Language Arts - I revised and typed up my paragraph from Alice in Wonderland.
I wrote in my journal. I had a spelling lesson and did a big spelling word review.
In Art of Argument we are learning about fallacies. We learned about the ad
hominem abusive, which is basically just insulting the person making the argument
rather than arguing against their position. We also learned about the genetic fallacy,
which means that an argument is invalid just because of the place it came from. That
can be the case, but it isn't a valid argument on its own. We also did ad hominem
circumstantial, which is saying that an argument is invalid because the person making
the argument does the thing they are saying not to do. For example saying, "You
shouldn't smoke because it's bad for your lungs," and arguing back "But you smoke."
Math - I did XtraMath facts practice and Hands On Equations 3 lessons. I finished up
the Chapter 3 review in Math Mammoth 7A. I did some basic algebra equations practice
from Learn Math Fast. I started Chapter 4 Rational Numbers in Math Mammoth. A rational
number is a number that can be written as a fraction and when written as a decimal is
terminating or repeating.
Makerspace - This week we learned about eTextiles. You can use electronics in textiles.
This week we used copper tape and paper to make circuits on the paper.
Art - No art class this week, but my class starts up again next week. I have worked a lot
on mastering my Rubiks cube, so maybe that counts as art in some way? Ha ha.
Science - I had a lot of science this week, which is great because I love science. Uzinggo: I learned about P and S waves. A P wave is a primary wave, and
these are waves often caused by earthquakes. S waves are secondary waves and they
are vibrations. Scientists can mimic waves through a planet to measure how many layers
a planet has. P waves can travel both through solid and liquid, but S waves only go
through solids. P waves go slower through liquid.
Biology class: we learned about cellular respiration which is how cells get energy from
food. So in class we did an experiment with two beakers, each with 100 mL of warm water.
One with sugar water and one with regular water. We added yeast to both of them and
measured which one rose up more. The one with sugar, the bubbles rose up to the 300 mL
line. The one without sugar didn’t bubble at all. This showed that the sugar helps the yeast
activate and make more foam.
Mystery Science: We learned about rocks and erosion and did an activity where we shook
sugar cubes in containers to “erode” them and see how they would lose their sharp edges
from being tumbled around with other rocks over time.
Family: We did two more activities from our Steve Spangler science box. One was a foam
glider and the other was a crystal growing tree. We took a time lapse video of the crystal
growing tree that was cool. I posted the video down below.
Other - Last Saturday we had our First Lego League Tournament. Our team accomplished
two missions. Our project was pretty good and we scored in the middle of all the teams.
Hopefully next year we will have a team that is a little more experienced or dedicated. This
year I was really the only member who had any programming experience.
Pictures from our Sugar Cube Erosion activity
My dad, myself, and my sister. My sister was an assistant coach this year.
Our First Lego League Team: The Ovorp Flying Platypi
Language Arts - This week I watched the next video lesson in IEW Student Writing Intensive B. He talked about the “dress ups” of connecting sentences with “because” and also not using weak verbs like said, thought, and go/went. I checked one of my assignments from earlier to make sure I didn’t have weak verbs and also did a keyword outline and paragraph about a section from Alice in Wonderland. I also had a spelling lesson. One of my co-op classes is The Art of Argument which I think kind of fits with language arts, too.
Math - I did more Hands On Equations 3. I also did Chapter 3 review in Math Mammoth 7A.
Makerspace - Still working on our logo project in Inkscape.
Art - My teacher is still on break and I had a busy week so I didn’t do any extra arts on my own.
Science - We learned about different types of lava that volcanoes have. Volcanoes with thick lava are more likely to explode because the gas gets trapped inside the volcano. Thinner lava lets the gas out more easily and so those are less likely to explode. We had samples of “lava” (flour plus water and food coloring and then just plain water) that we blew bubbles in. In my co-op Biology class we reviewed differences between plant and animal cells and parts of cells. In Uzinggo I learned about ocean currents and how they are affected by different things, such as continental deflect, the spinning of the earth, temperatures, and winds.
Other - We have our First Lego League tournament tomorrow. Unfortunately our team this year is not very good because most of them are first years and it’s hard for kids to learn enough in one year to be any good. My dad was the guest speaker in our Guest Speaker class and that was fun. He talked about how programs are able to learn things through trial and error. Programs can do 1000 attempts in an hour, for example, so they can “learn” something completely new in 3 days given an objective.
