Week 10

Language Arts: I wrote a book summary on the book we have been reading as part of my language arts lessons, Gabriel and the Hour Book. Part of the assignment was to make a fancy initial letter and a border since the booked talked a lot about the art of illumination. I finished reading Star Man’s Son and started on the second book. I did a TTRS lesson and also some lessons in my Dyslexia Workbook. 

Math: In math class this week we had a test over some of the material. We also learned about  the different sorts of questions you can be asked from a graph, including equation, slope, y-intercept, area of the triangle formed by the line & the y/x-axis, perimeter of that triangle, and if two lines are parallel or perpendicular.  

Science: In my chemistry class we learned about surface area and cohesion. We did the activity where you see how many drops you can fit on a penny, which demonstrates the ability of surface tension to hold water molecules together. 

History: We listened to the next episode of the Podcast History of Our World. It was about Lagash vs Umma. One interesting thing is that they know some facts about this battle because they found historical carvings called the Stele of the Vultures that show vultures carrying off people’s heads as well as other scenes and there is also writing on some of the fragments. 

Makerspace (Tech):  We did vinyl stickers again. I made a Flash symbol. 

Programming (Elective): I have been having fun making PVC/pool noodle weapons. I have made quite a few but there is a picture of some of them. My siblings and my friend Heber and I like to have battles with them. 

Other: My mom ordered an inflatable dinosaur costume and she let me be the first to try it out. 

Dinosaur rampage

The Stele of Vultures 

Vinyl sticker

PVC/pool noodle weapons

Book summary

Week 9

Language Arts: I finished reading Unbroken. I started reading a book called Star Man’s Son. I was able to read the first two chapters for free on Kindle preview so I knew I would like it. I like reading on the Kindle because I can read at night in my bed without having to turn a light on. I also had a lesson on poetry and went over the keys to writing an effective paragraph. Reviewed the proper usage of the homophones petal/pedal, there/their/they’re and sail/sale, as well as when to drop or keep the E when adding the suffix “-able”.

Math: We didn’t have our class this week but I did work on the homework assignments. Fractions (add/subtract/multiply/divide), unit conversion, and solving equations with one variable.

Science: My brother and I made a density jar. We also watched videos on a couple of different topics and finished up our discussion on how things fly. I also made some mini rockets with match heads and aluminum foil. I did my science homework for my chemistry co-op class.

History: No history lesson this week.

Makerspace (Tech):  I made a vinyl sticker for my laptop. See picture below.

Programming (Elective): We had first lego league this week. I also did some hydrodipping at my home workbench. I dipped a christmas tree ornament and a water bottle. We got a new rotary tool (a Dremel but it isn’t dremel brand) with a lot of attachment tools. I am excited to do some projects with it. We ordered some special bits to use to etch/drill holes in rocks. It comes with some diamond bits but you only need those for very hard rocks.

Other: We went swimming. We went to the How I Became a Pirate play.

Rocket launch (in slow motion)

My vinyl sticker

Mini rockets. I can fit my supplies to make more inside the matchbox.

At the play

Density jar

Week 8

Language Arts: My L. Arts program has some other stuff along with it, so this week I learned about the color wheel and painted a color wheel with watercolors (see below). I did sentence diagramming with adjectives and adverbs (see example below). I also reviewed capitalization rules for titles. I am still reading Unbroken. I also did lessons in my Dyslexia Workbook.

Math: We worked on unit conversion problems. We also did solving equations with a single variable and also some more fraction add/subtract review.

Science: We learned about covalent (sharing) and ionic bonds. We did Lewis Dot models for some of the different compounds.

History: We listened to the Podcast History of the World episode on the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is about Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu, and they go on adventures and fight monsters. It is interesting that this is a 4000 year old story. We talked about how it is a hero’s journey sort of story and how it has similarities with Star Wars and the Marvel superhero stories. We also watched the Crash Course Mythology episode about Gilgamesh.

Makerspace (Tech):  We got to bring home our concrete planters. I am not sure what plant I will get that can fit in there, maybe an air plant or a little cactus. We have been using it as a tea light candle holder for now.

Elective: This week I built a shelf for my longboard to hang on in the garage. You can see it in the picture below. I used some of the scrap wood I got from one of our neighbors. 

Other: I made a Rubiks Cube out of perler beads. It has been so cold and wet I haven’t been able to ride my new longboard very much.

Perler bead Rubiks cube

Rubiks cube

I really liked the way the red looked so I made this little sign

Color wheel

Sentence diagramming

My longboard shelf

My concrete planter/candle holder

Week 7 Report

Language Arts: I did lessons in my Dyslexia Workbook. I read more of Unbreakable. Went over differences between THEY’RE/THERE/THEIR and MERRY/MARY/MARRY. Went over independent and dependent clauses and practiced identifying them. Reviewed the 4 types of sentences.Went over words to use in writing instead of “said”. 

Math: We weren’t able to have math class with our tutor because he was in an accident. So I worked mostly on assignments from the textbook. We did get some assignments finally on Friday. One is on unit conversion and the other is solving for a single variable. 

Science: In my co-op chemistry class we had a guest who came in and talked to us about chemicals that were used in bombs and also chemical warfare. He told us about how you check to see if something is really a bomb or not--there are certain chemicals you can check for. 

History: We listened to the next episode of the podcast. The Sumerians had these clay balls that they would put tokens into that represented amounts of different things like crops and flocks. They used these for trade to make sure that everyone knew what the amount was supposed to be. But you had to break the clay envelopes to know what was inside, which kind of voided the trade contract, so they started stamping things on the outside. This was the earliest sort of writing that we know about. 

Makerspace (Tech):  We poured our cement for our planters. We also took our molds that we made last week out of the mold. I made two Lego bricks. They are made out of a clear casting material, I’m not sure what it is called. 

Programming (Elective): This week I practiced a painting technique on plastic. You spray some spray paint onto the water surface and then dip the plastic object into it. It looks pretty cool. I also had First Lego League. We worked on building a second duplicate robot of the robot I designed so we could work faster and we did a bit of programming as well. 

Other: We ended up playing four basketball games at our tournament last Saturday. The tournament schedule wasn’t very well done so that was kind of frustrating. But it was good to get lots of game time. I got a new longboard this week. 

Two of our cats came and walked and laid all over my lesson books on morning

The painting method 

I made this emoji pixel art while we listened to our history podcast