Week of Nov 14-18 LL #15-16

Pre-Algebra:

This week I did 2 lessons, one on making a Least Common Multiple, and one on using factors to add and subtract fractions.

Creative Writing:

This week in my Creative Writing class we talked about showing a character is feeling an emotion, instead of just saying "I am sad." We did exercises where the teacher named an emotion, and we wrote a scene SHOWING the character feeling that emotion. Things like trembling were used for anxiety, and things like clenching teeth together for anger. We also talked about how we can use contrasting, such as the difference between a character feeling anxious and a nice sunny day outside, as a good tool in writing emotion.

Social Studies:

This week I continued to learn about Athens and Sparta, the two cities in Ancient Greece. I learned that when the Persians came to invade them, they were friends and were able to defeat the invaders after many long years of battle. They had a period of peace. But they couldn't be kind for long. They began to fight each other again.

Sparta went to Athens to fight, and the Athenians thought that the Spartans were too strong. Instead of marching out to fight, they stayed inside their strong city walls. However, then came a plague. People got sick and died, and finally, one man decided to lead the rest out to defeat Sparta. They were weak and tired, though, and they lost the battle. They escaped back into the city walls, and the people turned on the man who led them to battle. But he was nowhere to be found. At night, the man went to Sparta and led them inside his own city through a secret passageway. Traitor! Sparta conquered Athens.

I also did this word search. I completed it in 6 minutes, 17 seconds.

Tech (Exploring Technology):

This week I played Minecraft. I tried the video thing for the first time, where it takes a video of your game. I made a clip about 2 minutes long. I searched and found a seed that is super awesome! When you start, there are two villages (essential to an "easy" game), a mangrove biome (different kinds of places in Minecraft are called "biomes." The mangrove was added into the game during the latest update, so it's very new), as well as a few other cool things.

I would put the video on here, but the file was too big. :(

Elective (Writing for Publication):

This week in my class we rewrote a passage from National Geographic that was written for an adult audience into something more interesting for kids. Next, I wrote a passage from a different paragraph on the same page. I made it into a poem. I did my favorite type of poem, a pan toum poem. This kind of poem repeats the lines in a specific way. It was so good, the teacher asked me to email it to her. I also organized my notes on my tablet. They were getting pretty messy. For homework, the teacher asked me to rewrite the whole passage. Yay! I love rewriting passages.

Week of Nov 7-11 LL #14

Pre-Algebra:

This week I learned about multiplying and dividing fractions, and simplifying them with prime factors. I learned that with multiplying, you can simplify two fractions at once. With dividing, you turn the problem into multiplying and then follow the same steps. You do Keep Change Flip, which means Keep the first fraction how it is, Change the division sign to a multiplication sign, and then Flip the second fraction so the numerator is on the bottom and the denominator is on the top. Then, you convert the fraction numbers to prime factors, cancel them out, and multiply whatever is left. It was pretty easy!

Creative Writing:

This week I learned about writing scenes with sensory information. Think the five senses, as well as thinking, dialogue, and blocking. The teacher read us a scene from Much Ado About Nothing, and we came up with what could have been happening as the characters were talking.

One of my classmates thought they were washing laundry at the river. I took that and made it a river that was in legends, where it drowned a man who ignored a person crying out for help and could do it again. Since it was just voting day, I made it where the two guys were running for mayor, one was kind and one was mean and making them wash laundry while he told them how awesome of a mayor he would be. In the background, someone was being robbed and cried out for help. The river drowned the bad man, but left the others safe because they had kind hearts and, after all, couldn't hear the cry for help over the bad man's yelling. The kind man became mayor, and they were very happy.

Next, the teacher told us to write a scene with the prompt "on the beach" and include thoughts, sensory information, and optional dialogue. I wrote my passage, and for feedback the teacher told me that you can skip putting in the "I hear" and "I feel" in the story. I replied that I usually find those when revising.

It was very fun!

Social Studies:

Sorry, this week I have no pictures. All the activities for this week's reading required things we did not have, like a brick of lard or pure henna. So, I did not do an activity and this blog has no pictures. This week I learned about the Spartans and Athens. I learned that boys in Sparta had to go to a school to be strong warriors. They were expected to be tough and silent. They were not fed enough (because that DEFINITELY makes them stronger to starve, yeah...), and had to do exercises and run barefoot to make their feet tough.

However, the Athens learned to be smart. They learned to read and write, and other things more like school today.

Which place would you rather live in?

Tech (Exploring Technology):

This week I made two Instagram reels. For my first one, I used a long eyelash filter and took a short clip of everyone with long eyelashes stuck onto them in the images. I took a few of everyone except Mom and Landen. Landen was funny, we had one good image of him with long eyelashes and then he stuck his hand in front of the camera. Mom said it was good and we could post it. I THOUGHT I deleted all the extra clips I was experimenting with, but the extra clip of me slipped by my fingers. I reorganized them so Landen's clip was at the end, and I gave it some music. Finally, I posted it. When we watched it, we realized that I had two clips and it cut off Landen's funny clip. Grr...

Next, I made a crocheting clip. My mom is making a temperature blanket, and I took clips of her crocheting a few stitches to mark the temperature of each day. We used the filter Pleasant, which made all the colors brighter. (I looked outside with the filter. It was an overcast day, but the grass was SO green, and the sky was SO blue. It was awesome.) We had seven days to catch up on. So, this whole thing took THREE HOURS. Then, when we watched the preview, we realized that the filter had somehow changed without us realizing, and plus we lost the natural light because it was 4:00 p.m. when we were finished. We saved it as a draft.

Elective (Writing for Publication):

This week I was not able to go to my class. Next week, my teacher and I will email Neal Spencer and ask him some questions.

Week of Oct 31- Nov 4 LL # 13

Pre-Algebra:

This week I learned about Prime Factors. I learned how to find prime factors and I also learned how to reduce fractions with prime factors. I also learned how to find the GCF, greatest common factor, and I learned about divisibility rules.

Creative Writing:

This week I WAS going to go over outlining again, because the class has so many new students, but Shiloh kept us up half the night and I woke when the class was half over. So, I worked on writing my story and I am reading books while I eat, as usual.

Social Studies:

This week I learned about the barbarians taking over Ancient Greece, and then I learned about the barbarians learning Greece culture and becoming civilized. I learned that the men performed in Greek sports, while the women stayed inside (so their skin stayed fair and lovely, away from the sun) and supervised the slaves. I thought, if all the women supervised slaves, and all the men are doing sports and working, then who are the slaves? I wonder how that works, where some boys grow up to work, some girls grow up to be fair ladies, and other children grow up to be slaves. Hmm...