Find an example of design that solves a problem.  It might be a big problem or a little problem.  It might be a problem many people didn't even know they had (like the Oxo measuring cups).  To find good examples of design that solves problems you might look at your:

• kitchen
  
• sports equipment
  
• technology
  
• furniture
  
• toys
  
• tools
  
• cases and containers
  
• clothing
  
• anything else!
  

On Monday bring in your piece of design and be ready to explain which specific problem it solves.

Today we talked about a number of different designs that solved problems.  Can you remember which problems these famous designs solved?

I'll leave you with this 20 minute presentation from a designer at Oxo.  Although we won't be watching it in class, I found it very interesting and you might consider checking it out if you are interested in how professional designers work.

This is a pretty amazing video.  It's not connected to anything we are doing in class, but it's amazing.  God has given us some pretty breathtaking sights to see.

Today, you will be responding to one of the questions below in the form of a letter, poem, or essay.  We will be using these pieces of writing to honor the veterans who will be visiting us next week, so put some thought into these!

• What do Veterans mean to me?
  
• Why is a Veteran a hero?
  
• Quote from Edmund Burke: "The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away.. the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".             Question: What does this mean?  How should this idea affect my life?

Students, when directed during class, take a second to share some sentences that have different ways of beginning.

Hopefully, you knew we had a history test on Tuesday.  What you may not have heard is how well your child did on that test.  My estimate is that out of 38 questions most students missed between 10 and 13 questions, and while I didn't hear a word about what they thought about this at school, I imagine some of you may have had some strong reactions at home.  

Without actually seeing those reactions or even hearing specifics, my guess is that most of them are pretty well founded.  It was a very difficult test over a wide number of facts.  Also, a number of the questions on the test were testing knowledge of what were, in my opinion, less significant facts in the larger scope of Canadian history.

All that to say, the test proved to be unfair, so I took the top scores and made them the new total points possible.  If you look on Sycamore you will see the test is graded out of a total of 31 points now.

Please feel free to email or stop in with any questions.