Welcome to the the 3rd quarter of the 2011-2012 school year! Click on your child's class name under "Menu" to find your class syllabus. :-)
Scroll down to see Ms. Funke's most recent travels abroad and some interesting videos that illustrate topics covered in her classes. :-)
ATTENTION!!!
Ms. Funke is now on echalk! :-)
You can now view all class work and homework assignments as well as class announcements there.
You can access this website through echalk on your classes resources list.
This is me at Machu Picchu in Peru after hiking a portion of the Inca Trail, an ancient trail that was used by Incan chasquis who once ran the trail in a relay race fashion to communicate military and economic information throughout the empire. They wore a belt that had many thin strands woven out of alpaca or llama hair called a quipu . The belts were "read" according to a color-coded knot system. The colors and positions of the knots on each strand help a message that was read by qualified military officials. Machu Picchu is special because the Spanish armies never found it. It was a sacred place inhabited only by the best soldiers and religious leaders. An American archaeologist, Hiram Bingham helped uncover the site with the help of locals beginning in the year 1911.
The Tarantella is a folk dance that is perfomed in Sicily. We study Italy in 6th grade foreign language class and try out this exciting piece of Sicilian culture!
This clock is located in Prague, Czech Republic. For the past 600 years, this clock has chimed every hour on the hour! There is a Czech legend about this clock called "Prophecies of the Clock". In this legend a prisoner watches the skeleton (can you see it in see image above?) open his mouth (which is part of the clock's spectacle) and watched a sparrow get caught int he jaws of death. The prisoner viewd the bird to represent himself and as a sign he would die in prison, but then the bird escapes! Now the prisoner thinks that maybe this is a sign he will be released from prison. As the legend goes the prisoner was soon pardoned and set free to live out the rest of his life. In 6th grade foreign language we read this legend, as well as many others, and write a part II of the legend. We get to decide what happens to the characters in the legends next!
This is a cathedral in Barcelona, Spain named Sagrada Familia. It was designed by the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi had an obsession with nature as he was stricken by a disease when he was a child that made it hard for him to play with toys, so his mom took him to the country to observe nature. Much of his work shows fascinating patterns that can be found in nature, like the patterns found in leaves and flowers. Gaudi was struck by a street car in 1926. He died peniless and was not famous at the time of his death. Sagrada Familia was not finished when he died, and is still being built today. He left no plans. Today's architects are merely guessing as to what the rest of his plans were. Though beautiful, the new addition just quite does not measure up to the original part (front of the building) that Gaudi designed.
