Pre-Christmas Blog Entry

To kick off this "Pre-Christmas Edition" blog entry, I would like to thank students, parents, and staff for  the kind presents. I count myself blessed to be a member of a supportive and caring community at Ruskin.

Also, I want to say a big "THANK YOU" to Ms. Lee-Tran for catering the Winter Party! It was quite a spread! We all were stuffed! Additional "Thanks" go out to Ms. Hashimoto, Ms. Kim, Ms. Ly and Ms. Robinson.

Here are some things I would like to share with you:

• Where to see Christmas displays throughout the valley: http://www.lightsofthevalley.com/Properties/San_Jose.asp
• I actually recommend the 1401 and 1405 Glacier Drive houses (they're next-door to each other).  The owners have a short wave FM radio transmitter (104.1 FM) from which they have coordinated their lights and on-lookers can listen to the music from their cars. Parking in front of the two houses is blocked off, but there's some really good parking spots in front of the house, if you get there early. They serve free popcorn from their popcorn popper and accept donations for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Here's some information from their website:
• "This year we have over 75,000 lights synchronized to several songs with 240 separate channels. The songs are broadcast on a short range FM transmitter set to 104.1 FM. We have converted to 100% LED this year, and there numerous new features such as additional "leaping" arches, strobes, and tree displays. Overall, there has been a large increase in lights that go higher, wider, and brighter than the year before. We are also sponsoring the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation, and more details can be found on our website at http://www.glacierlights.com/
  
  
  Sun-Thurs 6-9 pm
  Fri-Sat 6-10 pm 
  
  
  Lights turn on Sunday December 4th and run through New Year's Eve."
• This is the link for ALL Christmas Holiday Lighted House locations in the Santa Clara Valley: http://www.lightsofthevalley.com/MyCommunities.asp?c=Santa_Clara_County
• Do you own a tablet? Will you be owning one soon? Are you planning on getting some eBooks for a trip? If you answered, "YES" to any of these questions, then consider downloading eBooks for FREE from the Santa Clara Library! In addition, you can also download audiobooks, music and videos. For more information, here's the link: http://www.sccl.org/browse/ebooks-and-econtent/ebooks
• Two Ruskin students finished in the top 50 nationwide during the most recent National contest: ElisaZ finished 15th (996 correct out of 1000 questions) and KyleM, 29th (992 of 1000).  Very impressive!  Keep the students practicing as there are more contests - local (San Jose) and national - scheduled for the new year!
• As of tonight, 12/22, the top ten students (ranked by most correct responses) from Mr. Amutan's class are: Ethan, William, Ariel, Dominic, Daniel, Alan, Ashley, Hannah, Kevin and Angel! Keep up the practice, everyone!
• Update - AR quizzes that were taken by the class since Thanksgiving: FOUR From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler quizzes (3 teacher-created and 1 quiz company-created) and, for most students, THREE reading textbook quizzes (The Stranger, Cendrillon, and Heat Wave).
• The scores for the three teacher-created questions were not high averages, and the primary reason was the level of difficulty of the questions was high.  Generally, most students scored passing grades on the quiz company-created quiz.