Music class we are on our 3rd unit. Our 3rd unit is based on Asian music. Our unit question is “ What makes music sound like it belongs to a particular part of the world?”  We went to visit the ICJC. It where the other class goes to play koto. We went there to learn the notes, what is koto, how to play it and what are techniques. The techniques of koto are Shan, Kororin, Sha-sha and Ato-oshi. Shan is played by one note, Kororin (Syncopated) is played by 3 note pattern thats descending, Sha-sha played 2 notes at the same time and Ato-oshi is pressing the stings.

When the teachers and a special guest perform japanese music with three types of instruments koto, shamizen and shakuhachi. I liked the shakuhachi because it gives the sound of the wind in my opinion because you blow into the shakuhachi as if it was a flute or clarinet and I use to play the clarinet so I was familiar on how to use it.  These were all of the pieces that were performed:

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

My favorite piece was the Deep Forest because it was an original song written by the koto teacher and our visitor. They shared with us that the song was based on their hiking trip. As they were playing the song. I could imagine being in forest, smelling fresh air and coming out feeling refreshed. This song reminded me of a hiking trips I went on and I truly enjoyed it.

From the past units of science our unit is about Asteroid mining. We are now beginning a new unit so this was a while ago but we had an assessment our teacher gave us. As a class we were talking about asteroids and discussing about what asteroids are and how are they created. So as a project we had to do individually we had to find proposals based on Asteroides basically a poster.

I talk started off with talking about what asteroids are and the appearance then slowly started to talk about the Proposal that a billionaire entrepreneurs announced. Over-all I think I did good I explained what is was so my teacher knows what I know about an asteroid then talked about the proposal which was the main thing to talk about on the poster. I was layed out nicely and I think I used a wide variety of scientific words and mostly I would say the asteroids coming in was cool.

This unit in science class we have been studying about chemicals. We had an assignment where we had to pick a chemical, research about it and create a poster about it. I chose Iodine. We had to answer questions like “What is Iodine?”, “What problems it causes in this society?”, “What is the chemical symbol?” and “How is extracted?”  The most thing I am proud of my poster is the layout because it organized into each section and it fills up most of the poster also the facts I have wrote and the information. The least thing I am not proud of is the choice of font, color and images I use because it all looks jumbled up. The most difficult thing I found hard about this assignment is searching how it is extracted because there wasn’t a simple answer for it. If I had to redo my poster I would change how it looks and I wish I could of wrote in pen.

Hola Mi llamo Annamaria. Tengo trece años. Tengo treinta personas en mi familia.  Voy a describir mis padres, madres, mis hermanss y  mis sobrino. Hay mi madre. Se llama Kwan. Tiene 40 años. Mi padre. Se llamo Glenn. Tiene 49 años. Mi hermanas. Julie y Katerina. Julie tiene 22 años. Katerina tiene cinco años. Mi sobrino. Se llamo Kaleb. Tiene uno añ0s. Tengo 12 primos. Mi primos sus nombres son Kerry, Kristy, Lauren, Matt, Eric, Jenny, Dani, LK y Jackson. El hermanos de mi padre. Mi tíos son nombres Michael, Stephen, Allan, Bill, Stephen (Honig) y Brian. El hermanas de mi padre, mi tía Linda y Laura. Mi padre tiene el pelo castaño y los ojos azules, es intelligente, un poco alto y grande y trabajador. Mi madre es bonita, trabajadora, cómico y atletica. Mi hermana Julie es bonita, cómico, con estilo, artistica, atletica y buenos para cantar. Mi hermana menor, Katerina es un poco molesto, pequeño y un poco intelligente. Mi hermana Julie es más que pequeño también más que artistica. Mi hermana, Katerina es menor que yo. Mi primo Eric y Matt es más rápido que yo. Yo soy más gracioso que mi primo Kerry.

In tutor class we have been discussing about bullying for example what is bullying? forms of bullying and ways to cope with bullying.

Bullying is using strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants.

What forms are there in bullying?

There are five forms of bullying.

• Cyber bullying
• Verbal bullying
• Physical bullying
• Intimidation
• Social alienation.

What strategies do you have to cope with bullying?

My strategies are ignoring the problem,  standing up to the bully,  go to someone for help example, a parent, friend or teacher.

About 2 weeks ago, in science class we did and experiment involving yeast, iodine, alcohol, vinegar and salt. We put about 2 or 4 centimeter of yeast then we can pick either iodine, salt, vinegar and alcohol in. I choose iodine. In four test tubes I put no iodine in, 2 drops of iodine, 10 drops of iodine and 20 drops of iodine. Then we put balloons to cover the test tubes and into the hot water we waited until all the balloons rise up. We got our results back personally I think i could do better if I hadn’t really rushed it and kept looking through again to make sure I added all the things I needed to get a better score then I did but over-all this experiment I thought was really exciting and fun. My aim was to find whether different drops of Iodine will make a difference, my prediction is that it will take 10 to 20 minutes because Iodine will make the microbe (yeast) slower. Also that the tubes with 2 drops and no drops of Iodine will be faster the the rest. The procedure: 1. Have four test tubes, 2. Get a rack to put the test tubes, 3. Bring out the ingredient like salt, vinegar, iodine and alcohol, 4. Take out the balloons to put on top of the test tubes when finish putting the amount of the ingredients. In conclusion the 10 and 20 drops of iodine was faster then the 2 drops of iodine and non. We checked our results again to make sure if it was correct.

This unit were doing is digital story telling. Today November 21st 2012 each of us had to make our own digital story and present it to the class. My digital story is about cyber bullying. I did it because I wanted to send out a message that its not ok to bully even online.  There are 4 stages to this project. I it is called the design cycle. and this is my Digital Story.

This is my digital story:

Strengths and weaknesses:

My weaknesses are probably organizing the schedule I film because I kept on filming different time and different scene so I was a but confusing and difficult. Also

My strengths are organizing the props I needed, my schedule to finish off work was my strength during the unit and editing it I knew what I needed.

Areas to improve:

I think the part in my film where it is dark and its filmed weirdly needed to be improved on because it wasn’t clear. Also making parts of it extend. I feel like my movie kept jumping all over the place and it was getting a but confusing.

Over all I think this unit was very fun and entertaining. I remember we did something like this last year so it was easy editing my story.

Yo soy estoy muy ocupada. Los lunes tengo fisical educaccion y historia. A las nueve y diez y a las once y cinco. Los martes y miércoles tengo que futsal a las quatro. La mayoría de las clases dificíl. Los viernes tengo que Matematicas a las doce y treinta y cinco. Me gusta la clase de matematicas, historia, arte y español. Despues de la clase me gusta pasar un rato con los amigos y practicar deportes.

The past weeks, in music we have been focusing on a assignment that was due today. In our assignment we have to perform a song using any instrument I choose singing and the piano. My song was Pump up Kicks by The Foster People but I did a remix sort of it was a shorter version.

- the good points and the bad

The good points of my performance is it was loud and clear but the bad point I got a bit mixed up in my performance and there was noises in the back but I guess since my performance was loud you won’t here it as much.

- how you can improve in future

In my opinion I could of improve by practicing more then I did but I guess I over estimated on how my performance was gonna be.

- what you found difficult about learning the piece

I found singing whilst playing the piano difficult. I struggled a bit because I haven’t played piano in a long time but now i’m teaching myself how too.

- what rehearsal techniques you used

I used the finger exercise and vocal exercises. For vocal I used the scale meaning do re me fa so la ti do and for fingering I put my hand on a flat surfaces and tried bring up all four fingers.

- an overview of what you learned through the process

I learned many things in music class for example different types of music like character music, storyboard music etc. Also what the different signs in music like treble clef and bass clef.

Lately in humanities class we have been working on a project about effects on imperialism. Like how one country has an affect on another country. I did Hong Kong and England. I thought it was a bit difficult to find information on how England affected Hong Kong or Hong Kong affected England but soon as I got the hang of it, it turned out easy but it did take a long time to return. Some critics I thought was I think I rushed a bit and I kept stuttering a bit but overall I thought my presentation had the right amount of pictures and information.

Here is my voicethread:

Please leave a comment if you can