Ben was absent for the first 10 minutes of class. When he returned we got started on word problems. Ben is picking up on this material quickly (compared to students I've taught in the class). I told Ben that when he puts his mind to it, he is capable of doing hard things. He's very bright, sometimes just getting him to do the work is the challenge, not the actual work itself. I'm very proud of him lately. Today we wrote linear equations to model population increases, temperature decreases, and other similar real world scenarios. We used the equations we wrote to predict future amounts. Ben did an excellent job today.