This week in core: book logs, cultures, vocab..OH MY!

This week in core:
Monday: Spelling and Vocab Test (LA), New Spelling Words (LA), Create a Culture work time (SS)
Tuesday: Create a Culture work time (LA & SS), Book Log due! (LA)
Wednesday: Culture writing and pictures, final draft DUE (LA & SS)
Thursday: Native American pretest (SS), Spelling sort it (LA)
Friday: Native American Intro (SS), Spelling and Vocab test (LA)


Spelling

• Our root of the week is "ject" which means "throw"
• Students will be quizzed on spelling of the words and their definitions on FRIDAY
• dejected: to feel sad; to feel thrown down in spirit
• eject: to throw out
• injection: a shot, the "throwing" of medicine into the body
• interjection: a word thrown into a sentence or conversation
• jettison: to throw goods overboard to lighten the load on a boat or airplane
• projectile: an object thrown into the air with great force
• projector: a machine that throws an image onto a wall
• reject: to throw something out because it's defective and cant be used again
• subject: to throw oneself under someone else's rule
• trajectory: the curved path of an object thrown into space 

Notes:

• The book log was collected on Wednesday (instead of Tuesday), due to time 
• Culture projects are coming along. Students turned in written portion on Wednesday and will turn in final pictures on Thursday. At this time, pictures and words will be incorporated into the book that students spent Wednesday creating.
• Friday is the last day to turn in late or missing work, or make up or redo a test or assignment before the end of the semester.

Gustar + actividades

Cultural Infographic Quiz

What is an infographic?

I am admittedly, a little obsessed with data visualization. Making information visually appealing, making it BEAUTIFUL. According to Wikipedia, "Today information graphics surround us in the media, in published works both pedestrian and scientific, in road signs and manuals. They illustrate information that would be unwieldy in text form, and act as a visual shorthand for everyday concepts such as stop and go."

You may find yourself saying "huh?!" But what this means is that we can learn, and study information and data in a fun and visual way. We can make our information diagrams into works of art. We can create projects, presentations and ways that show that we have learned that are amazingly complex, detailed and actually beautiful.  We can take information that might otherwise be overwhelming and in some cases difficult to understand and make it easy to read, understand and learn from.

What does this have to do with my Culture Quiz-ito?!
Well...we created a very, very basic information graphic in class last week when we made our Culture Web. For the quiz-ito you can recreate that web from memory, or choose to show that you know that information by showcasing it in another way. To get started, you may want to look at the Periodic Table of Visualization (just mouse over the "elements" to see some of the many ways people visualize data). Remember...you can choose any visualization method that you want but there are some that are better suited for this job than others for example: cluster/web, tree, treemap, cone tree, data-flow, mind map...and more! Need more ideas? Click Here

Ok, I can do this. BUT, I lost/can't find/would like to see the original Culture Web again?
Here it is(remember, some social scientists agree to 4 elements, some to 6 and others 8, also the branches overlap and may include things not listed below):

Elements of culture web

please click/enlarge view all of the elements clearly

Recycled Vader

Check out this sweet Darth Vadar made from salvaged materials. Courtesy of Wired

Cool Thing(s) of the Day

Fun with poetry? click HERE (shout out to Ms. Buck for this one)


Practice your typing with DANCE MAT TYPING! (Thank you to Luis and Joel for recommending this fun site)

Happy New Year

A look back on some of the events of 2011:


CNN Student News



This infographic from AOL (click to enlarge):

Video from Maps of the World

Auld Lang Syne