KCPS

Winter Break Practice Packet

9th Grade

Student: ________________

Teacher: _____________

Greetings Students and Families,

We know you are as excited about Winter Break and we hope you have lots of fun, family activities planned. While you are enjoying your time together, we ask that you complete the learning activities included in this packet. These activities and readings are designed to keep minds sharp and continuing to grow while students are not in school.

We recommend that students take a few minutes each day to work on an activity. While it may be tempting to wait until the last day of break to complete this packet, students should, instead, spend no more than 15 to 20 minutes per day over the course of the break. This will ensure that students get the most out their practice time.

Enjoy your winter break!! We look forward to seeing students back on January 4, 2016. Please bring the completed packet with you when you return to school.

Thanks,

Salvador, Late or EarlyBy Sandra Cisneros

Salvador with eyes the color of caterpillar, Salvador of the crooked hair and crooked teeth, Salvador whose name the teacher cannot remember, is a boy who is no one’s friend, runs along somewhere in that vague direction where homes are the color of bad weather, lives behind a raw wooden doorway, Shakes the sleepy brothers awake, ties their shoes, combs their hair with water, feeds them milk and corn flakes from a tin cup in the dim dark of the morning.

Salvador, late or early, sooner or later arrives with the string of younger brothers ready. Helps his mama, who is busy with the business of the baby. Tugs the arms of Cecilio, Arturito, makes them hurry, because today, like yesterday, Arturito has dropped the cigar box of crayons, has let go the hundred little fingers of red, green, yellow, blue, and nub of black sticks that tumble and spill over and beyond the asphalt puddles until the crossing-guard lady holds back the blur of traffic for Salvador to collect them again.

Salvador inside that wrinkled shirt, inside the throat that must clear itself and apologize each time it speaks, inside that forty pound body of boy with its geography of scars, its history of hurt, limbs stuffed with feathers and rags, in what part of the eyes, in what part of the heart, in that cage of the chest where something throbs with both fists and knows only what Salvador knows, inside that body too small to contain the hundred balloons of happiness, the single guitar of grief, is a boy like any other disappearing out the door, beside the schoolyard gate, where he has told his brothers they must wait.

Collects the hands of Cecilio and Arturito, scuttles off dodging the many schoolyard colors, the elbows and wrists crisscrossing, the several shoes running. Grows small and smaller to the eye, dissolving into the bright horizon, flutters in the air before disappearing like a memory of kites.

Salvador, Late or EarlyRead the story. Use the information in the story to answer the questions below.

1. Salvador is a boy who…

A. makes jokes about his little brothers and sistersB has a huge responsibility to his familyC. loves living in a big cityD. is immature and irresponsible

2. What is Salvador’s mother busy doing that makes him have to look after his siblings?

A She is caring for the baby.B She is at work.C She is doing laundry.D Salvador has no mother.

3. Why does the crossing-guard have to hold back the traffic?

A. To help Salvador, who can’t see well , cross the streetB. To allow Salvador to carry his siblings across the streetC. So Salvador can pick up the crayons his brother droppedD. So Salvador can tie his brother’s shoes

4. Salvador is described as being “inside the throat that must clear itself and apologize each time that it speaks.” What does this reveal about Salvador’s character?

A. Salvador is always sick and his throat hurts. B. Salvador stutters and doesn’t talk well so he has to apologize every time he tries.C. Salvador doesn’t know how to speak English so he apologizes for speaking Spanish.D. Salvador doesn’t feel good about himself. He is uncomfortable speaking because hi does not feel confident.

5. After reading this passage, what can you conclude about Salvador? ___________________________

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Do Video Games Make Kids Smarter?June 2, 2005

From abcnews.com

When many adults think of video games, they envision bombs, bangs and blood. As a result, many parents try to restrict their children's gaming time. But according to new research, they might be missing some redeeming qualities.

"All these things that that have long been assumed to be rotting our brains, there might be this hidden benefit," said social critic Steven Johnson, author of the controversial new book, "Everything Bad Is Good for You.“ Americans bought about 248 million games last year, enough for two in every household, according to a study by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Johnson argues that video games -- violent or not -- are making children smarter. "You have to manage multiple objectives at the same time," he said. "You have to manage all these different resources, and you have to make decisions every second of the game.“ Video games typically require the player to complete a number of specific tasks to win.

"Well we have to get the Jeep, we have to ride up a hill, kill the snipers, drive past the mountainside, go into another giant palace and activate the remote," said one 10-year-old interviewed by ABC News while playing the Halo 2 video game, designed for the Microsoft Xbox gaming system.

Developing Problem Solving Skills

Children who play such video games exhibit what experts call "fluid intelligence," or problem solving. "They have to discover the rules of the game and how to think strategically," said James Paul Gee, a University of Wisconsin-Madison curriculum and instruction professor. "Like any problem solving that is good for your head, it makes you smarter."

Intelligence test scores in the United States are rising faster than ever, experts say. One possible reason: Studies show video games make people more perceptive, training their brains to analyze things faster. In a recent study by the University of Rochester, participants were asked to count the number of squares which were flashed on a screen for a 20th of a second. Gamers picked the right number 13 percent more often than non-gamers.

In the modern world of fast decision-making, e-mail and e-trade, games might be helping develop the kinds of skills kids need to succeed. "They're out learning how to think in ways that will be absolutely useful to them when they go out in the world and do the same kind of thinking in an office," Johnson said.

Johnson says he would rather see kids playing non-violent games: and doesn't want his own young children playing violent ones. But even in the worst cases, he wants parents to recognize the potential benefits.

ABC News' John Berman filed this report for "World News Tonight."

1. In this article, the author interviews Steven Johnson. What is the Johnson’s attitude toward video games? Use two details and/or examples from the article to explain your answer.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. What are two reasons Johnson gives to support his belief that video games are making kids smarter?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. What is “fluid Intelligence”?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. This article was written in 2005. Do you believe it is still valid or not? Why or why not?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5.. What is the author’s purpose for writing this poem?A. He wants to persuade readers to play video games.B. He wants to inform readers about the value of video games.C. He wants to complain about the violence of video games.

Mama’s PiesBy Pamela Kennedy

I was nine the summer Mama taught me how to bake a pie. It was an occasion, a rite of passage, a journey back into family history. The lesson was full of truth, pungent as our wild berries, liberally dusted with flour, and punctuated with the wooden rolling pin.

I stood next to the cutting board, my dress covered with a folded dishtowel, cinched around my middle and tied at the back.

“You take this much flour,” Mama said, dumping an undisclosed amount in a large bowl, “then you add shortening—about this much.” She dropped a glob of the sticky white stuff into the flour. “Now a pinch of salt. Take this pastry cutter and cut through the flour and shortening until it looks like cornmeal. Here now, you do it.”

I had no idea what cornmeal looked like, but I kept cutting through the mixture, certain Mama would give me a hint when it got to the right stage. After a bit, the flour and shortening were crumbly and coarse. Mama looked at it, nodded, and announced it was time to add the water.

“You never dump water into pie dough,” Mama warned. “You sprinkle it on, a tiny bit at a time. Use your hand like this.”

She dipped her fingers into a cup of water and shook the drops over the mixture, tossing it now and then with a fork. When the dough could be pressed together into a crumbly ball, she stopped, took about half of the mixture out of the bowl, and pressed it together into an oval on the floured board.

“Now you roll it out,” she said, “but only roll it once. Pie crust is like people—you treat them gently and they turn out tender, but if you keep pushing and pressing them, they‘ll turn out tough and tasteless every time.”

I rolled—center to edge—all around the circle.“Don‘t worry if it crumbles around the edges,” Mama said, noting my frustration. “That‘s the

best sign of a good batch!” Gently we transferred the flattened dough into the pie plate.“Now the berries.” The tart wild blackberries, frosted with sugar and flour and seeping with

purple juice, tumbled into the waiting pie shell. We had picked them the day before, hunting through the burned-off growth in the woods behind the cemetery. I still bore scars from the adventure: hairline scratches laced my hands and purple stains outlined my fingernails. These berries were earned with sweat and blood and would taste all the better for our efforts.

After I rolled the top crust, Mama cut a curved line across its center. “Just like my Mama used to do,” she murmured. She crimped the edges with her finger and thumb, deftly creating a scalloped border around the pie. After brushing the top crust with cream, we slipped the pie into the oven, and Mama put on the teakettle—a sign we were to have a talk.

When the china cups were filled and steaming, Mama pulled two chairs up to the table and we sat. For the first time, I sensed that Mama and I were somehow equals and I felt special, privy to some feminine world I‘d never known before. Mama stirred her tea and started to talk, introducing me to her past, the time before she was Mama.

“We were poor kids,” she said, “but we never knew it. Daddy and Mama raised ten of us on a small farm where we had a little garden, a pasture, and an orchard, all surrounded by woods. We always had fresh or canned vegetables, milk from a cow, and plenty of eggs, even during the Depression. Mama always made pies. There were green apple pies and pumpkin pies, even mince meat when one of the neighbors had good luck hunting and got a deer. But the favorite was always wild blackberry pie. We kids called them ‘little creepy crawlers’ because in the woods behind our house, the vines crept along the forest floor, tangling themselves around stumps and over stones. We‘d clamber through the prickly vines, searching for the sweet, dark berries and plopping them into our tin lard buckets. The smell of the berries, warm from the sun, was heavenly; and we ate as many as we saved, staining our fingers and lips with the purple juice.

“My mother baked the pies as soon as we returned with the fruit. She always hummed while she baked, flour dust rising about her like a cloud and settling on her hair and faded cotton dress.”

“Is that when you learned how to bake pies, Mama?” I asked, trying to imagine my mother as a young girl, scratched and stained with berry juice and filled with the same insecurities and sense of wonder as I.

“Yes,” Mama said, and her lips curved in a smile, soft with remembrance. “I was just about your age, and I remember I had to stand on an apple crate to reach the counter top.”The fragrance of the baking pie wound around us, casting a spell of homey intimacy as we sipped our tea, sharing our heritage until the timer interrupted us with a rude buzz. As we removed the steaming pie from the oven, Mama sighed with satisfaction and said, “There, now that‘s a job well done.” And somehow I know she meant more than just the baking of the pie.

The summer afternoon of my first pie was more than thirty years ago, and yet its memories are as sweet and real as the berries in the bowl before me. I think it‘s time to call my daughter in from play and show her how to bake a pie. Perhaps we‘ll sit and share a cup of tea while it bakes, and I will tell her how her great-grandma used to bake a pie.

“Mama‘s Pie” by Pamela Kennedy, copyright © 1987 by Pamela Kennedy.

1. Which word would the narrator most likely use to describe Mama?A. CourageousB. PlayfulC. ProtectiveD. Wise

2. Which statement best expresses a main idea of the story, Mama’s Pies”?A. As children grow older, they view their parents differently.B. Parents are the best people to teach basic skills to children.C. Homemade pies are the best.D. Simple experiences provide opportunities for developing family relationships.

3. What do you think the narrator means by, “we were poor kids but we never knew it”?

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