Making a Circuit

Yesterday in tech we made a circuit with a battery that lights up the light bulb. There was a battery with 2 wires which one attached to the light bulb and the other connected to the switch. If you flip the switch it turns on because there are two screws that you put the wires under and tighten the screw which pins the wires down. I completed my circuit after like 15 minutes. It was a great experience and I am lucky that I didn’t start a fire.

Ryan,

Blog Post #3

In class today we started off with Mr Calvert asking us to draw an atom. We learned about how Ernest Rutherford founded the nucleus in the atom when he tested an experiment where every once in a while atoms would shoot around everywhere. And also that in a atom there is different levels with electrons and if you rub something over the atom then the electrons will leave the object and the atom will then be unstable.

Ryan,

Technology Post #2

Hi,

Today in class we did “Breakout EDU” and so we had 35 min to unlock a box that had 3 locks attached to it, there would multiple clues around the room on our half of the room, and we would try and find the 3 clues for each lock. There was a bonus clue that you did not need to solve it, but it would help. The bonus clue was a black light that circled the word first so we knew that that was the word for one of the locks and it was. We all had to work together in our groups to solve the problem.

Bye!

Ryan,

Technology Blog #1

Hi,

So now that I am in the Middle school we have different quarters and in each quarter we have a different Quaterly, my quaterly now is Technology. In Technology we learn about atoms, how to use a lot of tools like a drill press and soldering irons, yesterday in tech we learned about safety and all of the safety rules in the room. Some of the rules include to slow down and think before you act, tie back long hair, always walk and never push someone.

I will be posting more throughout the quarter,

Ryan,

Children of Alcatraz

As I have said in my past 2 blog posts i have been studying the children who lived on Alcatraz. This post will be all about that topic so I hope you enjoy it.

Image result for alcatraz children

You may not know that children lived on Alcatraz from when it was open as a prison from 1934-1963. A lot of people thought that it was very dangerous and not appropriate for kids to be living on a island where some of America’s’ worst prisoners were being kept, but really it wasnt that dangerous to live there because of how good the security was. The kids lived on a building right next to the docks called Building #64. This building wasn’t where all the families lived, lined across the edge of the island were small condos and then there was the warden’s house where the warden and his family lived.

Here is a link to an interview with Chuck Stucker, an former resident of Alcatraz.

Here are some questions and answers that I have learnt about:

What were the advantages of living on Alcatraz?

Some advantages of living on Alcatraz include the family community was surprisingly safe and everyone was very close together so everyone was friendly with one another. The island was also a ten minute boat ride away from San Francisco so that is where a lot of the teenagers spent there time. Another advantage told to me from an Alcatraz resident John Brunner was that all the families still get together every year for reunions.

What were the disadvantages of living on Alcatraz?

As well of a lot of advantages came a lot of disadvantages to living on Alcatraz. There were only 2 telephones on the entire island, one in the cell house for the guards, and one in building #64 were the families lived, it cost 10 cents for 1 call. Another disadvantages was that no dogs or cats were allowed. (Although one warden had a dog.)

What were activities for children?

There were many activities for children who lived there and some of them include a baseball cage for kids who wanted to play baseball, a bowling alley, a theatre that showed only one movie a week, there were the parade grounds which was big wide open concrete space where kids could rollerskate and do whatever they wanted. The most prefered activity for older kids were to go into the city and spend a normal day there.

Image result for parade grounds alcatraz

The Parade Grounds where the children played.

What was the overall experience like for children?

Many (almost all) residents of Alcatraz say that they loved it there and would do anything to go back there and live. Quoted by Chuck Stucker “It was like any other normal kids life,” All residents said that it barely made a difference that there were America’s worst prisoners living on the same island. When kids left the island to go to school or just to spend the day in San Francisco then they were not allowed to talk about Alcatraz so that Alcatraz secrets remained secret.

What type of contact was there between the prisoners and children?

Sometimes the children would have small conversations with the prisoners and the children would help them with laundry that the prisoners were assigned to do. In the courtyard that the prisoners had free time to play baseball and sometimes the prisoners would have a baseball catch with the children. In general there was not much contact between the children and prisoners because it was restricted.

Click here to watch a video of a woman who used to live on Alcatraz.

Thanks for reading my blog post, I hope you enjoyed learning about it.

Bye!

Children of Alcatraz

Hi again,

Continuing of of my other post about Alcatraz I will tell you more about what life was like for children who lived on Alcatraz in this post.

Here is a video about children who used to live on Alcatraz:

HERE

Image result for labeled diagram of alcatraz

Alcatraz, believe it or not, was actually a safer place to live than on San Francisco because none of the prisoners were allowed near the prison, but when they did get close to the children they were often nice and some even had baseball catches with the children. The children lived on a building by the docks called building #64 and a place where children could play called the parade grounds, where there was swing set and a baseball cage. For the older kids there were lots of parties for celebrations and multiple dances a year.  Building #64 (the building where all the families lived) had 64 apartments and they were small to fit a family, the apartments didn’t get TV’s until the mid 1940’s.

I will be blogging more about this.

Bye!

 

An Introduction to Life for Children living on Alcatraz

Hi,

Recently I have been studying what life was like for children living on Alcatraz and there is a lot of interesting facts that I did not know. I didn’t even know that children lived on Alcatraz until I read the Al Capone Does My……. series by Gennifer Choldenko. If you want to know more about this series than click here.

If you do not know what Alcatraz is then I will tell you. Alcatraz was a prison just off the coast of San Francisco Bay and the prison hosted some of the worst prisoners in the world, such as Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Robert Stroud. The island was once a army base from 1907-1933 and then was turned into a prison in 1934 and lasted until 1963.

I look forward to blogging more about this topic.

 

Story

My buddy wrote a story about when he went to the Bronx Zoo. He worked on this project for five days and he worked extremely hard on it. He describes how he got there, when he got out of the car and what he saw. At the zoo he saw a lot of animals including turtles, hippos and alligators. His drawings are very colorful (like always). His favorite animal that he saw was turtles because he loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Henry’s favorite part about making this story was describing what he saw.