Thursday, March 12, 2009

Concerning a Play, a Movie, some Art, and a Dead PC

Sorry for missing a couple of entries. Big Silver Fish died a couple weeks ago, and big silver PC died a couple days ago. I'd like to blame it on Windows, but the darn thing makes grinding clunking sounds. Another Pentium 4 shuffles off this earth. I guess I'll have to replace it. Sigh.

We've been really busy with our play the last few days, and it will consume a good bit of our time tomorrow, too. But it's starting to come together well.

We started another movie today. We're watching Ramona, the 1936 version of the classic novel by Helen Hunt Jackson. Despite truly awful performances by Loretta Young and Don Ameche, the story has remarkable power. The students always hate this movie at first, but really come to love it by the end. It gives a really good sense of what California was like in the 1870's, and it's amazing how much of that pastoral landscape was still around when they filmed it 70 years ago. The San Fernando Valley with sheep instead of malls and freeways. A lost world....

We also did a little bit with perspective drawing. We talked about foreground, middle ground, and background. The students then created their own imaginary landscapes with these elements. A few of them were absolutely great! I'll scan some of these and post them when I can get a chance. I keep forgetting how much I depended on big silver PC.

Big, big, thank you to Joan Stewart who came in today to match students to skirts and other stuff out of the costume box. Her expertise is much, much appreciated.

Homework: (1) Do "Choose the Appropriate Unit," Math, page 405, numbers 2-21 and 25-29. (2) Do "Measure Fractional Parts," Math, pages 407-409, numbers 2-23 and 29-37.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you from Danielle's family as well, Joan!

Lynn

Anonymous said...

That's sweet! Thanks for you nice words!

BTW, people, you should have heard Mr. Bassett playing rehearsal piano today! Who knew?
I had no idea he was so musically talented.