THE HOWE

In Humanities we created a video to raise awareness about global warming. Hope you Enjoy!

In Music we listened to three people play traditional songs which classic instruments such as the koto, shamisen, shakuhachi.

The order of the songs were:

Classical koto/shamisen/shakuhachi trio – Eghigo Jishi
Shakuhachi solo – Honkyoku
Koto/shakuhachi duet – Kaze no Uta (Song of the Wind)
Koto solo – Gensokyoku (Fantasy)
Koto/shakuhachi duet – Deep Forest

I liked the koto because it kept the beat and it held the song together, however nothing surprised me.  I liked the Deep Forest because you could imagine the setting and what’s happening.  The music sounded “Japanese” because the sound of the instruments and how it sounded natural.  Another thing that  made the music sound japanese was the pentatonic scale which was used in all of the songs.  A pentatonic scale is a scale made up of only 5 notes.  These 5 notes are played over and over again in the songs.  If you hear the scale it sounds “Japanese” because of how it sounds relaxing and really old-fashioned.  Also when playing the koto they push down on the strings which changes the sound.  When you hear old-fashioned Japanese music, it is slow-paced and it’s not fast.  It’s more like sleeping music and relaxing music.  Also the different ways of playing the koto for example makes it sound Japanese such as sha-sha-ten, ato-oshi and etc.    Ato-oshi vibrates the sound of the note and makes it sound calmer.  I think the different techniques for each instrument makes the sounds unique and special to Japan.

In Art class we jus finished our final line drawing in our line drawing unit.  In this unit our MYP question is “How can we communicate visually?”  Our significant concept is “Line can be used to convey shape, texture and tone.”  To start this unit we copied a line drawing that was drawn by a professional artist.

Above is my drawing I copied which was originally drawn by Vincent Van Gogh.  I think I did okay in this drawing but I miseed key details such as scale and perspective.

This drawing isn’t complete however I think I did a good job starting the ocean but not so good in the foreground.

After we drew these drawings we started looking at line technique more in depth.  We started this by doing an assessment task where we looked at two drawings and we looked at them and described what we saw such as tone, texture, composition, balance, and etc.  We then compared these two drawings and investigated the differences in the drawings.  After this assessment I got a better understanding of line techniques and how to layout a drawing.

Once we moved to the task to draw our own line drawing we started by looking at different ways to put pictures together to create a line drawing plan.  My original idea was to make a drawing of a split passage where a sign said choose where you had to choose between work and fun.  Below is my template:

While drawing I changed my idea on plan because the full meaning wasn’t expressed so I decided to take those out and make it a drawing inspired by the poem by Robert Frost called The Road Not Taken.  Below is the poem:

I really liked this poem because it was about how you should take your own path and not follow everyone else.

Above is my final drawing.  In this drawing I worked really hard on especially the background.  Now when I look back on it I can see that I should’ve taken more time on the foreground.

Strengths in this drawing I think would be my background and my grass because the grass goes close to far and you can tell by the length of the grass and how the grass gets closer together when you go into the background.  I think a key feature in the grass is how it went from normal grass to stippling The grass also has good balance because it’s not bunched up and in a straight line.  Another strength I think would be the trees in the background because I spent a lot of time trying to show tone and balance by using scumble   I went from scumble that was close together to scumble which was far apart to show tone and value.  Another strength I think would be the texture shown on the handles because you can see the grain.  Another strength I think would be how I cross-hatched to show a tunnel into the forest however I made the background too dark so it’s hard to see it.

A weakness would  be my boardwalk.  The lines are uneven and it kind of looks like the boardwalk is on an angle when it should be flat.  I think if I were to do this again I would go slower on the wood and maybe even use a ruler to make the lines straight.  I think my posts on the handles should have been more upright because when it is on an angle like it is, it messes up the perspective.  Now by this perspective it looks like the handles on a far angle away from the boardwalk.  When starting the grass I made the perfect little stems as seen in the bottom-left corner.

I think I did well on this drawing but I should’ve have slowed down on the foreground so I could make the lines straighter and show more tone.  I think that I have a lot of areas to improve in but I should work slower and concentrate on key parts.  Answering the unit question: “How can we communicate visually?”  I think we can because we can put in key points and you understand the message and the story just through a drawing.

In Drama we were asked to create a 1 minute speech on our passion.  Because soccer is my favorite passion I chose that.  Below is my video.  Hope you enjoy!

For my first speech this unit I think I did an okay job.  Out of the categories we were asked to assess ourselves on which are:

In Humanities we have been studying the Industrial Revolution.  We drew a picture like the pictures in the book “Town Through Time.”

In Science we were asked to find a piece of work that we were the most proud of.  I chose my yeast experiment because I thought I had thorough predictions and I had a good conclusion stating if my prediction was correct and everything I noticed.  My Investigation Sheet can be viewed HERE.

In this investigation we tried to adjust the growth of yeast by either killing it or grow it.  By doing this we can see what does not go well with yeast.  We tested salt, alcohol and honey with yeast and waited for the experiment to show results.  The experiment was very simple.  We put honey, salt or alcohol into a test tube that has yeast in it.  We then strapped a balloon onto the top of the test tube.  If the yeast grew the balloon would inflate if it didn’t grow and it was killed no gas would be created so in result the balloon would not inflate.  In this experiment I got 7/8 for Inquiring and Designing.  For Processing and Evaluating I got an 8/8.  I am very proud of this grade.

I think I did very well on this and I hope to get grades like this for the rest of the year.

In PE we were asked to find an example of good or bad sportsmanship.  I chose the case where Eden Hazard a professional soccer player kicked a ball-boy to retrieve the ball.

This is bad sportsmanship because the ball-boy was wasting time and Hazard shouldn’t have kicked the ball-boy.  The ball-boy jumped on top of the ball when he should have given the ball to the player.  I think that this is really bad sportsmanship.  From the video it looks like Hazard asked for the ball but didn’t get it however he shouldn’t have kicked him.  Both sides apologized afterward but if both sides were nice this wouldn’t have happened.

What is Bullying?

Bullying isn’t:

• single episodes of social rejection or dislike
• single episode acts of nastiness or spite
• random acts of aggression or intimidation
• mutual arguments, disagreements or fights.

These actions can cause great distress. However, they’re not examples of bullying unless someone is deliberately and repeatedly doing them to you.

There are four types of bullying which is:

• PHYSICAL BULLYING
• VERBAL BULLYING
• COVERT BULLYING
• CYBERBULLYING

What are strategies to deal with bullying?

• Know when to walk away
• Use humour to defuse a bully
• Tell the bully to leave you alone (works for girls)
• Recruit a friend to help you
• Build friendships with the friendly children

Why do people bully?

• They have experienced rejection and been a victim of bullying
• Family issues
• Social Issues
• Having Power
• Provocative Victims

What can be the consequences of bullying?

• Studies have shown that 60% of students who were classified as bullies were convicted of a crime by the time they were 24 years-old

In Humanities we built a Renneisance building.   Peter, Alex and I created a turkish church called the Esztergom Basilica.  In this video we tour our building and talk about facts about the church.

This is a great article: Toughness by Jay Bilas