Week of Jan 23-27 LL # 24

Pre-Algebra:

This week I did a few lessons about percentages. Then I had my Semester I exam! It had 54 questions. It seemed daunting, and I spread it out for 3 days, but I went ahead of my schedule and completed it in two days. I got 86% correct.

Creative Writing:

This week in my Semester II class, we talked about different song structures- I understand how they work now! We did an activity where we picked a slip of paper from a cup. The paper had a song structure on it. I got AAA. "A" means "verse." So my structure is 3 verses. B means chorus, and C means bridge. Other people got things like ABABA, and others. I got an easy one. ;)

Next, we picked a slip of paper from a different cup that had our topics. We could put it back if we absolutely hated it or we were lost on how to do that. The first slip I got was "Love story." I picked again and got "Fight song." Oh well. We were to write our song, using different rhyming types from a rhyming wheel, following our topic and structure. I didn't want to write a song about fighting with punches and blood, so I settled with an internal fight. I wrote where a demon (maybe it'll turn out to be fear of something, or a bully's words, not literally a demon) is controlling a person. I didn't get to all three verses but here are the first two:

Another perfect sunrise

not matching how I feel

Knees turn to water as I realize

The demon's taking over me

He controls me from inside

the demon in me

Has to get his way, won't be defied

Stronger, smarter, angrier

See, "sunrise" and "realize" in the first verse are a "feminine rhyme," which is a double rhyme, a rhyme between a two syllable word and another two syllable word. "Inside" and "defied" are also feminine rhymes.

It was so much fun to write this! I think we'll work on it more next week.

Social Studies:

This week I learned about different Ancient Roman emperors. For my activity this week I was to get yellow paper, cut several points (or triangles) and tape it together to wear it. However, I like doing more than just a simple kid craft, so I did something different. First, I researched photos of ancient Roman crowns. I mostly saw laurel reefs and olive leaves. So, I printed off two images of those two, and traced them to create a custom crown. Next, I made a jeweled center, and drew in some flowers.

Week of Jan 16-20 LL #23

Pre-Algebra:

This week I worked on percents. I did conversions including percents, fractions, and decimals.

Creative Writing:

This week was the first class of second semester! I am no longer in the same classroom. I am in one farther down the hall, which took a while to figure that out since my teacher forgot to tell me the switch. We talked about songs, and worked on a cool songwriting exercise. We first wrote a "hook" for the song- something catchy that intrigues the listener. We wrote "last line of chorus" or "first line of verse" depending on our birthdays, and then we passed our papers to the left.

On the paper we were passed, we did one of two things: if it said "last line of chorus", we'd write a chorus with the hook as the last line. If it said "first line of verse", we wrote a verse with the hook as the first line. Then we passed the papers around again. We wrote a verse if the paper had a chorus, and a chorus if the paper had a verse. Finally, we passed the papers and added whatever we think the paper needed. A changed word? A second verse? Adding on to the verse/ chorus? It was fun to see how they finally ended up.

Social Studies:

This week I read two chapters of Story of the World. I read about the first Roman prince.

Tech (Exploring Technology):

This week I learned about latitude and longitude. For my Minecraft activity I made a grid out of blue and red concrete and hid some treasure at the coordinates 3, 2.

The Leonardo Museum Field trip!!

Time to report on a field trip! We went to the Leonardo museum!

There was this green screen. We turned it on to a beautiful ocean image. Our shirts were green, so they disappeared too. It looked SO cool. My shirt disappeared the best ;)

We were able to put in some strips of fabric that blew up, up, and away! They blew out of the tube and drifted above our heads, finally landing in our outstretched hands.

They had these electric balls that you could control with a tablet. They changed colors and were so cool!

There was also a game where you can fly a small plane! The boys loved it.

Pose... smile... get Shiloh to smile... repeat. :D

Shiloh had a great time!

At the art station, we all had a blast!

We came home with many beautiful art pieces.

A final pose next to a shot of a beautiful snowflake... and we're done. We love the Leonardo museum!

Week of Jan 9-13 LL #22

Pre-Algebra:

This week I learned about Ratios and Proportions for Mr. D. Math. Once I complete Chapter 6, I'm going to take my Semester I exam.

Creative Writing:

This week was my last Creative Writing class for the semester. My teacher is going on a trip and won't be teaching next semester. She brought muffins and we talked about the publishing process. Then we played games such as Story Cubes and Storymatic. Storymatic is a fun card game. There are two colors of cards: one for characters and one for situations. You draw one or the other or both and make a story for them. We played an Apples to Apples version of it. The cards you won describes you. I got three cards. Guess who I am? A romance-novelist pig miner. What. The. Heck. ⚆_⚆ x_x I also begun plotting out a new novel from a story prompt I found.

Social Studies:

This week I learned about Roman battles. The Romans were very powerful. They started and won even more wars to add to history.

Tech (Exploring Technology):

This week I started my Minecraft class! I am doing a Maps and the World class. I learned about compass roses, a legend (map key), and different kinds of maps. I made a treasure map!

Week of Jan 2-6 LL #19-21

Pre-Algebra:

This week I did my final lessons of Chapter 5. I also did my Chapter 5 test and got a B-.

Creative Writing:

This week we talked about sentence variety. We wrote three short sentences and then combined them into one long sentence. We also talked about writing habits. Our homework was to work on one of the writing habits on our list and find and report to an "accountability partner". We tell the partner every day or week how we're doing with our goals. We also talked about what to do next week, the final class of the semester.

Social Studies:

This week I learned about Ancient China. I also learned about a tale from Ancient India, about a rabbit and some other animals. The animals decided to gather food to give to the travelers. The animals all found/stole things left by humans to give (finders keepers sort of thing), except for the rabbit. The rabbit didn't find anything, so he said he would give himself. A god heard this claim and went down as a priest to see if the rabbit was telling the truth. The rabbit gave himself, but the "priest" said that he wouldn't kill an animal. The rabbit told him to light a fire and he'd jump in it. The priest lit a fire and the rabbit jumped in. However, the flames weren't hot. They were fake. The god rewarded the rabbit and he lived happily ever after.

Tech (Exploring Technology):

This week I registered for a Maps and the World Minecraft class. I completed my orientation class (even though I still remembered everything I needed to do). I also made a slideshow of all the things Mom made in the year 2022. The file is too big to upload here though :'(

Elective (Writing for Publication):

This week we worked on revising our first drafts for the magazine. We started revising, as well as talked over some ideas to help us with our class, and I emailed my teacher a cookbook pdf I found that covers some Nubian recipes!