots of nudity.

We also took a look at two different paintings of women done one year apart by Picasso, by doing this we can see the beginnings of his new style.  

Gertrude Stein, 1906

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907

Then the kids created their own cubist portraits with a fun puzzle project.  First they drew a self portrait in pencil on watercolor paper.

Next they painted the portrait using watercolor paints.

When their paintings were dry, they cut them apart in various shapes and glued them down onto a colored piece of construction paper- in any order they liked.

Finally, they took another color of construction paper and cut some shapes out of it, glueing them on top of their portrait wherever they thought it looked good. 

Here are their completed cubist self-portaits.  For homework they will create a cubist painting of another subject using the same process. Next time we will be creating another fun version of the cubist self-portrait.

Connor: Weekly Blog Post 2

I think that we should help in a way that doesn't get us too involved in the war.
  I think this because of the war in Iraq, which their citizens didn't like, and that part of the world doesn't think highly of the US.
I don't think that giving weapons out is currently the right idea because America doesn't have a way of knowing who supports who.  In other words I think that if we  started handing out guns the war would eventually start seeming like the Vietnam war.
   I think that the UN should get involved.
I think this because if the UN gets involved then there is a possibility of an immediate surrender from the unjust "president."

Marney: Word Challenge

My car was not working so it put off a noxious smell.
She got notoriety from stealing a dog.
The new printer was negligible because we already had two printers.

Marney: Civil War

I like Grant, he is an awesome person.  I chose him because he was a general and he was super brave.  He was the one that had the good ideas and would do the ideas that he came up with.  He was always rushed and mad at people because they were not brave and did not come up with good ideas.  He hated the war and hated the slavery because e is a Union and is fighting for no slavery. 

Gabe: Blog of the Week 1

At Night

By Gabe

     Everybody just went to bed and it was about 11:00 pm and the animals had a plan.  Body squeaked to wake up the other animals.  He got out by chewing the handle off of his cage. Then he went over and hit his head on the hermit crabs cage to open it.  He had to check if one was alive because he did not move but he was...alive . The big dogs got the other animals out of their cages.  Then they all got Ferris by driving Max's toy car into the door of the kennel, and it popped open.

     The first thing the animals did was littered the place with poop.  They first put poop on the couch.  What they did was push Ferris around to where they wanted her to poop and then made her poop.  Then she pooped on the windows.  Then they came up with another idea.

     The animals all went and ripped up the carpet.  They first ripped up the carpet in the school room.  Then the living room. Then Connor was coming to go to the bathroom, so they all hid in the balled up blankets.  Then they got a new idea.

     Ferris was tired so they put her away.  So they all had to rip up things for her.  So then they all got in thier cages and went to sleep.

Gabe: Civil War

My favorite character from the civil war is Ulysses S. Grant.   He is my favorite person because he saved the Union at the Battle of Vicksburg.  His life was bad because he was in a lot of battles and worked hard.  Grant was against slavery after the war, but during the war he didn't care.  He just wanted the Confederate States to stay in the Union.  

Gabe: Word Challenge

The man's notoriety was caused by his noxious bomb that he thought was negligible.

Avery: Civil War Journal

My favorite is not a very popular and famous person.  Her name was Kate Warn.  Kate Warn was America's first female private investigator for the Union.  She was born in New York, but no one knows the date she was born on.  She died on New Years Day 1866 of pneumonia.  She dressed up as a man, changed her accent and called herself Allen Pinkerton.  She was a huge success with her job and she enjoyed doing it too.  I chose her because she was the first female to join the union.  She was a very brave, strong smart woman.  She enjoyed her life in the war and made a good time out of it. She worked hard and also did a lot. She was known for saving the life of a man. That man would be Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents! I was not able to find out her opinion, but since she works for the union I guess she was against it.

Avery: Weekly Blog 1

The Night of the Animals
By Avery

       It was a normal, average, plain day at the Jones house.  Like every single day there.  But at night everything changes!  There are 11 pets there that just sit around in the day. But at night... they get up and have a game night.  It started off with chess.  They own only 2 chess sets at their house so they had to take turns.  Shelly the fish and Munch the snake played first on the black chess set.  Dookie the blue crab in the house played against his evil twin brother Pickachu.  Pickachu was the good one really, Dookie just hated being judged and told when he's wrong and right.

       The games they play take forever to play every night.  Meanwhile Franki and Ferris played Wii Sports Resort on the WII.  The game they played the most was Mario Kart but they felt like doing something different for a change.  Ferris was winning until Franki took over with some cheat codes he stole off of Mason's computer a week ago on a Thursday night when no one was awake.

       Body, Koopa and Yoshi were all stuck to the computer playing Minecraft nonstop. Yoshi would control when they move side to side, Koopa would control the keys for going back and forth, and Body would control the hand movements.  They were addicted to that game and never left it at night. When Franki wanted to ever look up cheat codes when they were awake he would have to threaten to kill them.  But they were all friends so he never did such a thing.

       Rex and Pedro were the calmest and slowest animals there.  Every time the group would play tag they would have to sit out or the others would just ignore them.  They would play their own version of tag.  A slow, non painful, calm, and quite version of tag.  Everyone would just leave them in their corner of the house.  Neither of the pets could go fast so they would race in the children's bathroom.  That is the story of what happens at night in the Jones house.

THE END!

Cooking With Kids: Mini Corn Dog Muffins

Jack, Max, Kiki and I tried making a new lunch food today- Mini Corn Dog Muffins- in hopes of freezing bunches of them so that the kids can reheat them for lunches.  These taste great- although next time we will fill the muffin cups a little less and cut the hot dogs a little smaller so that they are more "bite size" for the kids....and I will remember to spray the second pan too!  I'm not sure how they will freeze/reheat yet.

Mini Corn Dog Muffins

1/2 cup melted butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk (we used almond milk instead)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

8-10 beef hot dogs, cut into 1" bites

1. First melt the butter

2. Then whisk the butter and sugar together, add the eggs and whisk, finally add the milk and whisk.

3.  In another bowl mix together the baking soda, cornmeal, flour and salt.

4. Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

5. Spray the mini muffin tin with cooking spray, fill each with 1 tablespoon of the cornbread mixture.

6. Cut the hot dogs in to 1" pieces.

7. Stick a hot dog piece in the center of each muffin.

8. Bake 10-12 minutes at 375, or until the cornbread is lightly browned.

Connor: Word Challenge

The stink bomb put off a noxious odor that  made every one forget the negligible mistake that the student made and ended up increasing his notoriety, causing him to be expelled.

Connor: Civil War Journal

My favorite person from the Civil War is General Ulysses S. Grant.
I chose general Grant because he led the union to victory in the later half of the Civil War.
He was educated at West Point and graduated in 1843 three years later he fought in the Mexican-American war.
Grant was hesitant, but willing to do what was needed to bring the union back together.
Grant disliked slavery and became an abolitionist after the war.

Connor: Weekly Blog Post 1

The Crazy Night

By Connor M. Jones

    It was a dark night, as per usual.  Ferris was in the cage and all the humans were asleep.  Franki walked over and said "Rex and I are about to play poker.  Would you like to join us?"  He opened the cage before Ferris could reply.  Rex had already sat down on a chair and Dookie and Pikachu had gotten the cards.  Franki grabbed some dog biscuits and said "After the game you get to eat the biscuits you win."  Ferris grinned at the idea of eating as many biscuits as she could win.

     Rex put on his top hat and monocle.  Then Rex pulled out a piece of bacon rolled up into the shape of a cigar.  Putting the bacon cigar in his mouth he said "Humans often paint dogs with cigars while playing poker.  On the contrary it's just bacon rolled up to look like cigars."  Franki took one of the bacon "cigars" off the table and stuck it in his mouth.  Then he put on a stovepipe hat and a fake beard.  Ferris, seeing this stupid outfit, laughed out loud.

      Franki said "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation..."  Ferris interrupted with a yawn and then he stopped completely.  Meanwhile the crabs started arguing over who should deal the cards.  Franki said "How about both of you deal." Turning toward Ferris he added "Their  better dealers than the cacti was.  I remember trying to get one of my cards."  Suddenly Rex farted and the room broke out in laughter.  Franki then said "Fourscore and seven farts ago, Rex brought forth in this kitchen a new fart."  This caused more laughter from Koopa and Yoshi than anyone else.  Franki looked at the others and said "Tough crowd."

        The crabs dealt the first card to Rex.  Then Ferris, and Franki continuing in that order till all three dogs had a hand.  Ferris looked at her hand and said "I don't think we're playing with a full deck."  The other dogs confirmed this by looking at the tiny pile of cards next to the dealers.  The crabs told everyone that they could only find a third of the deck.  This caused the entire group, but the dogs and crabs to laugh.  Rex looked at the crabs and growled in a low tone.  Ferris turned and said "Cool it Rex." as she put on some sunglasses and some lipstick.

     Pedro, Koopa, Shelly, and Yoshi all said "Go find the other two thirds of the deck you idiots."  Then in slithered Munch creeping out the rats as he slithered by.  Munch was carrying two thirds of a deck.  Pedro, from the safety of his home, said "where the heck did you find that?  Crazy snake's always the first to know where something is if it has gone missing."  Munch looked at him and hissed in a threatening manner.  Then Munch launched the two thirds of the deck up to the table and slithered away.  Shelly was left calming Koopa and Yoshi as Pedro buried his head and body in the ground.

      The crabs reshuffled and then re-dealt the cards.  Ferris now holding her new hand and having an umbrella behind her was quite happy.  Franki played the 3 of Boxers.  Ferris played the 5 of poodles.  Finally Rex  played the queen of Great Danes.  Rex got three dog biscuits for wining.  Suddenly the next hand started and Ferris had a royal flush dealt to her.  Franki had a straight, but bluffed and said he had a royal flush.  Rex had an Ace high, but also bluffed in order to appear to have as good a hand as Franki.  They all played their hands and Ferris won eight dog biscuits.

    At the end of the game Ferris had twenty biscuits, Franki had thirty, and Rex had none.  Franki, feeling sorry for Rex and Ferris gave them both ten of his biscuits.  Ferris gave ten back to Franki, because franki now only had ten.  The three dogs ate some of their dog biscuits and put the rest back.  Ferris walked into the cage and Rex closed it and locked her in.  Then all the animals went to sleep, except the rats who stayed up playing chess.  THE END

Mommio: Civil War Character

We have been studying the American Civil War for a while now and you have all learned about a lot of interesting people- from slaves, to soldiers, to famous Generals and everyone in between.  

This week I want you to tell us more about your favorite Civil War character.  The person you choose can be someone we all know or someone less famous, and you can research for more information online (no one can do Lincoln).  You need to answer the following questions:

1. Who is your favorite Civil War character?

2. Why did you choose him/her?

3. What was that person's life like during the Civil War?

4. What did that person think about the Civil War and about slavery?

Mommio: Word Challenge

Write a sentence for each word.  

Anyone who can come up with a complete sentence that makes sense for each word gets a dollar!

negligible- (adjective) not worth considering

It's obvious from our negligible dropout rate that our students love our program.
notoriety- (noun) unfavorable fame 

Wayne realized from the silence that greeted him as he entered the office that his notoriety preceded him.

noxious- (adjective) harmful, unwholesome

The people on the sidewalk covered their noses and mouths as the bus passed to avoid breathing in the noxious exhaust fumes.

*all words, definitions and sentences are from the Kaplan SAT Vocabulary Prep Level 1.

Daddio: 2/27/12 Blog of the Week Post 2

Some of us talked this weekend about the violence in Syria.  Syria is a country in the middle east where, much like what happened in Egypt last year, a large number of people are fighting for Syria to become a democracy.  The government's reaction to the rebellion and demonstrations has been violent, and they have killed hundreds (if not much more) of their own civilians to try to put an end to the uprising.

Homs, one of the cities in Syria, is being called the "heart" of the rebellion against the non-democratic government.  It is a large city with a population of 800,000 (about the size of Austin).  But since the uprising, it has been torn apart by war.  The first thing I want you to do to research the situation in Syria is to watch this video from CNN about what life is like in Homs today.

For this blog post, I do not want you to write a report on the Syrian violence.  Instead, I want you to research it and then answer the following questions:

1) What do you think the U.S. should do about the situation in Syria, if anything?

2) Why do you think that?

3) What do you think other countries and global organization should do about the situation in Syria, if anything?

4) Why do you think that?

To do this, I want you to read some articles.  Look through this summary of recent articles about what's going on in Syria and read one or two.  Then read this summary on what foreign countries did to intervene in Libya, many using military weapons to fight Qadaffi.  This is stark contrast to the lack of military intervention in the Egyptian Revolution.   Finally, here's an article about how some countries aren't committing troops, but are giving the rebels in Syria weapons.  Read these articles, watch the video and then answer the questions I posed.

Daddio: 2/27/12 Blog of the Week Post 1

Do you know how many pets we have?  I'm not kidding, we have eleven.  Three dogs, two rats, two crabs, a guinea pig, a snake, a tortoise and a fish.  There's more animals in our house than there are people.  So for this post, I want you to write a story about what Rex, Franki, Ferris, Koopa, Yoshi, Dookie, Pickachu, Body, Munch, Pedro and Shelly do at night once all the humans are asleep and they have the house to themselves.  Do they just sit around and play poker?  Do they rifle through the drawers where you keep stuff?  Do they find your socks and hide them?  It's up to you, but use your imagination and tell a wild, great story.

Your story has to be four paragraphs long.

Gabe: Word Challenge

Marney's meticulous when she sorts.

Nana had a lot of mettle to put her hand in the rat cage.

I was full of mirth at the dance.

Marney: Weekly Blog Post 1

     The author thinks pennies are worthless because people lose them a bunch and drop them on the ground and most of the time do not use them.  The author said that he thinks pennies should not be made anymore.   Here is another reason he thinks that, because it uses a bunch of zinc and copper and other things like that.  He says that people save up pennies for no reason they just save them up count them and then get like 4 bucks then go somewhere with them and lose them.
     I think we should keep the pennies because sometimes we do need them. Yes, we lose them a bunch but if you had four huge big cups full of pennies you would have a bunch of money and you could trade them in for dollars at the bank. I think pennies should not stop getting made because they are needed at some point in life.
     Other money should still be made because the other money you would still need, like dollars. There are tons of dollars, there are hundred dollar bills and 1 dollar bills and 15 dollar bills. Nickels and dimes and quarters are also still awesome and needed.

Gabe: Weekly Blog Post 1

What the guy in the artical said was it costs 2 cents to make a penny which is one cent so there is no point in making them. He also said people just throw them away and put them in jars so we should not make them.  I think we should keep making pennies.  Because if we did not keep pennies then everyone would round up and everything would cost more.  Also enough pennies can make a dime, a quarter and even a dollar!  I like all of those because they are money. I like the quarter the most because they are 25 cents.   

Connor: Word Challenge

After showing their mettle in combat the sergeants meticulously cleaned the stains off their armor and weapons as they filled the room with mirth.

Connor: Weekly Blog Post 1

    The author of the article thinks pennies are a useless coin.  They'd rather the penny no longer be used.  They also think making nickels from less expensive materials would be better.  Personally I found this opinion to be largely self-contradicting.  If Americans are no longer using cash then wouldn't the idea of minting nickels from less expensive materials be just like minting pennies from less expensive materials?  Why mint new coins if people are no longer using coins and instead starting to pay for more transactions with credit cards?  The only flaw with credit cards is you don't get any change back, but at least you aren't capable of losing it.  It is most likely for people to be losing change as the article stated.
     As a matter of fact eventually even the dollar bills will be completely replaced by credit cards.  In about twenty or thirty years coins and dollar bills may just stop being used entirely.  Minting new coins and printing new bills is just speeding up the process.  The reason the penny is worth what it is, is only because of inflation.  Inflation is capable of making currency useless or even worthless.  Credit cards aren't exactly as effected, because it's the minting of coins and printing of bills that causes inflation not the use of credit cards.  In distributing coins and bills the government is causing more inflation.  This type of thing has happened before, in the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century.  In those centuries America's government was producing too many bills and minting too many coins, hence why we aren't using the old union money or the old colonial money or even the Confederate money.

Connor: Weekly Blog Post 2

Happy Birthday Mommio

Teaching at unit.

Listening to Nirvana.

Tons of love and care.

These things best describe

our beautiful Mommio.

Happy birthday Mom!

You are sweet and kind.

You help us when we need it.

You always use your mind.

You do what you see fit.

You are always correct

Because you are perfect.

I love spending time with you.

You cheer us up

when we feel blue.

You are as awesome as the pup.

I hope you never die.

When are we eating pie?

Roses are red Violets are blue Daddio is smart and so are you.

Phineas and Ferb: Remote Control Car

This week in our Phineas and Ferb science class the kids continued to make remote control cars on their own, using the Thames and Kosmos Remote Control Machines kit.

The car of the week was a really cool folding car.  Mason and Marney started it for us, gathered all the parts and did the first few steps.

When they hit a roadblock it their assembly Gabe stepped in and did the rest on his own.  Great work guys!

Here is a short video of Gabe showing off the folding car.  Next time we make a formula race car!

Mommio: Art Class- Modern- Picasso

Today in our Artistic Pursuits class we started our lessons on one of the most famous modern artists, 

Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).

Picasso was born into an artistic family, his father was an art teacher and started giving him formal training at a very early age.  As a teenager he struggled with the limits of his formal training and soon left art school to create his own methods.  Although Picasso is best known for being the founder of the Cubism movement in art, he went through several distinct periods in his own art.  In his early 20's he went through a great personal depression which can be seen in his monochromatic painting style at that time, known as his Blue Period.

The Old Guitarist, 1903

Today we talked about this period in Picasso's life and took a look at a series of paintings from this time, focusing on how they make the viewer feel.  We also learned what "monochromatic" means (using different shades of a single color).  Then the kids made their own "blue" pictures using their gouache paints.  

They were able to use all the shades of blue that are in the paint sets, and to also create their own new shades of blue by mixing colors.

Here are their finished pieces of art with titles and descriptions by the artist.  

Next time we will learn all about Cubism.