Band Concert

Yesterday, we went to the Arden Fair Mall to do a winter band concert. All four bands played, Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, and Jazz band. We were there extra early because we thought that it was going to start at 6 P.M. with Jazz Band going first. Instead it started at 7 P.M. with Jazz Band last.

We played jazz, rock, and bossa nova pieces. They were called Hefti's Hideout, Ain't Misbehavin', R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A., and Joy Bossa. We played ROCK in the USA really, really fast. Compared to the 3 other bands, we were extremely small. There were only about 12-14 of us while Beginning band had about 60-100. By the time we got done it was nearly 9 o'clock.


We have a concert at the First Baptist Church in Elk Grove tomorrow. I like playing in jazz band!

Pythagoras of Samos

This week, along with the next, I am going to do a biography on Pythagoras. Some of the information I have already gathered includes some of Pythagoras's early and late life.

Pythagoras grew up on the island of Samos. His mother was a native to the island, and his father was a traveling merchant. Pythagoras traveled with his father as he went on trips to other countries to trade. While staying in whatever country they might be, Pythagoras's father would send him to a philosopher or tutor of that place. By the time Pythagoras was sixteen, he had received one of the most full educations any boy of that time could have gotten.

During Pythagoras's late life, when he was around 40-50 years old, he started a Pythagorean school of mathematics, philosophy, and music, also known as the Pythagorean Brotherhood. The school was located in Samos. During this time he discovered many things, one of which was the Pythagorean Theorem, or the measure of gold.

Pirateer

Pirateer is a board game meant for two or four players. The object of the game is to capture the treasure in the middle of the board, and then take it back to your dock in one of the four corners of the board. In order to take the treasure, you must move one of your ships to one of the bright spaces next to the island, and then put the treasure coin on top of your ship. Each player gets 3 pieces -- 6 if there are only two players.

Pieces are moved by rolling a pair of dice. Movement is limited to left, right, up, and down, unless your piece is within one of the "trade winds". The trade winds are 20 dark, wavy spaces that allow your ship to move diagonally. If a ship enters the trade winds, it is not allowed to move out until the next turn. Additionally, there are triangle spaces on the farthest sides of the board. These are spaces that are called straits and they allow passage from one side of the board to the other.

There are about 10 different variations of Pirateer that give special conditions or rules. We usually play an unofficial variant, which consists of dueling and capturing ships that we made up. Movement and victory conditions are normal, but whenever a ship goes into a space next to an enemy ship, the two can duel. Both players roll a die, and whoever rolls the highest, wins, capturing the enemy ship and the treasure if the losing ship had it.

After playing, we roll up the felt board and put the pieces in a long, metal container and put it away in our game closet.

Jazz Band

Today I am going to go to Jazz Band in Elk Grove. Our Jazz Band teacher is Mr. Khapan, the person who used to teach regular band. I play second alto saxophone. There are three saxophones in our band, two altos and one tenor. We play a mix of rock, latin, and swing music.

Explorit Science Center

A couple of days ago we went to the Explorit Science Center in Davis. They had a new exhibit about communication, featuring Morse code, army flag and hand signals, different languages, and two cans with a string attached. There were also a couple of books for sign language, and a set of stamps for the different hand signals. On a piece of paper, I made a compass rose with a couple of the stamps. On the part with Morse code, there was a chart with all the letters and numbers, Morse telegraph keys, fiber optics, and a small light on either side of the station.

In the regular exhibit area, the downstairs room, there was a new metal sandbox that sloped down and had water running down from a shower head all the way to the bottom of the basin, where it was recycled through the pump back to the top. There were pipes of different sizes and small plastic trees for decoration. You could use the pipes to make tunnels through sand mounds. Joey and I took out all of the pipes and trees and made a meandering river. It wound almost all the way to the bottom, accelerating at the deeper and steeper parts of the river. As a result of changing the depth in one area and increasing height in the other area or decreasing depth caused a change in the velocity of the running water. Once it was done, we added trees to make it look more real.

Slingshots

Yesterday we made slingshots out of rubber bands, felt, and sticks that we found in our back yard. Our dad cut the sticks and then we put together the rubber bands and felt. Once they were done, we were able to shoot across the entire yard (that's about 25 ft.)! It didn't take very long to make them, only about 15-20 minutes.

Ceramics

For the past couple weeks we've been taking ceramics classes every Thursday. Joey and I are both taking the class. Here we are making pumpkin containers by hand out of clay.

We made birdhouses one week by actually putting slabs of clay together to form one. Then they were fired, painted, and then fired again.


We also got to use the potter's wheel. I made a bowl and two candle holders (see picture above), and Joey made a plate and a couple of bowls. Right now, everything we made on the wheel is being fired. Here is a picture of my cousin Sydney at the wheel. Our cousins Sydney and Emily are also in our ceramics class.