Week 16

Language Arts: This week I did a couple of different practice mind maps. One was for the story of the tortoise and the hare and one was for a section of a science book. It was good to practice doing them, as it helped me notice what things were tricky for me to remember.

Math: I did more work with limits. Learned about statistics basics and calculating probability. Took Quiz 7 and started reviewing for the first exam.

History: Learned about the people who left the Massachusetts Bay Colony and started other colonies in the area. Like Roger Williams who started the Providence colony, for example.

Science: I learned about buoyancy and how to calculate it mathematically. If something weighs less than the water/air it is displacing then that object will float.

Welding; I finished my T joint. Starting to work on my butt joint now.

Sports Conditioning: This week was max week, so we mostly did lifting. I also have basketball practice everyday now for two hours.

Drone: Canvas class. I finished my test flights.

Week 14-15

Language Arts: I am still working through the mindmapping lessons. Learned about how to identify keywords and the value of using the central images and the keywords.

Math: Had a quiz this week and got 100%. Did more practice with limits. Some introductory calculus about finding areas under curves.

Science: Learned about pressure. Pressure is related to how much force is put on a given surface area. We also watched the next episode of Cosmos that talked about the atmosphere and the challenges of global warming.

Welding; Working on my stick welding T-joint. Did this on multiple days of class this week.

Sports Conditioning: We haven’t been doing as much since basketball started. We did play kickball which was pretty fun. I made the Freshman basketball team and we practice every day, so I will be pretty busy with that.

Drone: Canvas class.

History: Read about Thanksgiving. The first winter in Plymouth almost half of the pilgrims died from starvation and the cold. The rest were saved by two Native Americans named Squanto and Samoset.

Week 13

Language Arts: Continuing the mind mapping lessons. Did some sentence diagramming, vocabulary review, and prefixes/roots review.

Math: My lessons were on limits. It is kind of confusing but I am getting the hang of it slowly. A limit is when an equation can approach a value but never reach it. I also started intro to calculus. Also did some trigonometry

Science: did an experiment to find the glide angle of the wooden glider. I measured the height I was throwing it from and the distance it went and divided them to find the glide angle.

Sports conditioning: we did mostly running to get prepared for try outs. Try outs are next week so there was no open gym this week.

Welding: I passed off my stick welding butt joint 1G. Now working on the stick lap joint. On Thursday I was doing my clean up assigned task and someone hadn’t properly cooled their metal and I ended up burning my fingertips pretty bad. It really hurt.

Drone: Canvas class. I did some of my practice flights, they are pretty easy for me because I’ve been flying drones for a long time.

History: Lesson this week was on the early European (mostly English) settlements. There was Jamestown and it was a rough time for those settlers. A lot of them died.

Week 12

Language Arts: I continued with the Mind Mapping video instruction. I also reviewed my geography and my vocabulary.

Math: I learned about trigonometry and how to use sine, cosine, and tangent to find side lengths. It was kind of hard for me to understand at first but I am getting the hang of it now. I also had a quiz and I got 100% on it.

Science: I learned about lubricants. Lubricants make things run more smoothly by filling in the tiny crevices. I did an experiment where I saw how soap/water can be a lubricant but lubricants can also be dry. My experiment had me use flour to stop a wheel on my racer.

History: My reading this week was about the slave trade and about the slave trade triangle, wherein sugar/molasses from the West Indies went to the American colonies in exchange for rum & iron which went to Africa, and in Africa they got slaves and gold that went to the West Indies.

Welding: I am working on stick welding. It is hard. You are just welding with a big metal stick and have to move the stick down the length of your project as well as moving the welder closer to the surface as your stick gets shorter.

Sports Conditioning: On Friday we just lifted weights because our other instructor had to go to games with one of the teams. On Wednesday I ran two miles. I also lifted weights.

Drone: Canvas class. I finished my assignment  to make a video about the drone safety rules. I turned it in, but here it is in case you are interested. I had my little siblings help by doing the acting and my mom manned the drone on a string. 

My Drone Safety Video

Bandit and his bling

Week 11

Language Arts: I did some reading. I started a Udemy course about mind mapping. It is supposed to be a helpful outlining and organizing strategy for dyslexics. The teacher is a guy from Scotland and I like his accent.

Math: Learned about linear inequalities and linear functions. Learned to graph them and how to identify what graphs match an equation.

Science: I learned about centripetal force--a force that continually pulls a spinning object toward its center. The moon orbiting the earth is an example of a centripetal force. I did an experiment where I put a penny on my racer and had the car go around a circular track. The penny fell off after about half of a complete rotation. The car, however, was being held by the string so it went in a circle.

History: In 1608 a French explorer founded a trading post in Quebec. The Dutch West Indies Company established the colony of New Netherlands in 1626. I watched the Crash Course US History Video #4 which talked about some of the colonies outside of Virginia & Massachusetts, one of which was New Amsterdam which became New York.

Welding: We took some notes on the different parts of the welder. I cut some metal for my stick welding.

Sports Conditioning: We lifted weights in the gym. We ran a mile. We did 30 meter sprints.

Drone: Canvas class

Week 10

Language Arts: We had a short week so I only had one language arts lesson this week. I went over vocabulary and am also reading a new book. 

Math:My lessons were on geometry and graphs. I learned what the domain and range of a function are and also reviewed calculating slope and plotting points.

Science: Short week, so I did one lesson. It was about Newton’s third law of motion. I went over how every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

History: Due to the short week, no history lesson this week.

Welding: It’s end of term so we just finished up assignments. I passed off my MIG 1G Butt Joint and my MIG Lap Joint 2F.

Sports Conditioning: We ran laps. We lifted weights. I had my last basketball game of fall league with Vinaka. We had basketball practice as well.

Drone: Canvas class.

Week 9

Language Arts: I started writing my paper. I am having some trouble using the outline we came up with though, so my mom and I are going to work more on that.

Math: I learned about how to calculate the angles and length of lines when you have a line that crosses parallel lines. Hopefully that makes sense, it is kind of tricky to explain it. I also went over using the Pythagorean theorem to find the length of a side on a right triangle.

Science: I learned about the differences between displacement and distance. My experiment was to have my racer drive hopefully in kind of an ark shape so I could calculate displacement and distance. My racer is really straight and balanced though and just drives in a straight line, so that part didn’t really work. The second part of the experiment was to fly my glider into the wind and out of the wind. It wasn’t really possible to measure the distance that it flew since it flies erratically and you can’t really measure it, but I did measure the displacement. It was pretty windy on the day I did the experiment, so it was interesting to see the results. The lab experiment had me take the median of three different trails and the median of flying against the wind was only about 3 feet less than the median of flying with the wind.

History: I did some history reading in my history book. We also learned about Leif Erikson because Leif Erikson Day was this week and my brother is named after him. My sister made a Swedish cake called kladkakka which was really good. Even though Leif Erickson wasn’t from Sweden, we figured it was close enough.

Welding: I mostly worked on my T joint weld. I also cut some metal because we do that pretty much every time.

Sports Conditioning: we lifted weights. I had my last Vinaka fall league basketball game. I scored 11 points. I went to the open gym practices.

Drone: Canvas class

Other: I went to HeeHaws with my family on Friday. The baby pigs were really cute. I took a picture of four of the piglets sleeping in the sun.

Sleeping piglets

Week 8

Language Arts: This week I outlined my insight paper. I decided to do a different topic so I had to go through brainstorming again. I reviewed vocabulary. I read more of Just David.

Math: I did the 3rd quiz. I got 100% on this one. Besides the new geometry stuff, a lot of it is still review.

Science: I learned how to calculate speed, and the distinctions between speed and velocity. I also did an experiment using the racer I built. I set a 20 foot distance and timed how long it took to reach the distance, and calculated the mph.

History: I read about the northwest passage and the exploration of North America. I also learned about the Spanish Armada and the Protestant Reformation. I watched Crash Course US History #3, which was mostly about the native people of the Americas and the English.

Welding: I practiced different welds. I got my T-joint marked off.

Sports Conditioning: We had a max out day and I benched 125 lbs. We played basketball. I had a basketball game with my Vinaka league and also practice with them. I also went on a hike with our church group and a hike with my family.

Drone: Canvas class

On the hike to Timpanogos Falls with my family

Family photo on the hike

A doodle I made in one of my notebooks

My cat chillaxing on my mom

Week 7

Language Arts: I studied some photographs of New England forests. I read some more of Just David. I brainstormed some ideas for my insight paper that I will start working on next week.

Math: I learned some beginning geometry concepts. I was introduced to the proof of how you know an equilateral triangle is actually equilateral. Its based on circles and the rules/definition of what a radius is.

Science: I learned about velocity. I calculated velocity with some different variables.

History: I read about the early explorers, including Christopher Columbus. I also learned about the Conquistadores, including Hernan Cortes.

Welding: I learned about and practiced lap joints. I also learned about practiced T joints. These are a couple of the five basic welding joints.

Sports Conditioning: We did weight lifting. We also played frisbee. I had a game for my Vinaka League. We also had practice. I went to open gym twice this week.

Drone: Canvas class

Equilateral (aka dumb, haha) triangle 

Week 6

Language Arts: I did some proofreading practice, focusing on apostrophes and correct use of a/an. I read some poems and prose by Ralph Waldo Emerson and discussed the themes with my mom. I read a biographical sketch of Emerson as well. His dad died when he was only 8, leaving his mom with 8 children.

Math: I did a lesson on What is Algebra: Basic Algebra Rules. The Other lesson was Word Problems and simplifying algebraic expressions.

Science: I went over mass and inertia. Inertia is the tendency of objects to remain stationary or in motion unless acted upon by a force. Mass is the amount of stuff that an object is made of. I did an experiment with my racer and a penny on top. When the racer stopped, the penny flew off because of inertia. This was compared to a person driving in a car without a seatbelt--the car might stop suddenly and the person would keep going. Not good!

History: I learned about the slave trade. The growing and harvesting of sugar was really hard work and at first Native Americans were forced to work on the plantations. But many of them died from disease and overwork, so the Spanish and Portuguese needed another source of labor and started using slaves. When the English were setting up tobacco plantations, they wanted slaves to do the work. By the 1700s, every colony in the Americas imported slaves from Africa.

Welding: I finished my name plate. I passed off the side by side welding technique, but I can’t remember the technical name of that right now.

Sports Conditioning: This week we just played basketball for sports conditioning. It is kind of annoying because I ended up with a group of boys who aren’t really interested in practicing, mostly just goofing off. I also had a basketball game this week with my Vinaka team. We didn't win but I did make a 3 point shot in the game so that was nice.

Drone: Canvas class

My mom had some leftover dry ice so I 

decided to do this bubble experiment I'd 

seen on the internet. It took so many tries to get it to work. 

The bubble kept popping right at the end when I would try 

and seal it to the other side.